Kingdom of Souls

by Rena Barron

  I clasp her shoulder, remembering all the times she bustled around my room in the mornings. Her plopping down on my bed to dish out the latest gossip, or sharing news of her family. She doesn’t deserve to be stuck in this gods-awful place. “I’m afraid too,” I admit as Ty sweeps into the kitchen. Both Terra and I startle, and Ty raises her eyebrows to ask what’s wrong. The answer should be obvious.

  “I’m going to rest.” I cast Terra a look that I hope she understands. Be invisible. “You should get some rest too. We have plenty of time to unpack.” Or no time at all—it doesn’t matter in this place where time is so fickle.

  My new room—unfortunately—is down the hall from my parents’ on the second level. My legs tremble as I climb the steps, and my feet are on fire from walking all day. Once I’m inside the room, jars of oil on a table flare to life. I sense greedy eyes on me, demons’ eyes, like the moment before Shezmu possessed my father. Except more intense this time. It’s hard to breathe, knowing that the demons are here too, outside my perception. I try to ignore the panic racing through my body, but it’s impossible.

  There had been a heavy curtain around my bed at our old villa, one of the many Mulani touches, but not here. There are no dancers on the hallway wall, leaping and twisting to unknowable songs. No salon with a low table and colorful pillows to sit upon. No courtyard teeming with medicinals for my father’s shop. No sneaking off to meet Rudjek by the Serpent River. No visiting Essnai at her mother’s dress shop or Sukar teasing me to no end. No more witty banter between Majka and Kira. The villa is sparse and cold, filled with stiff high-back chairs, rough stone columns, and vaulted ceilings. It’s nothing like home.

  I wash before climbing into bed with the box of scrolls and bones. I’m reluctant to open it here, but I’m desperate and don’t think there will be anywhere else more private in the villa. My hands shake as I remove the two scrolls and spread the bones on the bed. The rituals are written in Aatiri, and it takes me a moment to fall into the rhythm of the language again. The first scroll has instructions on breaking bindings and curses. The second one calls upon the ancestors for help.

  As I reread the first scroll—more carefully this time—demon magic washes over me like a cool spring. I can’t lose myself, not like on the ship. I can’t let it lure me away from the task at hand. Not again. How easy it would be to embrace it, to give in, to let it merge with my soul. That’s what it wants. It’s not satisfied with Arti’s curse. It wants all of me. I close my eyes, falling a little deeper. It’s hard to resist the temptation. The magic feels like a part of myself that I hadn’t known was missing until now. I want to let go, to sink into the promise that it will always protect me. No. I can’t fall into this trap.

  The magic is more powerful here in Kefu. It redoubles its effort, tugging harder. The echo of my heartbeat drums in my ears as I fight to keep from slipping away. It’s trying to stop me from . . . from doing something. The way it brushes my lips reminds me of the almost kiss in the garden with Rudjek.

  Twenty-gods. I wish he were here. He’d at least have something foolish to say to ease my worry. He’d crack a silly joke or proclaim his prowess in the arena. I miss him so much that it hurts. I miss his midnight eyes and the way they sparkle when he looks at me. The prick of fine hair on his skin—skin that I could traverse to no end—and his sweet scent of lilac and wood smoke. I inhale and can almost smell him, the way I did the night of the almost kiss.

  Without warning, the magic falls silent and I snap out of the memory. A fog lifts from my mind. Is it that simple, then? If I focus on something else hard enough, it keeps the demon magic in check? With Rudjek in my thoughts, I return to reading the scroll, determined to learn the ritual to break my curse by heart.

  I should write to him, but I can’t bring myself to do it after Arti’s declaration that he will die in the Dark Forest. What if I think I’m writing one thing and the demon magic writes another? It could make me tell Rudjek to go there. I can’t risk it.

  I study the scroll late into the night. Although it’s written in Aatiri, there are elements of the ritual that remind me of the other tribes. If the last ritual was any sign, I’ll need a few days to recover once it’s over, but it’s worth the price. The incantation promises to rid my body of the demon magic and rebound any attempt to curse me again.

  Tomorrow I will trade my years again and break my mother’s curse.

  Tomorrow I’ll be closer to death.

  The core of the ritual involves Arti’s hair and an object she cherishes. The next morning while she’s taking a bath and my father is downstairs, I sneak into their room. I expect to crawl the floor looking for stray hairs, only to find her brush ripe. She’s either grown careless, or too cocky. Witchdoctors burn their hair so no one can use it in magic against them. I find the ring that once marked her Ka-Priestess of the Kingdom sitting at the bottom of a chest of trinkets. She’s taken care to wrap it in the finest scarlet silk, so it must still mean something to her.

  Since we set foot in Kefu, the curse has been much less constraining. The farther along Arti gets in her pregnancy, the more freedom I’ve had, but I’m sure it won’t last much longer. I pack her artifacts in a burlap sack with the other items needed for the ritual. I bury the ancestor bones for the second ritual in the gardens. Before I can slip into the desert, Terra catches me near the empty porter’s station.

  “Are you running away?” Terra stares at my sack, her eyes round with surprise. It’s not like I haven’t thought about it. But Koré gave me a simple task: delay my mother until the edam can act. If I can’t stop her, this is the least I can do.

  “No.” I glance over my shoulder at the villa. “I have this . . . thing I must do. I’ll be back.”

  Terra kneads her fingers together against her thighs. “What if someone asks about you?”

  “Tell the truth.” I clutch the bag tight to my side. “You saw me leave, nothing more.”

  “Be careful.” She rubs her fingers across her Kiva pendant. “And you better come back.”

  I flash her a smile. “I will.”

  As soon as I’m out of sight of the villa, a nighthawk appears in the sky. Its expansive black wings cast shadows upon the sand, and I freeze in place. When something to the south catches its attention, I breathe a sigh of relief.

  I walk until the weight of the sack becomes too much to carry and settle in the middle of the desert. The eye of Re’Mec is so bright that it almost washes out my vision. I draw a circle of animal bones and sit cross-legged in the middle of it. I hold the straw doll I made last night after reading the scroll. She’s as crooked and broken inside as me. Using a chicken feather, I write script on the doll in my blood, naming my mother and myself. The endless night served as the perfect cover to gather the things I needed for the ritual.

  Once the blood dries, I wrap the doll in linen and put her aside. My hands are steady as the pestle grinds against the herbs, reminding me of the lazy days helping in my father’s shop. The way he told stories as we worked, eating so many milk candies our bellies ached.

  The cries of the nighthawk rise from a distance as the sun’s path across the sky leaves a trail of heat haze. I wipe my forehead, the small cut on my palm stinging from the sweat. Thankfully, this blood medicine doesn’t need to rest. I drink my fill, and it burns my throat. It tastes of ginger, mint, castor, and sulfur, and boils in my belly.

  I dip my fingers in the rest and flick it on the bones in front of me. Another sip, then I flick some on the bones to my left. The sun beats down my back and blisters my skin. It matches the heat pulsing in my veins. I perform the sequence twice more: once for the bones at my back and once for the bones to my right. My body throbs like a toothache and my sight blurs.

  My pulse vibrates in my ears as the nighthawk’s shrieks grow closer. I place the doll in the empty bowl, the remnants of the medicine soiling her tan shift. Inhaling a shaky breath, I douse her in palm oil. She ignites without kindle, and the flames burn bright green when I add my mo
ther’s ring and hair.

  “Charlatan,” a gruff voice taunts. “Don’t dabble in things you don’t understand.”

  I startle and look around, but there’s no one here. At first I think the voice is inside me, but it travels on the stiff wind in the desert. It must be one of the demons trapped in Kefu, still strong enough to communicate without a body. That’s how the Demon King was able to reach my mother.

  I ignore it and concentrate on the bowl, letting the flames lull me. A low humming drones in my ears like bees. Sweat drenches my body and the hum vibrates in my throat, growing louder.

  “She’s got a nasty curse on her,” a second voice says. This one sounds old and shrill.

  “She smells like death,” muses the gruff voice.

  “Go away, demons,” I snap.

  The one with the old voice taunts, “Let us split her open and see if she’s stuffed with straw too.”

  They want me to fail. I can smell their bitter intentions. If they could stop me, they would’ve already. I won’t waste time on them.

  “I give my life to break the curse and free my ka,” I recite.

  “Are you sure you want to be doing that?” the old one asks. “That’s bad business.”

  “I have a better deal for you,” the gruff voice lowers into a menacing tone. “Better than giving away your years.”

  I should pay them no mind, but if there’s another way . . . “I’m listening.”

  “This place is very old,” the gruff voice replies. “It needs fresh blood.”

  “People don’t trade their souls like they used to,” adds the voice of the old one. “But you can convince them with your pretty little face.”

  I spit, disgusted. “You want me to get people to trade their souls for trinkets?” I could never be a part of something so vile. I already have enough to atone for.

  “I give my life to break the curse and—”

  “Consider our offer, girl,” the gruff one snaps. “Don’t be foolish.”

  “We should know better than try to deal with an Aatiri,” the old voice hisses. “They’re self-sacrificing to a fault.”

  “—free my ka.” The final words cross my lips.

  Purple ink bleeds across the sky, and the clouds part to reveal a black tunnel stretching toward me. My heart thunders. It aches.

  “You’ve done it now, charlatan,” jeers the old voice. “Too late to change your mind.”

  I’m frozen in place, my head tilted to the sky. A scream aches in my throat. It feels like someone’s yanking my teeth out one by one. I want to call it off, but my tongue doesn’t obey me. The tunnel will devour my body and soul. There will be nothing left.

  “Do not falter, Little Priestess.” Koré appears as shimmering mist in front of me with an arrow notched in her bow.

  The name brings tears to my eyes. My father calls me that. I miss hearing it from his lips. I miss his smile and his laugh, and sipping mint tea together. I miss all the quiet times we spent in his shop sorting and drying herbs. Had I not been so consumed with wanting magic, I would’ve appreciated those moments more. Moments that I’d give up all the magic in the world to have back.

  The bird plummets through the black tunnel, its sharp talons angled for me.

  Koré lets her arrow soar and it slices through the nighthawk. “I’ll be having a delicious stew tonight.”

  “The orisha doesn’t belong here,” the old voice cries, the indignation in it unmistakable.

  “She will lead you astray,” the gruff voice warns.

  “Why must you demons always be so petty?” Koré spits in the sand. “Can you not see the girl is busy? Do not disturb her.”

  The black tunnel stretches closer, profound and infinite and cold. Its long mouth extends like a pit of tar. When it finally touches the top of my forehead, it pushes fire and ice inside me. I hear Koré’s last word: breathe, before it devours me. I’m breathing, but my chest doesn’t rise or fall. I’m at once hollow and full. The weight of my ka is as heavy as ten stones, and it shines a brilliant silvery white that rivals Heka’s radiance. Where his light is as clear as fine crystals, mine is opaque and sparkles.

  My eyes feel heavy. My tongue. My neck and back. The beast suckles my life as a babe does its mother’s milk. My mind becomes a bottomless pit. Much time passes and no time at all. When my eyes flit open again, my face half-buried in sand, there’s no sign of Koré or the nighthawk, or that they were ever here.

  I’m on the edge of losing consciousness when the old voice sneers at me. “We tried to warn you.”

  The mirages of the demons shift into focus in the desert heat, their expansive wings made of shadows. I lie in the sand so long that the sky turns overcast and nighthawks circle. They are frantic as they crisscross each other, their feathers showering down. The voices tell me what I already know.

  “The child is coming,” boasts the old one.

  The demon with the gruff voice laughs, and the sound is so wicked and terrible that it curdles my blood. “She’s going to make you pay, charlatan.”

  Twenty-Five

  Rudjek carries me from the desert cradled in his arms. I curl against his warmth, knowing that I’m safe. The way the sunlight hits the angles of his face makes him even more beautiful. His bewitching dark eyes, his chiseled jaw, the large, proud nose. Even those caterpillar eyebrows. I try to laugh, but it comes out as a grunt. Every bone in my body aches.

  He came for me just like he promised.

  Rudjek strokes my cheek, and his hand feels like polished stone, cold and soothing against my hot skin. “Arrah . . .” My name rolls off his tongue in his deep timbre and sends thrills through me. “You’re going to be okay.”

  He says it with a kind of reverie and nostalgia that fills me with longing and regret. How long did I spend wanting him and hiding from my feelings? So much time wasted, and so little of it left with my life slipping away.

  I settle into a place of darkness and sleep for a long time. There are no dreams. Only silence and a cold that becomes a part of me and I a part of it. It soothes me like one of my father’s stories and pieces of sweet milk candy. I’m never hungry here. I do not fret. I’m not dead, but I’m not alive either. I’m protected. There’s something familiar about this place, like I’ve been here before. No. Like I’ve always been here. I belong here.

  Rudjek and I sit along the Serpent River in our secret place. He wears a simple gray tunic and trousers instead of his usual fancy elara. He’s taller than I remember, broader too. How much time did I lose in Kefu?

  No. I’m still there. This is a dream—none of this is real. Rudjek didn’t rescue me after the ritual because I never sent him a message. Dream Rudjek casts his fishing line into the river while Majka and Kira sleep under a tree nearby.

  “It’s your dream.” Rudjek laughs. “You can wake them if you want.”

  “I prefer not to,” I grumble as Majka lets out an awful snore. “They nag like two old hens.”

  “They are old hens.” He shakes his head at them. “Only they don’t know it.”

  “Why are we here?” I ask.

  The Serpent River is vast and wild, and we’re upwind from the docks. Far enough that we don’t hear the noise from the harbor and far away from our responsibilities, too. Our secret place is near a crook in the river too small for even a reed boat.

  “I’m hiding from my scribes.” He ducks his head, pretending that one is nearby. “I’m too smart for them anyway.”

  “Too smart?” I scoff. “Says who?”

  He slips into his smug voice, one eyebrow arched, melting my insides. “Every scribe I’ve ever snuck a silver coin to who has let me out of my lessons. I’m going to be Vizier one day no matter how much I study, and I’ll do a better job than my ass of a father, that’s for sure.”

  “If the Vizier hears you talk like that, he’ll skin your hide.” I stifle a giggle. “Although I can’t argue with that last part—you’ll definitely be better than him.”

  Rudjek winks at
me. “Now it’s your turn to answer. Tell me why you’re here?”

  I shrug as a warm breeze sweeps in from the river and stirs up the minty scent of the grass. He’s asking for the real answer, not something made up to suit this dream. “I’m dying.”

  His forehead wrinkles in question. “Are you?”

  “I don’t know anymore.” I frown. “I thought I was.”

  He stares at me, his lips parted. There’s hunger in his gaze, lust, desperation. “You look very much alive to me.”

  The heat rushing through my veins pushes aside all doubts. I am still alive.

  The colors around me change. The river becomes a deeper blue. The grass a richer green. My sheath a brighter yellow. Rudjek’s tunic a gray as sharp as rainbow granite.

  I rub my fingers across my chest, feeling for the serpent. My skin is smooth and unscathed. The scar’s gone. The ritual worked.

  “You’re free, Arrah.” Rudjek beams at me. “You can run away.”

  I swallow hard—fear edging into my mind. “Not without my father.”

  Oshhe sits on the grass beneath the tree where Majka and Kira were only moments ago—a pile of milk candies on his lap. “You will know when the right time comes.”

  I’m relieved that my father is here. There’s a promise beneath his words—that one day, we’ll return to lazy afternoons in the gardens. One day, things will be normal again. He’ll go back to running his shop, and I’ll come to help him.

  I can’t hide in this dream any longer. I must find my way out of the darkness. The dream sputters and groans, pushing me into another illusion, trying to chain me here. I’m in the desert, following a trail of dead nighthawks. Their broken wings and split bones flow like a river up to the gates of the villa.

  Magic coats me with an oily residue that clings to my flesh. I’ve wished for magic all my life and once I had a taste, I couldn’t wait to rid myself of it. The irony of it twists in my belly. Grandmother once told me that our greatest power lies not in our magic, but in our hearts. I thought she was trying to placate me, but no, she understood the importance of knowing one’s strength. With or without magic, my power lies in my mind, my decisions, even in my mistakes.