by Dele Daniel
“How much do you want to be that meeting is about us?” Nasheeda said in a low voice. She looked at me. “I’m sure your brother knows just how many of us snuck out and disobeyed him by now.”
“I’m pretty sure he’s noticed me missing by now too,” Sentana chimed in.
I glanced around at the fellow Hawk members who’d come to my assistance, feeling slightly perturbed by the worried expressions on their faces.
We had just defeated a large chunk of the king’s army, for crying out loud. Facing Prince? That was the easy part.
“Look,” I said. “We just did the Hawks and the Arnazuri people in general a huge favor. Prince will understand that. If he doesn’t, then he’s an idiot. And trust me—my parents did not raise any idiots. So come on.”
And with that, I led the way over to the gathering. As we neared, snippets of the conversation gradually became clearer, and I was able to deduce that they were talking about the attack on Black Forest, trying to figure out what to do about it.
***
Finally hearing and seeing us approaching, Leni’s eyes snapped over in our direction. He eyed the whole group before his eyes settled on me and Remington in particular. He then nudged Prince, who had still been peering in the opposite direction.
Leni gave his trademark sneer. “Well, well, well,” he said. “My chief, it looks like the traitors have finally returned.”
His words stopped me dead in my tracks. I blinked.
Traitors?
Before I could even prepare my tongue for the lashing I wanted to shout at Leni, pointing out the that only real traitor was him, thanks to the way he had managed to brainwash my little brother, Remington stepped forward.
“I beg your pardon?” he said. “We are not traitors. As a matter of fact,” he paused and turned his gaze to Prince, “we’ve come with some really good news.” He gestured to himself, me, and then to the group gathered behind us. “You should know that we just killed a large number of the king’s guards, thanks to Genesis’s expert planning.”
I shifted slightly, appreciating the sentiment but also feeling I didn’t completely deserve it. Try as I might, I couldn’t shake the thought that the tragedy of Black Forest was partially my fault.
A heavy silence ensued, in which Prince merely stared at us all, his jaw clenching and unclenching. Absurdly, he somehow seemed to have grown even taller during my brief absence. Although there were a million other concerns on my mind, the big sister in me couldn’t help noting how it was so strange the way he sometimes still looked like a child to me, while at other times, I could so clearly see a gangly adolescent he was becoming on his way to adulthood.
“As you can see,” Remington continued, “you need us. So please, can we all finally find a way to work together? There should only be one enemy that we all collectively have our sights on. We can’t afford to be at odds with each other.”
Remington’s voice was stern, but I could hear the slight pleading tone hidden within it. He so desperately wanted Prince to prove him right—to prove that he was not a lost cause. Not just Leni’s puppet.
And so did I.
Again, I prepared to speak to Prince but was cut off. This time, by none other than Leni. “Seize them all,” he said in a borderline bored tone.
“Excuse me?” I said, finally getting a word out. “Did you not just hear what Remington said? We’ve killed the king’s guards! A lot of them! What part of that are you not understanding? What we’ve just done is a whole hell of a lot better than what you cowards are doing!” I looked around at the people who’d been attending their meeting, hiding out instead of helping us. An irrational anger began building up inside of me. There people were fellow Arnazuri, for goodness sakes. How could they so blindly follow Prince’s—or Leni’s, rather—ridiculous regime when so much of it stood against everything we were as a people?
Unable to control myself, I stomped my foot. “You people are just sitting around here only pretending to be busy instead of putting actual plans into place! How do you honestly think anything is going to be accomplished like this! Or do you really even care at all?” I shot my brother an angry glare. “Prince! Come on—”
“ENOUGH!” Leni bellowed, his yell drowning me out. He then turned to the dedicated group before him and my brother. “Seize them at once, I say! Now!”
“I don’t think so,” Remington snarled. And in the blink of an eye, he had produced a gun from the side of his belt and held it directly in Leni’s path.
There was a loud rustling of movement, and everyone behind us had seized their own weapons, training them at Leni and the group around him.
Blood rushed to my ears and my breath caught in my throat. I took half a step in Remington’s direction. He looked at me, his eyes blaring, but also questioning me. Asking my permission . . .
I shook my head.
As much as I wanted Leni gone, I knew this couldn’t be the right way to go about it. We were, at the end of the day, Arnazuri. And due to King Henry, far too many of us were dropping like flies, left and right. Thus, the absolute last thing we needed to do was turn on each other. If there was in-fighting in our tribe, it would only lead to our own personal Arnazuri war. And if we were at war with each other, we would simply make the king’s job easier and we would all be wiped out in no time.
With a sigh, Remington lowered his weapon, and the Hawks behind him followed suit.
I looked toward my brother, feeling positively shaken that things had come to this. If Remington had fired and the others had followed his lead, who was to say that Prince wouldn’t have accidentally been in the line of fire? Even worse, I’d be kidding myself if I didn’t acknowledge there were bound to be people behind me who probably wouldn’t have even minded if Prince was hit, thanks to the way he’d been behaving lately.
He may have had some dedicated followers, but his fan base wasn’t exactly very big.
“That’s what I thought,” Leni said smugly, staring out at us all now that the fear had left his eyes. “You all are stupid, but I knew you weren’t that stupid.” As he said his last remark, he stared at me, and it took every ounce of restraint I had to not charge forward and slap him senseless.
At the snap of his fingers, people gathered around us, clasping tight grips around our upper arms and forcefully dragging us forward. The crowd around us created a path for us to pass through as we were lined up in front of Prince. It wasn’t until then that I noticed the crowd had been partially obscuring our view. Now that they had dispersed somewhat in order to allow us “traitors” to be seized, I could see that before Prince, also behind held against their will, was another group.
A group that included my parents . . .
Upon seeing them, I was far too shocked to say anything. They each looked at me. I shuddered when Mother’s gaze met mine. There was an expressionless, almost dead, look in her eyes. Her mouth tilted downward in the corners and she looked defeated. I had never seen her look so old and tired before. So saddened.
Unable to stand it anymore, I looked at my father. His expression stood in stark contrast to my mother’s. His brow was so furrowed that it made his eyes narrow to the point where they hardly even looked open. He was sneering, his teeth bared with an ugly grimace. Though he was several feet away from me, I could feel his fury permeating the air. I knew his blood had to be boiling. If I’d thought he’d been upset with me for choosing to go to Promenade what felt like so long ago—that was nothing compared to how he looked right now with his eyes glued on Prince.
“What are you lot waiting for?” Leni said, pacing before us. “Kneel before your chief!”
I stared at Prince, wanting so badly for him to speak for himself. But he continued to stand stone-faced with his jaw clenching and unclenching. Our eyes only met briefly as he took in the rest of the group who’d been traveling with me.
Putting aside my pride, I proceeded to kneel before him. thinking that if we all just played along and stroked his ego for a moment, perhaps we
would be allowed to explain ourselves. And then, hopefully, he would finally see reason.
Not until I knelt did the others began to do so as well. One by one, the group around me got down on their knees, with Remington being last to submit.
Once we were all kneeling before him, Prince finally opened his mouth. He spoke in a tone that I wasn’t quite sure I’d ever heard from him before.
“You should all know that I cannot take this lightly,” he said slowly. “So you should all know what’s coming already. All of you will be punished for your disobedience to me, your chief. That punishment will come in due time. As for now, we are in a crisis, as some of you may very well know by now. Black Forest was viciously attacked, and my first priority is figuring out what to do in retaliation. So for now, just know that I hereby declare that all of you kneeling before me are no longer members of the Hawk organization.”
Everyone around my stiffened, and I knew that just like me, it was taking everyone a moment to process what had just been said.
“This is wrong and you know it,” a cold voice spat. I turned my head, knowing it had been Father who’d broken the stunned silence. He was so angry, he spoke through gritted teeth. “We have lost almost half of our Arnazuri men! If you kick us out of the Hawks, where the hell will you find more people to fight? Have you lost all ability to think rationally? No son of mine would be so stupid!”
“I did not ask for your opinion!” Prince snapped.
“Well, too bad!” Father swelled. “I am your father and you will hear me no matter what!”
“AND I AM YOUR CHIEF! YOU WILL OBEY ME NO MATTER WHAT!”
Prince’s voice echoed through the air and I cringed. His temper was going to get us all killed. Who was to say that the king’s guards weren’t already searching for our hideout, and Prince’s idiotic yelling wouldn’t give away our spot?
“You are nothing but an ignorant man-child,” Father said in a disgusted whisper.
Prince’s lip trembled, and just for a moment, he very much looked like the man-child father had described. But Prince quickly puffed out his chest and resumed his act. Turning to Leni, he nodded toward Father. “Lock him up,” he commanded.
I shook my head and stared at the ground, unable to stand seeing Prince’s barbaric followers seizing my father and pulling him away.
CHAPTER 30
Frustrated and angry tears formed in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I forced my breathing to slow down from the quick and angry breaths I’d been taking while listening to my father being dragged away. My mother hadn’t even budged—a mark of how hopeless she felt.
My knees were starting to ache before standing on the hard and unforgiving ground, and judging from the way those around me had started to squirm, theirs were too. The tension in the air was so thick that it practically felt smothering.
Taking one last deep breath, I looked up. I stared at Prince until he finally acknowledged my gaze. He looked back at me, a challenging gleam in his eyes as if daring me to speak up in defense of our father.
Father was a strong man, though. He would be all right. I didn’t need to speak in defense of him, but I did have something to say. I cleared my throat. “May I please speak?”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Remington glance at me. But I ignored him and stared exclusively at Prince.
“Shut up, Genesis!” Leni said, childishly. “Have you not figured it out by now? Traitors will not be given an audience around here!”
I bit my tongue and squeezed my eyes shut so that I wouldn’t roll them. Only the gods knew how much longer I would be able to tolerate Leni always speaking on my brother’s behalf.
Maybe I should have let Remington shoot him after all . . .
“Let her speak.”
I opened my eyes at the sound of Prince’s voice. He was looking back at me, finally resembling the boy I had always known him to be. I knew I needed to seize the moment, for the reemergence of the brother I knew were becoming few and far between these days. It gave me some hope, though, to know that he was still occasionally. On some level, maybe he still respected me as his big sister, maybe even more so than he respected our parents.
I think that had always been the case, to some degree.
Leni flinched and shot Prince a brief look but didn’t dare say anything. He folded his arms across his stocky chest and stared at me, as if silently warning me to be quick about whatever I wanted to say.
I nodded my head appreciatively at my brother. “Chief,” I said, inwardly relishing the way there was still a flicker of surprise in his countenance whenever I bothered to address him that way. Yes, some of the old Prince would always still be there, even if he was getting buried further and further down in that brain of his. “I am not trying to tell you what do,” I prefaced, “but I do want to at least make a suggestion. I highly suggest that you consider reaching out to the Ammirians and the Rowans.”
Prince’s stance shifted, and I held out my hands, pleading for him to let me continue. When I resumed speaking, I spoke quickly. “Please—you have to understand that if we all come together, we can defeat the king’s guards and gain our independence. The king has an enormous army. There’s no way we can take on them without help.”
Prince narrowed his eyes and for a moment, I almost wanted to smile, thinking that he was finally understanding the error in his ways.
But then he shook his head.
“No,” he said. “That is not acceptable. We cannot trust the other tribes. It’s about time that you realize that.” He shot a hateful glance to Sentana.
I sighed and hung my head, not knowing what else to do. It was infuriating how every time I thought Prince was finally coming around, he abruptly did a one-eighty. Maybe he really was a lost cause after all, and the Prince he had once been was going to be permanently beaten into submission by his new persona.
I closed my eyes again, rubbed my forehead, and sat back on my legs to give my knees some relief. There was light rustling around me, and I figured the other were sitting down as well. But then that rustling grew louder and turned into the unmistakable sound of hoofs hitting the ground.
I opened my eyes and looked toward the direction the sounds were coming from. Had the king’s guards found us already?
Evidently sharing the same thought, Remington was on his feet in an instant, his weapon drawn. I reached for my crossbow, and everyone around me also stood and aimed their weapons as well.
“Stand down! Who is that?” Prince said uncertainly.
Four horses emerged, older Arnazuri men perched on top of each with the exception of Kano.
I lowered my bow and the others lowered their weapons upon realizing that it was only some of our own.
I had almost forgotten about Kano, the boy who had made the present possible after interpreting the scrolls Jason had been working on. I met his eye and nodded, but he seemed to be avoiding my gaze.
I swallowed, feeling somewhat offended but realizing I should have known better. It should have been obvious that Kano would choose to follow Prince since he was the one to discover Prince was the Chief that the prophecy referenced.
But what was he doing with three elders?
We all watched in silence as Kano and the elders rode right up to Prince and Leni. “What is it?” Prince said, looking at them each in turn.
One of the elders, a thin man with bright white hair, slid off his horse. “There has been a mistake,” he said severely, glancing back at Kano.
Kano, still perched on his horse, stared down at the horse’s mane. He had always been a shy and awkward boy, from what I had gathered. Yet, he seemed especially embarrassed about something at the moment.
“What kind of mistake?” Leni said, stepping forward menacingly.
The old man paused for a moment and then resumed speaking in a slow and deliberate voice. “There has been a mistake with the prophecy that was being interpreted by the late Prince Jason.” He briefly looked at me and then back to Prince and Leni
. “Kano realized the may have misinterpreted something and then came to seek out our help with the matter. We took a look at the scroll, and we regret to inform you that what the text in question describes does not look like what is currently going on around here.” He waved his hand, indicating our whole group in general.
“Go on,” Prince said, clearly wanting the man to get to the point.
One of the other elders slid off his horse. “One of the first things we noticed,” he said, “was that in the ancient Arnazuri language, the term ‘son’ is used to describe both male and female offspring.”
My heart thudded as I wondered where this was going, but I had a pretty good guess.
“So what does that mean?” Remington asked beside me.
The elders all turned to Kano, who had finally gotten off his horse. He fidgeted and looked at the ground for a moment before working up the courage to speak. “It means,” he said in a subdued and apologetic voice, “that that chief in the prophecy could actually be either Prince or Genesis . . .” His voice trailed off and one of the elders continued on his behalf.
“I have the scroll right here,” he said, pulling it from a bag on his arm and rolling it open with his frail wrinkled fingers. “A direct interpretation reads: The son of the Eagle will unite cities. The Rod of Rakifi will break the head of the Python. By his name shall he be known.” He paused for a moment and then looked around at the crowed at large. “The Arnazuri have never been a sexist people. Son referred to both male and female, and the term ‘rod’ is only used for firstborns.”
I was hearing everything. Watching everything. Listening to everything. Yet still, I could hardly fathom what was being implied. My pulse quickened and my palms grew sweaty. Beside me, I saw Remington smirk ever so slightly. Before me, Prince and Leni exchanged worried gazes.
Without consciously realizing it, I scanned the crowd until meeting my mother’s gaze. Life had returned to her eyes by way of shock.