by Rena Barron
I slap him before I know what I’m doing. My palm stings across his face. I forget myself and the pain. Instead, I feel hot, burning rage. I reach for the dagger, intending to put it through his depraved heart. He slams his hand down on top of mine, pinning me to it. The jeweled hilt digs into my palm through the red silk.
“Think long and hard about your next decision,” the Demon King says, his eyes meeting mine. “Perhaps you have some of Efiya’s spirit after all, but don’t push me too far, or I might take you up on your offer.” He nods like there’s an unspoken agreement between us. “Now, if you would, please take the dagger and call back her soul. I’ll only ask once before I start executing the tribal people.”
My hand trembles as I close my fingers around the knife. His admission doesn’t absolve Efiya from the vile thing she did to Rudjek, yet he’s guilty, too. He pulled her strings like he did with Arti, like he tried to do with me.
If I’m going to kill him, it has to be at the right moment, not when he’s expecting an attack. I relax my hand against the dagger and force in a ragged breath. “You win,” I say, lowering my eyes. When I get my strength back, I’m going to carve him up and feed his entrails to birds.
“On with it.” He lets go of me. “The day is young.”
I take the dagger and unwrap the silk slowly. Using it killed me once, and I don’t doubt that it will again. “Dimma forged this blade for you.” I dare myself to look into his cold eyes again. I see nothing of the man that she loved in them. I hate that I keep searching, hoping, wanting him to be the Daho from my memories and not the monster before me.
The Demon King flourishes his hand at the knife. “Stop stalling.”
I press one finger to the hilt of the blade, half hoping that it will kill me on the spot. All this time, I worried that I would have to give up my magic so the Demon King wouldn’t trick me into freeing him. It’s a relief knowing that I can keep the chieftains’ gift. I need it now. I still have a chance to stop him.
Power hums in the dagger, vibrating up the length of my fingers to my wrist and forearm. I’m taken back to the last moments in the Temple of Heka, where my sister and I stood out of time. Me plunging the knife into her belly. Her soul seeping from her parted lips.
“Efiya.” I run my thumb along the edge of the blade. “Are you there?”
I push my thumb against the blade and pierce my skin. The smell of blood drags me down, down, down, until the world changes into darkness. I am inside the dagger, trapped in a space that is at once as endless as the universe and as confining as a cage. It’s empty. Sukar’s uncle had told me that the Demon King trapped his enemies in the dagger, so I expected it to be brimming with souls.
“I ate them,” drawls a voice as sweet as spoiled milk. “I got bored.”
“Efiya.” I breathe my sister’s name, and my racing heartbeat echoes in my ears. “You should be dead.”
“Dead,” she muses, the word coming from all around, chilling me to the bone. “I suppose it’s all perspective, isn’t it? I should be dead, but, then again, you should be, too.”
“Tell me how to kill the Demon King.”
“I could kill him,” she says. “I’d do anything for you, sister. You’re all I have left.”
“And whose fault is that, Efiya?” I snap. “Do you think I’d be foolish enough to let you out of your prison after everything you’ve done? I’d rather rot here with you than do that.”
“But you’re not really here,” she whispers close to my ear. “You’re only visiting to ask for a favor, not because you miss me.” She says it with so much hurt in her voice that I almost feel ashamed, but I push the thought away.
“Sister.” I force out the word, yet there’s some part of me wanting it to mean more than disgust and anger and pain. “Do something good for once in your life. If you truly know, tell me how to kill him.”
Efiya tilts her head to the side. “I am willing to help you, but the price is my freedom.”
“You know I can’t free you.” I back away from her. I remember Arti’s warning that Efiya was worse than the Demon King. I pull my consciousness from the dagger. “Goodbye, sister.”
I’m back in the tent, staring down as an oily black liquid spreads up my arm. It’s as cold as ice. I drop the knife, and the sludge disappears. Beads of my blood soak into the blade.
“Did you find her?” The Demon King grabs my shoulders and shakes me, desperation written all over his face. I realize then that he needs my sister. Is he somehow weaker than he’d been before the orishas imprisoned him? “Did you find Efiya?”
My lips crack and bleed as I open my mouth to speak. I want to lie to spite him, but I’m too afraid that he’ll take out his frustration on the tribal people. Instead, I tell him the thing that he wants to hear the most. “Yes.”
Thirty
Arrah
Efiya won’t kill the Demon King. This is just another game for her. My hand feels numb after handling the dagger, and I flex my fingers, hoping to get the blood flowing again. I hunch forward, heaving in air, and do my best to pretend that the dagger has drained my energy. I cough and beg for water, which the Demon King calls for one of his guards to bring me. I can’t buy time forever, but I’ll do it as long as he allows.
Some things have become clearer now. Efiya brought the Demon King back, but he must be in a weakened state. For all his threats, I haven’t seen him use magic since the forest. Why would he go through so much trouble to bind the tribal people with craven bone to block their magic if not out of fear?
I peer up at him from the cup, looking what I hope is docile. Let him think that I’m too broken and afraid to act against him. I squeeze my eyes shut, my lips still pressed to the cup, my wounds throbbing.
The Aatiri woman tried to give me a message about my injuries. They’re like any wound. Grow a scab over them, and they’re easier to bear. What does that mean? Scabs don’t grow inside your body; scabs grow on cuts.
“What did you see?” the Demon King asks, his voice strung tight with tension like he’s about to snap at any moment. “Is she okay?”
“I saw darkness.” I open my eyes. “So much darkness.”
“Answer me.” He pries the cup from my hand, spilling the rest of the water as he shoves it aside. “Is Efiya okay?”
I grimace to hide the smile tugging at my lips. He’s desperate to know, and I wish I could say something spiteful to make him sink deeper into despair. “She’s right as rain.” I answer with the first thing that wells up in my mind. It takes me a moment to realize it’s a Jiiek expression from Dimma’s memories. The Demon King frowns at me as if he expected a different answer. “She’s fine.”
His shoulders relax at that, and I don’t miss the way he eases out a soft sigh. I’m right about him—he needs her. “She asked for you,” I lie. “I was wrong before—when I said that she didn’t care about you. I know that now.”
“What did she say?” The Demon King leans so close that his cloying scent of citrus and tree bark fills my nose and turns my stomach sour. It’s hard not to let my fingers inch toward the knife and use it to cleave his heart in two, but the guards would come at once. “Her exact words.”
“‘Is Daho safe’?” I lie again, choosing not to push too far, but I realize my mistake almost immediately. The rage in his eyes is visceral, pure, seething, and I glance away. I’ve made a grave mistake, and I search for the words to appease him. “She says she loves you,” I blurt out as though it’s painful for me to admit. Let him think that I am jealous, to stroke his ego. “Is that what you want to hear?”
He says nothing, and I chance meeting his terrible gaze again. His whole body is shaking, and for the first time, I know that he’s afraid. I don’t see the slap coming until the sound thunders in my ears, and my vision blurs into white spots. The impact knocks me to my side, and my teeth tear into my cheek. Blood soaks through my new bandages, my wounds gushing blood, my face burning.
“You lying little twit,” the Demon King
sneers. “I warned you what would happen if you played games with me.” He calls to the guards outside the tent. “Bring the Aatiri woman.”
“Please don’t,” I whisper, dragging myself to sit again. My head spins. “I—I didn’t mean to lie, but I did see Efiya. She’s eaten the other souls in the dagger.”
Two guards bring the Aatiri woman into the tent. She doesn’t struggle, as if she’s foreseen this moment in a vision. Her cheekbones are too sharp against her skin, her eyes too gaunt in their sockets. Despite that, there’s a proud tilt to her chin and the way she stands tall, no stoop in her shoulders. I remember the demons who whispered to me in the desert before I broke my mother’s curse. We should know better than to try to deal with an Aatiri, one of them had hissed. They’re self-sacrificing to a fault.
“Take her soul,” the Demon King says, his voice cold.
“No,” I scream, but the guards don’t hesitate. One of them grabs the Aatiri woman’s chin and forces her to face him. His eyes are hungry with anticipation as he opens his mouth impossibly wide. The other demon plunges a knife into the woman’s back, and her jaw goes slack. I cry silent tears as her soul seeps past her lips, a gray amorphous thing. When they’re done, they take her body away.
“Lie to me again, and I’ll kill two more, then four, then eight,” the Demon King threatens. “Now tell me what she said.”
It’s my fault that the woman’s dead—I messed up. It’s my fault that I didn’t stop my sister before she killed Grandmother and the other edam. Before she hurt Rudjek, destroyed the tribes, and released the Demon King.
“She said that she’d kill you herself if I freed her,” I admit, to which he only laughs delightedly.
“Finally, an honest word out of your lying mouth,” he says, a sparkle in his eyes again. “Can I tell you a secret, Arrah?”
I glance around the tent, knowing that he’s setting me up for a trap. It doesn’t matter if I say yes or no; the results will be the same. He takes my shaking hands into his own. His are cool to the touch while sweat beads on my forehead and trickles down my back.
“I’m tired of playing games with you,” he adds, not waiting for me to answer. “Call her soul back.”
He holds me in a crushing grip, and my fingers scream in pain. If he’s weak as I suspect and can’t call Efiya, then I have an advantage over him. The tribal people in this camp might die because of me, but if I do as he asks, Efiya will destroy our world, as Heka had warned. With access to Iben’s gateway, she will destroy every world in her path. I can’t let that happen. When he lets me go, I grab the dagger and shove it against his chest. “Do it yourself.”
“Get that thing away from me!” he yells, slapping my hand. The dagger hits the ground between us with a silent thud, and he stares at it in disgust.
I am completely caught off guard by his reaction. I realize then that he hasn’t touched the dagger even once, not without silk around it. I look into his eyes again. They glow like the other demons’, but they’re brown, not green. How did I not notice the significance of that before? All demons have green eyes—it is a mark of their race, Re’Mec had once told me.
“You’re not him,” I mumble, my mind reeling. He’s not the Demon King. He really is Tyrek. Every move he’s made has been exactly the sort of pettiness that I would expect from a Sukkara. Boasting, taunting, trying to make me jealous of my sister.
“When I caught you in the forest, you assumed that I was the Demon King, and I decided to play along for a bit,” Tyrek says, gleeful. “I do like games.”
My first reaction, I’m ashamed to say, is immense, overwhelming relief. He’s nothing like Dimma’s memories of Daho, his kindness, his love, his strength. My second reaction: How could Tyrek have control over these demons?
“You’re trying to puzzle it out.” He grins. “Let me fill in the blanks.” He inhales a deep breath and I draw back from him. “Your sister came to me while Darnek and I were hunting and made me an offer that sounded quite nice. I could be rid of my father and brother and take the throne for myself.”
Of all the questions spinning in my head, I ask, “How did you get magic?”
“I’ll spare you the intimate details, but your sister and I grew very close.” Tyrek blushes at that. “She was magnificent, the way she caught wandering souls and changed her appearance on a whim.”
I recoil at the admiration in his voice. “Here I thought you were sparing me the details.”
“Efiya gifted me with a tiny piece of her soul.” Tyrek beams with pride. Tyrek—not Daho, not the Demon King. Tyrek. “I was on the battlefield when you killed her, and I stole the Demon King’s dagger to bring her back.”
The irony of the situation twists in my gut. Dimma had given Daho a part of herself for love, but Efiya would’ve done it for a pettier reason—or had she done it as a precaution? She’d known there was a chance that she wouldn’t make it back from Heka’s Temple. Tyrek was her safeguard in case she didn’t.
“Enough talk!” He picks up the knife with the silk. “Bring her back now.”
I take the knife again, the jewels pressing into my palm. I close my eyes, but I don’t let the dagger draw my mind into its depths like before. Instead, I concentrate on the shards of craven bone in the various places inside my body. Grow a scab over them, and they’re easier to bear. Not over them, I reason, but around them, so the anti-magic can’t spread. I wince and open my eyes.
“She’s here,” I say, my gaze fixed behind Tyrek.
He wrenches himself around to look, and I plunge the dagger toward his chest. My hand seizes up a hair’s breadth away. An invisible force keeps me from coming any closer.
“You must’ve noticed that I have a shadow of Efiya’s powers.” Tyrek twists his hand, and the shards of craven bones burrow deeper into my body. He’s been waiting for this—the chance to hurt me some more. I spit up blood, and the room sways, teetering on some unknowable cliff.
Tyrek can’t be as powerful as Efiya, who was impervious to anti-magic. She’d only gifted him a tiny part of her soul—what Dimma did was something else. The craven bone should mute his magic if I’m close enough to him, or at least I convince myself that’s true. I launch at him, throwing my body forward. His magic tears into me, but it’s no use. Momentum carries me the rest of the way, then I fall into a black abyss.
I’m on my side, wet with my own blood, coughing and choking. I’m gasping for air that never comes. Tyrek lies in front of me—his eyes lifeless, with the Demon King’s dagger between us—covered in blood. I don’t know how or when, but he’s dead. Tears blur my vision as someone pulls me into their arms. I stare up at Sukar, waterlogged and soaked to the bone. His golden-brown skin looks ashen and haggard. I try to speak, but no words come. I smile at him through my tears.
“You’re going to be okay.” Sukar cradles me against his chest. He’s sobbing, and I can’t stop thinking that the demons will kill us both if they hear him. “Rest now.”
Despite him being wet and cold, I let my body go slack in his arms. He smells like sunlight and cloves—he smells like home. Unlike before, when I wished that it was Rudjek holding me, I’m only glad that Sukar is okay. He’s here with me. He’s safe. He didn’t have to send a spy to keep tabs on me. I want him to tease me, so we can laugh with Essnai about how we almost died in a strange world.
Thirty-One
Rudjek
I draw a stone along the edge of my blade in furious strokes with no regard for caution. It’s less than an hour before we march—the Almighty Army and the cravens. Our alliance is a momentous feat held together by thinly veiled lies and the secrets that Captain Dakte so astutely alluded to. The hour comes too slow as I sit on a stool in the middle of our camp, sharpening my swords. I’ve promoted Majka and Kira to share Captain Dakte’s duties, over the protests of many.
The camp is in an uproar as soldiers pull on armor, adjust helmets, and strap on their scabbards. More than a few gazes roam my way—some not even bothering to hide their d
oubts. They’re scared after Captain Dakte got so many men killed in his charge against the demons only a few days ago.
I’ve wanted this my whole life. To wear the uniform and make a name for myself climbing up the gendar ranks. But I haven’t earned my post, which makes it that much harder to know these soldiers’ lives are in my hands.
“Be careful, or you’ll cut your thumb off,” comes Koré’s raspy timbre, low and menacing. I glance up, still keeping pace with my strokes, to see that she’s presenting herself as an attendant. She wears an unadorned black tunic with wide yellow pants that sweep around her ankles. Her headscarf is gone, and she’s pulled her braids into a ponytail. No one else seems to notice the unnerving way her hair wriggles and crawls over her shoulders. She squats across from me, opposite the dying fire.
I shrug. “I’ll just grow a new one.”
Koré picks up a discarded stick and pokes at the fire. “You should expect the worst for Arrah.”
My hand slips on the stone and the blade slices across my forefinger. I barely feel the prick, and the wound heals before any blood spills. I swallow the raging emotions threatening to get loose. I’m a step ahead of her. I’m already thinking the worst, and the tightness pulling at my insides only grows tauter.
“How is it that you didn’t know the Demon King had escaped until now?” I demand, not bothering to humble my voice. Koré is considerably less annoying than her brother, but they’re two worms in the same rotten apple.
“Arrogance,” the moon orisha answers, staring into the embers. Re’Mec would’ve never confessed any fault, and her honesty makes me put aside my shotel. “I never expected Efiya to find the box, let alone open it without disturbing the souls of my brethren that bound Daho. She was a clever girl, but, then again, she possessed Heka’s power, and he is unlike my kind.”
“Where is Heka?” I ask, curious.
“I suspect he’s hiding in the mouth of the Supreme Cataclysm, or he’s found something else to occupy his time,” Koré says. “He’s very good at hiding from us.”