Redemptor

  CHAPTER 27

  Gakuru’s shoulders turned to stone. His gaze fell like thunder on Zuri. “This,” he rasped, “is your doing.”

  “However do you mean?” Zuri’s voice was soft. He smiled down at the warlords from his dais, dark features cold and resplendent, like a marble-faced god. For a breathless moment, I lost myself in that charismatic rage. I knew then that I could drown in a man like Zuri, sinking like a pebble in his well of righteous blood.

  Gakuru unsheathed a knife from his weapon holster. “Your days as king have always been numbered. We knew you were up to something, we were only unclear on the details. But now the game is up, my king . . .” He bared his gold-capped teeth, knuckles tightening around the knife. The other warlords drew their weapons as well. “And we have armies a thousand strong. They will cut your peasants to pieces, and by the time we are done with you—”

  “By the time you leave this courtyard,” Zuri interrupted, “you will not have a single gold coin to your names. Your warriors may fight, but they will lose. Your lands will be razed, redistributed among the people, and your mills and quarries, stripped of your names.” His eyes gleamed. “Consider this day a gift from my parents and brothers.”

  Gakuru snarled. “You will soon join them.” He raised the knife to throw it . . . and then froze, blade clattering to the ground. Around him, the other warlords dropped their weapons as well, arms frozen in the air. Their mouths gaped like fish, blinded by light that had flashed from my mask, shining through the cloth of my adinkra gown.

  “Stop,” I hissed. But I hadn’t even needed to speak aloud. Like an instinct, my Ray had seized their okanoba as a viper took its prey, squeezing their wills into submission.

  “Witch,” Gakuru gasped. “Witch!”

  “Run,” I told Zuri and my entourage, who still hovered nervously by the dais. “It’s not safe here. Get out, all of you. Barricade yourself somewhere in the fortress.”

  My attendants fled from the courtyard, and though my guards hesitated, they jogged after my handmaidens when I commanded them a second time.

  “I’m not leaving you,” Zuri said, taking my hand. He beamed at me, glowing with the lurid power of his ibaje . . . and we vanished together.

  Stomach sloshing, I reappeared next to Zuri on the fortress’s highest turret, which offered a grim view of the battle unfolding below.

  “You planned this from the beginning,” I panted. “You didn’t expect me to convince the nobles at all. You were using my Pinnacle to distract the warlords.” I stared him, puzzled by the revelation. “Except for just now, when I used it by accident. You didn’t need me to control their okanoba.”

  “But I do. Now more than ever.” He spoke fervently, wind whipping his locs as he gestured at the carnage below. “You’re the only chance those peasants have to survive.”

  I followed his gaze, stiffening with horror as I realized how unequal the battle was. Armored warriors, faces painted with the colors of their liege warlords, swarmed the peasants like ants. The commoners outnumbered them, but even armed with the few weapons Zuri had managed to smuggle them, they were vastly unskilled and slowly but surely dropping beneath the merciless clubs of the warriors.

  “How in Am’s name do you expect me to stop this?” I snapped at Zuri. “You sent innocent, untrained people into battle! All of them could die!”

  “Or none of them.” Against all reason, Zuri was smiling, gently gripping my shoulders. “We’re almost there, Idajo. The warriors will only fight for as long as their warlords are alive.”

  He pointed to the center of the fray, where Gakuru and his peers cut down peasants left and right. The warlords were easy to make out: their skin gleamed with the power of okanoba—a merciless, malevolent blue.

  “Kill them,” said Zuri. “Order their hearts to stop and the battle will end immediately. Thousands of lives saved . . . and a new Djbanti born.”

  “Zuri, what are you talking about?” I wrenched from his grasp, my head reeling. “I can’t just murder seven people in cold blood.”

  He blinked. “If you don’t,” he said calmly, “thousands of peasants will die.”

  “Peasants you incited to rebel!”

  “Yes. Incited to stop bowing to people like those warlords. To people like me, for Am’s sake. To royal families, who have profited off the backs of the poor for decades.”

  “You’re using me,” I whispered.

  “Of course I’m using you.” He blinked at me without an ounce of shame. “To save thousands of people. Just like you’re using me to complete your council and save thousands of Redemptors.”

  “That is not the same,” I snapped. “I never manipulated or lied to you. If I kill those warlords, you might not abdicate the throne of Djbanti. You could just seize all their land for yourself. Rule with absolute power.”

  He exhaled slowly. “There’s no reason for you to trust me,” he admitted. “I wish I could prove myself, but I can’t. Still, Idajo . . . if you don’t deliver justice to Gakuru and his fellow cretins, the blood of innocents will be on your hands.”

  “Don’t,” I shrilled. “Don’t you dare blame me for a massacre you orchestrated.”

  “You could kill me,” he said, with sudden inspiration. “If I don’t abdicate. You could use my okanoba to stop my heart. That’s it—there’s your insurance. If I break my promise, you stop my heart where I stand.”

  He was right. And even if I didn’t have that power . . . deep down, I knew Zuri wasn’t lying to me. I may not have known him as well as I thought I had, but anyone could see that Zuri was extraordinary. He would never connive for a life of mere wealth and comfort. It was too unimaginative. Every muscle in his body strained for purpose. If I did what he wanted, Zuri would toss away his crown without a second thought. And those people below . . .

  My eyes slid to the peasants. The longer I waited, the more people fell. How many times would my cowardice cost human lives?

  “You already used your okanoba to save me,” he said fiercely, drawing me close. His hands found my waist, and my breath shortened. “Deep down, we think the same, Idajo. You stepped into your power like a second skin. It was beautiful. You used it then, for one life. So why not now, for many?”

  The logic entrapped me, clouding my thoughts. Already I could feel the heat rising in my chest. I wouldn’t even have to speak—if I thought of Gakuru’s cruel features and let the reins on my anger slacken, he and the other warlords would drop dead. Still—

  I balled my hands into fists. “When I saved you, I didn’t have to kill anyone. I didn’t play god.”

  By degrees, he read the stubbornness on my face, and his hardened with disappointment. Then his features grew strangely peaceful—distant. Resigned. “Well then, Idajo,” he said, still holding me, “you had better anoint me right now.”

  My heart pounded. “Why?”

  “Because I’m going down there,” he said. “It’s as you said—that battle is my doing. I won’t let those peasants fight alone. So in case I don’t see you again—”

  “Stop it,” I rasped, scanning him with fearful eyes as his words sank in. “Stop talking nonsense. And I can’t anoint you. You don’t love me.”

  He smiled, as calm as a madman. “Yes, I do.”

  Reeling with anger and grief, I flung the Ray at him out of contempt, knowing he couldn’t hold it—knowing it would hurt him. You don’t love me, I Ray-spoke.

  But he didn’t fall or cry out and press his temples. Instead, his voice sounded in my mind, setting all my nerves on edge.

  Wrong again, Idajo.

  I watched, speechless, as he drew a knife from his pocket, making a shallow slit in his palm. Then he sheathed the knife and took my hand. “Isn’t this how we seal it?” he asked. “The blood oath.”

  I nodded woodenly, wondering how he knew that—anointings were usually done in private. Still, I allowed him to make a cut, pressing our palms together. I inhaled sharply as my Ray flowed into him: a permanent, thrumming tether.r />
  That’s better, he Ray-spoke, then looped his fingers beneath the collar line of my dress, pulling out my obabrin mask by its cord, and setting it to rest on my chest.

  Twelve bold colors glittered on the face of the lioness: every immunity but old age.

  A thrill ran up my spine: I was a full Raybearer. I had fulfilled the command of the abiku. My mask was complete.

  “How?” I asked, as he tore his tunic to wrap our hands. “How is this possible? Zuri, you barely know me.”

  He shook his head, features glowing with that expression I’d seen twice before: hazy, as though recalling an old, fond memory. Then he drew me into a kiss—deeper than the one on the boat, stealing the air from my lungs as, dazed, I kissed him back.

  I loved you once before, he Ray-spoke. A version of you. It’s how I knew you’d be perfect.

  A cold, stinging suspicion crept into my veins.

  He was vulnerable now—I could tell, from the way he trembled against me—and so when I sent my Hallow into his mind, the usual barriers were gone. He stiffened as I rummaged through his memories, my lips still pressed to his—but he did not stop me. Then I froze and pushed him away, eyes wet with disbelief. In his mind, I had found the face I was looking for. He had kissed her once too. He had bonded with her—lived as one of her Anointed Ones.

  “Mother,” I gasped. “You . . . you were one of hers.”

  He continued to smile. “I was, my Idajo. And in a way . . . now I’m hers again.”

  My head pounded with horror. It all made sense now. His infatuation. His knowledge about the Ray. His insistence on mental barriers—he knew that if I’d discovered his ties to my mother, I would never have let him get close.

  “She understood, my Lady,” Zuri said dreamily. “The need to knock old regimes down before you can build them up again. I was going to build a world with her. Like I’m building a new world with you.”

  “Woo In,” I whispered, backing away. “You were council brothers. He kept your secret because he felt guilty about killing The Lady.”

  Zuri didn’t seem to register my repulsion, smiling as though we shared an inside joke. “I gave you hints, you know. When I told you I was Hallowed. And when I told you of my parentage—you know how partial The Lady was to isokens.”

  “You don’t love me,” I croaked, my shock giving way to rage. “All this time—all you saw was an extension of my mother. You love an idea of me.”

  He reached with his bandaged hand to stroke my hairline. “But that’s what the Raybearer is, Idajo,” he said fervently. “The Raybearer has never been about a person—not really. It’s about an idea. Min Ja and the rest may love the real you. But they also love what you represent: rebirth. Redemption. The tale of a monster turned heroine.” He pressed a final, lingering kiss to my forehead, and gestured to the chaos below. “I hope, Idajo, that you’ll be the story they need too.”

  Then, unsheathing his club and battle pole, my newest council brother glowed with the sickly tendrils of ibaje . . . and disappeared, leaving me alone atop the tower.

  Clanging weapons and the sick cacophony of blows roared in my ears. The battle below raged on, and before long I spotted Zuri, using the Ray to locate him in the fray. He had donned his Crocodile mask and fought alongside the commoners, skin burning cobalt, dealing death like a fluid, lethal dancer. His okanoba allowed him to fight with the strength of two men . . . but it wasn’t enough.

  Even now, I could see the battle turning in favor of the noble warriors. In less than an hour, I would be staring over a mass graveyard. Even though I hadn’t started this—even though I knew it wasn’t my fault, my stomach went leaden as the ojiji chorus sounded in my head.

  See how death follows everywhere you go? For shame, Empress. You will never make up for this. You will have to pay—have to pay.

  I shuddered. They were right. In my cowardice, I could not bring myself to kill, even to protect the innocent. The lost lives of every Djbanti commoner rested on my shoulders, and for that I deserved to pay. Unless . . .

  My eyes slid to Gakuru and his six companions. Even as they murdered dozens, they were nauseatingly resplendent, the subtle glow of okanoba lending glory to their cruelty. My jaw set with rage. How dare they abuse so rare and powerful a gift? They didn’t deserve to be called nobles.

  They didn’t deserve their okanoba.

  And with that thought, I took my hands off the reins of my will.

  My mask flashed, a burst of light over the battle. None of the fighters noticed, too caught up in combat . . . but in an instant, the seven warlords of Djbanti fumbled their weapons, clutching their chests and wheezing. Their smug stature disappeared, and they stared at one another in disoriented confusion. I had not killed them. But the glow of their okanoba was gone—leaving seven old, winded men in a field of peasants out for blood.

  “Now,” I growled, though I knew they could not hear me. “Let’s see how you do in a fair fight.”

  In seconds they were set upon, commoners covering their bodies in a wave of flesh and iron. I could not determine the exact moment the warlords died—but judging from how quickly the peasants dispersed, whooping in victory,—I guessed it had been quick. I squinted. No—one of the warlords still lived, albeit barely: Gakuru dragged himself up from the bodies of his fallen peers, clutching his side. A nearby peasant warrior cried out, preparing to finish the job, but Zuri got there first, plunging his pole in Gakuru’s side. I exhaled with relief . . . until, with a dying lurch, Gakuru ripped the crocodile mask from Zuri’s face.

  The whoops of nearby peasants grew dull with shock—and then, as they recognized the king of Djbanti, they advanced with roars of rage.

  “No,” I breathed, and then hollered at the top of my lungs, though I knew the enraged commoners could not hear me. “No, don’t hurt him! You don’t understand; he’s on your side!”

  But my cries fell on deaf ears. Of course they did—as far as these starved, abused commoners knew, Zuri was just like the warlords. Just another noble, feeding off the sweat on their backs. Of course they thought that. It was exactly what Zuri had taught them.

  “Stop,” I rasped. But my Ray had no power over those without okanoba. So I did nothing—only stood on that tower and watched as combat pole after combat pole lodged in Zuri’s torso. Before he fell, he looked up . . . and tears filled my throat in wonder and horror.

  Zuri was smiling.

  Smiling, because at last, he had been a successful tool.

  This was what he’d wanted all along, I realized. He hadn’t planned to live past today. Hadn’t wanted to. I remembered now how he had evaded my questions on the Tsetse Fly, when I asked his plans for the future. His whole life had revolved around bringing about his revolution. To birth his new Djbanti. It was beautiful, Zuri’s cause—of that I had no doubt. It was selfless, unambiguously right. But he had given himself nothing else to live for. His world had gone adrift, and so . . . he had chosen to fall out of orbit.

  In that moment, I saw my own future. Zuri had called us the same, and he had been right. As every care, every other focus in my life winked out, tunneling to a single focus until I could only find joy in one goal—do more—I was fast approaching Zuri’s ending. And it had taken this—the dreadful glory of Zuri’s death, the rapture of his dying face—for me to realize I didn’t want it.

  This was not my ending.

  I did not want a hero’s death. I did not want to die in the Underworld, my story reduced to a function, a meal to sate the appetite of ghosts.

  Craven, hissed the ojiji. Deserter. Justice—justice! Pay the price. Don’t you care?

  “I do care,” I told them, out loud. “I want justice—for you. For everyone. But I have to find a balance. It isn’t enough to pay for past abuses. I have to find a future to live for too.”

  The voices paused, considering. Well then, they asked, voices dripping with contempt, what will you live for, Empress Redemptor? What could be more important than us?

  I had no a
nswer. My mind yawned blank as wind howled around the tower, raising goose bumps on my skin. Faintly, I realized that the battle had not ended with Zuri’s death. His prediction had been wrong—once the warlords were dead, some of the warriors did not immediately retreat, continuing to cut down commoners.

  I gripped the tower balustrade, swearing in helpless rage. “No!” Had all of it been for nothing—the Pinnacle, Zuri’s sacrifice? Would today still end in a massacre?

  Then drums sounded in the air—first far away, then nearer, and in a sequence I recognized. Before my eyes, cohorts of plainclothes warriors seemed to pour in from nowhere, flooding into the front lines and overwhelming both warlord and commoner forces.

  “Lay down your weapons,” barked a familiar voice. “Down! Let the peasants go free. There will be no more slaughter today.” My vision blurred with incredulous tears. For there on the battlefield, leading the charge against the warlords’ forces, was High General Sanjeet of Dhyrma.

  CHAPTER 28

  When I descended from the tower, a different battle seemed to be raging in the fortress—one of panicked greed instead of blood and justice. Djbanti courtiers fought with one another in the mudstone fortress corridors, barking at servants, stuffing sacks with tapestries, earthenware, sconce figurines of gold and ivory—any riches they could carry from the now-fallen royal house of Wanguru.

  I glided through the looting mobs, numb and directionless until a voice Ray-spoke in my thoughts, low and anxious.

  Where are you, sunshine girl? Answer me. Please. Tar, are you all right?

  I was too dazed to respond, but could sense the speaker moving toward me, searching the fortress, rounding corners until he appeared before me in a corridor, his armored chest rising and falling.

  I said nothing, not quite believing he was there. I’d certainly had more implausible visions. Though in those, I saw floating, undead children—not a man with tea-colored eyes, blood-spattered clothes, and a musical, cavernous voice I had not heard in months.