Page 126 of Her Soul for a Crown
But she couldn’t. There was only now and then and all the death between.
“Look at me, Anula,” Reeri shouted, grounding her to his voice, his face, his words. “I will not leave you. Ever.”
A breath rattled through her, and she took a step closer, to feel the warmth of his promise. But the soldiers held her firm and pushed Reeri toward the man with the crown.
“Welcome, Raja Vatuka.” The Prince of Polonnaruwa’s voicepulled Anula’s attention. The thirst in his eyes struck alarm bells. “Join me in witnessing the end of your kingdom. For too long, Anuradhapura has celebrated their small victory over Polonnaruwa, and my brother’s murder has gone unanswered. I told my father for years that we must respond, yet he did nothing. Little did I know the poetry he planned. For as you celebrated, you let your guard down. You gathered for your festival, opening highways and relaxing borders. It sounds familiar, doesn’t it? A kingdom too busy patting itself on the back to notice the ambush filtering around them, inside them?”
A wave of knowing spiked her senses. The prince was building to something. “Reeri,” she warned, wriggling hard against her binding.
Reeri shook his head, mouthed that it would be all right, but she saw it in the uptick of the prince’s lips. Usurpers were great at one thing and one thing only: taking the lives of others.
The prince loosed his sword. “It would have been sweeter to kill the man responsible, but you will do.”
“No!” Anula shouted as sharp iron buried into Reeri’s gut. He grunted and fell. The prince wrenched back, swung the sword across his neck. Fisting the dead raja’s hair, the prince tossed the head over the railing and onto the courtyard below.
A shadow made of edges exploded above the terrace. Dark, insubstantial features sharpened into a chin and cheekbones.
Saffron eyes flashed open.
“Reeri!” Anula screamed.Please, the words stifled in her throat,come back. She couldn’t face this, not again, not alone, not without him. Yet the shadow dove and disappeared in the distance, and blood bubbled through her and the Yakkas’ mehendhi.
The prince stumbled back. “Great gods and monsters, they’re all cursed. Burn them! Now!”
“Reeri!” she begged a final time.
46
If shadows could cry, if shadows could panic, if shadows could bristle or sweat or shake with terror—
Yet bodies could.
And the moment Reeri dropped into his next, he cried out. Long and loud, a lion roaring for his threatened pride.
The body, a man named Darubhatika, was mid-flight when Reeri caught him. Free of capture, he sprinted through the darkening outer city, away from the palace and the ambush. He was already drenched from exertion, humidity and horror clinging tight. Reeri skidded to a stop and pivoted, catching a hand on the ground to stop his fall as his shoulder slammed into another.
Darubhatika was not the only one fleeing.
Under the cover of dark clouds and falling night, the entire city had taken to the streets. Footsteps pounded the paved road, faster than the war drums. Abandoning homes, they escaped with empty hands save those clutched in another’s. Family was the sole priority—their safety and their life.
Reeri gritted his teeth, his shadow pulsing, and propelledforward, before the Polonnaruwan prince could lay a hand on Anula—or on Kama or Sohon or Calu. Though the Yakkas would come back, Anula would not.
Reeri lumbered in his tall, thick body. For once, he had been able to brace himself for the maddening spiral that was his shadow ripping from a body. And for once he was able to control who he next inhabited. The men in the inner city were either dead, injured, or otherwise bound, and Reeri had known that whoever he merged with must be able to fight. Bands of muscle bulged from Darubhatika’s shoulders to wrists, across his chest, and down his legs. Though not an army man, he would be able to brawl. Even so, each step Reeri took was like dragging through rice paddy fields as person after person bumped into him. He slogged through the trampled night market, his heart beating swift with visions of Sohon thrown from the terrace, Calu strung up and flayed, Kama gutted and left bleeding, and Anula…
Taken to a room, as any consort would be—ravaged and killed.
And what of the Kattadiya and Wessamony? Polonnaruwa’s presence did not halt their advance. He touched his neck, the vial of blood gone along with the last raja’s head. Would two essence offerings be enough to bring his brethren back? Another roar ripped through him, parting the crowd with terror. The real Darubhatika was a firewood carrier in the palace, his strength used only in service. Now Reeri exploited it to tower over the people, the Blood Yakka of old writhing inside.
Path cleared, he ran past razed thatch houses and forsaken shops, flattened vendor stations, and stupas with doors hacked off and offerings strewn down the stairs. Another street held another fire. Every corner he took was bloodier than the last as people fled with torn clothes and torn skin, broken noses and black eyes, hands dripping red as they desperately climbed over the mangled palace gates.
Reeri paled. Smoke rose over what had been the courtiers’ homes, over the quickly charring Pleasure Gardens, and over three large pyres…packed with people. It was as if Wessamony had already descended and filled the night with fire and brimstone.
But no. They still had time.
A hand landed on his arm. He shifted, ready to fight off whoever dared threaten to stop him. He would not leave his brethren behind. He would not abandon Anula.
“Yakka,” the Kattadiya acolyte hissed. Chin raised high, Premala dug her shaking fingers deep.
“How did you know?” He pried her off, searching beyond her for her clan.
