Demon's Arrow

by Rachel Devenish Ford

  In the morning, Aria felt refreshed and ready to continue. It was as though the arrow in her was a magnet being led to another magnet. She followed the feeling, as true and strong as anything she had ever felt. She had been lost for so long, but now she had a purpose.

  That night she ate stew she cooked from a lizard she shot. She tried to ignore Keethior. He had flown high above her all day, giving her space, but rejoined her while she was cooking her stew over a tiny fire. The stars began to come out and the air grew cold. Aria hunched over her fire for warmth, stirring the stew. Finally she grew angry enough to ask him the question that had been burning in her ever since he had come.

  “Why is it, bird, that normally you only help my sister? Speak to her? Care for her? Why is it that some people are deemed more special than others?” He didn’t answer. She shot him a look and poured the stew into a metal bowl, flinching when it burned her. “Why is it that you ignore me?” she went on. “Why does Nenyi ignore me? Why do you choose her, the one that gave me up? Why is it that I was sent out, and she remains? Why is that I caught the arrow that was meant for her? Why is it that things are so unequal?” She took a shaky breath and held her face over the hot soup, breathing in. The bird opened and closed his wings.

  “You imagine that Nenyi has forgotten you,” he said.

  “He has,” Aria said, shooting him another glare.

  “You couldn’t be more wrong. Nenyi would never leave his daughter. He is with you, protecting you even now as you betray him.”

  “He betrayed me!” Aria shouted. “And you didn’t answer my question!” She put the bowl down, breathing too hard to eat. “You tell me that Nenyi is with me, but how can it be when I have never in my life felt his touch?”

  Keethior waved his wings gently back and forth. Aria crossed her arms over her belly and rocked back and forth.

  “Daughter,” the bird said. “You feel his touch every day. You feel it in the sun on your skin and the food in your belly and the trees around you lifting their branches to protect you. Now I am here because of his love for you, but you are rejecting his touch because of the pain inside you.”

  “Everyone feels the sun,” Aria said. “I’m talking about the special love that Isika feels. How is that only for her?”

  “Maybe you need to understand the simple love that comes to all before this other special love that you want. But even as you betray your people, Nenyi will not leave you. You cannot leave her presence or concern for you. You cannot get rid of it. It is not within your power.”

  Through the flames of the fire between them, Aria glared at Keethior with all the hatred in her heart. The glow of the fire reflected in the bird’s black eyes. She waited for the anger within her to reach its peak force, and then she spit her words at him.

  “I am leaving. I am not coming back. I will never come back to Nenyi or to Maween. I am going to my proper place with my father and I hope you and Isika and all the people who have done me wrong will feel the pain of his rage when I tell him what you have done to me.”

  With her words, the bird gave a long, keening wail. He flew out into the night in a storm of wind, and Aria fell on her face sobbing. She had never felt so alone.

  Keethior flew back to Isika in the brilliant pre-sunset light, and they sat on the porch of her house together, looking over the houses and gardens that tumbled down one hill and up the next. It had been cloudy, and the clouds were lit up by strong light, tinged like copper. The Othra had been sending Isika flashes of what he saw, though he couldn’t maintain a connection strong enough over the distance to show her everything.

  She had seen pictures, enough to hurt—Aria, hunched, angry, thin, stumbling through sand, looking like a waif in the large bowl of the desert. Her heart ached as she saw flashes of Aria’s anger and heard her venomous words. On the porch, Keethior told her the things she hadn’t already heard. Aria was going to the Desert King in Dhahara, the far away city of the Gariah people, and Isika could barely hold herself together. She leaned her head on her knees and cried for her sister. She wept for all the pain and anger inside of Aria. She wanted to leave and find her that minute, but she knew it wouldn’t be any good for her to run off on her own.

  She sat with Keethior in silence, wiping the tears that wouldn’t stop. Keethior gently waved his huge wings back and forth, and Isika’s heart began to settle into some kind of peace.

  “Is she lost to us?” Isika asked the bird.

  Keethior cocked his head and clicked his scolding rasp. “Do you have a poison arrow also, my sister?” he asked. “No one is ever lost to us. There is nothing lost that cannot be retrieved. And I didn’t tell you the rest,” he added, looking at her with one bright black eye. “I found the young son of Andar. Gavi is there following her, watching over her.”

  Isika’s eyes widened. She looked down over the hill with all its gentle people, going about their work, getting ready for the end of the day. She felt the weight of her past and the weight of her future and sighed.

  “Well,” she said. “That is something.”

  Chapter 10

  At first, Gavi followed at a distance because he knew Aria wanted to be alone and would not appreciate him witnessing her misery. As she grew more weak, though, he had to offer his help. He watched her go a whole day without looking for water. She ignored so much of her training that he was stunned by how much she had lost, how forgetful she had become.

  She knows better, he thought, as Aria walked past a spring without refilling her water flask. He stooped and filled two extra flasks. That night, as she was sleeping, he switched her empty flask with a full one. He began to leave roots and desert plants at her campsite for her to find in the morning.

  He tried to watch out for her. One night, he shot a predator that came too near, a large, weasel-like animal that he left in a shadow of a dune, not wanting to risk eating it. The desert stretched in every direction. They wandered beside a tiny stream, just a trickle alongside a line of trees. Aria followed the stream as though she knew exactly where she was going. Gavi wondered about her sense of direction. How was she so sure about where she walked?

  Keethior came to him one day and asked him what he was doing.

  “What do you think you will accomplish by following Aria, son of Andar?” the Othra called to him.

  Gavi wouldn’t speak to Keethior. He didn’t trust the Othra not to try to sway him. Gavi knew what he needed to do as clearly as if Nenyi had landed in front of him and shouted it. He needed to guard Aria, with his life if needed. His loyalty was to the girl he followed as she stumbled from dune to dune in sand that was deep and difficult to get through. He smiled and waved at Keethior, until the bird scolded him and flew away.

  Gavi grinned to himself, knowing that through Keethior, Jabari and Isika would learn where he was. Hopefully the knowledge would keep them from worry.

  He did grow frustrated as they walked farther and farther across the desert. He didn’t know where Aria was going, but as the days passed and she did not waver, he began to see that they had to be headed straight for the walled city of the desert under the reign of King Ikajo. He worried about what would happen if they entered Dhahara, the Desert City with Aria so weak and deceived. He couldn’t be sure, but he knew the Desert King had wanted Isika. Maybe he was calling Aria now, knowing that Isika would never come.

  One day, worried and tired of worrying, he decided to approach Aria. He walked toward her over a dune as she trudged through the sand, tottering from step to step. She looked up at him and her eyes were glassy and wild. It took her a long time to recognize him, and he felt despair prick at his stomach. She stared at him, finally seeming to see him.

  “I thought you were a vision,” she said.

  “Have you been having those?” Gavi asked.

  “Sometimes,” she said.

  “You need to drink more water,” Gavi said, as he handed her his flask. She took a tiny sip and then handed it back without saying a word. They walked like that for a whil
e longer, stumbling through the scraggy dunes.

  “You don’t seem to be so well,” Gavi said, reaching out to grab her hand briefly and giving it a squeeze.

  “I feel fine,” Aria said. Her voice was flat.

  “You’re walking very slowly,” Gavi said.

  “I am a seeker just like you,” Aria spat at him. “I know how to travel across a desert.”

  “I know that, and I believe you can, but you’re so sick, Aria. You’re not going very fast and I’m worried that you won’t be able to get where you’re trying to go. I worry that you will die before you get there.”

  She didn’t deign to answer him, and they kept walking. Every once in a while she would give him an angry look, as though she wanted to be rid of him. But she didn’t say anything and they continued to walk. Gavi tried to think about what he could possibly say to get her to come back to Maween with him.

  That night he camped beside her. He shot her a desert lizard and helped her prepare food. She seemed very tired that night. She lay on her bedroll, letting him help her. She ate the food he gave her.

  She even let him lay a hand on her forehead and try to take some of the arrow’s poison. He could feel how little of Aria was left around the arrow and felt that shiver of despair again. Her sickness was so advanced and they were so alone.

  The next morning they ate the rest of the lizard stew over a small fire. They drank cups of coffee that Gavi had made with the supplies in his pack. Aria smiled at him tentatively after she took a sip of coffee.

  “I’ve missed this,” she said.

  The sun was rising just behind her, and it made the escaped fuzz of her hair glow. Gavi knew that he had to speak.

  “You are so sick, Aria,” he said. “Please come back to Maween with me.”

  She stared at him, her smile disappearing, replaced with fear and rage in her eyes. She stood up, ran toward him, and shoved him so that he fell backward over the log he was sitting on, splashing hot coffee over himself. She slapped him then, and the shock of violence from a friend hurt much more than her little slap. He held up a hand to stop her when it seemed that she would hit him again. She took a step back, and he slowly got up, shaking coffee off his shirt.

  The sun swung suddenly above the horizon, and he could see the lines of anger in her face, in every muscle as she stood facing him, fists clenched. If she would hit him, she was farther gone than he had known.

  “I will not be turned back,” she hissed, and her voice changed until it sounded like a mud demon. Gavi faced her, keeping his face calm, though terror for his friend raged inside of him. “I know where I am going and you cannot change my mind, so don’t bother trying. Leave me alone, Maweel brat. You are no longer my friend, no longer my brother. I am going to my father and my true people.”

  Poison oozed from her words, driving fear and despair into him. He watched as she rolled her things and set out. He sat on a rock for a long while, but the conviction to guard her didn’t budge, so he stood to follow, weary and sore of body and heart.

  He followed at a distance again, watching over her. At some point every day, he would turn up and smile at her to let her know he was there. But then he would retreat so her anger couldn’t find a place to land, so he wouldn’t feed the demon that was trying to take her over. His days were filled with boredom and a heavy heart as he simply followed. He listened and walked carefully, offering her help when she needed it, heaping sand to shelter her from the wind when there was no shelter. He filled her flask. He shot desert lizards or rabbits when she forgot about food, and some days he felt so lonely, he wished he could go back, but his conviction never wavered, so he followed.

  Chapter 11

  Isika left Petitions one afternoon and found Jabari sitting on the steps in front of the palace. She watched him for a moment as he sat with his chin in his hands, gazing out across the town and the stone road to the valley below.

  He glanced up. “Hey,” he said. “I was just thinking about you.”

  Isika felt heat come to her face. “Aren’t you always?” she asked, sitting next to him.

  He laughed. “I meant more than usual,” he said. “I was thinking about how tired you must be, going back and forth from pottery where I know Tomas bosses you without mercy, to Petitions, where my parents make you sit for hours. Aren’t you exhausted?”

  Isika felt tears prick behind her eyes at the unexpected sympathy.

  “Well,” she said, composing herself. “I did come from a Worker village, so I understand work. I think they’re trying to prepare me for being queen. Unceasing work,” she said, at the same time as Jabari. He grinned at her.

  “Ivram?” he asked.

  “Of course,” she said. “You’ve heard it.” She was quiet for a moment, then laid her forehead on her hand. “The exhausting thing . . .” she broke off and Jabari finished the sentence for her.

  “. . . is worrying about Aria,” he said.

  She looked at him. “You knew.”

  “Because I’m tired of worrying about Gavi,” he said. “And Aria.”

  It was late afternoon and all around birds were beginning their evening calls. The trees whispered in the tiniest of breezes. The season had been hot, hotter than usual. Isika felt ready for the coolness to begin, the rains to come first and then cool air to wake them up in the mornings with light touches on their faces.

  She looked out over what would one day be her realm and sought pride or excitement. But she was discouraged. Had she found Aria only to lose her? Jabari elbowed her.

  “I know what you need,” he said, his mouth lifting at the corners. “Let’s go to the market tree.”

  Isika smiled.

  The market was teeming with life, with everybody there to buy food to prepare for the evening meal. The stalls were busy, the vegetables ripe. Women with colorful headscarves haggled over prices, cloth sellers called out to one another. Isika saw giant piles of tomatoes, greens, the golden yellow of ripe mangos. The tree that spread over the market was the oldest and largest tree in Azariyah, with huge smooth branches that twisted over one another, and large bright green leaves.

  As soon as Isika reached the tree, she leaned against it and spread her arms across the wide trunk. She sighed, her spine tingling with happiness as the tree’s lifesong found her. It was like falling into a warm bath or slipping into the cool waters of a lake.

  She climbed up the tree and into its branches, vaguely aware of Jabari climbing after her. She found her favorite wide branch and lay down like a cat, her arms on either side, eyes closed, her cheek resting on the warm wood.

  Visions flickered behind her eyelids as they often did in the tree. A city, a garden, and a red-robed man who was familiar to her. He had been with her father when the Desert King had tried to burn her city down.

  In the vision the red-robed man was smiling, and Isika felt her heart reach out to him with happiness as he stretched his hand to her.

  She blinked and came out of the vision. Jabari was sitting on another branch, not far away. His back rested against the gray trunk of the tree. His eyes were closed.

  “I saw the red-robed man from your dreams,” she said.

  Jabari looked at her, startled. “I’ve been dreaming about him every night,” he said.

  “Do you feel happy when you see him?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  “That’s how I felt just now,” she said. “What does it mean?”

  He shook his head. “Did you see any big cats?” he asked.

  “Big cats?”

  “I’ve been dreaming about large silver cats.”

  “Do they exist?”

  “In legend. But the legends seem to be coming to life lately.”

  Isika sat up on her branch, reaching her arms up to the one above her.

  “Jabari,” she said. Isika wanted to go after Aria. It was obvious, as soon as she saw Jabari’s face, that he didn’t think she should go. He looked as though he knew what she was going to say, and a muscle flexed
in his jaw. She crossed her arms, balancing on the branch easily.

  “I want to go find Aria,” she said. “I know I said I would go to the Karee people, but I need to go to Aria, and Keethior says she’s going to Dhahara.” It didn’t matter what he said, she knew she was the one who had to go and find her sister. It was her fault that Aria had been pierced by a poison arrow, her fault that Aria was sick and had gone to their father. Isika felt a familiar flash of panic at the thought of her little sister wandering into the Desert City.

  Jabari was shaking his head before she even finished. “I should have known I would have to talk sense into you,” he said.

  “I have plenty of sense, thank you!“ Isika snapped, her temper beginning to boil.

  He lifted his hands, seeing the look on her face. “Hear me out,” he said.

  He rubbed his hair with one long hand, distracting Isika from her anger. He was keeping it longer these days, little spiky tendrils of curl that Isika liked. She pulled her eyes back to his face and scowled.

  “I’m listening,” she said, her voice flat.

  “Her gift tells her where you are. We don’t know yet what she will do. She could betray you to your father if she knew you were there.”

  “She would never . . .”

  “You don’t know what she will do!” Jabari’s voice cracked a little and Isika sat straighter. He was upset. She hadn’t seen it. She had thought they were just wandering back into a typical Isika and Jabari argument. “She’s not herself, Isika. From this point on we have to treat her as though we don’t know her. She’s dangerous like this, especially near King Ikajo. I would’ve said that she would never leave us and go to the Desert King,” he went on. “I would’ve said that my brother would never leave without telling me goodbye. It seems to be a time of impossible things. People do things we never would’ve dreamed they would do. People try to set fire to our city and people can heal rivers that we thought were poisoned, and our friends run away,” his voice broke again and his hair was completely mussed. “We can’t say what Aria will do. We can’t say whether she will betray you. It’s too dangerous. You can’t go. Until you can learn to block her, you can’t go.”