by Rena Barron
The tragedy that is my mother.
Rudjek draws his shotels before the man finishes speaking. I can tell there will be no negotiating. No talking them off this path. People want answers, and men like these speak with their swords first. The Vizier doesn’t let Rudjek leave their estate without attendants for a reason. Majka and Kira aren’t servants who fetch his slippers or pin his cloak about his shoulders. They aren’t just his friends. They’ve been arena-trained for most of their lives before passing a rigid test to become gendars.
The Omari family has enemies. They’ve held the Vizier title for generations and no shortage of people want to unseat them. My mother chief among them. What of the enemies she’s gathered over the years? The families of the children she claimed for Shezmu.
The men pull their shotels, the curved blades like crescent moons. Although they each have one to Rudjek’s two, their blades are no less sharp. It’s not like at the Blood Moon Festival where the Litho boys had been all talk. These men advance without warning and Rudjek rushes forward to meet their steel. I grit my teeth—desperately searching for anything to use as a weapon. If only I had my staff, or even a halfway decent stick, but there’s only the tree and the soil shifting beneath my feet.
Rudjek clashes swords with two of them, and spins to stop another headed straight for me. His steel is a flash of brilliance as he becomes one with his weapons, stalking and leaping like a great leopard. The men aim their shotels for his throat, his heart, and his stomach. All the spots to kill, but he bats them away with finesse and ease. He always brags that he’s one of the best swordsmen outside of the gendars. It may be true, though he’ll never get me to admit it.
Spinning on his heels, Rudjek slices through one of the men’s shoulders and cuts another across his side. Tension stiffens his neck as he strikes and draws back. He wants them to relent, but they keep coming. Another cut. This one across a forearm.
Bile creeps up my throat as blood pours from the men’s wounds, and my thoughts drift to the Temple. To the children. The magic in my chest flares and I grab fists of dirt and throw it at the two men closest to me. At least I can slow them down.
They drop their shotels and claw at their faces.
Dirty swine.
Serves them right for attacking us. Let the dirt burn their eyes.
I scoop up two more fistfuls and gasp. The other three attackers stumble back, their wide eyes pinned on their friends. I back against the bald tree too, my hands trembling. I only meant to stop them.
The men’s screams ring in my ears as the soil burns through their flesh and blood runs down their cheeks. They fall to their knees, their skin blistering and cracking. I can’t breathe as the demon magic coils around my heart like a protective cocoon. This is my mother’s doing. This is her cursed gift.
Twenty-One
I’m still shaking when we reach the bottom of the precipice that leads up to the Almighty Temple. Black smoke billows from the cliffs in earnest now; it’s hard to tell how much of the Temple has burned. As we shove our way through the crowd, I see flashes of our attackers’ faces. Their skin melted like churned butter in the heat. I keep wiping my hands against my tunic, desperate to wash away the horrible thing that I’ve done.
I’m not like her. I mouth the words as Rudjek pulls me along behind him. The crowd pushes against the line of City Guards blocking the path. They shout that Re’Mec sent a firestorm to strike down the Temple for allowing such desecration. They whisper that the seers are dead. I hope it’s true—at least of my mother. That would mean this nightmare is finally over. If Arti is dead, I will spit on her body for the wrong she’s done and what she’s made me do. Even then, it won’t absolve me of my part in the ritual, or my crime today at the sacred Gaer tree. The orishas should strike me down, too.
Rudjek and I are so close that his breath is on my face, and I can almost taste his fear. There are shotani in the crowd, hiding in plain sight, dressed as commoners or posing as City Guard. The echo of their magic dances across my forearms. I used to think of their magic as taunting, beyond my grasp. But no more. Now that I’ve seen a glimpse of what this curse is capable of.
A guard steps in my path. The man is twice my height and glares down at me with hazel eyes sharp enough to cut stone. Behind him people pass buckets of water up the steep precipice. They have wet cloth tied around their mouths and noses to fight off the smoke. “We need to get to the Temple,” I shout over the noise of the crowd, an ache growing in my belly.
“No one gets through!” the guard yells, spit spraying my face. “Orders from the Vizier.”
“But . . .” I try to push around him.
“You heard me, girl,” the man barks as he tightens his grasp on his shotel.
“Step aside,” Rudjek demands, authority threading through his words. Disheveled after the fight, he wears an expression as unwavering as his father’s. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”
The guard spots the lion-head crest pinned to Rudjek’s elara. His face turns grim, and he curses under his breath before moving. The panic in my belly eases a little, but it doesn’t go away.
Once we’re through the line, Rudjek touches my shoulder and we stop. His hand is ice-cold and my legs tremble beneath the weight of his searching eyes. Though I don’t want to talk about the awful thing I’ve done, I can’t avoid the subject forever. Behind him a man with a braided beard and sun-blistered skin pushes his way up to the same guard who let us pass.
“That was magic, Arrah,” Rudjek says. “I thought that . . .”
“I can’t explain . . .” The curse clamps down on my words.
“How long have you known?”
“Not long,” I answer. Damn this curse. Damn it for what it did to those men and for holding me hostage. Koré had said that the demon magic would keep me safe. I didn’t expect anything like what happened beneath the sacred Gaer tree. This curse is a sick, twisted joke.
All my life I’ve longed to have magic like my father, like my mother. I wanted to make Grandmother, the great Aatiri chieftain, proud. Years toiling over blood medicines in Oshhe’s shop. Years undertaking the tests at the Blood Moon Festival. The anticipation that I might one day reach into the sky and pluck up a spark of magic. The frustration of constantly failing. Then giving up my years for enough magic to see the child snatcher—to see my mother. I don’t want this . . . gift. If I could, I’d claw it from my chest.
“Let me through!” the man with the braided beard yells. “My boy’s up there.”
My heart sinks as I think of Kofi’s father. The families deserve to know what happened to their children, even if it won’t ease their suffering.
“Same as I told you last—”
Before the guard can finish, the bearded man punches him in the face.
All it takes is one person unable to hold back his rage, and fighting erupts in earnest. Fists swing, followed by flashes of silver. Within moments the crowd overruns the guards. Some abandon the water chain to help restore order, but no one bothers us as we climb the cliff.
Halfway up, we slow to catch our breath. Rudjek’s eyes are bloodshot, his skin smut-stained. The smoke draws tears from my eyes and soot coats my tongue, too. Choking back a fit of coughing, Rudjek offers me his hand and I take it. We stare at each other in silence, our fingers intertwined in an unbreakable bond. A bond that started all those years ago over a fishing pole beside the Serpent River. We don’t need words for this moment. This small gesture is a declaration of all the things we’ve never said.
The second afternoon bells toll as we reach the summit and pass through the Temple gates. My chest hurts from breathing in smoke. People scatter across the courtyard and gardens in disarray. Some shout out orders, some look dazed and confused. Smut and grime cover everyone and everything. Of the five buildings once linked by the half-moon ingress, three stand unscathed. The fire is under control and the last tendrils of smoke drift up from the desecrated Hall of Orishas. The building next to it, where I attend lessons,
is nothing but cinder and charred stone too.
Free from their shadowy home, the orisha statues remain untouched by the fire. They towered in the hall, but that was nothing compared to their magnificence beneath the open sky. Even the Unnamed one looks ethereal. Sunlight bends around their eternal darkness, the effect breathtaking and surreal. Where each statue sits, a patch of forever night persists in the heart of day. Beyond them, the rocky cliffs sketch a line against the horizon.
Three bodies lie on the ground near the part of the gardens that collapsed during Arti’s vile ritual. Their faces are covered, but one wears a kaftan blackened by smut. My muscles seize and I stop. It’s not my mother. That would be too easy. No simple fire could put an end to her.
The Vizier appears from one of the buildings the fire spared, a dozen gendars on his heels. They’re in full battle armament, their red tunics beneath silver breastplates. The poor bastards must be sweating rivers. They wear two shotels on either side of their hips in leather scabbards. The Vizier raises one hand to stop them in their tracks. His white elara is pristine amidst so much devastation.
He advances on us alone, his hands on the hilts of the polished swords sheathed at his side. His gaze rakes over me like I’m nothing more than a gnat for him to swat. Then he takes in Rudjek’s dirty elara. The smut and bloodstains. His eyes shift from annoyance to disgust.
“I see you haven’t learned your lesson,” the Vizier snaps at him.
Rudjek crosses his arms by way of a response.
A stitch catches in my side from the climb. “Is my mother . . .”
“Dead?” the Vizier spits, seething. “Unfortunately, no.”
I can’t look at him without remembering that he accused Arti of bewitching the Almighty One. Does he think that I’ve bewitched his son, too? His accusation set her upon this path. He isn’t to blame for her actions, but his hands are dirty too.
“Must you always be so crass?” Rudjek frowns at his father. “What happened?”
“I’d think that would be obvious by now,” he answers. “Someone set fire to the Temple.”
“The children.” The curse tightens in my chest. “Is it true?” I work out what the magic will let me say. “Is it true about the children?”
The Vizier grits his teeth. “Yes.”
I choose my next words with care. “Two tragedies befall the Temple, and . . .”
I let the statement trail off, leading. I need them to figure out the truth.
Rudjek grimaces. “You think that someone in the Temple killed them?”
Yes. I struggle to get the word out, even to nod, and they both notice.
Now put the rest together, Rudjek, I beg with my eyes, with my heart. It’s Arti.
“I don’t like you one bit.” The Vizier glares at me. “And I’m sick of your riddles.”
“Nor do I like you,” I shoot back, “but I’m trying to help.”
“Mind your tongue or lose it.” The Vizier’s tone is the calm before a storm. It’s not an empty threat.
The demon magic seethes underneath my skin, like a taut cord aching to snap. I take a step forward so I stand toe to toe with him. This is a mistake. I should stop before things get worse, but I hate the way his lips curl into a mocking smile. A not-so-subtle challenge. How dare he threaten me when he had the Ka-Priest break my mother’s mind beyond repair? He should pay for his crimes and right now, I’m of a mind to make him.
Another force pushes against me; its sharp fangs prick my neck in warning. My eyes land on the craven-bone pendant on the Vizier’s elara and his smile turns darker. Dirty, cheating swine. He’d be nothing without those bones to protect him.
Rudjek steps between his father and me. He shifts his stance wide and reaches for the hilts of his shotels to rest his hands. The two face each other, mirror images, both unyielding. “Leave her alone.” Rudjek squeezes the hilts so hard that the color bleeds from his knuckles. “You’ve done enough damage already.”
“I haven’t the time for this foolishness.” The Vizier walks a few paces away and waves for his gendars. “I have the Kingdom to run.”
The soldiers lead the seers from the part of the Temple that hasn’t burned. Smut spoils their tattered robes. It’s obvious why the Vizier doesn’t want more people here. In this state, the seers look worse than the charlatans on the streets peddling good luck charms. The attendants come out next and I let out a sigh of relief. Sukar is among them. He’s busy helping another attendant who’s been badly burned and doesn’t see us across the courtyard.
Another set of gendars march Arti out last. To my disappointment, she’s unscathed—no sign that the fire has touched her. Her growing belly doesn’t show yet underneath her gold kaftan. Even in the midst of all this damage and chaos, my mother is radiant and composed. More so than the Vizier himself. The gendars give her a wide berth; they dare not touch the Ka-Priestess, lest she damns them. They march her to the Vizier, who stands flanked by two guards. He would have more if he knew the true reach of my mother’s powers, the devastation she’s capable of.
“By decree of the Almighty One,” the Vizier announces, “I hereby remove you from your position as Ka-Priestess of the Kingdom.” His impassive expression doesn’t match the satisfaction brimming in his voice. “The defiling of the Temple and the murder of innocents happened under your nose. You alone are responsible and hereby banished from the Kingdom.”
My breath catches in my throat. Banishment. It pales in the face of what she deserves, but this could be a chance. If she’s gone, the distance between us may weaken her curse and I can try again to send a message to Grandmother. But before my thoughts settle into any sign of hope, a sense of dread comes to roost in my chest.
My mother returns his arrogant smile with one of her own. “I accept my punishment without argument, Vizier,” she answers, as if he’s said nothing of consequence to her.
“If it were up to me,” he barks, “I’d have your head, but Jerek is a fool.”
Arti wrinkles her nose at the mention of the Almighty One by name. “I’m grateful for your mercy.”
“Should you set one foot on Kingdom soil again”—the Vizier leans closer to her, his eyes menacing—“I will have you executed on sight.”
Arti’s look of indifference doesn’t falter, nor does she lower her head in submission. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up as a hint of magic licks the air. The Vizier turns a little gray, and he takes a half step back from my mother. If not for his craven bone to block her magic, she could kill him with the snap of her fingers.
The Vizier cuts his eyes at me, then back to Arti. “I banish your whole family from the Kingdom from this day forth.”
“No,” Rudjek whispers, his body tensing next to me.
A trickle of sweat glides down my forehead, and my pulse drums in my ears. He . . . he can’t do this. Where would I go? Tamar is my home. My friends are here. My life is here.
The demon magic roars, and I curl my hands into fists. It wants to strike at the Vizier, but I fight to get control over it. Attacking him would only make matters worse. I was so close to making that mistake only moments ago. Now I must be smarter. Compared to the Demon King, the Vizier is of little consequence. Perhaps Arti thought the same.
Rudjek, though, storms toward his father, his face flushed with heat. Two gendars grab him from behind. He elbows one in the stomach and twists out of the other’s grasp. Another two disarm him, and as he fights to free himself, more come to stop him. “Don’t do this, Father!” Rudjek screams. “Arrah’s done nothing wrong!”
“Come, daughter.” Arti beckons me. “The Vizier’s word is law . . .” She pauses, and her callous, matter-of-fact tone cracks me in two. “For now.”
If the Vizier hears her slight, he doesn’t respond as he watches Rudjek fight against his gendars. They have him pinned to the ground. I want to go to him, but the magic responds to Arti. Tears cloud my eyes as I walk to her side. Is this it, then? The last I’ll see of Rudjek, my friends, my home
. An eerie numbness settles in my body and mind as I stare in disbelief. This whole day has been a waking nightmare from which there is no escape.
“Let me go,” Rudjek yells. “Release me!”
He kicks and screams and punches. It takes a dozen gendars to hold him, and they’re beaten and battered and bloodied in the exchange.
“This is for your own good,” the Vizier calls out to his son. “You’ll come to realize that soon.”
Arti rests a hand on my shoulder. There’s calculation in her cold eyes, and I realize what she’s done. The orishas didn’t strike the Temple, nor did the people rise up and burn it for revenge. Arti set the fire. She could never give birth so close to the Temple, lest the other seers sense the child’s demon magic and wake from her curse. Now she’s free from the watchful eyes of the Kingdom. Free to wreak havoc on those who stand in her way. Free to give birth to a child who will bring the world to its knees.
“I will find you!” Rudjek shouts. “I promise.”
His words echo in my ears and I cling to his voice, wondering if it will be the last time we set eyes on each other. If Arti wants to disappear, she will make sure no one can find us. I cling to hope too. I’m the only one who can stop my mother before it’s too late.
Fram, Orisha of Life and Death
You should not have interfered without consensus from the rest of us!
I did not say you needed our permission, Re’Mec. But it would have been nice if the two of you thought to include us. You never think ahead. It’s no different from when you waged war against the Demon King. Selfishness is your nature.