by Rena Barron
“A place of lies,” I answer.
My chest brims with a burning ache as we enter the throne room in the present, not some memory of a forgotten time. There are so many words left unspoken, so much to say. Lifetimes of secrets stand between us, but I tuck them away for now. They will haunt me to the end of my days—but that will be very soon if I succeed in killing my sister.
The throne room is a darkened mirror image of the place from my memories. Dust clings to the stale air and coats the white marble in gray. Our shadows stretch across the floor, twice as tall, like we’ve transformed into the demons who lived and loved and died here.
Rudjek’s torchlight catches glimpses of the steps that arch over the room and end in shadows. “What is that?”
“A throne,” I say, my voice muted in the darkness.
With one hand on his shotel, Rudjek peers around the room. “This place feels wrong.”
When his gaze lands on me again, I kiss him. It catches him off guard and he stumbles back, his eyes hungry for more, his mouth frozen in surprise. Warmth flushes his cheeks as he takes a step closer, then stops. A war rages in his eyes as he forces himself to stay still. “We can’t, Arrah.” His face twists in pain and longing. “You saw what almost happened when we touched by the river.”
My lips tingle and the ghost of our embrace lingers like the aftermath of a storm. Hot and cold alternate in my body, and the combination is shocking and delightful. I take a step closer. I want to taste his lips, to explore his mouth, to feel his warmth tangled with mine. I want him to make me forget Daho.
“I may not survive tonight, Rudjek.” I swallow the lump in my throat. “I don’t want to die without knowing what it’s like to kiss you.”
Rudjek props the torch against a wall and pulls me into his arms. I sink against his warm neck, and again, longing threads through me. “You’re not going to die.” His declaration is low and heavy. “I won’t let you.”
I lift my head and blink back tears. “Do you promise?”
Rudjek cups my face in his hands and my body trembles. “I do.”
I close my eyes as he kisses me properly for the first time. His soft lips are as delicate as rose petals, his tongue the hot lash of the sun. He tastes of winter and sunshine and warm springs. My hands fumble, searching for purchase as he pulls me against him. I traverse the planes of his neck, his shoulders, his back. He explores too. His fingers trace the shape of my collarbone, his touch a trail of fire that leaves me yearning for more. When we pull away, my mouth burns. His anti-magic leaves my ears ringing and my skin itching. My head spins as exhaustion settles in my limbs, but it was worth every single moment. “That was . . .”
“Amazing.” A braid’s fallen in my face, and Rudjek tucks it behind my ear, his fingers grazing my cheek. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I breathe. “Are you?”
“I feel a little weak.”
We stare at each other in a silence that stretches on too long—knowing there can be no more kissing, not without consequences. A stone out of place on the steps behind him catches my attention. I shimmy it from the cracked molding and remove the dagger wrapped in cloth from the alcove. It alone remains untouched by the decay in the palace. The handle is inlaid with gold and silver, symbols engraved on both sides of the blade.
Rudjek stands transfixed by the dagger, his eyes filled with pain. “Don’t do it, Arrah.”
“I must,” I say, my voice a wisp of air. “I’ve made peace with it.”
“Well, I haven’t.” Rudjek glances everywhere but my face. “I can’t lose you.”
“Look at these bones.” I gesture with my arm. “This will happen again if my sister releases the Demon King’s ka. I can’t let it.”
“There must be thousands dead here,” he whispers. “He was a monster.”
“He is a monster.”
To use was is to pretend that the threat is gone, when Daho is very much alive.
Thirty-Nine
“Someone’s coming!” Majka hollers. I tuck the dagger in my waistband and we hurry up the ladder. Rudjek looks dusty and tattered and tired beneath the moonlight—and the kiss has left me weak too. It wasn’t a good idea, but I don’t care and I don’t regret it. My feelings for Rudjek and this new, unimaginable memory of Daho still burn within me. The kiss only made it that much worse. If I survive this night and stay far away from the Demon King’s palace, maybe this new connection will fade. I want to believe a lot of things that aren’t true.
Rudjek removes his shotels in one swift draw. “We’ll use the Temple as a base.”
“What Temple?” Majka shrieks—his voice reaching a new octave. “You mean that pile of rocks you’re in?”
Sukar lowers his spyglass. “This will be interesting.”
A boy with kinky hair the color of the sun steps out of the shadows. It’s Tam. Or I suppose I should say Re’Mec. Anger rises in my chest and I bite the inside of my lip. So much of what we’ve gone through could’ve been avoidable had he acted with compassion.
He’s wearing a white elara trimmed in red, gold, and green thread and beaded sandals. Not exactly practical for a fight. It’s near impossible to believe that he once defeated the Demon King. The scribes called Koré and Re’Mec the Twin Kings, but it’s obvious that she was the true hero and he’d just tagged along.
“Re’Mec,” Rudjek says, a bite in his tone.
The orisha grins, but the sentiment doesn’t reach his eyes. When his pale blue gaze meets mine, something pricks in the back of my mind—a memory that sputters like torchlight at the first drops of rain, trying desperately to shake itself loose from some unseen chains. The same cool, calming magic washes the memory away before it comes into focus. This magic isn’t from the witchdoctors. It’s ancient, older than time itself, and tastes of tears.
“Do I know you?” I ask, but it’s the wrong question. “Do . . . do you know me?”
Re’Mec blinks at me and scoffs. “Has your girlfriend lost her wits?”
Rudjek flings one of his shotels at Re’Mec’s head. The sword whips through the air and the orisha steps aside at the last moment. It slams into a splintered stone column and sticks. Too bad it missed Re’Mec. He’s no better than Daho. In some ways he’s worse. He stood by and let the Ka-Priest torture my mother. He alone demanded the Rite of Passage that has broken so many families. The orishas are so removed from the rest of us that they don’t bother to think of the consequences of their actions. Still, there was honest confusion in his eyes at my question, which gives me hope that Daho was lying.
“Is that any way to treat an old friend?” He makes a show of stroking his hairless chin.
“You sniveling little weasel.” Rudjek grits his teeth. “Watch your tongue.”
“My apologies.” Re’Mec flourishes an Aatiri bow at me. “My sister is quite fond of you, or should I say was, since no one has seen her since she went to Kefu.”
A tinge of shame warms my cheeks—still in shock that a god died to save me.
Sukar spits in the grass. “Are you here to talk or fight at our side, orisha?”
“I have to watch my tongue.” Re’Mec presses his palm to his chest in indignation. “But insulting me is okay?”
“Stop acting like an overgrown child,” I snap. “Are you here to help us or not?”
Re’Mec and Rudjek both cock an eyebrow at me.
Birds of prey squawk as they circle overhead. Like the Familiars, they await their feast. For there will be blood soon and bodies to fill their bellies. The sting of demon magic carries on the breeze. It crawls across my skin like centipedes, but the witchdoctors’ magic rises to meet it. It curls around my body in a swirl of dancing light. Colors that pulse like a heartbeat.
Two falcons land at the base of the Temple. It isn’t only the awareness in the birds’ black eyes that gives the cravens away—it’s the way their plumage gleams beneath the moonlight. Their presence mutes my magic. The dancing light dims. The falcons fold their wings, and their bodi
es shift into shapeless gray masses.
“Twenty-gods, Rudjek,” Majka says. “Can you do that too?”
Rudjek tilts his head to the side like the answer should be obvious. I’m wondering too, but he doesn’t confirm or deny it.
“They’re close,” Fadyi says when he’s done shifting back into his human form. Räeke stands beside him, one of her too-large eyes sitting much higher than the other. We all stare at her, and she blinks, then shifts to correct the mishap. “We need to prepare.”
Re’Mec beams at the cravens with sparks of sunlight in his eyes, like he’d go to the ends of the world for them. The same way they look at Rudjek. He’s every bit his sister—if not even more insufferable, but they both tried to help in their own convoluted way.
Re’Mec speaks to the cravens in a language that’s clipped and tonal.
“He’s telling them to keep a distance from you to not dampen your magic,” Rudjek says, a smile teetering on his lips. Lips that, I know now, taste like sweet milk candy. Lips I want to taste again.
He must read my expression because as heat creeps up my neck, he blushes too.
Jahla tilts her head to sniff the air. “Two thousand. Half demons, half shotani.”
Kira retrieves two daggers. “I rather like those odds.”
Koré and Kira would have gotten along. They both lusted for blood and loved their knives. Now Re’Mec has gifted Kira with blades almost identical to his sister’s. She will honor the fallen Twin King tonight. And I will honor you, Grandmother. I promise. I will honor all who have fallen in my mother’s and sister’s paths.
“We’re on holy ground.” Sukar scoops up a bit of soil and lets it fall between his fingers. “Heka willing, we will come out victorious.”
If only Sukar knew how unholy these grounds are, had seen the vault of bones beneath his feet.
Fadyi and Jahla move to flank Rudjek. Re’Mec stands ahead of them, all pretense gone as he faces the onslaught of night. The twins, Ezaric and Tzaric, shift into identical great leopards. One winks at me and I wink back before they move to flank our rear along with Räeke. They’re so much more interesting than the stories told in Tamar to scare children.
Kira and Essnai exchange a longing gaze, an unspoken understanding between them. My heart aches for my friends—I want them to be together back home, safe like before my mother ruined everything. I can’t stand the thought of them putting their future at stake to help me. It isn’t fair. It isn’t right. You will lose many friends before the end, the memory of Arti’s voice whispers to me. I clench my fists against my sides. I won’t let that happen.
I stand at Rudjek’s back, Sukar and Majka flanking me. Essnai is behind me next to Kira with three of Rudjek’s guardians at their backs. The cravens have given me a wide berth, so that when Efiya comes, nothing will block my magic. The press of Daho’s dagger is cold against my waist, and though I know it means my death, it’s soothing. With it, I have a chance to end my sister’s reign of terror.
Majka strokes his chin, pretending to be in deep thought. “By my math, we’re outnumbered by a million to one.”
“Your math is bad,” says Essnai, narrowing her eyes at him.
“If you can’t handle your share, Majka,” I tease, “I’ll lighten your burden.”
Shadows too coordinated to be Familiars flit in and out of the torchlight set about the Temple. They close in around us, and my pulse thumps against my eardrums. Even though the odds are against us, anticipation courses through me. The magic tingles across my skin like the light of a thousand suns beaming from within me.
“Look what I can do.” Rudjek stares at his shotel wedged in the stone, and the space between him and his sword wrinkles like currents on a river. The shotel shakes loose and flies back into his outstretched hand. “Räeke taught me that.” He casts a grin over his shoulder at me.
“You’ve been holding out on us, you bastard,” Majka says.
I cross my arms. “I can call a firestorm.”
“Show-offs,” Sukar and Essnai muse at the same time.
The clanking of metal fills my ears as everyone readies their weapons. Sukar casts me a hopeful smile as he raises one of his sickles to me and nods. My staff is inside the Temple. I don’t need it. I need magic tonight, and I have no intention of failing. Not again.
The shotani descend upon the valley first, moving as silent as the dead. The demons sweep in behind them—their eyes glowing in the night like hungry hyenas. With the shotani in black tunics and the demons dressed in red gendar uniforms, it’s hard to gauge where the army ends. They have us surrounded.
“Why didn’t anybody think to invite more cravens to this fight?” Majka asks.
Rudjek crosses his shotels in front of him. “You’re lucky any came at all.”
Re’Mec raises his hands to the sky, and the moon brightens so we can see better.
When Efiya steps from the void into the valley in front of Rudjek, time stops. He stands completely still, his hands gripping his shotels. I’m frozen too—but not my mind. Everyone else stands as still as statues. Efiya leans close to Rudjek’s ear and whispers. His lips move, but the wind swallows his words. Fire burns deep in my belly. What are they saying to each other? The magic inside me pushes against hers. It rebounds and slams into my chest so hard that I cough up blood, but her grasp on me untethers.
Then my mother strides out of the shadows with Oshhe on her heels, and tears spring to my eyes. My heart both soars and falls. My father is nothing more than loose skin and bones, his face hollow. Arti doesn’t look any better. She rushes toward me with urgent steps, her eyes wild.
She glances at Efiya, who is still whispering in Rudjek’s ear, then back at me. “Give me the dagger,” Arti hisses, desperate. “Give it to me before it’s too late to stop her.”
I desperately look between my father, my mother, and my sister. Arti’s voice throbs in my head, poking holes in everything I know about her. I want badly for it to be true—for my mother to finally come to her senses. But no, she doesn’t want to stop Efiya . . . she wants the dagger so I don’t ruin her plans. Efiya still hasn’t released the Demon King’s ka. She needs her. I don’t believe Arti has suddenly changed her mind after all the awful things she’s put into motion. This is another trick.
I take a step back from her, but she moves closer. Her eyes brim with tears. “Only one touched by his magic can wield the blade,” she says. “Give it to me and I’ll end this now.”
How can I trust my mother, who sacrificed children to call upon a demon? Why would she be regretful now? It was her hatred that started the bloodshed. But I can’t deny the anguish in Arti’s bloodshot eyes, the pain etched in her frown. She’s hurting too. Is it because of the tribes? Did she know that Efiya would attack them too? Even if my mother isn’t as heartless as I thought, it doesn’t matter now. It’s too late. “Get away from me,” I spit.
“Arrah, please,” she begs. “There isn’t much time.”
I shake my head. I won’t be a pawn in whatever game she’s playing now.
She steps closer; my magic lashes out, but hers rises up to counter. Sparks encircle us as we come to a standstill. “The chieftains were right to bind their kas to you,” she says, relieved. I can’t reconcile this broken person before me, the regret in her eyes and the pain in her voice.
I love my mother. I never stopped loving her after all that she’s done, and to see her like this cuts me to the bone. I want to believe her. I want to lay my head on her shoulder and let this moment between us wash away the bad blood. Let it reverse time and erase our history, so that we can start over from that day she painted the Mulani dancers on the wall when I was a little girl. Instead of disappointment, she won’t care that I don’t have magic and she’ll be proud of me. But all the wishing and hoping and dreaming in the world won’t change the past.
“She killed them,” I say, barely able to hold back my sobs. “The witchdoctors are all gone.”
Arti stares at the place where th
e dagger rests beneath my tunic, her eyes hungry. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.” Her gaze meets mine again. “That was never part of my plan.” She reaches her arm out to me. “You have to believe me.” When I don’t reach back, her hand drops to her side. “I only wanted to make Jerek and Suran and their orisha masters suffer. It isn’t the Demon King we need to worry about, Arrah.” Arti looks over her shoulder at Efiya with Rudjek, then says, “It’s your sister.”
“Why now?” I glare at her to keep myself from falling to pieces. She’s still defending the Demon King after so much that’s happened. My mother is hopeless. “Why the change of heart?”
Arti tilts her chin up, some shadow of the self-assured Ka-Priestess still left in her features. “If I have to choose between releasing my master and fixing my mistakes, then I choose the latter.” She sighs. “It may not mean much now, but I want you to have a life beyond this night. Please, daughter, let me do this one thing to atone for a fraction of the pain I’ve caused you.” The frown and anguish smooth away from her face, like she’s made peace with her decision. “Give me the knife, Arrah,” she says after a deep breath, her voice calm.
Tears run down my cheeks. My mother is offering to sacrifice herself to save me. The charlatan daughter who’s always disappointed her. I may regret this moment for the rest of my life, but I believe that she means it. A little of the tension eases in my chest as I glance down at where the dagger is hidden beneath my tunic. I hesitate, still not quite sure if I can trust that she won’t change her mind. When I look up again, the tip of a sword pierces straight through my mother’s chest.
Blood splashes in my eyes. I can’t breathe. I can’t move. There’s nothing but red—red everywhere. It coats my tongue; it burns my throat. Efiya wrenches the blade from our mother’s back.
Arti’s face twists in pain as she mouths, “I’m sorry.”
Before her body even sinks to the ground, her ka rises and joins with Efiya.