Page 41 of Her Soul for a Crown
The Yakka marched past, calling for servants to ready them. The beings from the memory-nightmare flashed in her mind, so unlike the Yakkas depicted in paintings. Was it true?
“You will have to come along,” he said.
If so, which part?
Anula shook off her questions. The answers didn’t matter. What mattered was the throne. What mattered was Auntie Nirma’s list. It was up to her to see it through, to honor her life and her death, along with all those lost before her.
“Just be quick about it,” she snapped.
She had no time to waste on dreams.
16
A sharp wind tangled Reeri’s hair.
“Are you ready, my raja?” Prophet Ayaan stood by a painting in the throne room.
Reeri shuttered the window against the cloudless sky. He need not watch for the Maha season monsoon to arrive, counting down his days. He had done enough of that—two centuries worth. Time enough to prepare. “How do we get in?”
“I thought you were here to tell us of the Bone Blade.” Anula scowled from her perch on the consort’s dais. If looks had the potency to kill, she would have had no reason to study poisoncraft.
Prophet Ayaan bowed deeply, the pendant of gold and rubies kissing the floor. “I am, my raejina consort. There are many stories about the relics and why they were hidden. The Divinities, in their great knowledge of man’s proclivity for gossip, left us with the truth.” He waved a hand at the painting.
A small landscape revealed a hilly region with a narrow path winding around three huts. Storms gathered around each, darkening to rage over the last. Reeri frowned. The blessed gifts were notmeant for Yakkas to experience, and after last night, he had no desire to witness them again.
Caress her.
The thought slithered up his back, along with the image of a water lily robe slipping off Anula’s bare shoulders. Reeri shook it away.
“If you’re going to use a blessed gift, why not one of the fortune-telling statues?” Anula asked. “Can’t you ask them where you will find the Bone Blade?”
“The gifts only speak what they see,” the prophet explained. “Answering specific questions is outside their bounds. The Divinities were gracious with their love, but they did not hand over the keys to the cosmos.”
Despite Reeri’s aversion, he knew he must do as the prophet said, else why save him from choking to death on Anula’s poison? “You do not have to go, only be sure to stay within the room.”
Anula jumped from her seat. “If you’re going, I’m going.”
“There is no need.”
She cut her eyes to the prophet. “And leave my future in the hands of two men? I think not.”
“As you wish,” he sighed.
Dipping his head, the prophet gestured for them to follow. “The gift is like a door. You need only to push and walk through.”
The canvas stretched beneath the prophet’s hand, swallowing it whole. He lifted his foot and stepped inside, disappearing without a sound. It was as if he had climbed into a cupboard. Nothing more, nothing less.
Anula let out a breath, a worry line etched betwixt her brows. Reeri’s fingers twitched as he repressed a desire to lay a comforting hand on her shoulder, to whisper encouragement. It was daft. She was an aspirational murderer. And a willing soul to be sacrificed.
Still, the desire hovered, pulsed.
Reeri lifted a hand to help her, but Anula grimaced and pushed her way into the painting. Rejection stung, sharp as a mosquito bite.
With clenched teeth, he placed his hand on the bumpy ridge of the hills and went after the blade. The fabric stretched thin as he pushed, suctioning his hand, his arm, his elbow. It was all he could do not to fall forward as he stepped through—and landed outdoors.
The painting was alive and moving, as if he had merely walked out the palace gates. Noise from the huts drifted on the cutting wind. He braced his shoulders as gray clouds roiled up the path. At least here, there were no lewd rajas and distasteful prompting.
“It doesn’t feel like paint,” Anula said, bent at a bush, rubbing a leaf betwixt her fingers.
