Warrior's Prophecy

by Allie Burton

  The Magical Convergence Ceremony was about to begin, and Mom was the guest of honor. The vessel being sacrificed to become an Akh.

  “No!” I struggled again, kicking and twisting and trying everything to make the men let go.

  “Do you want to see your mother?” Aaron stepped in front of the group carrying me. “She understands her time on this earth is a temporary phase of eternal life.”

  “Yes, I want to see her.” I needed to talk to her, tell her what she was doing was crazy, make her change her mind, and help us both fight against this madness.

  The men chanting in front of the platform parted, resembling a sea of red and white. My gaze zoomed to the center of the raised stage.

  Mom lay on the platform wearing a white ceremonial tunic with hieroglyphics sewn into a pattern. Large pillows propped her into a sitting position. Her body convulsed, spasm after spasm. She didn’t appear strong enough to hold herself up, let alone fight.

  I choked down a gasp as it went higher, mimicking a scream. The scream echoed and vibrated throughout my entire body, sending rippling quivers of shock and sadness. I froze.

  The men set my feet on the ground. I climbed on the altar and crawled next to Mom.

  Her face was paler than white. Her lips deep purple. And her eyes had sunken into dark pits of despair. A despair that reverberated inside me. How could I get us both out alive?

  My chest ached, holding her clammy, papery-thin hand. “Mom, can you hear me?”

  Gazing over the heads of the cloaked men, I searched for a way out.

  “Piper.” Mom’s hoarse whisper was difficult to hear.

  I bent closer, wanting to send her my love, wishing I could give her my health and strength. “Mom, I’m here.”

  My stomach twisted and churned the acid into an assault. I’d only been gone a day and she looked so much worse. The muscular convulsions kept coming and coming like she was epileptic. Instead of being with Math, I should’ve been getting Mom out of the museum. I shouldn’t have waited so long. I shouldn’t have waited until I was sixteen and she was so sick.

  I held in a shuttering breath. Mom was dying. I could see it in the dullness of her eyes and the shallowness of her breath. My chest ached. My throat went raw.

  “You got the Trumpet of Peace?” She struggled to speak.

  I trailed a finger down her dry cheek. “Yes, I got it.”

  It wouldn’t do Mom any good. Did she understand she was dying? That she would become an Akh?

  “You need—” she coughed “—you need to listen to what Aaron wants.”

  I hated that her last thoughts were of that man.

  “What do you want, Mom?” Was I asking for her last request? I resented she always put him first.

  “I want you to do what Aaron says.”

  Be obedient. Do what’s best for the Order. The constant commands dug into my brain, etching my anger. “Why don’t you ever think about what’s best for me, Mom?”

  I hated myself for asking the question on her deathbed. It was the only way I’d get an answer. Why did Aaron always come first?

  Her eyes glazed with a sheen of wetness. Tears? “I didn’t have a choice.” The agony in her words sliced across my midsection.

  I glared at Aaron, who’d put on a maroon robe and held a scroll in one hand and the trumpet in the other.

  “You have the trumpet, Aaron. What else do you want?” I knew there was a reason these people were gathered, and it wasn’t to watch Mom die.

  “You.”

  The one word struck my chest and started the pistons in my brain. Chug, chug, chugging, the pieces fell into place. Mentally, I fell back onto the platform, but I refused to show weakness. When Mom died and became the Akh, she could no longer be a vessel. A vessel was a living, breathing woman. I was the only other female in the room. I’d never be free from Aaron and the Order. I’d be a prisoner and a slave. I’d never be able to apologize to Math and hope for a better future.

  I glanced at Mom’s emaciated body. If Aaron needed me and wanted me to cooperate, then maybe he’d give me something in return. I could still save Mom if someone else became the Akh.

  “Listen, I’ll do whatever you want.” The pleading note in my voice scratched in my ears. “If you take Mom to a hospital.”

  “A deal, Piper?” His brows rose in an exaggerated arch. “I find deals don’t stand up to the scroll paper they’re written on. We had a deal with the Society of Aten. They would get the bronze Trumpet of War and the Order would get the silver Trumpet of Peace. When they lost the war trumpet to the Warriors, they stole the peace trumpet, almost losing that instrument, too. The two thieves paid for their deceit with death.”

  “Let one of them become the Akh.” The thieves were already dead.

  “You and your mother have the hereditary connections.”

  “What hereditary connections?” Blinking at my confusion, I remembered Math and Ash had said something about hereditary powers. I should’ve asked more questions.

  “I need both you and your mother to become more powerful than any other magical being.” The maniacal gleam in Aaron’s eyes set off dire warnings in my head.

  This wasn’t about peace. This was a plan meant to gain power and control.

  The cloaked men chanted in soft voices. The spooky song sent shivers over my skin.

  Aaron’s gaze glazed over. His twisted smile appeared sinister. “We only had four days to recover the Trumpet of Peace or the mathematical timing to link the vessel to the Akh would be missed.” He leaned over my mother’s body and I wanted to push him away. “Today is that day. You will play the trumpet and take your mother’s place as the vessel.”

  Dropping Mom’s hand, I scrambled back on the platform. “No. I don’t want to be the vessel.”

  “The trumpet is in your blood.”

  The sound of the trumpet wailed inside me, making my bones waver. I sucked in a sharp breath.

  “All you need to do is play the trumpet to make the connection.” Aaron held the trumpet out like an offering.

  It wasn’t an offering. It was a curse.

  Being under his thumb was a curse. I refused to do as he asked.

  I scrambled back further on the platform, my back against the wall. I didn’t want to end up like Mom. A slave to the Order. When she died, I’d finally be able to escape on my own. Blowing the trumpet would seal my fate to the Order’s. “No.”

  “It’s your destiny.” He didn’t climb on the platform to chase after me, to force me. He must know more.

  My shoulders slumped. I was tired of people knowing more about me than I did. They might know my past and my ancestors, but they didn’t know me. They didn’t control me. Not Mom and not Aaron. Determination stiffened my backbone and hardened everything inside. I pulled back my shoulders.

  “I can change my destiny.” I’d seen and heard about other people, good people like Math and the Warriors, change their lives. I could do something, make something of myself.

  The members’ chanting grew louder. Their voices barraged me like shots from a gun. I wanted to duck yet knew there was no hiding.

  “You can’t change your heritage.” Aaron spared my dying mother a pitiful leer. “With you we won’t need the ugly preparation step. I’m afraid your mother didn’t handle the medication well.”

  Glancing at Mom’s prone form, tears stung my eyes. She was listless and unresponsive. I flattened my lips into a grim line. Anger burst out of my mouth. “Not medicine. You poisoned her!”

  The accusation rang over the chanting. I wanted everyone to hear, to know Aaron was a horrible leader. To tell them that I knew the truth.

  The members ignored my charge. They stepped closer to the platform, filling in the space, blocking any chance of escape. They were a wall. And I was trapped.

  My breathing came faster. Sweat slicked my brow. My pulse counted out my demise. I used my feet to scoot back another inch. All the room I had left. This was what a captured animal felt like. Uncertain.
Fearful. No options.

  “It may have come earlier than expected, but this is your ultimate destiny.” Aaron sung, starting the ceremonial prayer. “Your role has been planned since conception.”

  I shook my head, trying to make sense of the claim. “W-w-what role?”

  “Your mother played the trumpet when she was pregnant. Your blood is connected to the instrument. Don’t you feel the trumpet’s essence?” He gave me his superior, all-knowing smirk. The same smirk he’d given me when I’d told him I’d fallen asleep when the trumpet played.

  He’d known. He’d always known.

  “Your mother has always been weak. The drug addiction, the alcohol.” His nose lifted in a disgusted sneer. “After she ran from Egypt, we searched for years. When I finally found you both in that dingy apartment, I knew she wasn’t strong enough to stay on this earth forever and take the role of vessel as planned. She was slotted to be the Akh, even though we told her differently. And you, my dear innocent child, were always going to be the vessel.”

  My arms gave way and I fell into a heap. Quivers rocked my body. Math had understood I had a connection to and could find the trumpet. There’d be no doubt who stole the trumpet from him. The hereditary powers were real. And I’d never escape from the Order to say I was sorry.

  With weak limbs, I crawled back to Mom’s side. “Did you plan this?”

  Holding my breath, I waited for an answer. I prayed she didn’t know or didn’t understand the process. Hoped she wouldn’t curse me to a life indentured to the Order.

  Mom’s tongue stumbled over dry lips. “Your father.”

  Shock electrified and sizzled across my skin. A painful breath whooshed. My stomach flipped inside out. Two words that had never been spoken willingly. “My f-f-father planned for my slavery?”

  Chapter Twenty

  Piper

  My father.

  The foreign words pinged and pulverized in my head. I didn’t even think my father knew of my existence. He’d always been an unknown entity. An unmentioned being. An enigma.

  As a kid I’d wondered. As a teen I’d asked. Mom had always shut me down.

  Now, I understood he’d known about my existence, had machinations on my person, was controlling and cruel. The only other person I knew like that was…

  My gaze darted to Aaron.

  Inside, I screamed. Terror scraping my bones as if in a horror movie and seeing the monster revealed.

  In his leader’s robes, he stood by the middle of the platform, holding the trumpet and the scroll like a scepter and crown. His kingly expression fit the analogy. His head high, his shoulders straight, his dark eyes narrowed into slits of evil.

  A shiver wracked my body, quaking my limbs and my internal organs. He was repugnant and for a second I wondered if he was my father until he spoke. “Your father named you Piper. He knew your destiny.”

  My shoulders sagged. At least that meant Aaron wasn’t my father. Who was? The question had always been in the back of my mind. Now, it tore into my psyche. It was time I learned the truth.

  Leaning closer to Mom, I whispered, “Who is my father?”

  Mom didn’t answer. Her lips didn’t move.

  No breath came from her mouth.

  “Mom?” With burning eyes, I put my hand to her chest and felt nothing. “Mom?”

  Like a collapsed wheel bearing, my heart throbbed and punched and thrust, crushing my ribcage. Raw aching spread from my midsection to my limbs, resembling cracking glass. The fissures filled with enraged sorrow. “No!”

  The chorus of the members’ chanting grew louder with my agony.

  “She’s passed on.” Aaron’s voice shouted in triumph. In celebration.

  I was being sucked into a whirlpool of insanity.

  “Nooooo!” My scream rent through the music and the chanting. The only opposition, drowning in the Order’s sounds of joy. I dropped my head onto Mom’s chest, listening harder for a heartbeat. The only noise I heard was the wallowing of my own tears.

  Mom was dead. Gone to me forever.

  Hiccupping, I tried to control my breathing rate. Tried to control the anguish and grief. I was a wet rag lying on top of my mother’s dead body. Everything hurt. My mind, my muscles, my heart. Turning my head, I forced my eyes open. Forced myself to face the world without Mom. Forced myself to face my fears of enslavement.

  Pushing aside my grief, I focused on my fury, letting it build and billow. I’d delivered the trumpet as Aaron had requested. Betrayed Math and would never see him again. And yet, Aaron had betrayed me. Lied to me. And planned to enslave me.

  The chanting changed. The members moved, stomping their feet and clapping their hands. A celebration more than a funeral. A bell rang, ringing my reality in a death toll. A present with a dangerous cult who’d killed my mother. And a future planned by my unknown father and controlled by Aaron.

  My lungs deflated, and I couldn’t breathe. Gasping, swallowing, drowning. I couldn’t live this way. With him. I pushed myself to the surface of my life and took a deep, cleansing breath. I had to escape. Escape before they finished the ceremony bonding me to the Order for life.

  Members bowed and chanted. They made strange motions with their hands, as if cheerleaders performing a routine.

  I sat up, taking in the spectacle. “What’re you doing?”

  “Performing the ceremony for your mother to become an Akh.” Aaron took hold of a silver dish. Holding a scepter with a ball on the top, he flicked his wrist. Liquid splashed onto Mom’s body.

  My protective instincts panicked, and I threw myself in front protecting her from the liquid. “Mom’s dead.” Knowing Aaron, it was probably a different kind of poison. Or an acid so he could easily dispose of the body. “She’s not going anywhere or becoming anything. Especially not an Akh.”

  Strolling to the other side of the platform, he flicked the wand again, splashing both me and Mom.

  I ducked. The clear liquid hit my arm. Nothing happened. No pain or sizzle. I whooshed in relief.

  He flicked again. Splashed us again. “The dead become Akh when they have the proper funeral.” He flicked the wand a third time. “Which is what we are doing.”

  I swiped the liquid off my cheeks—from the wand, not my tears—and studied the people swarming around me. The cloaked men were less focused on me and more on their dancing. The hooded and robed members moved in a choreographed motion, stomping and marching and swinging their arms. Aaron read from the scroll in a foreign tongue, his voice growing more fervent. The incense in the room grew thicker.

  My chest rose and fell and rose and fell and rose and fell, trying to get air and control my grief and fear. I was drowning again. Drowning in new information with more dire consequences. I wanted to run, to use the escape tunnel Math had found. I couldn’t leave Mom’s body behind. I didn’t want her to become an Akh. Didn’t want her to continue to serve Aaron after death. But I would if I saw a chance.

  “…and are worshipped by the living.” The switch to English in Aaron’s prayer caught my attention. He moved to the side of the platform and took hold of Mom’s chin.

  I knocked his hand away. “Stop.”

  I’d seen the murals of ancient Egyptians removing organs through a dead person’s mouth. He wasn’t touching Mom.

  “Piper, we are bringing your mother’s soul back to life.” His scolding tone treated me like a child, but I was no longer a child. He’d taken away my childhood, and I planned to steal something from him. “Your mother will make your powers stronger and continue to be with you forever.”

  I stilled, liking the idea of Mom being with me. What was the price? “How?”

  “As an Akh, she will live in an in-between place where she will strengthen your powers once you blow the trumpet.”

  Terror streaked through my veins. My skin tightened around my body like a noose. Math had told me about this miserable half-life and I’d already blown the trumpet. Aaron didn’t know that tidbit.

  “So, if I blow
the trumpet,” I picked my words carefully, temptation teasing. “My mom won’t pass on? She’ll stay with me?”

  “Exactly.” Aaron took the trumpet from a member and held it out to me. “All you have to do is play.”

  My mourning tugged at my quivering soul. “But she’s already dead.”

  “She’ll live within you.” He shook the trumpet at me. “Play.”

  “And if I don’t blow the trumpet?” I asked the question too late. I’d already blown the trumpet, therefore had I already doomed Mom to the horrible half-life? My heart squeezed tight knowing it was too late to make the choice whether to blow the trumpet or not.

  “You will blow the trumpet.” His demanding-no-arguing tone scraped again. “We’ve waited over a decade. Your father planned this from the moment he met your mother. When she became pregnant, he forced her to blow the Trumpet of Peace. Then, she deserted him and ran away to the States. It’s not surprising she turned to drugs to relieve the agony of not playing the trumpet again.” Aaron didn’t sound sympathetic to Mom’s addiction.

  Everything had been an act.

  “You knew when you located us what Mom’s problem was?” I’d been too young to understand. She’d always talked about demons in her soul and how the drugs were the only thing numbing her agony.

  “Yes. And we were happy you survived her destructive habits.”

  So they could use me.

  The anger building and wavering exploded like a match to gasoline. Fury fired inside me, heating my skin and blowing my mind. My hands broiled as if they’d caught fire, too. “Forcing her to play the trumpet caused the destructive habits.” The internal flames fanned into fear. I’d played the trumpet, too. “If I play, will I feel internal torture and turn to drugs?”

  Aaron held the trumpet higher, closer, to me. “If you play every day, you won’t feel any pain. You’ll be all powerful.”

  His words echoed and pounded in my head. The proclamation terrified and tempted. Indecision danced in my stomach and doubt waltzed in my soul. I’d never had power or authority. No one ever listened to me or cared what I wanted except for Math. And if I grasped this power, could I defeat Aaron and forge an alliance with the Warriors?