To either side of her, the boy-guard and the soldier both swiveled to look at Tosin.
The bastard continued to smile, though it hardened.
“That is a serious accusation, my dear. Especially coming from a heshen.”
At that word, the boy-guard and the soldier looked back to Akanni, the soldier with disdain on his brown face and the boy with fear.
“Leave us.” Tosin waved a hand.
“Sir?” The soldier frowned.
“She is a shackled and unarmed girl; she poses no threat. Not to the future Kazi of Oramec.” Tosin lifted himself from his nest of damp-looking pillows. His body was thin, though it lacked muscle. He was not a young man, and the drink had clearly taken its toll. “Leave us.”
The soldier bowed and, reluctant, turned to depart. The boy-guard fidgeted a moment before dropping the chain to the ground with a thunk and hurrying after his superior.
Tosin watched them go before turning back to Akanni with another of those blasted smiles. “My dear, even a heshen should be wary of speaking such lies.” He stepped toward her.
Akanni stiffened, but thankfully he moved away and over to the opposite end of the tent. There, a basin of water was waiting. He undid the sash at his waist and let the fabric fall from his body. Akanni averted her eyes until she heard the splashing of him settling in.
“What has led you to believe that I, one of the Goddess’s chosen, would kill the ruler of Her people?” Tosin flicked a bit of water over the side.
Akanni knew she should hold her tongue, but the pain of the last few days was hot and fresh, and it fanned the flames of anguish from her time in exile. The combination made her temper short and her tongue loose. “I saw you,” she bit out. “With the man in the cloak.”
She remembered that night clearer than any other, save the night her amma went to be with the Goddess. It was late, and she had just returned home after a trip with her father and twin brother, Seth. They’d gone to a neighboring kingdom for a period of weeks to witness the marriage of one of their cousins.
Amidst the cushions spread around her, Akanni had rocked with the jostle of the palanquin as it bore them on. The smell of old pine and citrus polish swirled heavy in the air. Beads rattled and clacked against one another, hung with silk to shield the windows and door from the sun, which had thankfully gone down some time ago. The rhythmic clatter punctuated the relative silence, along with the beating of feet and braying of beasts outside.
“Nnn, rouse yourselves, my children.” Her father’s voice was heavy in the shadows that filled the space between them. “We are home.”
The palanquin was large enough to hold the entire royal family, though Akanni always took to curling against Seth like he was a large, warm pillow. She stretched her tired limbs and sat up. Her brother did not move, though his eyes went from her to their baba.
“Have you given any thought to our earlier conversation?” Seth said. His voice did not hold the deepness of Baba’s, still a boy’s tones. He hated when Akanni teased him about it.
Even in the darkness, the look her father shot him was cutting. “There is nothing to think on. It is blasphemy, and we shall speak of it no more.” Stroking his silvery beard where it lay over his belly, their father glared at the ceiling. “Goddess keep me, I cannot have two heshen as children.” Even though her father had been supportive in her decision, as supportive as one could be, his words still stung.
Seth tensed beside her. Apart from their mother, he was the most devout in the family, and if their father’s words stung her, they were like a blow for him. When their mother passed, Seth dove even deeper into the teachings and worship, drawing ever nearer to the Goddess as Akanni pulled away. He did not approve of her renouncement and spent no less than an hour every day praying that she would come back to the Light before being judged.
The palanquin jerked then rocked as it was lowered. Father did not wait for his attendants before rolling to clamber out, grumbling about going to bed. It was a shame to let him leave in such a dark mood, and Akanni made to go after him, but a hand on her shoulder held her fast.
“Amma was supposed to perform the bahet for the wedding. Her absence was keenly felt by all, but mostly by Baba. Give him until morning.” Seth’s voice was soft, forgiving. Their father was a kind man, usually full of smiles and laughter for his children, but without Amma . . . that man had faded.
Akanni nodded and patted Seth’s hand. “Do not stay up too late.” Even though he sounded as if he’d already forgiven their father for the insult, it would likely send him to Amma’s prayer closet for some time.
He squeezed her shoulder and dropped his hand.
In the palace, amidst the alabaster stone and trappings of jade and silver, where the visages of ancestors watched over them silently, Akanni called for a bath. She settled into the warm waters, drawn from the nearby shore, and let her attendants see to scrubbing her rich, brown skin then smoothing it with scented oil. Nimble fingers worked at her hair, undoing the plaits against her scalp and washing away days’ worth of dust and travel. More oil made her scalp tingle and left her coils smelling of citrus.
Dressed in her gown and with a light robe wrapped around her frame, she dismissed her retinue and made for her bedroom. The quiet of the palace was haunting, but not unpleasantly so. As she came around a corner, she drew up short then pulled back. Peeking around confirmed what she thought she saw.
Tosin, the priest. He exchanged quiet words with a man in a cloak, the hood drawn up, handed him something, and then waved him on. The individual drifted into the shadows and was gone, leaving Tosin to adjust his robes and start in her direction.
Akanni drew back and took a steeling breath. Tosin always set a chill in her spine. She did not like him here, walking these halls, praying in her mother’s place. But the palace clergy needed a head, her father had said, and since Akanni herself refused, it had to be someone the people trusted.
When he came around the corner and saw her there, he paused, a look of surprise crossing his gaunt face.
“Kazili.” He bowed. “Keeping late hours?”
“Just coming back from a bath. It’s soothing after travels.”
Tosin smiled and drew in a slow breath. “Plum citrus.” He tasted the air. “Sweet as you are.”
The shiver from before returned. “I had best get to bed.” She stepped past him without waiting for him to bow as was custom.
“Good night, Kazili,” he purred in her wake. “The Goddess provides.”
Akanni’s steps quickened. She reached her room and bolted her door behind her. There was something foul about that man, and she almost wanted to call for another bath after having spent those few moments in his presence.
Instead, she drew the gossamer curtains in around her bed. Travel worn and weary, she drifted easily into sleep.
The sun had not yet risen when she woke to the sound of alarm bells and shouts from the guard. She jolted from her bed, taking up the dagger she kept hidden beneath her pillow. Still in her nightgown, she threw open her bedroom door.
Something slammed into her and took her off her feet. Pain rolled through her body as she tumbled across the floor. She blinked against the blackness and the beating of her heart, her gaze drawn to movement across the room. Crouched on the ledge of the large window left open to let in the sound of the sea, the cloaked figure from the night before sat, bathed in moonlight. She blinked and he was gone.
Akanni stared, not entirely sure she’d seen anything at all. She pushed herself up, her elbow twinging where it had struck the stone of the floor. The alarm bells continued to ring, and the voices continued to cry out. It was only now, with her door open, that she could make out their words.
“The Kazi, he is dead!”
“Fire! Fire in the prayer closet!”
Shock, cold and unyielding, dropped through Akanni. She sat frozen
on the hard floor. Words from the hallway crashed into her thoughts as they washed over each other.
Her father was dead. Poisoned. And the sun would rise to the discovery of her brother’s charred remains at the base of her mother’s now-ruined altar.
“The wrath of an angry Goddess fulfilled” was the lie Tosin spun. It would not have worked, except as she wept at her father’s bedside the next day, Tosin had her room searched and recovered a vial of the toxin that had killed her baba.
“The Kazili wanted the throne, and plotted against her father!” Tosin had railed. “The prince must have uncovered her plot, and she killed him as well. The body was stabbed through the heart. There was blood on her dagger! Blasphemy! Murder!”
Akanni could hear him riling up the guard as she raced through the palace with those most loyal to her and her family, intending to flee.
“Hunt down the Kazili Heshenae! She must pay for her sins!”
Tosin’s voice chased Akanni from her home that day, and across the savannah for three seasons hence. During that time, she told her story to the few who would listen. Some joined her. Others . . . well. Her small encampment remained on the move, trying to gather numbers and strength, going from allied country to allied country to seek the aid of any who would see her returned to her home and her throne.
But even as she worked, so did Tosin. He spun his web of lies to reach farther and farther. Many people believed him. Those who did not feared going against the High One. And the evidence against her, false as it was, was condemning. So Tosin named himself the Lion, then took command of her family’s armies to begin the hunt. He would track down the heshen and bring her to the Goddess’s justice. Then, Her will fulfilled, he would see to it the throne was secure.
So Akanni lived in exile, training, planning, managing to stay three steps ahead of Tosin, until three nights ago, when a contingent of his men discovered her with a small band of attendants, trying to get word to the lord of a local city, hoping to gain another ally. The attendants were slain, and Akanni captured.
And here she stood, defiant still. “I saw you with the man in the cloak. The same man who left the poison in my room after he used it to kill the Kazi.” She had told the guards of the intruder, but when they searched the grounds, they found no trace of him. Then they dismissed her story altogether when they found the vial. “You had him drug my father—did he slay my brother, too?”
Tosin gazed at her, still wearing that look of slight amusement. “You always were smarter than any girl has the right to be.”
“Mark me, Tosin. I will end you, and then I will find the one who helped you murder my family.” Anger coiled through her like a living, wild thing, ready to pounce. She was still shackled, but chains could be used to kill.
Tosin’s laughter brought on the familiar chill along her back. It wasn’t the amused laughter from before, but more a bitter, cruel thing that curled his lips. “Should we let her in on our little secret?” he said, but not to her. His eyes moved to somewhere over her shoulder.
Akanni spun and came face-to-face with the last person she ever expected to see. Her lips worked uselessly at first, but she took a breath that was half gasp, half sob, and forced a single word free.
“S-Seth?”
Her brother stood over her, far taller than he had been when she last saw him. His face was set in the hard lines of their father’s. He watched her with rich, brown eyes. Their mother’s eyes, but his were not gentle like hers. They were cold, glassed with a deep sadness.
“Sister.”
Shock maintained its iron grasp on her mind. “W-what . . . what is this?” Her voice was small in her ears, pathetic.
“This is the will of the Goddess,” Tosin said from behind her. Water sloshed as he climbed from his bath. “Once I have slain the Kazili Heshenae, I will bring her body to the great temple and lay it as a sacrifice on the altar. From the ashes, and by the blood of the devout, our prince will be reborn. It will be rhakah, the Goddess made flesh, like the days of old. You see, I said I would secure the throne, but I never said for myself.”
Akanni trembled hard enough that her shackles rattled. Tears streaked her face. “It was you,” she whispered, her eyes on her brother’s unchanging face. “The m-man in the cloak. It was you.”
“Yes. It was me.” Seth’s voice had deepened with the approach of manhood. Both of them had one season before they were of age.
She dropped to her knees, doubled over. “W-why?” she asked the dirt between sobs.
“Because it was up to me to set things right.” Seth shifted, and his hands pressed to her shoulders as he knelt in front of her. “You had strayed so far from the path, and Baba refused to bring you back. I . . . begged him. He said it was not our place, that we should give you time.”
Seth’s hold tightened. “But time is not something we had. Baba was fading. I saw it, I know you did. He would not see the next turn of the seasons, and you were moving further and further from the Light. He would be dead, and with you being the eldest, Amma’s throne would pass to a heshen. The Goddess would surely destroy us all. I swear to you, sister, I do this out of love. Love for our people. Love for the Goddess. Love for Amma. If she could see you now, see how far you have fallen, she would weep.”
Akanni wept. And as she did, Seth’s fingers stroked her hair like he used to when they were little.
“I went to Tosin with my concerns. He prayed and fasted, and the Goddess granted him a vision, a way for us to avoid the destruction of Oramec, of so many innocent lives. This . . . this plan. It broke my heart. I did not want to see the truth of what needed to be done. I thought I could avert this future another way. At our cousin’s wedding, I asked Baba to consider passing the throne to me. He refused, even when I told him of my fears. Do you know what he said? ‘To the Deep with the Goddess.’” Seth’s voice trembled. “Can you believe that?”
Akanni stopped crying. Her fingers curled in the earth.
I am stone.
Her heart pounded in her ears, but she heard her brother’s words ring clear.
“I asked. One last time, when we returned home. He said it was blasphemy. Him! Accuse me of being heshen, after what he said!” The anger in Seth’s voice would have frightened her before, but an icy hardness had poured through Akanni and encased her wailing heart. “I knew what I had to do. I knew it would be hard, but . . . all trials are.”
“And so you have completed this one,” Tosin said from somewhere above her. “The Goddess will be pleased.”
“And when your body is burned on the altar, sister, your sins will be purified. You will be able to go to Her.” There it was, the joy and lightheartedness she was used to hearing in her brother’s voice. So much of him seemed the same, and yet was different.
She hoped, she prayed, that at least his habit of keeping a dagger hidden in his usual spot had not changed.
“Get her up,” Tosin snapped.
Hands gripped her shoulders. That’s when Akanni snatched at the rim of her brother’s right boot. Crouched as he was, he couldn’t pull away fast enough as her fingers curled around the hilt. Twirling the weapon easily in her hand with the ability three years of daily training had taught her, she drove it up and into the soft, giving flesh of her brother’s belly.
He screamed.
Something warm and slick poured over her hands as she worked the knife back and forth. Getting her legs underneath her, she surged upward, throwing his body off her. He fell over, clutching at his guts as they spilled into the dirt.
“Guard!” Tosin bellowed, even as the flap of the tent was already drawing open.
In that instant, the pain, the anger, the fury Akanni had worked to contain exploded outward. Fire swept through her entire body. She let it consume her, then let it flow. White flame erupted from her skin. The guards and the soldier from before, having rushed for her with weapons drawn, recoi
led. Fear took their faces and lit their eyes. Their swords crashed to the ground as they turned and fled, leaving Tosin to his fate.
The white flame ate away everything it touched. The pillows, the rugs, the posts that held the tent in place. Soon, it would all come crashing in, but not before she finished what she was here to do.
She faced Tosin, who cowered where he had leapt back into his bath, as if the water would save him. She stalked toward him, through the flame. It licked at her skin, harmless.
Tosin shrank in on himself as she drew near, the whole of him shaking enough to send ripples racing through the dirtied water.
“W-what . . . what is this?” His voice cracked in terror. He glanced about, for possible escape, his straggly black hair whipping about, but there was nowhere to go. All was flame and ember and ash. “What are you?”
“This . . . is rhakah,” Akanni said.
The disbelief on his face pleased her.
“She came to me, in the dead of the night. Me, of all to be chosen, a nonbeliever. I was tired, starving, and weeping where your soldiers had tied me in the cold to sleep, certain I was going to die.” Akanni had never been more certain of anything in her life. The cold was crushing. Near starving, her body was failing. She had failed. There was nothing left. “I wanted to die.” She had welcomed death. Prayed for it. And as she lay there, the life slowly seeping from her, she heard it.
“My child,” a voice whispered in the darkness. “My daughter. My love. Hear me.”
“A-Amma?” Akanni whispered, certain she was near the gates to the Garden, and her mother had come to take her the rest of the way.
“I am all and nothing. I began before, and I will end after.” The words echoed around Akanni, sweet and low. The voice’s edge danced against her mind like a blade. “I have heard your prayers, and I come for you, wayward child.”
The darkness parted and light filled the void, then coalesced into a single orb, bright and shining. The moon, Akanni realized, just as the lights of stars sparked to life around it. The sky stretched over her, clear and bright.
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