by C. T. Rwizi
She bids her new friends goodbye and joins Itani Faro of the Arc along the meandering garden paths. The old high priest walks with his hands clasped behind him, his red grand boubou falling to almost sweep the ground.
“It is nice to see you smiling again,” he says. “Truly smile. Given your circumstances, it would be quite easy for you to lapse into gloom and forget what you’re living for. You mustn’t ever let yourself forget.”
Forget? But how can she forget when blood is all she sees every time she closes her eyes? “I’m not sure I know what I’m living for, to be honest.” Itani Faro is one of the few people in the temple around whom she can be her miserable, grief-stricken self.
“You are living for those girls back there,” he says, “and many others like them. You are living to protect them from those who would murder them for no crimes of their own. You are living for your father’s legacy, for the kingdom, for yourself, Your Majesty.”
He gives her a meaningful look as they come to a stop. “You deserve to live a life full of happiness too.”
Suye will never follow me around like a cheerful little gadfly again. I will never argue with Ayo or gossip with Zenia or hide from my mother.
Isa’s eyes fill with angry tears. “I cannot be happy until the day Kola Saai faces justice for what he did to my family.”
“That day could not come too soon, Your Majesty.” The Arc surprises her when he brings one hand out from behind his back and extends two scarlet flowers. “These bloomed on the night of the attack. I was going to gift them to the House of Forms, but I’ve decided to give them to you instead. You may do with them as you wish.”
The flowers are bloodroses, symmetrical and concentric in form, with wispy petals as thin as razors and just as sharp. They are unequivocally the loveliest things she has ever seen.
Her hands tremble as she reaches to accept them. “Your Worship . . . I have no words.”
The Arc gives her the hint of a smile. “Be careful not to cut your fingers on the petals.”
Isa gazes at the flowers with wonder. She has never held fresh bloodroses before—not many mere mortals are ever so lucky. Their delicate scent is strangely evocative; they smell like desire and everything her heart yearns for. “Do they really grant wishes, as they say?”
“The sorcery behind them isn’t something we understand, despite our best efforts. I cannot give a definite answer to your question. Let me say: perhaps, if the wish is reasonable enough.”
Isa already knows her first wish: the Crocodile’s head on a pike. She hides this from her face as they start walking along the stone path again. “Have you learned who helped Kola Saai bewitch the Royal Guard?” she says. “There was magic involved, which can only mean he worked with a mystic.”
The Arc clasps his hands behind him. “My investigations have not been fruitful in that regard, but I can tell you that it wasn’t one of ours.”
Isa knows there are two groups of mystics in the kingdom, the bulk of them clustered in this city: those who receive their educations at the House of Forms and pledge themselves to the covens of the Shirika, as their ancestral talent would dictate, and those who shun the covens, preferring to practice their sorcery in dingy Northtown hovels and unregistered undercity sanctuaries. If Kola Saai’s hired sorcerer wasn’t the former, then they were the latter. “So we’re talking about an independent,” she says.
“Not impossible, but unlikely.” When Isa’s brow creases in confusion, he adds, “The sorcery that afflicted the Royal Guard was delivered through an elixir, slipped into their food somehow, but it is inconceivable that they were the only ones exposed to its power. That the elixir acted on them alone, leaving barely a trace of itself in their bodies, suggests a level of finesse that would be highly uncommon for an independent alchemist.”
Isa frowns at the bloodroses in her hands, her thoughts racing to make sense of what she’s hearing. “Then we’re talking about someone foreign.”
“It would seem so, Your Majesty.”
A headman consorting with a foreign mystic to take the throne. Isa would have thought such a thing impossible only weeks ago.
She finds herself feeling weak and adrift, trapped in the depths of an endless nightmare. She stops to face the old sorcerer, and he turns to her as well. “Forgive me, Your Worship, but I still don’t understand why the Shirika are letting him get away with this. I thought there was a covenant that bound them—that bound you in service to the Saire king. Isn’t that why our clan agreed not to have a standing legion? To appease the other clans because we had the gods forever on our side?”
The Arc answers with characteristic bluntness; he is not a man for coating his words in honey. “It is not common knowledge, but our adherence to the covenant was entirely voluntary, and subject to change should the rule of a Saire king ever become inconvenient to us. As it happens, my colleagues grew impatient with your father’s lack of ambition.”
Isa blinks at the man. She’s never heard anyone accuse King Mweneugo of lacking such a trait. “Please explain this to me so that it makes sense, Your Worship. I’ve always thought my father was a strong king.”
“His strength was beyond question. Mweneugo had firm convictions and a clear vision. He knew what he wanted to accomplish and how to go about it. But he was too comfortable with the way of things, reluctant to project his considerable power beyond the bounds of the Yontai. With all ten legions and the Shirika behind him, he could have extended the Yontai’s reach across the rest of the Redlands, incorporating every tribe into an empire that stretches all the way from the southern cape to the northern desert. This has always been in the Shirika’s sights, but the logistics didn’t become favorable until shortly after your father’s ascension to the throne. Mweneugo, however, was completely unreceptive to the idea of empire.”
Isa remembers the conversation in the king’s study when Ayo argued in favor of KiYonte expansion. She thought him foolish and arrogant at the time, but now it seems he was the only one attuned to the Shirika’s mood.
Dear Mother, was that only weeks ago?
Something distant flickers in the Arc’s gaze. “My colleagues respected him, as they respected his father before him, but he was too much a guardian of the status quo when they wanted a conqueror. The Crocodile, however”—the Arc bares his teeth—“reptile that he is, sensed opportunity in the air and hatched a scheme to lure the Shirika away from Mweneugo by convincing them that he was the conqueror king they sought. Of course, I shunned him right away, but my colleagues . . .” Disgust contorts the old mystic’s lips. “I did not know they would be so fickle.”
A member of the Shirika speaking ill of his colleagues? Isa breathes deeply to stop her world from spinning. “Then how can you be sure that it wasn’t one of them who helped him with the massacre?”
“They would not have involved themselves directly,” the Arc says. “It would have been reckless and illogical. I suspect they promised the Crocodile that they’d look the other way should he move to take the throne—provided, of course, that any associated violence couldn’t be linked back to him.”
“Hence the use of a foreign alchemist,” Isa concludes.
“Indeed.”
Whoever they are, they’re probably thousands of miles away by now. It suddenly occurs to Isa that without a legion of their own, all the Saires had standing between their total oblivion and continued predominance over the other clans was the Shirika. Great mountains, to be sure, so great they were all too easy to take for granted, but somehow, Kola Saai managed to convince them to move.
And yet . . . Isa dares to meet the Arc’s gaze, this god in flesh. “Why are you helping me? Why have you gone against your brothers and sisters?”
“I disagree with their methods,” he says. “I’d like to see a KiYonte empire in my lifetime, but this is not the way.” He gazes thoughtfully down the stone path. “You will find this upsetting, Your Majesty, but your father is the unwitting architect of your clan’s predicament. I re
call having a long discussion with him during which I warned him of what could transpire, but he chose to disregard my advice. He was too lenient with the headmen, made too many concessions in the name of peace when he ought to have tightened the reins. He was the first king with the power to give the Yontai what it really needs—not empire but unity—and he squandered the chance.”
A mix of confusing emotions rocks Isa’s already unstable world. “Unity, Your Worship?”
“The end of all clan divisions,” he says. “Every headman ousted and all the legions united under the mask-crown. Our divisions serve no purpose but to give grasping men like Kola Saai the weapons they need to control and weaken us.”
He says us like he sees himself as KiYonte, as one of us, not apart from us as he truly is.
Isa brings one hand to caress the marks on her neck, the snaking lines of the four-tusked elephant. She was born with them by virtue of being a Saire, a brand that will now be the death of her people. “I thought the clans were sealed in blood a long time ago. Are they not inescapable?”
The Arc seems pensive. “I suppose they are. Getting rid of them would be next to impossible. But that wasn’t what I had in mind when I spoke to your father. I had a more . . . brute-force solution to the problem. I even offered him the services of my guardians. He could have secured his hold on the entire kingdom in one night had he agreed.”
Isa is shocked to hear him speak so freely of assassination, and by divine Jasiri for that matter, but something he said grows at the back of her mind like a seed scattered accidentally by the wayside. She considers him carefully. “You said next to impossible.”
Genuine confusion spreads across the Arc’s face. “I beg your pardon?”
“You said getting rid of the clan marks would be next to impossible,” Isa repeats. “That is not the same as saying it is impossible. If it can be done, if there is a chance these marks can be erased—”
“Part with the thought, Your Majesty.” The Arc’s voice carries no threat but a dire warning. “You do not know what you speak of.”
“It would save so many lives,” Isa says like she hasn’t heard him. “The sudden removal of these marks would sap interclan hatreds and stop the violence before it even started. And even if violence broke, my people wouldn’t be easily identified.”
For a heartbeat the Faro gazes longingly at her, like he wants to tell her whatever it is he knows, but then he shakes his head. “Forgive me for bringing it up. These are merely the musings of a disheartened old man. Your father was like a son to me. He could have done so much. So, so much. Those who killed him took a bright star out of my sky, and I wish them nothing but evil.” He bows to Isa. “Good day to you, Your Majesty.”
And then he leaves her standing there with two bloodroses, unaware that he has ignited a flame in the pit of her stomach, that he has thrown her a sliver of hope, one she has latched on to like a drowning woman to a lifeline.
Later, she visits Jomo in the citadel’s administrative wing, where he has commandeered office space for himself among the clerks who serve under the high priest.
She finds him seated behind a desk cluttered with paper, sorting joylessly through a stack of mirrorgrams with puffy, unfocused eyes. The top buttons of his embroidered indigo shirt are undone, the matching kufi hat is awry on his head, and the fuzz on his cheeks is beginning to move away from stubble territory and into a full beard. Isa has never seen him look so disheveled.
In the corner, a young male votary in a crimson tunic and white face paint types away at the brass keys of a mirrorgraph, concentrating on the string of illusory ciphers flashing above the machine’s central crystal as he translates them into demotic script—incoming messages sent from distant mirrorgraphs.
Upon Isa’s appearance, both men snap their heads to the doorway. The votary is the first to rise from his chair and bow. “Your Majesty.”
Jomo’s face brightens a little, and he starts to look around for his cane, but Isa quickly motions for him to remain seated.
“Please, don’t. I can come back later if you’re busy.”
Behind his desk, Jomo snorts. “Attending to you is literally part of my job description. I’d be a terrible herald if I sent you away because I’m too busy.” He gestures at the chair in front of his desk. “Please, Your Majesty, sit.”
The votary politely excuses himself while Isa settles down. Her lips quirk involuntarily when she notices the half-empty bottle of Valausi rum on the table. Some indulgences are difficult to give up even in the worst of times, it seems.
“You haven’t slept at all since we last spoke, have you?” she says, eyeing him. “At this rate I might have to order you to get some rest.”
Jomo blinks at her several times, then sits back in his chair with a heavy sigh, scratching his beard. “I look terrible, don’t I.”
Isa nods, her smile widening slightly. “Nothing a bath and a few hours in bed won’t fix.”
“Honestly, Isa, if I knew being herald would be such a drain on my soul, I’d have run off the moment you asked me.”
“See, that’s why you should have taken the throne,” Isa says, feeling her eyes gleam with humor. “Everyone knows it’s the herald who does all the work.”
Jomo smiles. “Maybe, but I’d look like a proper elephant in the mask-crown, so I saved everyone a world of horror.”
“I think you’d look majestic in the mask-crown.”
“You’re being kind, but thank you.”
Isa nods at the pile of missives on the table, thick white papers covered in the uniform, monochromatic red print produced by a mirrorgraph. “Anything interesting?”
He grimaces. “Love letters from my admirers. Let’s see.” He leans forward and starts flipping through the papers, then pulls one out with a look of grim amusement. “This one is from a proud Dulama pilgrim demanding immediate entry into the citadel, like I’m the one who put up the motherdamned barrier around it. By his tone he’ll probably expect me to prostrate myself in apology.”
Jomo shakes his head and pulls out another missive. “This one is from a Saire textile maker demanding that I, and I quote, ‘take the Shirika to task’ for giving his competition some sort of unfair technological advantage. Interesting and quite frankly alarming, because this isn’t the first complaint of its kind to reach my desk, but what’s even more interesting and alarming is that these people seem to think I have any sort of hold over the Shirika. Take them to task? More like hand them my nut sack on a platter.”
“What of the Mkutano?” Isa says, getting to the point of her visit. “It’s in two nights, and I still don’t know what Kola Saai has planned. I’m getting nervous.”
Jomo’s wry little smile dims, and he starts searching through the missives again. “I was going to tell you over dinner tonight, but since you’ve asked . . .” He pulls out a paper bearing the bright-red seal that marks it as an official mirrorgram from the kingdom’s highest court. “Apparently, and this came in literally an hour ago, the House of Law has determined ‘that it is within the assembly’s purview to decide the matter of the Sentinels by vote.’ Never mind that this has never been the case in centuries of continued Sentinel existence.” Jomo tosses the paper on top of the others and regards Isa like he’s defeated and tired of life. “In other words, you were right. Kola Saai is going for the last bit of power we have, and the Shirika have endorsed it.”
Jomo’s office looks toward the main temple structure at the center of the citadel, where the spires of the Shrouded Pylon rise from an inner courtyard and disappear into the skies. Somewhere out of sight, high above the temple complex, the Ruby Paragon will be spinning between the spires, visible to everyone down in the city.
Isa leans back in her chair and stares out the windows, feeling weary to the bone. She knew the Crocodile would come for the Sentinels eventually, but she didn’t think he’d do it so quickly. The Shirika really are in bed with him. But how did he buy them off? Was it really just because they wanted an empi
re and Father wouldn’t give it to them? Why do I find that hard to believe?
She knows it’s no coincidence that the court should decide this now. As the highest court in the kingdom and one of seven supposedly apolitical institutions headed by a member of the Shirika, the House of Law is just another extension of the Shirika’s will.
“And that’s not even the worst of it. Here, take a look.” Jomo slides a leaflet across the table, and Isa feels a chill as she picks it up. Splashed across the page is the image of a grotesque elephant-cockroach hybrid trampling all over a map of the kingdom. The Pestilence Must Go is written beneath.
“That lovely little piece of propaganda is from a new group of rabble-rousers calling themselves the Wavunaji,” Jomo says. “Reapers of vengeance. They’ve posted flyers like that all over the city, and the way they preach about the Saires, Isa, you’d think we were vermin shat out straight from the devil’s asshole.”
Isa shakes her head, the flyer trembling in her hands. “I think that sentiment comes through quite clearly right here. Dear Mother, is this how they see us?”
“There are mobs of them roaming the streets with machetes—I’ve seen them—and the only reason they haven’t started killing us on sight is the Sentinels I’ve deployed to patrol the city, much to the City Guard’s displeasure, I should add. I’ve even sent detachments to other towns and villages in the province, and more to escort Saire convoys evacuating from other provinces. What do you think is going to happen once we lose them?”
Isa drops the hateful flyer onto the table with a shudder. “I’d have to abdicate before it came to that. No crown is worth that much blood.”
“It wouldn’t guarantee our safety, though, would it?” Jomo nods cynically at the flyer. “That kind of hate wouldn’t just die because you’re not king anymore.”
“But it’d be worse if I still am,” Isa argues. “The Sentinels are the only reason it makes sense to hold on to the crown. But if we’re going to lose them anyway, why not use the crown to bargain for our people’s lives while they still have them?”