Page 25 of Her Soul for a Crown
But Premala had already dropped the tea leaves and fumbled the boiling water. The kettle bounced on the table and crashed into a bowl of seeni sambal. Water drowned the onions and dried fish.
“You worthless thing!” the cook yelled, her skin flaming red from wrist to forehead. “Get to the palace and do as I told!”
“Yes, right away.” Premala nodded, lip trembling.
“I requested tea from her,” Anula asserted.
The woman yelped in surprise before falling into a deep bow. “Forgive me, my—”
“Do you scream at all your maids?”
The cook straightened, shame coloring her face.
“Do you enjoy watching them cry?” Anula narrowed her eyes at the woman. “Does it make you feel powerful?”
The cook dropped her head.
“Don’t be so rude, girl,” chastised a familiar voice.
Anula spun. Waltzing into the kitchen, in the tightest emerald sari, was Auntie Nirma. “You made it.”
“Of course I did.” She waved her hands at the servants. “Leave us.”
Premala was the first to go, breaking out in nearly a run. As the kitchen emptied, Auntie Nirma strode closer. She was such a tiny thing—a head and a half shorter with delicate bone structure any woman would envy—but there was a strength in her stature. She stopped a mere inch away, never touching. “You are beautiful, Anula. Radiant as the sun in the driest season.”
“So things shrivel under my glare?”
“Only the weak things.”
A peal of bells chimed, and Anula glanced over her shoulder to the window. The midday sun was high, the heat wafting through. It coiled around her earrings, settled around her shoulders.
A guard rushed in. “There you are. It’s time.”
Anxiety rippled through her. Anula took a steadying breath and repeated her mantra in her head.
“Fear for nothing, Anula,” Auntie Nirma said, heading to the door. “Destiny is on our side today. To ensure it, I’ve bargained the Yakkas for favor.”
Gathering the length of her skirt, Anula shook her head. “How many times do I have to tell you that prayers do nothing?”
“How many times do I have to tell you that you’re wrong?” Auntie Nirma glanced over her shoulder. “Faith starts where strength ends, Anula. No one is above that law of the world. Not even you.”
The walk from the concubine estate to the palace was much the same as before; the only difference was the destination. They passed door after door, room after room, furnished with cushions and divans, or not furnished at all, depending on the art displayed. Rooms with only one bronze statue, rooms with only paintings, rooms with mirrors delicately decorated and facing away from one another. Rooms that whispered, rooms that sang. And a room darker than all others.
Tendrils of smoke curled out like fingers, beckoning. Anula shifted to peer in as they passed. Candles and incense and bloodred petals covered the floor. The palace shrine. Perhaps that was where Auntie Nirma had prayed.
“Ready?” the eldest guard asked.
Before she could answer, they opened a set of carved doors inset with silver and brass ornamentation, and the wedding ceremonybegan. It was opulent, to say the least. Blooms of all kinds twisted around pillars, spilled across tables, and hung from the ceiling. Oil lamps adorned the walls, casting the room in a golden hue, glinting off the gilded throne high on the dais where the raja, in his gemstone-embellished silks, now stood. Where Anula would one day sit, wearing her own silks, her own gems, with his moonstone crown onherhead.
If she pulled this off.
The terrace doors were opened wide, the warmth of the drought coasting along the air, swirling around the courtiers inside. Anula’s muscles twitched. The room was full. Palace officials, central administration, the board of ministers, and all their wives were in attendance. She could name them each, but only one mattered.
In a sea of earth tones, the emerald green of Auntie Nirma’s sari stood stark—a siren calling Anula forward. Familiar faces fanned around her, those like-minded women proficient in warfare strategies, politics, and diplomacy cultivated over the years to aid her rule. What would happen to them if she failed? Would they get a pyre, too?
The prophet and the raja waited patiently as she finished her advance. She dropped the hem of her skirt and met Mahakuli Mahatissa’s eyes—drowned in inky blackness. The tincture still held him captive. Tension slipped from her bones. This was going to work.
“The great Raja Mahakuli Mahatissa has decided upon a wife,” Prophet Ayaan began. “May all the prayers of the kingdom bless this union.”
