Reaper of Souls

by Rena Barron

  Jahla closes her eyes, and a ripple of anti-magic sets Majka’s body alight at the same time that he closes his eyes. “Please, don’t die,” she whispers. “Please.”

  “Where is Shezmu?” demands Re’Mec, a swivel of snow that shifts into a creature out of a nightmare. He is almost a spitting image of his statue in the Hall of Orishas, only a hundred times more terrifying. He has Tam’s face, but the similarities end there. His eyes are embers of burning coals as he tilts his head to the side. His black ram’s horns curl back and around into daggers that glisten with blood. He is tall, shirtless, bronze. The barbed tail at his back thrashes out and cuts down demon after demon.

  The demon wrestles away control of my body, and I stumble toward Re’Mec. The bastard sun orisha is so close. He imprisoned my people—he and his bitch of a sister. Re’Mec’s gaze flickers to me, and I reach for my shotels.

  “I’m here, old friend,” Shezmu says, coalescing behind the orisha. He’s got that same nasty grin, and I wrench back control from the demon inside me. I’m going to kill Shezmu myself. Re’Mec is a blur of black and bronze and fur as he closes the space between him and Shezmu. They collide, and the ground cracks. Solders and cravens and demons go down, some falling into a raging fire pit that bursts from the ice. It’s madness and chaos.

  Shezmu and Re’Mec battle like giants on an anthill, crushing anything or anyone in their path. They fight with no regard for the people around them. They crush buildings and soldiers alike. Re’Mec deals Shezmu a blow that knocks him into the earth, and the ground caves beneath him. A quake tears through the village, bringing down houses already in shambles. Soldiers and demons duck out of the way of debris as they parry each other’s blows. No sooner than Re’Mec goes in for the kill, Shezmu strikes back again, a blur of gray smoke that sets the sun god on fire. They are monsters. If we don’t stop this war, the orishas and demons will destroy Zöran.

  “They’re fleeing,” someone cheers. “Cowards!”

  My legs are unsteady as I turn back to the gate again. It calls to me. Arrah is on the other side. I have to get to her—I have to save her. For once, we’re on the offense. Our forces pour into the decimated village as the demons retreat through the gate. I stumble to follow them as the demon in my body drags me forward.

  I have a gift for you, Rudjek, Shezmu’s words mock me. Not that you deserve such an honor.

  I remember my conversation with Koré, and I want to double over and vomit. The demon curling around my heart—is it him? Is it the Demon King? Why choose me? He paints a picture of Arrah in my mind. His love and admiration for her are pure and unwavering. Twenty-gods. This has been the plan all along and why Shezmu left bread crumbs for me to find him. I walked right into their trap. The Demon King wants Arrah, and he’s planning to use me to get to her.

  “You can’t have her,” I scream, and both Jahla and Kira startle and look at me, frowning.

  “The gate’s closing,” Fadyi shouts as he cuts through two demons in his path. “We can’t hold it much longer.”

  “I have to find Arrah,” I say, but shake my head. No, I can’t go anywhere near her. I love. I want. I need her. I have to save her from him, from myself. It’s not Arrah who I have to find. It’s the girl wearing a diadem with wild hair, rich brown skin that glows, veins that shine across her forehead. Dimma. My queen. I pound my fists against my head. I will do anything to get her back. I will get her back. The demon has no doubt in his conviction. He thinks he’s won, but I won’t give up.

  “Rudjek!” Fadyi grabs my shoulder. “What’s wrong with you?”

  He’s inside me, I try to scream; instead, the demon twists my tongue. “We need to get to the gate before it closes. Arrah is the only one who can stop Shezmu and the rest of the demons.”

  You cowardly bastard, get out of me!

  You are only prolonging your suffering, boy, he says. You will fail.

  “Do you know where they’ve taken Essnai and Arrah?” Kira blinks back tears as she looks between Majka and me.

  “The only way to find out is through the gate,” the demon answers through me. “We don’t have much time.”

  Jahla holds Majka’s head and shoulders on her lap. “I can’t leave him.”

  He’s already gone. The demon plants the thought in my mind.

  “Stay with him, then,” I say, sympathetic, but they aren’t my words.

  Kira comes to her feet, her face miserable. “Let’s go.”

  “Jahla,” Fadyi says, a warning in his voice. “He’ll be in good hands with the healers.”

  I have half a mind to take the craven’s head now, but time has taught me patience.

  I’ll rip out my own heart before I let you touch him, I growl.

  Jahla’s eyes are hollow as she lets go of Majka. Moments later, four cravens in white robes swarm our position, and I put my hands on my shotels, my eyes narrowing. They kneel to attend to the human boy.

  “He has a name,” I say out loud, then the demon drops my head to cover my outburst. “His name is Majka.”

  Fadyi stares into my eyes, his anti-magic brushing against my vessel. He is searching for an answer he won’t find. I am too clever. He sees his craven ward when he looks at me, the same dark eyes, the same body, but Rudjek is dying. It won’t be long. “We should go.” Fadyi grimaces. “We don’t have much time.”

  We step over corpses, debris, and cracks in the land in a rush to the gate. I can’t hold back the smile as I glance up at the sky, watching my brethren who’ve stayed behind to keep the orishas busy. They’re playing right into our hands. The gods have always been so predictable. This time we’ll win the war and put an end to them once and for all. I’ve waited for this day for so long, and now I can finally relish the moment.

  As soon as we step into the mouth of the gate, I can feel Dimma’s lingering presence. She’s not in Ilora—she’s gone to another world. “I know where she is,” I say. “Follow me.”

  The gate pulls my vessel apart. It isn’t a wholly unpleasant feeling, but it isn’t something I would call enjoyable, either. We become pulses that travel one of millions of threads, and I latch on to Dimma’s trail. My expectation grows at the thought of seeing her again after all these millennia. The gate spits us out in tall grass underneath a luminescent moon.

  “She’s close.” I turn to look over my shoulder and stop cold when Fadyi thrusts a blade to my throat.

  My hands go to my shotels, but this is all wrong. Why is Fadyi attacking me?

  Kira has a dagger on Fadyi almost immediately. “What the blazing fires are you doing?”

  “Rudjek”—Fadyi’s blade bites into my neck—“are you in control?”

  A shudder of pain cuts through my chest. “No!” It takes everything out of me to answer, and the demon clamps down on my tongue.

  “What’s going on?” Kira shouts. “Someone better start talking.”

  “Rudjek has a demon inside him,” Fadyi says, and I want to collapse to my knees with joy. They know. They can stop me. “A very powerful one.”

  Kira curses as she lowers her knife. She looks conflicted between killing me herself and letting Fadyi take care of it. “How is that possible? He’s supposed to be impervious to demon magic.”

  “Rudjek is only part craven,” Jahla says, grief-stricken, “and he’s still so very young.”

  “Take his swords, Jahla,” Fadyi says. She doesn’t move, her pale eyes hollow. He tells her a second time, raising his voice. “Jahla, his swords.”

  The craven is careful as she disarms me, and I grin at her. I’d like to cut off her little head and make it a trophy. My stomach turns at the thought. I don’t want that. He wants it, and I won’t let him.

  Fadyi stares into my eyes. “You can still fight the demon. You’re stronger than you know.”

  “Don’t let”—the words sear my throat as I force them out—“me near . . . Arrah.”

  “I won’t,” Fadyi promises. “Bind his hands.”

  Soon we’re walking toward
a forest of black trees. I can smell my brethren’s deaths lingering in the air, the ones who allied themselves with Efiya and the prince. As far as I’m concerned, they were traitors who deserved to die. I do not pity them.

  “Kira, is that you?” someone calls, their voice a whisper.

  We’re almost at the edge of the forest when a figure rises out of the grass. Rudjek stubbornly pricks at the back of my mind. He is a pest that refuses to die.

  “Essnai!” Kira screams with no regard for what may be lurking in the night. She stumbles, then sprints, the grass whipping around her legs.

  My heart twists with longing. If Essnai is okay, then Arrah will be, too. Essnai sinks into Kira’s arms, and they hold each other, their shoulders shaking with relief.

  When they pull apart, Kira cups Essnai’s face in a tender embrace and kisses her long and hard. “You’re okay, my love,” Kira breathes against Essnai’s mouth. “I won’t leave your side again.”

  “I tried to get back to the gate, but it took forever to get around the forest.” Essnai’s voice is frantic. “Sukar is dead. Tyrek took Arrah. I don’t know where.”

  Tyrek, that bastard. He has Arrah. I make another attempt against the demon—my anti-magic surging inside me. I have to put an end to this right now—I have to save Arrah. My body jerks forward as I fight the demon once more. We fall to our knees. I grit my teeth, desperate to purge the demon. He squeezes my heart again. It doesn’t matter. I don’t stop thrashing him with anti-magic. I retch on the ground so hard that my stomach spasms. One way or another, by the end of the night, one of us will be dead.

  Thirty-Six

  Arrah

  Three hundred broken bodies lie scattered at my feet. I stare at the demons for a long time with the dagger clutched in my palm. I weep for the tribal people, and these wretched souls, too, cursed when Dimma gave them her gift. Sukar takes the blade from me at some point, but the moment is a blur in my mind.

  “They gave us no choice.” His voice is the gentle coo of summer rain on a scorching hot day. “You did what’s best.”

  He says this like he was the one to cut down three hundred people and reap their souls. I am no better than the orishas who sought to imprison the demons when they became immortal. I am worse. The demons may have been Koré’s creation, her children, but Dimma loved them like they were her own.

  I am still standing close to the bodies when the surviving witchdoctors set them on fire. Sukar takes my hand and leads me a safe distance from the flames. I watch until the demons are a pile of charred bones and ashes, and the sun sinks in the sky. The Mulani woman from earlier shows me where I can wash in private. She gives me loose-fitting trousers and a tunic to replace my bloody shift.

  The Zu tribesmen dance to purify the land and pass the souls of the witchdoctors. I watch as gray mist rises from each body, curling into the sky. Dimma would say they’re returning to the Supreme Cataclysm to be unmade and made into something new. That may have been true before she conceived and lost her child. Now the Supreme Cataclysm only destroys. These souls won’t be coming back.

  When it’s full dark, the tribes begin to celebrate our victory over the demons. Some had brought their instruments for the journey before the demons caught up to them. They pull them out now, a shekere with a net of cowries woven around it, an udu, small drums. Bells, clappers. Sukar and I settle cross-legged on the grass as people dance and sing around a great fire. It burns with the same white-and-blue flames as the one at the Blood Moon Festival. They speak tribal common tongue and dialects that melt into a cacophony that sings to my heart.

  “It’s good to see you smiling,” Sukar says as someone passes a wineskin from Tyrek’s stash. When I meet his gaze, he glances down at the wine, the warmth in his cheeks luminescent under the moon. He takes a swig, wipes his mouth, and hands it to me. “I haven’t seen you smile like that in a long time. I’ve forgotten how disarming it can be.”

  “Disarming?” I laugh and take a sip of wine to cover my blush. “That’s an interesting way of putting it.”

  “It’s true.” He finally meets my eyes again. His soul is bare, his emotions raw. He holds nothing back, and I long to taste his sweet lips. The thought dredges up my guilt. “I’d give anything to see you smile like that all the time.”

  “Dance with us, blessed one,” a girl calls, interrupting our conversation. “It’s bad luck if the one who carries the edam’s kas does not honor their sacrifice.”

  Whatever I want to say to Sukar dies on my tongue as I pass the wineskin on and let the girl pull me to my feet. We dance in a group, twisting, twirling, and shaking to the roar of the drums. It’s almost like being in the tribal lands again, but without sparks of magic weaving between people.

  I close my eyes and lose myself in the music, letting it drown out my regrets, if only for a little while. I can feel Sukar’s presence before I open my eyes again. He gives me a playful smile, his head tilted to the side. An invitation. I grab his arm and pull him close. He switches his hips and shoulders, his hands finding their way to my waist. His touch is so gentle, like he’s afraid that I’m a whiff of wind that will blow away. He’s usually so flashy with his steps, the center of attention, but tonight we move as one.

  I’m breathless by the end of the dance, and I lean against him to stop my head from spinning. “I better call it a night.”

  “Do you regret almost kissing me?” Sukar asks, his voice streaked with longing.

  I search his face for gods know what—a question, an answer, a promise, a reason to say yes. “No.” I shake my head, and I take his hand, leading us away from the celebrations. We can’t keep going on like this. “Let’s talk.”

  Once we’re back in the tent, the fire comes to life on its own. Only a month ago, I hesitated to start a fire for fear that the Demon King would use my magic against me. I’m not so sure that he ever would, now that I know what I mean to him. Sukar trails behind me, and I brace myself as I turn to face him. He stands very still, his hands at his sides, his breath low and raspy. He’s holding himself back, waiting for me to speak first.

  I rub my forehead. I’m not ready for this conversation—I could never be ready. “I don’t know how to say this without sounding like an ass.”

  “Use your words,” Sukar replies, his eyes dancing with mischief.

  “I do love you, Sukar—you’re my family,” I say, “but I don’t love you the way you want.” He winces and grabs his chest like I’ve punched him in the heart and mumbles an ouch. I draw on Dimma’s, the edam’s, and my own memories to give me strength. “As complicated as things are between Rudjek and me, I still want to be with him.”

  Sukar blinks back tears like water behind a dam, surging to the brink. The tension eases from his shoulders, as if my words have released him from a curse. An echo of his words from the night of the almost kiss comes back to my mind: I’ve loved you since the first moment I saw you. Two voices speak the words, Sukar’s and another’s. A voice not quite as deep as Rudjek’s, but low and rough, accentuated with notes of a song.

  “I can’t lose you again.” His whole body trembles. “I’ve waited so long.”

  “You’re not going to lose me,” I say, putting on a brave face. “We’ll always be friends.”

  “What happened to our forever and always?” Sukar blurts out before he can stop himself.

  He realizes his mistake immediately and clamps his mouth shut. The muscles in his jaw twitch as his words spin in my mind. Forever and always. The memory rushes in like a flood. Dimma and Daho stand on a balcony that overlooks Jiiek at his coronation. He asks her to marry him, and she’s so happy. Forever and always. I shake my head at the familiar plea in his voice, the cadence of his words.

  “Sukar,” I whisper as he stares at me with those haunted eyes, eyes that hide his true identity. “How long?” A sob escapes my lips, a whimper. I back away from him. It can’t be.

  “Your friend died at Heka’s Temple,” he says, and his words aren’t gleeful, they’r
e sad and apologetic.

  I relive the moment that Efiya attacked Sukar. She raises a shotel over his head, primed to kill him. I fling my magic out without thinking, and it hits Sukar hard and throws him back. He slams against a pillar. A sickening crack. The crunch of splintered bones. His body slumps to the ground.

  “I killed him.” My tears blot out the world, and a scream burns in my lungs. Sukar didn’t survive the battle. I didn’t heal him. He didn’t travel with Essnai, Tyrek, and me. He didn’t confess his love. My head spins with the truth. “I killed Sukar.”

  Daho takes one step toward me, and I back away again. He stops in his tracks. “You didn’t mean to—I saw it happen. It was an accident.”

  I glare at him. “You . . . you had no right to take his body.”

  “Sukar was already dead,” Daho says, his shoulders slumping. “It was no use to him.”

  I say nothing at that—what can I say. My friend is dead, I killed him, and the demon who calls to my heart and soul is inside his body. I stare at my feet, so I don’t make yet another mistake.

  Daho had comforted me after I turned the assassin into a ndzumbi—not Sukar. He’d climbed the ridge in Tribe Zu and brought me mint tea. Not Sukar. He’d held me when I pushed out the craven bone shards, then again in the middle of the night. He’d helped me kill the demons to protect the tribal people. Daho—not Sukar. I look up from my feet and flinch when I meet his gaze. Daho.

  “You must have a lot of questions,” he says, keeping his distance. “Efiya released me, and one of my generals took my place in Koré’s wretched box so that the gods would not suspect. I couldn’t risk outright telling you who I was. If they’d known, they would’ve killed you. I had to make sure you were safe first. Tyrek was . . . unexpected.”

  I can hardly process his words—what they mean. “You’ve been with me all this time.”

  “When I was in Koré’s prison, I could always feel your presence.” He smiles, his face earnest and full of hope. “I watched you live countless lives and saw a pattern. You were always born on a third full moon of the year, once for every century. I tried desperately to reach you, but Fram had locked away your gifts.” He swallows hard. “When Arti was born, I knew that she’d be the one to give you life again. I . . . I tried to protect her from the Ka-Priest, but I couldn’t do much from my prison. I lessened the terror he seeded in her mind and filled in the holes, but her hatred for the orishas was her own. Re’Mec knew about her torture and all the women before her and did nothing to stop it.”