Reaper of Souls

by Rena Barron

  Essnai pats his arm. “You’ll get over it—she fixed you.”

  “Let me get this right.” Sukar cocks an eyebrow—a hint of a smile finally stretching across his sharp cheekbones. “Arrah almost killed me, and I should be grateful that she saved my life.”

  I’m relieved that he’s found his sense of humor, but it doesn’t wash away the guilt that aches inside me—the regrets, the mistakes, the pain. I’ve missed the husky sound of his voice and the three of us teasing each other. I should take this moment as a promise that one day things will be all right again, but I can’t just smile and pretend that the wounds in my mind aren’t still bleeding.

  Essnai shrugs. “Well, you are alive.”

  “Did you really break every bone in my body?” Sukar asks me, incredulous.

  “I’m afraid so,” I say, glancing away.

  He inches his fingers toward mine. I look up again, and a little of his old spark is back. He squeezes my hand, and he shrugs. “Like Essnai said, I am alive.”

  I bite my lip. “And now you have three new tattoos to show off.”

  “Please tell me you did not use scrivener magic.” Sukar groans again as he searches his body for the new ink. “For Heka’s sake, if you’ve given me ugly tattoos, I swear . . .”

  “I did an adequate job,” I say, defending myself.

  Sukar opens his mouth, his gaze roaming between Essnai and me, weighing his next words. “How are you still alive?” he asks, his voice cautious. “My uncle said that wielding the Demon King’s dagger would kill you.”

  I exchange a look with Essnai. She and Rudjek had wondered the same in the days after the battle. I could remember Efiya bleeding on the Temple floor, reaching for me, then nothing at all until the dream. A winged beast with a jackal head had swept down from the sky and stolen me away from the world. It was only a dream, not a vision, not a shadow of what’s to come. I had to believe that. I could channel Grandmother’s gift to find out, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. There was that moment before the dream—a slice of midnight sky, serenity, a brief feeling of letting go. I cling to that shred of peace instead of reliving a memory I am glad to have forgotten. “I may have died for a little while.”

  “Your magic brought you back?” Sukar asks, his eyes twinkling with curiosity.

  My magic. I’ll never get used to feeling it teeming under my skin in a warm embrace.

  “That or the orisha of life and death.” I clear my throat. “Koré thinks they helped me.”

  “Fram?” Sukar rubs his chin. “That’s an interesting choice for a god that deals in death.”

  A feeling of uncertainty edges at the back of my mind, urging me to let it go. I’m alive. It doesn’t matter how or why. I survived despite everything. I have a second chance and the magic to help fix some of the havoc my family wreaked on the world.

  “You both need some sleep.” Essnai settles in the chair beside Sukar’s bed, then she raises an eyebrow at me when I don’t move. “Scat!”

  “Good to know things haven’t changed,” Sukar says in a lazy drawl. “You’re still a tyrant.”

  Essnai looks quite satisfied with herself, and I don’t have the energy to argue with her. Magic takes from all, and my bones ache like I’ve been on the losing side of a street fight. But it’s a small price to pay for healing Sukar. I bid my friends good night and slip into the narrow corridor. I’m assaulted by the cloying smells of tobacco and stale beer, and a flurry of laughter floating up the stairs. I encounter a patron from the tavern who fumbles with his key before half falling into his room.

  Once I’m in my chamber, I lie in bed and stare up at the cracked ceiling in the dark. I’m tired, but I’m restless. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I have nothing to go back to in Tamar. I can’t stand the idea of living in the villa again and seeing the Mulani dancers my mother painted prancing along the wall. Or my father’s abandoned garden. After failing to save the tribes, I don’t know if I can stomach more devastation. The city had been in ruins when we left, whole neighborhoods burned to the ground. I wish I could believe that time heals all wounds, but it’s never that simple.

  There’s still the matter of my banishment. Has Rudjek been able to convince his father to change his mind, or will soldiers be waiting to arrest me? If everyone knows that my mother and sister were behind the demon attacks, they might think I had something to do with them, too. Do they know the tribes are gone, cut down by my sister’s hand, the people slaughtered?

  I reach for my magic, desperate for a way to lessen the pain. The chieftains’ memories rush in at once and drown out my thoughts. I sink into the noise and weep until there are no more tears inside me. When I am on the edge of sleep, one of the chieftains’ memories washes out the others. There is a boy shrouded in shadows sitting beside a frozen lake with his knees drawn to his chest. He’s whispering something too low for me to hear, and his voice is the calm of melting snow. I strain to catch his words, but they fade around the edges until they are only faint impressions that lure me into sleep.

  In the morning, Sukar is still weak and complains of a headache, but he insists upon walking. Even with Essnai’s staff to support his weight, he stumbles twice by the time we are down the stairs and through the scatter of new patrons. They mingle with the night owls who’ve been drinking well past sunup with no end in sight.

  “Perhaps I should go easy on the wine,” Sukar says when he stumbles a third time.

  “Hmm,” Essnai replies, playing along. “Where would you be without your wonderful friends to take care of you?”

  Droves of people wander the streets as the eye of Re’Mec climbs across the sky. They pace along the hardened, cracked dirt with donkeys and carts on their way to trade and sell. The air smells of dung, hay, and blood. The blood is from a butcher pushing a cart that leaks from the bottom, leaving a trail in his wake. It reminds me of the battlefield and how close we’d come to losing everything.

  The cravens’ anti-magic tingles against my skin before I spot them near our wagon. Fadyi nods in our direction as Raëke runs her hand through one of the horses’ manes. Fadyi passes for human at first glance with a shock of black curls and his hair shaved on the sides. His face is someone’s idea of what a Tamaran should look like—rich brown skin, dark eyes, sharp features. With my magic, only I can see that his skin is always in flux, rearranging itself, working to hold his shape. Raëke’s impersonation of a human is almost as good except her eyes are too large and she often forgets to blink.

  I haven’t gotten used to how their anti-magic scrapes against my skin like a sudden shadow on a cloudless day. My magic feels on alert in their presence, thrashing and coiling inside me. Restless. The way it reacts to the cravens is a constant warning that Rudjek and I can never be together. We can never touch, never kiss, never find comfort in each other’s arms. I push down the knot in my belly. We’d left so much unsaid, and I owe him an apology for being so awful after Efiya hurt him. I don’t deserve his forgiveness.

  “You’ve been carting me around like a sack of grain?” Sukar asks, leaning on the staff.

  “And what of it?” Essnai returns his question with one of her own.

  Sukar rolls his eyes. “I suppose it’s better than dragging me through the dirt.”

  “Oh, we did that, too,” I add, forcing a smile, “until we could find a wagon.”

  “Some friends you are.” Sukar waves me off, but he looks grateful. “I suppose I’ll take the wagon since you went through so much trouble.”

  My nerves are on edge most of the day, as we trek through well-worn farmlands and dirt roads. Sukar, Essnai, and I have walked this path often with my father, journeying to and from the tribal lands. We’d traveled with a caravan of more than a hundred families, heading to the Blood Moon Festival. I dig my nails into my palms, determined to keep it together. I hold on to my father’s last words.

  Little Priestess, I need you to be strong a little longer.

  It’s hard to be strong when I will
never hear another one of his stories or see his smile.

  When we’re on a stretch of road alone, Raëke shifts into a sunbird. The transformation is almost immediate. Her body becomes gray liquid that shrinks to take a blank shape. The details start to come together—wings, black feathers, beady eyes, a beak. Her underbelly is bright yellow and her long tail, iridescent. The cravens’ anti-magic may feel overwhelming, but it’s also extraordinary. Raëke lets out a high-pitched chirp, then takes to the sky to carry news to Rudjek that we will be arriving soon.

  The rest of the way, Essnai and Fadyi fill Sukar in on everything he missed at the end of the battle while I stay quiet. They tell him that Shezmu and some of the demons escaped after stealing the Demon King’s dagger. Every time I think of it, my blood goes cold. I keep telling myself that we’ve stopped Efiya, and Shezmu can’t release the Demon King without her. But the demons can still do so much harm on their own. It’s only a matter of time before Re’Mec and the other orishas hunt them down, if they haven’t already.

  “And what of the tribes?” Sukar asks, his voice breaking.

  “We searched each of them,” Fadyi says, lowering his gaze. “There were no survivors.”

  The cravens found the remains of the tribal people picked over by scavenger birds, and Koré burned the bodies out of respect. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’m glad I didn’t have to see the tribes that way. I was too weak to help with the search.

  I couldn’t stand to see my cousins Nenii and Semma, who’d always been so kind to me, or Great-Aunt Zee with her snide remarks. They didn’t deserve to die like that—cut down and left to rot in the sun. I swallow my tears, holding on to my last memories of them. Nenii flirting with a Kes boy at the Blood Moon Festival. Semma sashaying in her beaded kaftan. Great-Aunt Zee laughing while the five tribes danced and celebrated as one.

  The conversation falls silent as we come upon a single crowded road that leads into the city from the west. It sits in the shadow of the Almighty Palace and the watchtowers stationed along the cliffs. Ahead of us, there is a checkpoint that hadn’t been there before and a long line of caravans.

  Red-clad gendars in silver breastplates shout orders. “Those with horses, mules, and caged animals to the left. Everyone else to the right!”

  “This is new,” Sukar says from his perch in the wagon bed.

  He doesn’t seem concerned about the checkpoint, but then again, he has no reason to be. I’m nervous that Rudjek hasn’t been able to clear my name—that at any moment one of the gendars will execute me on sight. We move to the left line. A scribe at its head records names and reasons for visiting the city. Meanwhile, the gendars search everything. “Let me see your eyes,” a soldier demands of the woman in front of us traveling with a mule weighed down with sacks of grain.

  “See my what?” the woman asks, flustered.

  “Your eyes,” the soldier repeats in a slow, mocking tone.

  The woman tilts her head up, and the gendar stares down at her.

  “All clear,” he says after a pause.

  I don’t know what the gendars’ orders are, but they seem specific.

  When it’s our turn, the scribe asks for my name. I could lie, but I don’t. I won’t hide who I am. “Arrah N’yar.”

  “From where?” the scribe asks.

  “From the city,” I say. “I’m Tamaran.”

  “Hmm, name sounds Aatiri or Kes,” the scribe remarks. “Where do you reside?”

  I can’t go back to the villa, so I give him the address of my father’s shop.

  “Show me your eyes,” the gendar working alongside the scribe says.

  As I tilt my head up to him, I ask, “What are you looking for?”

  The man stares into my eyes intently, searching. “Demons.”

  I shudder at his admission. “Are there still demons in the city?”

  “No, and we’d like to keep it that way,” the gendar says. “It’s all in the eyes.”

  He’s right, I realize. Months ago, the sun orisha, Re’Mec, disguised as the Temple scribe Tam, said that all demons had glowing green eyes. It was the mark of their race. Even when they possessed others, their eyes changed to some shade of green. I’d seen it for myself the first time my sister raised a hand to the sky and caught a demon’s ka. She’d put his soul in a stray cat, then later in the body of a fisherman from Kefu. His eyes had been the same eerie glowing jade in both of his vessels before I ended his life.

  After we pass the checkpoint, we pour into the crowded city. It’s so congested that we move at a snail’s pace. Most people head toward the East Market and the docks, where they can set up free trade, but we stay to the west. Once we arrive at my father’s shop, I’ll find some concoction to help Sukar with his headache.

  The third afternoon bells toll as we reach the pristine cobblestones of the West Market. Attendants bustle back and forth with baskets of food, textiles, and supplies. Some wear silk elaras, embroidered and jeweled, almost as fancy as the families they serve. Others don modest, rough-woven tunics with no personal effects. They all bear one thing in common: their employers’ crests, sewn on sleeves or shirttails. Never higher, so no one mistakes them above their station.

  Head attendants command troupes of apprentices nipping at their heels as they carry out their duties. Even if I’ve never liked the idea of parading around with attendants, I’m relieved to see the market back to normal. When we’d left for the tribal lands, it was all but abandoned.

  At the courtyard near the coliseum, our progress slows to a halt. Tension chokes the perfumed air, and it’s too crowded to move. There are more scholars, scribes, and families of import than I’ve ever seen in the market at once. People of high stations hardly ever come to the markets unless there’s an assembly in session. These people swarm around like a hive of angry bees.

  I catch snatches of conversations. “Traitor.” “Liar.” “Heretic.”

  “We won’t stand for this disrespect,” says a man in a green elara with double rings on each of his fingers. “We have been patient long enough!” My eyes travel to his crest—a ram’s head—the emblem of the royal family and homage to the sun god, Re’Mec. A Sukkara, here—in the market and not inside a fancy litter?

  I can hardly believe who’s causing all the fuss. It’s Prince Derane—uncle to the new Almighty One, Tyrek Sukkara. He’s surrounded by others from the royal family and flanked by a dozen guards. Second Son Tyrek became the Almighty One after his father’s and brother’s deaths. Once he took the throne, he let the demons run amok in the city and kill countless Tamarans.

  A woman in a scribe’s robe almost runs straight into me, too busy gossiping to watch where she’s going. When she glances up, she stops in her tracks. “It’s her!” the woman shouts, backing away. “The owahyat who set the demons upon us.”

  She flings the word like an insult, and I flinch. My heart aches for Ty, our matron, and Nezi, our porter—both former women of the streets, abused by Ka-Priest Ren Eké. He wouldn’t have gotten away with hurting so many women if not for people like this scribe who thought them less. Nezi gave her soul over to a demon, and I haven’t seen Ty since I left the villa in Kefu.

  “Watch your tongue, scribe,” Essnai warns, “or I’ll relieve you of it.”

  “That’s not the Ka-Priestess, fool,” someone else says. “That’s her daughter.”

  “The one who set the demons free?” asks another, distressed.

  “No, that one is dead,” comes the answer.

  I guess I no longer have to worry about what people know of my mother’s and sister’s crimes. They got the gist of it. Before long, we’re surrounded by people pointing and sneering, and I bite back a curse. The voices from the crowd rise to a deafening chorus. As the mob presses in closer, the magic stirs inside me, and the chieftains’ kas come alive.

  Burn them. The Kes chieftain’s voice drowns out the crowd. He’s gifted me with the power to call firestorms. And my fingers ache as clouds swell in the sky over the market.
Some of the patrons take note and back away, but most are too furious to notice. Bring them to their knees.

  I don’t want to hurt these people, but I won’t let them hurt me, either. Grandmother’s words cut through the rage rushing through my body. Speak your truth, Little Priestess. “I had nothing to do with bringing the demons back,” I say, finding my voice.

  “Keep your lies, girl,” someone snaps.

  Essnai points her staff at a balding man easing closer with a kobachi knife in his hand. “Another step and I’ll shatter every bone in your arm.” He spits at her feet but heeds her warning.

  Sukar climbs from the wagon and hunches over with his sickles in his hands. “I’ve been itching for another fight.”

  People in gray tunics push through the angry crowd. A woman in the sheer white headscarf favored among those who’ve chosen Koré as their patron god leads them. I recognize Emere, the head of the Temple attendants.

  “Leave her be!” Emere shouts. She and her companions form a line between us and the mob. “The Temple will not let harm come to this girl.”

  “We’re supposed to listen to you?” someone screams. “A Temple loyalist who sat back while that girl’s mother killed our children?”

  My heart leaps in my chest, remembering the night my mother sacrificed Kofi and the others to Shezmu. She’d done it so that he could beget a child strong enough to free the Demon King. My friend died so Efiya could be born, and I’d been too weak to save him. My knees almost give out, but Essnai leans against my side and her reassuring presence gives me strength.

  “I make no excuses for the vile things the Ka-Priestess did,” Emere says. “Nor do I make excuses for her predecessor, Ka-Priest Ren Eké. So many people knew of his perversions and kept his secrets for decades.”

  “Let the Almighty One be the judge of her,” someone else yells.

  “Acting Almighty One,” Prince Derane corrects, “until I reclaim my birthright.”

  “You conspired with Tyrek to cheat your way to the throne,” comes another voice.