by Rena Barron
I clutch the strap across my shoulder so hard that my hand aches. I should’ve come up with a real plan, but I’m here now and I have no intention of going back. Why don’t they attack? Whatever their reason, I don’t fear them as much as before. Something has changed, something new has awakened within me. It runs hot in my blood.
“What are we going to do when Efiya comes after us?” Terra asks.
“I don’t know yet.” It’s the most honest answer I can give her.
It’s still night when we finally reach Kefu. The port city is quiet and the streets dim. The air is wound tight with tension. Do the residents also feel the restlessness of the demons? I stare at face after face, looking for unnatural green eyes, my heart racing. There’s demon magic here too—faint on the breeze. We head for the docks. It’s our only way out of this miserable town. Men haul crates of supplies from boats with ropes and pulleys. Fishermen, laborers, merchants of all walks of life move about their business in a slumber.
Three fishermen step in our path. Not fishermen—demons. Their magic crawls up my arms, chilling me to the bone.
“No.” Terra shakes her head. “I won’t go back!” In a panic, she ducks into an alley.
“Terra, no!” I run after her.
I’m halfway down the alley when I catch up with her and realize we’re trapped. Tears stream down Terra’s cheeks as two sets of demons close in on us—five on either side. I search for something, anything to fight with, but there’s nothing but barrels of garbage that reek of fish guts. Not for the first time, I miss my demon magic, but would it work against them? I reach for Terra’s hand, and we hold on tight to each other. This is it, then. I can’t believe it’s going to end like this after everything that’s happened.
The air shifts around us, and Koré steps out of the void. I sigh, letting go a pent-up breath. Part of me thought she and the edam had given up. She’s dressed in a captain’s black trousers and a vest with a white blouse underneath. Her long braids are in a ponytail, not writhing about her head for once. She flashes me a wide smile, and it’s good to see a friendly face after my mother’s cold gaze. “You brought your little friend.”
Terra startles at my side and backs against the alley wall.
“It’s okay.” I hold up my hands to calm her. “Koré’s here to help.”
Terra frowns, but she doesn’t protest.
“Where have you been?” I ask Koré. “Where are the edam?”
She regards me with sad eyes. “They’ll be here soon enough.”
Relief floods my body. Grandmother and the other witchdoctors are coming. They’ll finally put an end to my sister’s reign of terror.
“Filthy beasts.” Koré spits on the ground and makes a show of wiping her mouth. Now that she’s here, the demons turn their attention on her. Their green eyes glow brighter, their teeth bared. Her hair begins to wriggle as she stretches her neck to one side, then the other. “This is going to be fun.”
She’s the reason they didn’t attack in the desert. They wanted to get close to her first, to steal their master’s ka, which must mean that Efiya hasn’t found it yet.
Koré flourishes a bow at the demons. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
They hiss at her, their voices like twisted birdsong. “Give us the box.”
“What box?” She shrugs, feigning ignorance.
“Do not toy with us, false god.”
“False god?” She grimaces. “You wound me.”
“She’s coming for you,” warns another.
Koré raises an eyebrow, her interest piqued. “You’ll be dead before she arrives.”
“What are they saying?” Terra whispers as she slips close to me.
“What . . .” I frown, realizing that both Koré and the demons are speaking a language that I shouldn’t understand. The language that Arti used in that awful summoning ritual. First the whispers and sudden sharp pain in my room, now this. There’s something very wrong. I can feel it. “They’re posturing . . . ,” I mumble, lost in my thoughts.
The demons draw their swords, but they do not advance. They must be waiting for my sister to arrive. Two phantom daggers appear in Koré’s hands. The handles shimmer, the blades glow. A demon eases up behind her. When he gets too close, one of her braids strikes his throat and a bolt of lightning cuts through him. His ka escapes his vessel and disappears into the night.
The nine remaining demons charge at Koré. Her daggers soar through the air and cleave two clean through their hearts. I snatch up a fallen sword and step in front of Terra, the blade heavy in my hands. It’s nothing like a nimble staff, but I’ll make do.
Koré sprints and leaps against buildings. Her body is horizontal to the ground as she propels herself through the air. The demons launch too, their claws, teeth, and swords aimed for her small frame. She crouches midair when her daggers reappear in her hands. She strikes again. Her aim is true. My heart soars with hope that we’ll survive this night. That there’s still a chance to stop my sister from breaking the world.
Then another sharp pain slices through my head and brings me to my knees. The sword lands with a heavy thud on the ground. Magic whirls around me in a cloud of sparkling dust, settling on my skin before shrinking inside me. The magic is like feather strokes, wingbeats, and fills me with longing. It’s the magic of the tribal lands, the magic of Heka. When I open my eyes, everything appears sharper, crisper, like a fog lifted from my mind. I sway as the world tilts around me.
Hurry, whispers a voice in my head. Grandmother’s voice.
“Where are you?” I choke back tears. When Grandmother doesn’t answer, I turn to Koré. “Where are the edam?”
Koré stands in the alley covered in blood with ten broken bodies at her feet. “What’s left of them is with you, Arrah.”
Her voice is a soft coo, but her words don’t make sense.
The blood in my veins turns to ice. “What do you mean what’s left of them?”
I wrap my arm around my belly, thinking of the last time I saw Grandmother, at the Blood Moon Festival. The endless colorful tents and sparks of magic dancing in the air. The beat of the djembe drums and the witchdoctors’ chants. Grandmother’s silver locs reaching her waist as she sat cross-legged in front of me. Her gap-toothed smile. The bones don’t lie, she said. But they hadn’t warned her either.
Koré pats me on the shoulder. Her touch slows my heartbeat, quells my stomach. Her magic commands me to be calm, and the more I struggle against it, the deeper it draws me into its embrace.
“Wait at the Almighty Temple until I arrive,” Koré says. “There’s still a chance to stop your sister.”
I nod, but it’s only a reflex. “Is my grandmother dead?” I know the answer.
Koré casts a glance behind us. “Mouran, take them.”
A tall man—no, not a man, an orisha—steps out of the shadows. His eyes are ice and stand out against his black skin and woolly hair. Mouran, the orisha of the sea, here in the flesh, his barbed tail curled at his feet. He flashes his teeth and moonlight shines off their sharp points.
“Go now!” Koré shouts, and Mouran wraps his magic around Terra and me. He drags us away, but I don’t want to go. I need to know what happened to my grandmother. I grit my teeth and the tribal magic thrums inside me. It roots me in the empty space between the alley and the sea, but my mind—my consciousness—stays with Koré.
In the alley, the air shifts as my sister steps out of the void in front of Koré. Efiya wears a white flowing sheath, her black hair in a crown of braids—like when I put my hair up. In this state, I can see her true form. Her eyes are pale emeralds—lacking the intensity of a full-blooded demon. Ribbons of Heka’s light thread through her ka.
“You have something I want.” Efiya breaks into a smile that cuts like shards of glass. “And I haven’t the time for your games.”
Her voice is a sweet song that breaks me. There’s nothing left of the little girl in her.
“I don’t think we’ve met.”
Koré dips her head. “Hello. I’m the moon orisha, I’m eternal.”
Efiya laughs, and Koré crashes to her knees, her whole body shaking under the weight of my sister’s magic. For once her braids fall still. “I’m your god now, orisha. Give me what I want.”
My sister’s magic buzzes in the air as Mouran whispers, “Time to let go.”
His magic tugs at my mind, drawing me deeper into the void. The scent of salt water fills my nose. My body is already on the deck of a massive black ship. Slow to follow, my consciousness moves farther from the alley, still watching the scene play out.
“I should warn you.” Koré coughs up blood. “I’ve always been bad at losing.”
“Is that so?” Efiya bends down and grabs the Twin King’s chin. “I can fix that.”
Koré’s neck snaps.
Efiya
I bend time so I can relive the memory. I must know where I went wrong so that I will never fail again. I stand on the edge of the valley overlooking Heka’s temple. The edam waste their time performing rituals for a god who has abandoned them. Fools.
In the valley, 114 ripe kas hum in tune with the djembe drums. They are the witchdoctors. The strongest among all the tribes. Their magic vibrates against my skin. Once I consume their kas, that magic will belong to me. Sensing my presence, the witchdoctors stop their dance to stare up at me. The drums fall silent and there’s nothing left except the hum of magic and the whisper of wind in the grass. They’ve been waiting for me.
I take another step in the void and land in front of the chieftains. My grandmother, head of Tribe Aatiri, steps forward. Silver locs snake down her back, and a bone charm rattles around her neck. A fool’s artifact. The other chieftains step forward too. These five are the strongest of the edam, and more powerful than the rest of the witchdoctors. Their magic crackles in my ears like thunder.
Grandmother is hiding something. They all are. They’re using their combined magic to conceal a shared secret . . . a secret that will be mine once I consume their kas. They can’t hide their anguish, their fear, or their knowledge that their lives are forfeit. I grow sick of their emotions. I close their windpipes as my demons descend upon the valley to begin their siege. The witchdoctors fight with magic and weapons alike, but they are no match for the demons. Every time one of them dies, I absorb their ka. My body tingles as I grow stronger. It pulses.
Grandmother falls to her knees, along with the other chieftains. They claw at their throats, but she laughs. I search her mind for their shared secret. I see a hundred images, a thousand, a million. Endless flashes into her past, her birth, her childhood, her marriage, her children’s births. She’s trying to distract me from seeing the truth. I press harder, until her nose bleeds. I see them together now—the chieftains, making a pact. They perform a ritual to bind themselves to another.
I grab the old Aatiri by the chin and lift her face up. I’m out of breath, my body trembling. I need their kas. I crave them. I must have them. I force life back into her body. Fix her crushed throat. I will have my answer.
In my moment of lapse she plunges a dagger into her heart. The knife weeps with a curse, and I don’t realize before her ka slips through my fingers. It’s icy in my hand, and I’m empty, even with all the other kas I’ve consumed. I’ve allowed them to trick me. I must know where their kas have gone. I must take back what belongs to me.
I replay the moment again and again until I see one face—one I know like my own.
The chieftains bound their kas to Arrah.
I move forward through time, past the moment I killed the orisha Koré in the alley. She was nothing more than a nuisance. She had removed her memory of hiding the Demon King’s ka; a neat trick, but it made her of no use to me. I step into the courtyard at the villa, into the darkness of the demons who still wait for me to free them.
I’ve taken only a step or two when Mother bursts through the double doors of the villa and storms into the courtyard. Anger rolls off her in waves. I’m in no mood to deal with her. I need time to myself to look at all the possibilities.
The tears streaking down Mother’s face give me pause. I’ve never seen her cry save for in her memories. She’s crying because of what I’ve done. I didn’t need the witchdoctors’ kas, but I wanted them anyway.
I’ve seen this outcome a thousand times, yet I want to step back into the void and disappear. I can’t stand the look of disappointment and disgust in her eyes. In this moment she hates me; she despises me; she wishes I was never born. It isn’t the first time and it won’t be the last. I’ve never been able to do anything to please her. She always reminds me of what a failure I am for not finding and releasing the Demon King. He’s all she cares about, but I’ll release him in my own time.
There were always many possibilities of how she’d take this news, from silence to raging anger. In some futures, she’d wept on the ground. In others the news gutted her, leaving her completely incapable of emotions. The worst scenarios were when she attacked me, and I had to kill her. I don’t want to kill my mother. She’s all that I have now that Arrah has betrayed me.
I didn’t foresee this outcome because my sister blocks me from prying into her mind. It’s infuriating at times, but not now. My sister wants to play a game of hide-and-seek, the same way we used to play in the gardens. She’ll hide. And I’ll seek.
Thirty-One
My sobs ball up in my belly, aching for release, but nothing feels quite real anymore. Koré’s calming magic deserts me as the alley in Kefu fades away, and I’m left with the numbing truth. She’s dead. Grandmother and the other witchdoctors are dead. Efiya killed them too. No magic in the world will bring them back. It must have been desperation that made the chieftains tie their kas to mine. They were the strongest witchdoctors in the tribal lands and couldn’t defeat my sister.
I’ve been a fool to think I, a charlatan, could stop my sister. Heka told me to be brave, but what good has that done? In the end, Efiya will destroy everything in her path, just as he foretold. She’ll come for me soon enough.
Grandmother and the chieftains’ kas are with me now, and so is their magic, humming beneath my skin. One of her memories crawls to the surface of my mind. She cradles a baby—me—in her arms, smiling down with pride in her eyes. My father never told me that she traveled all the way from the Aatiri lands to Tamar for my birth.
I miss you, Grandmother.
She answers with another memory. This one of Imebyé. She sits across from me and offers me her bones. She’s given this honor to me alone, for no one else has ever laid hands on them since her grandmother gifted them to her. In her memories, there’s an underlying message that she’ll always be with me, a small sense of closure. I take solace in that.
Mouran’s ship is a massive vessel cut from dark wood with ribbons of black silk trailing in the wind. He stands at the helm with his arms at his sides, and there’s no crew to be seen. Fog swivels in the orisha’s eyes as his invisible magic buzzes in the air. The ship navigates away from the port and parts the river so fast that wind whips my braids across my face. It’s dizzying at first, but the ride is smooth. I hold my hand up, studying the way my fingers glow. So this is what it feels like for magic to belong to you. To know that when you call for more, it will abide without question. It feels nothing like the demon magic that tried to lure me into a false sense of peace.
Now I understand why the holy scripts say that the orishas wanted to keep magic out of the hands of mortal kind. Magic isn’t good or bad. It’s people who make it dangerous. We’ve done nothing but use it to destroy each other. My mother let herself become a pawn. And for what . . . to exact revenge against the Vizier? She played right into the Demon King’s hands. Maybe he saved her life once, but he did it for his own selfish reasons.
With Mouran’s magic, the ship traverses the Serpent River in a matter of moments. The fog in his eyes clears as we arrive at the harbor in Tamar. Terra wraps an arm around her waist and peers across the docks to the East Market in th
e distance. She isn’t coming back to the city. Mouran will take her to find her family.
She leans her shoulder against mine—and I do the same. “Be careful, Arrah.”
I smile weakly, sad to part ways but happy that she can finally go home. “You too.”
Once we’ve said our goodbyes, I rush through the busy docks and the mud-brick houses in a daze. Grim faces, none of whom I recognize, stare at me as I stumble into the market. I search for signs of how much time has passed. Everyone and everything looks run-down. I don’t know any of the merchants or the patrons perusing their wares. The night chill rips across my shoulders and makes me shiver as I keep moving.
More so than anywhere else in Tamar, the East Market never closes and never slows. Its patrons never sleep. People are still about doing business that calls to them in the twilight. But in these early hours between night and morn, there’s no laughter, no boasting. No people betting on cockfights or standing around playing jackals and hounds. No roasting chestnuts in firepits or plantains fried in peanut oil to mask the decay that clings to the air.
A tremble creeps down my spine as I think about how my mother set this decay in motion. It started within her and spread like a blight across the land. There’s been much recent death here. With the new magic inside me, it tastes bitter on my tongue. Have I come all this way for nothing? No one will be able to stop my sister. She’s too strong.
The Vizier’s estate stands out against the night, looming atop its precipice at the south edge of the city. I remember the last time I watched Rudjek compete in his father’s arena. His broad shoulders glistening with sweat. His confident stance against an opponent twice his size. I miss him so much that my heart aches. I can’t imagine that he might be older—a grown man. I can’t allow myself to stop believing that there’s still a chance . . . that my friend will be waiting for me.