Kingdom of Souls

by Rena Barron

  Koré blinks her long lashes while studying my face. “I am helping, silly girl. Don’t you feel the Ka-Priestess’s magic wavering this very moment?” She has a sly gleam in her eyes. “I’ve been watching you, and if you’re up to what I think, now is the time to act.”

  I sense the change too—and a brief feeling of disorientation. My mind settles on the poison, but the curse doesn’t stir. I imagine myself pouring it into Arti’s wine. Still nothing. I meet Koré’s gaze again, my heart racing. “I’m going to kill her.”

  Koré picks up the tarnished box and the script glows brighter, then she turns to leave. “In truth, it could be too late, but I thought I’d try to help anyway.”

  “Wait, I need your help for my father!” I dart after her, but she dissolves into mist.

  Frustrated, I storm out of the alley and run straight into Terra. She clutches a small pouch in her hands—the palm bark. “Who was that?”

  I already know that the shotani can’t be trusted, but Koré said that others serve my mother by choice. Could Terra, Nezi, and Ty be among them? Even if Terra isn’t in league with my mother, Arti could’ve put a curse on her too. If so, she may try to stop me. I can’t risk it. “I’ll take the wine and tea home.” I clutch the jug so hard that my fingers ache. “I need you to carry a message to Rudjek.”

  “A message to the Vizier’s son at this hour?” Terra protests, loud enough to draw attention. “That’s a bad idea after what happened at his ceremony. Give it some time and his father—”

  “I need you to tell him that . . .” I bite my lip. “Tell him that I miss him.”

  She frowns. “Arrah . . .”

  “Terra, please,” I beg. “What harm could it do to try?”

  In the end, she works for our household, and for me—so she relents. Shame washes over me for ordering her on a fool’s errand. The trip to and from the Vizier’s estate will take at least an hour—more than enough time to find poison.

  I wade back through the shadowy parts of the market, shooing off drunkards and night traders. One merchant claims that his concoction is strong enough to kill ten cows. To prove that it works, he pours a bit of the clear liquid on an apple peel and feeds it to a caged rat. As soon as the rodent eats the offering, it drops dead.

  I wince, staring at its lifeless body, and the merchant gives me a look.

  The man asks no questions as he sells me a vial the size of my thumb. I pour most of the poison into the wine and soak the palm bark with the rest. Once I’m back home, I brew the tea myself and pour a cup of wine. I’m doing this for Kofi, for the other children, for my father, for all the people my mother hurt. There’s no other choice. I have to stop Arti before she succeeds in releasing the Demon King’s ka. By doing this I may forfeit my own life, my father’s, but I know he’ll understand. He’d do the same.

  I focus on everything but the reason so I don’t tempt the curse. For now I still have control over my actions. I don’t think about the consequences or about the darkness growing in my heart. Instead my mind turns to one of my fondest memories of my mother. It was an afternoon in Su’omi—the season of renewal, of rebirth. I couldn’t have been more than seven or eight years old. I was crying because Nezi and Ty had forced me into a frilly sheath to attend a ceremony at the Almighty Palace. I caused such a ruckus that my mother came to see what was the matter. Before she could ask, I buried my face into her golden kaftan and cried even harder. She’d hugged me tight against her waist, and I’d inhaled her sweet smell of honey and coconut oil. The moment didn’t last long, but it’s stayed with me all these years.

  I replay the memory over and over in my head as I prepare the tray of tea and wine, and take it to the salon. Arti sits there alone, half stretched out on the pillows, her face stark, with the bucket beside her. The sharp odor in the room turns my stomach.

  Her magic presses around me like feather strokes. My hands shake as I squat before her with the tray. Her hold over me is growing stronger again. “Your palm bark tea and wine.” I keep my voice as unfeeling as her own.

  “What took so long?” Arti struggles to sit up. “Where’s Terra?”

  “She’s still out.” I answer with a half truth.

  Arti’s hand shakes when she reaches for the tea. The cup overturns. Sweat drips down her forehead. Something deep inside me hates seeing her this way, but I’m glad she must suffer too.

  I rush to collect the cup to keep from meeting her eyes. “I can make you more.”

  “Don’t bother.” She grimaces and takes the wine with steadier hands. “This will do.”

  I stand still in front of my mother while she drinks the poison, holding my breath. She’s about to say something, remind me how clumsy I am or how much I disappoint her, but instead she mouths a quiet “Thank you.”

  My knees almost give out as I take the tray to the low table and pretend to be straightening the dishes to stall for time. I can’t leave until I know the poison is working. I bite the inside of my cheek while she drinks her fill of it. The coughing starts and doesn’t stop even when blood coats her lips. I stumble back, not quite comprehending what I’ve done, that the nightmare may be over. But instead of loosening, her noose tightens around my chest—my freedom vanishing.

  Leaning forward, Arti cradles her belly. My teeth clench as her bloodshot eyes find mine. Does she know? Let her strike me down if so. Arti throws up at my feet. Poisoned wine and what’s left of her evening meal splatters to the floor and sloshes between my toes.

  She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “Did you poison my wine?”

  Her voice cuts into me like a tobachi blade. Long, slow strokes.

  My mother can sniff out deception without so much as trying. Perhaps it’s because she’s so good at being deceitful herself. Had I told Terra, all it would take is one glance for Arti to suspect something. She’d read it in Terra’s eyes or a slight shift in her posture, or take notice of the smallest gleam of sweat on her brow. Her magic would skim around the edges of Terra’s mind, a trick she learned from her tormentor. But my mind is my own. It’s the one thing that even her magic—the demon magic—couldn’t take from me.

  “Of course not,” I lie, my voice smooth. Too calm. Too even. I step back from the mess at my feet. “Terra and I bought the wine from a merchant in the East Market.” I frown a little. “I haven’t seen him around before, but he had the best prices.”

  Arti shows no sign that she suspects I’m lying. I tried to kill her. Tried to kill my mother. Moths settle in my stomach, but I’m not sorry. I tell myself that my only regret is that it didn’t work. “You have many . . . many enemies,” I stutter, making up an excuse. “It could be that one of them recognized I was your daughter and tried to strike at you.”

  “A likely story had my true enemies not tried before and failed.” Arti smiles and a bit of the color comes back to her face. “The blood that runs in my veins is deadlier than any poison.”

  She glances away, done with me, but as I start to leave, her singsong voice catches me off guard. “You’re more like me than you realize, daughter.”

  Her accusation freezes me in place and I almost spit out a retort but hold my tongue. She wants to get under my skin. I won’t give her the satisfaction. I failed this time, but I won’t give up. I’ll keep trying until I take my last breath. Her eyes bore into my back as I remind her, “I am your daughter, after all.”

  Twenty

  Familiars sweep through the East Market again like gnats, drawn to death. The sting of rotten meat and rank fish drowns out the usual smells of peanut oil, spices, and fried plantains. Although the bright colors of the market haven’t changed, a grayness seeps into the cracks. It cloaks everything in shadows and mist.

  It’s only midday and sadness and anger thread through the crowd. People push and shove and curse at each other. Patrons shout obscenities at merchants over prices instead of just haggling. Merchants yell back and fights break out. The Guard in its drab uniforms is as bad as the Familiars, the way
it clings to the market. They rough people up without rhyme or reason. The whole city feels like my mother’s curse is destroying everything it touches.

  I couldn’t sleep last night—after trying and failing to poison my mother. When she said that failure was the only thing I’m good at, she was right. I’ve proven that. She found my attempt at murder amusing and simply dismissed me from the salon. Her arrogance, added to everything else, might as well be salt poured into an open wound. Although she made it seem like she didn’t care, I’ve sensed the curse’s keen presence all day. I couldn’t write to Grandmother when I sat down this morning and tried.

  I push and shove through the crowd too, my irritation growing. I yank at my collar as sweat glides down my back. It isn’t hotter than any given Tamaran day—which is to say it’s blistering hot. But the market is so packed that it’s hard to breathe, let alone move. Every third person is looking for a fight, or fresh out of one. I search for Majka or Kira to hear what message Rudjek sends.

  It’s the memory of your smile that keeps me sane in these trying times. So melodramatic. Majka blushed delivering the message, but he’ll get no pity from me. As much as Majka and Kira complain about Rudjek’s behavior, they’re every bit as insolent as him. Yet his messages bring me comfort when I lie awake in bed at night, reliving those awful moments at the Temple.

  When I’m not thinking about the Temple, I dwell on another fear—a fear that the almost kiss unlocked. A part of me worries that Rudjek’s mother will want him paired with a Northern princess like her. All the beautiful girls at his Coming of Age Ceremony weren’t there by accident. Their families brought them to meet the future Vizier. Whenever his father introduced him to someone, they introduced him to their daughters. Girls of sweeping grace who could charm snakes with their sweet words.

  But in the gardens, there was only us. His scent of wood smoke and lilac tangling my senses, his lips so close to mine. Heat awakened in me, and my thoughts had little to do with meeting in the market or fishing at the river. How long has this thing between us been boiling beneath the surface?

  I shouldn’t think about him, not with all that’s happened. I’m betraying the memory of Kofi and the children by having even the smallest moment of joy. Why should I be happy while their parents suffer and grieve? It’s not fair. But my friendship with Rudjek is the only thing my mother hasn’t taken. It keeps me from falling to pieces. Hope is daunting in the face of desperation, yet I cling to it, no matter how withered and how small. It’s foolish to believe someone like me can stop my mother when even the orishas have failed, but I won’t give up. I’ve failed at magic so much that I know how to lock the pain away and keep trying.

  “I’ve missed you too.”

  I stop in my tracks, my heart racing and warmth flooding through my body. Rudjek’s voice is deep, low and playful, punctuated by the longing dancing in my chest. It has none of the arrogance and bravado of when he talks about the arena. I turn to find him by my side in the sway of the crowd, and despite myself, my breath hitches a little. I’m surprised he’s come himself; I expected another message through Majka or Kira. He beams at me with twinkles in his midnight eyes, another foolish grin on his face as if he’s bewitched.

  Bewitched by me.

  I’m bewitched by him.

  Rudjek, my best friend.

  Rudjek, something more.

  We stop in the middle of the crowded market, people flowing around us like a rushing river. The throng hums with noise, but it fades to the background as I take a step closer to him. He does the same. Now there’s very little space between us, like in the gardens, and a flush of anticipation flutters in my belly.

  “Your father let you leave?” My words come out husky.

  Rudjek scratches his head. “He finally saw the error of his ways.”

  I spot Majka and Kira nearby, scanning the crowds. “I doubt that.”

  Rudjek’s eyes land somewhere on my body that makes his cheeks burn, and then he glances away. “I’m sorry you had to see that. My father is a selfish ass.”

  I laugh not because it’s true or funny. I laugh because if we are competing for who has the most awful parent, I would win that honor a thousand times over. “He could be much worse.”

  “My mother took my side, and we wore him down,” he says as two patrons sidestep us, one cursing under his breath.

  “Wore the Vizier down?” I laugh again. “I can’t imagine that.”

  “We reminded him that I’m his only viable heir.”

  I cock my head and purse my lips at him. “A threat, then.”

  “If I’m so disagreeable”—Rudjek shrugs—“he can always choose Jemi or Uran.”

  I take a deep breath. “I never meant to cause strife between you and your father.”

  Rudjek leans closer. He’s going to kiss me. I want him to, but instead he runs a teasing finger down one of my braids. “You can’t imagine how long I’ve wanted to do that.”

  Heat creeps up my neck. “You used to pull my hair all the time when we were little.”

  “Can we get out of here?” Rudjek shifts his hands to his hips. “Go to our fishing spot?”

  I arch an eyebrow and cluck my tongue at him.

  “With Majka and Kira, of course.” Rudjek winks. “I promise to behave.”

  I don’t want him to behave. I want the kiss his father interrupted—a kiss to forget the bad, a kiss to bury the pain. Heka’s vision showed me a bleak future, but at least I can have this one thing, while the Kingdom is still in one piece.

  The muted sounds of the market rush back in.

  They never left, did they?

  When a troupe of paid mourners cuts through the crowd, we split apart. Rudjek steps to one side and me to the other. Women tear at their already tattered clothes, kohl streaking down their cheeks. They pray to Kiva, the orisha of children, to save the souls of the fallen. A chill runs up my spine as Familiars fan through the mourners, feeding off their emotions.

  They know.

  “They’ve found the children!” someone screams.

  Guards shove through the market.

  “Below the cliffs near the Temple,” yells another.

  By the time the mourners pass, I wonder if Koré or another orisha has seen to it that someone found the children. The shotani would’ve hidden the bodies well, so this can be no accident.

  “The Temple is on fire!” comes a third shout.

  It’s true.

  Black smoke swells atop the cliffs above the city, obscuring the Temple from sight.

  I grab Rudjek’s arm and push against the flow of the crowd. People elbow their way toward the Temple, but another path will get us to the bottom of the precipice faster. By the time we clear the throng and land by the sacred Gaer tree, we’re both soaked in sweat and panting. Somewhere in the fray we’ve lost Majka and Kira. Rudjek stares at me, his mouth open, his earlier flirtation replaced by grim realization. Neither of us can speak. My mind slips back to the nightmare of Arti’s ritual and the demon eating the children’s souls. My father eating their souls.

  “We tried, Arrah,” Rudjek says.

  He doesn’t know how wrong he is, or the depths of my involvement. What would he think of me if he did? I watched the children’s lives snatched away so that the monster in my mother’s belly could exist. Rudjek shudders, seeing the guilt in my eyes. Put the pieces together! They found the children near the Temple. My thoughts scream what my tongue won’t allow me to speak.

  “It isn’t your fault,” he reassures me. “You gave so much with that ritual.”

  The plume of smoke above the Temple has doubled in size. Good. Let the vile place burn to ashes and my mother along with it. Let the fire destroy her the way she’s destroyed me. “This isn’t about me, Rudjek.” I wince. “You don’t understand.”

  I strain against Arti’s magic, the demon magic, but it tightens around my body and ka. Sharp pain cuts across my ribs and spreads to my belly. Koré said that the curse wouldn’t kill me. So I’ll
keep pushing until either it cracks, or it tears me apart. My legs are the first to give. Rudjek launches forward, and as he grabs my arm, the magic relents. Relief floods through me, and the curse uncoils in my limbs, as though testing to see if it hurt me. It reaches for my mind, tickling at the base of my neck, and stops there.

  Rudjek glances down at his craven-bone emblem. “Arrah . . .”

  “You felt that too?” I ask, hopeful.

  It wasn’t the same as with Sukar at his Coming of Age Ceremony. That had been like the sting of fire ants. This feels like a simmering fire pressing against a cold night, the crash of waves against a rocky shore.

  Still entangled with me, Rudjek looks at me with flushed cheeks. “That felt . . . nice.”

  The Gaer tree nudges against my back. No thorns this time. Rudjek’s hands are warm on my forearms, and he’s so near that his chest almost brushes mine. He realizes how close we are and makes to pull away, but I hold on to him. I need him to make the connection between the children and the Temple, but he mistakes my intentions.

  “Arrah.” He recites my name in his throaty timbre—drawing it out like a song.

  There it is.

  My undoing.

  Rudjek beams at me with that look again, but I tense at the five men lurking behind him. I don’t recognize any of them—and they’re not City Guard or wearing fancy elaras. Rudjek gives me a knowing nod, and turns on his heels, his hands on the hilts of his shotels as the men draw closer. Their faces are hard, with deep lines etched into their skin. Smut and dirt stain their threadbare tunics. But it isn’t their appearance that sets me on edge, it’s the glint of trouble brewing in their eyes. “The orishas have answered our prayers,” one of the men muses. His voice is low and seething like stone grating against stone. “They have delivered the son of the Vizier and daughter of the Ka-Priestess. If we punish you, they will forgive Tamar for the tragedy that has befallen the Kingdom.”