Page 161 of Her Soul for a Crown
“Remind me why my friend is in my bedchamber so early in the morning.”
“It’s nearly noon.” Premala blanched. “Your ceremony is about to start.”
Cursed blessings.Anxiety flooded back, and a hand flew to the empty space at her throat—but Anula caught it before it landed.
“Are you ready for the servants to prepare you?” Guruthuma Premala asked.
Anula met her friend’s gaze, then Reeri’s. She took a steadying breath, remembering who she was, what she had gained, and that she was not alone. She’d never tell herself such a half-truth again.
“Yes,” she asserted.
***
The walk through the palace to the throne room was nothing like it’d been before.
Anula passed door after ruined door, room after plundered room. Cushions and divans littered the floor in broken heaps, art either stolen or destroyed, as if their enemies had wanted to cut off their connection to the Heavens even if they couldn’t carry everything away. Bronze statues and paintings were all gone, the whispers of destinies and songs of home silenced.
It should’ve dismayed Anula, and perhaps it dismayed everyone else, but Anula knew the palace wouldn’t lie broken and plundered for long. Neither would Anuradhapura. They had freed themselves, and together, they would rise from the ashes.
Only one room remained untouched, whether by chance or blessing, Anula didn’t know. Darker than all others, tendrils of smoke curled out like fingers, beckoning—the palace shrine. Auntie Nirma’s final words swam in her mind.Faith starts where strength ends, Anula.
Perhaps she’d been right in that, too. Anula had found her own belief, and though it looked different than others’ faith, it was no less strong. No less true.
The procession was short. The carved wooden doors, inset with silver and brass, swung wide. There was no opulence, no blooms around pillars or across tables, none that hung from the ceiling. Only the lamps remained, casting the room in a golden hue, glinting off the gilded throne. And where once she’d aimed for the seat in a jewel-encrusted hatte with fake sapphires at her neck, she now strode forward in her favorite red silk sari. Instead of wedding mehendhi, bangles rose from wrist to elbow, tinkling along with bell-drop earrings. No weight pressed against her; no frenzied thoughts spun in her mind.
Thunder rumbled outside. A cool Maha breeze whirled around all those gathered. Palace officials, central administrators, the board of ministers, all the wives and children of the inner city, the outer city, villagers, fishermen, and farmers. Anuradhapura was in attendance.
As she neared the dais, Prophet Revantha motioned to the guruthuma, who stood near the terrace doors and began a song. The sound of Anuradhapura swelled inside Anula’s heart. Not only for Auntie Nirma’s plan, nor for Amma and Thaththa and all those lost on the way. It swelled for those with her now and for those yet to come. The Age of Usurpers had ended. Now was the time of new beginnings. A time for the most important thing: life.
The song crescendoed, dovetailed to the end, and in a silence brimming with hope, Anula sat on the throne.
Prophet Revantha fitted the crown on her head. “Long live the Raejina!”
“Long live the Raejina!” the people chanted. “Long live the Raejina!”
Anula opened her mouth, her first declaration as raejina flowing from her lips. “Long live Anuradhapura!”
Epilogue
Anula hunched over the wide table, slipped the list out of the seam of her sari, and held it over the candle flame.
There was no hidden message, no last words from Auntie Nirma, yet Anula watched as their list burned, the edges curling in on themselves, darkening and dissolving, a weight along with it.
She dropped the ash in a small bowl, stirred the mortar and pestle next to it, and poured in the liquid she’d had delivered to her chambers—the raejina’s chambers—after the coronation celebration. The midnight moon was hidden beneath the monsoon mist, and flame light flickered throughout the room, casting shadows on the remnants of the blessed gifts.
“What are you going to do with that?” a voice breathed.
Anula suffocated a sigh, regretting salvaging one blessed gift in particular.
“Are you going to use it on someone? Another enemy?” the blessed gift of Raejina Devi Dunni asked.
“No,” Anula answered as politely as she could. The gift hadn’t stopped speaking since Anula had her fixed and reunited her withher beloved raja. Luckily, one of the blessed gifts that had been recovered could mend all things, including the wood of a bed frame. The story of Anula’s courageous victory spread fast through the palace, not on the lips of servants but of blessed gifts. So, too, did her crowning. And when the reassembled gift returned, Raejina Devi Dunni introduced herself and promptly decided to never close her mouth again.
“Then what are you making? You are the Raejina of Poisons, are you not?”
“A woman can be more than one thing, don’t you think?” Anula responded, glancing at the journal’s hiding spot. For the first time in hours, the gift quieted.
A bubble of liquid popped from the bowl, and a tendril of smoke rose like a viper striking. Anula slipped out the last thing she’d hidden in the seam of her sari for safekeeping. The ivory of the Bone Blade gleamed. There was no heavenslight, no heavensong, as if it were resting. As if it knew it had completed its purpose.
