Page 1 of Her Soul for a Crown
Part One
1
There were so many ways to stop a heart.
This…wasn’t supposed to be one of them.
Anula bent over the dead man. It had started with him clutching his chest, the whites of his eyes flaring, the veins in his neck popping. His skin turned purple and redness burned the corners of his mouth, consuming the puckered pink of his lips until they were ripped raw and festering.
“Help.” The man gasped his last breath, then fell silent with a trickle of blood on his chin.
Anula cursed. The tincture was only supposed to incapacitate. At least, that’s what the book had said.
She hadn’t had many test subjects.
Gooseflesh prickled her skin. What if someone had seen? She checked over her shoulder. The inner-city alley was clear; not a single soul passed by. Mercifully, they were all in the palace, squeezing down corridors and elbowing their way into rooms for a chance with one of the blessed gifts. To hear a statue speak their fortune or to be lost inside a painting for the day.
Anula would walk the palace halls, too, if this man had actually held up his end of their bargain. And if she wasn’t caught with a dead body.
It wasn’t as though Anula walked the streets poisoning every man she came across. As agreed upon, she’d arrived for the rendezvous with coin in hand, gliding into the alley with anticipation skittering up her spine. The noon sun was bright, unfettered by clouds. The Maha season refused to mark its beginning, so the sounds of the irrigation tanks clinked and rattled through the city, promising water amid the drought. Heat laid a heavy hand on Anula, sticking her deepest, darkest red silk sari to her already accentuated curves.
Nuwan had been late. A full thirty minutes had passed before he sauntered in, savoring the dregs of a jar of palm wine. Thirst reached his eyes as he took her in.
“Cursed Yakkas, you’re going to make me late for the guard switch,” Anula huffed, pulling the pouch from her side and throwing him the coin. “One hundred kahapanas, as promised. Is my name next to be called?”
“Guess you’ll find out soon.” Nuwan opened the bag, checking a metal disc for the royal stamp on one side, two tuskers on the other.
A bulge in his tunic pocket glinted. Anula swiped at it, holding it aloft. It was a green steatite lotus as large as her fist. “A relic? Really, Nuwan, are you so desperate for a wife that you’re spending all your money on trinkets of faith, begging the Divinities of the First Heavens?”
He snatched at it, grasping only air as Anula deftly tripped to the mouth of the alley. “Relics can be weapons, Anula. Is it still faith if you’re not praying but stealing power for yourself?”
“What are you going to do, hit someone over the head with it? Heavenly relics aren’t weapons. They don’t work.”
“There are plenty of people who disagree and are willing to pay any price for one. Give it here.” He reached for it again.
Anula spun out of range once more. “Am I next to be called?”
“Of course, you b—”
“If your endowment is as small as your vocabulary, it’s no wonder you seek the Heavens’ help for a wife.” She tossed him the relic. Right at the hand holding the coins.
They tinged to the ground as he caught the lotus. A sneer pulled his upper lip. “Sleeping with the raja won’t change anything, you know. The court members will never be your friends. Despite the schemes of yourauntie, you are what you are: a girl with no title, no lands. Nothing to your name and nothing for a man to gain. Be grateful she was able to make you a concubine.”
Anula’s hand twitched to her jeweled necklace. He had no right to speak to her that way. Even if she were the station climber he suspected, she was the daughter of Don Upali Ramanayake, was the former heiress to the top agricultural farm in the kingdom, to more irrigation tanks than any of the people living in the inner city—
Red sky. Red hands. Red water.
Look away.
Her fingers fell from the jewels, Nuwan’s words buzzing like a mosquito. Friends? What use did she have for friends? First lesson learned, when she’d lost everything, was that there were only two kinds of people in the world: allies and enemies.
Nuwan was dangerously close to becoming the newest on her list of enemies. The ones to be dealt with after today.
“Careful what you say, Nuwan. What would the Heavens think of you?”
“What do they think ofyou?” His wicked smile sparked. “You didn’t need to make a deal with me to get into a man’s bed. You’re demanding enough attention in those clothes.”
“Attention and invitation are not the same thing. Or have your base instincts not evolved past those of a water buffalo?” She narrowed her eyes, taking a step back.
