Redemptor

  I touched Ji Huan’s cheek, willing him courage through the Ray bond. That’s council sickness for you. But we can speak across the distance with kuso-kuso, remember? And Moreyao borders the Blessid Valley. You’ll see Chief Uriyah all the time.

  And you’ll visit me too, he added firmly. When you come back from the Underworld.

  My throat closed up.

  The certainty of his tone sent thrills of panic up my spine. Immediately, the table went quiet, twenty-one sets of eyes turned on me. I winced—my anxiety had been so strong, they’d felt it through our Ray bond, even with my mental shields up. It must have shown on my face as well—Adukeh, Da Seo, Ye Eun, and Woo In also looked concerned, even though we weren’t bonded through the Ray.

  Sanjeet’s hand closed over mine. “Is it the ojiji?”

  I shook my head, forcing a grin to calm my party guests. “No. Just—ah—running through my training from Ye Eun. Strange that in a matter of weeks, I’ll meet literal Deaths. Kind of exciting, when you think about it.”

  Nervous laughter all around. “If you get scared in the Underworld,” suggested Ai Ling after a pause, “just look at your mask. You’ve beat so many deaths already.”

  I lifted the obsidian lioness, smiling wryly at the glittering rainbow stripes. “Funny—in all my rush to pass edicts and prepare for the Underworld, I’ve barely tried out my immunities. Maybe I should jump off a battlement. Or provoke a blueblood into stabbing me. Or spend a night in the Bush and see if I get hexed.”

  “Don’t say those things,” Sanjeet grumbled. “Not even as a joke.”

  “Sorry.” I replaced the mask beneath my wrapper. “It’s just weird to think I’m immune to more than burning. Like, if I went swimming in the ocean, could I breathe underwater?”

  “Nope,” said Dayo, looking up from cutting grapes in half to feed Ae Ri, who babbled on his lap. “I tried that once when I was little. You won’t die, but you will vomit salt water for an hour.”

  More laughter around the table, genuine this time.

  “I’ve always wondered what it was like for you,” Ai Ling said, drawing thoughtful circles on Dayo’s shoulder. “Growing up, knowing that someday you’d be—well, almost a god.”

  Absently, he leaned his cheek against her hand. “It still hasn’t sunk in for me, really. And I don’t think it ever will. Still . . . it’s no wonder people worshipped our ancestors.”

  Ae Ri made an insistent grunt toward the orchard pen, where my birthday present from last year—the pale pink baby elephant—placidly rolled a log in the grass.

  Ai Ling pulled the little girl from Dayo’s arms, and together, they took Ae Ri to pet the elephant’s trunk. I smiled as I watched them, thinking just how much they looked like a family.

  “You know,” Dayo told me over his shoulder. “You never did name your birthday present.”

  But before I could respond, Ae Ri wrapped her arms around the animal’s muddy trunk, and lovingly cooed her first word.

  “Dog,” she said, with finality. “Dog.”

  I nodded solemnly. “Dog it is.”

  My gaze traveled to the massive black tapestries on An-Ileyoba’s walls, which blazed with Dayo’s and my new seal: dual Kunleo suns. I wondered, as I often did, what Zuri had made of the empire. He had spoken so glowingly of the way things were before in Aritsar—the days of elected nkosi chiefs, giving both poor and rich a say. Often, when I slept in my pile of council siblings, lulled by their soft, synced breaths, his words about the Raybearer echoed.

  The Raybearer has never been about a person—not really. It’s about an idea.

  But that idea, whatever it was, had always been bound to the Kunleo bloodline. What happened when that ended? After all, Dayo and I still didn’t have a plan to make new Raybearers. And even if we did . . . what would stop our heirs from being selfish, like Olugbade, or manipulative, like The Lady? Why did the health of the empire, the lives of millions, have to depend on a tiny subset of wealthy people being kind?

  Unworthy, hissed the chorus of treble voices. Unworthy, pay the price—

  My heart hammered. But before my distress could seep into the Ray bonds of my siblings, I stood suddenly. “Theo, Adukeh—did you bring instruments?”

  “Always,” said Theo, untying the harp strapped to his back. Adukeh patted her drum primly, as if insulted I’d even ask.

  “Good,” I said. “Because I have a birthday wish.” I gulped, holding out my hands to Sanjeet. “A dance.”

  Again, the table went quiet.

  “Tar,” said Sanjeet slowly. He rose from his seat, looking like he wanted to scan me for a fever. “You . . . don’t dance.”

  “Exactly.” I placed his hands on my hips, smiling up at him wryly. “So after this, the Underworld should be easy.”

  I pulled him toward the clearing, and the rest of my party guests followed as Theo and Adukeh struck the opening bars of a joyful, infectious rhythm.

  I was still terrible at the ijo agbaye. Seconds in, I had lost the beat, colliding with Sanjeet and bruising my right toe. But we were laughing so hard, I didn’t care. Theo’s musical illusion Hallow filled the air with amber gems and honey-colored butterflies that beat their wings in time to the music. Mayazatyl gyrated with Umansa and Kameron, and Min Ja forced a wobbling Uriyah into the fray. Kirah spun with Woo In, giggling as he swept her up in a glittering wind. Even Ye Eun joined the fun, bouncing a giggling Ae Ri on her hip. A short distance from everyone else, I noticed Dayo and Ai Ling, swaying as if to a melody all their own. Her jet hair had fallen out of its ornamented bun, making soft wisps around her face. When the song began to bleed into another, Ai Ling stood on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to Dayo’s mouth. I gasped and stifled a grin, wondering if anyone else had noticed.

  Startled joy washed over Dayo’s features . . . followed by regret.

  “Ai Ling,” I heard him say as Sanjeet and I danced close by. “I know how you feel for me. And I feel the same for you. But—”

  “I’ve had sex before,” Ai Ling said matter-of-factly. “And do you know what he said when we were done? Murmurwitch.” She sucked in a slow, shaky breath. “But . . . you’ve never said that. You’ve never even wondered. All you do, Dayo, is love the person in front of you so stubbornly, they love you back. So don’t you dare say you can’t make me happy.” She wrapped her arms around his neck. Dayo swallowed hard as he stared down at her, tears pooling in his pure black eyes. Then he kissed her, laughing against her mouth, full lips parted in an incredulous smile. “I will always want you, Ekundayo of Oluwan,” Ai Ling said when they parted, tracing his burn scar. “And I will never ask for more than you want to give.”

  Another song ended. Min Ja clapped her hands, gesturing for a retinue of Songlander attendants who waited on the sidelines.

  “In celebration of my little sister’s eighteenth birthday,” she said, smirking at me, “my retinue has prepared something special. May I present the famed dancers of Eunsan-do Court.”

  And don’t worry, she Ray-spoke, eyes twinkling. They’re not going to kill anybody . . . this time.

  I laughed, and then joined the court in clapping to the beat as veiled dancers took to the clearing, fluttering fans as musicians played a mélange of strings. But at a break in the music, Min Ja stepped forward again. She laid a blanket on the grass, then a small brush, a bowl of ink, and a long, wide roll of paper.

  “Da Seo has a present too,” she told me, then stepped back. “A blessing for the empress.”

  Da Seo stepped forward, squaring her shoulders for courage, and slipped out of her elegant silk shoes. Then she sat before the paper and removed her veil, revealing the scarred mouth and neck I had once seen in her memories. The party grew hushed.

  Then we watched, entranced, as Da Seo reached for the brush with her toes and painted on the scroll with a strong, steady foot. She switched the brush to her mouth for the finer details, curling the characters with flourishing charisma. The ink glistened, waves of power rising from the script, and
when I made out the words, which she had written in Arit instead of Songlander, tears stung my eyes.

  BEHOLD WHAT IS COMING.

  The ojiji could have screamed at the top of their lungs, and I would not have heard them. The strokes of Da Seo’s script glowed in the dappled sunlight, shining like my twenty-one council siblings’ faces as I took them in, branding their features on my heart’s eye. In that moment, a warm, rebellious certainty thrummed through my limbs, pinning my feet to the soft, fragrant ground.

  I will come back, I thought, speaking not to my siblings but to the world fathoms below, where spirits vied to keep me forever.

  You will try to hold me, to knock me down. But I will always get up. And I will come back.

  Behold what is coming.

  CHAPTER 31

  The last time I was paraded through the city of Ebujo—home of the last known entrance to the Underworld—townspeople had sung to celebrate my future. They still sang now, lining the streets and shaking shekere gourds. But this song was eerie and transcendent.

  A tribute to a fallen god.

  Where has our Lady Sun gone?

  Down-down, to the bottom of the world.

  Not dead, ah-ah! Just sleeping.

  Night is short

  When your servants sing forever.

  They were trying to comfort me with caterwauling voices and fragrant petals tossed onto my litter. They showed gratitude, promising me immortality—swearing to tell my story.

  Yet as I rode beside Dayo on that flower-covered litter, I wanted to cover my ears. To make the crowds disappear, to fade into merciful silence. Because in every single one of those mournful, worshipful faces, one thought was clear:

  The Empress Redemptor will not survive the Underworld.

  Don’t listen to them, Dayo Ray-spoke, sensing my revulsion through the bond. They don’t know your strength like I do.

  I smiled at him worriedly. I’m surprised there are any crowds at all.

  In anticipation of my trip to the Underworld, most of Ebujo had evacuated days ago. For miles around the city, in thousands of tents and makeshift camp towns, the Imperial Army of Twelve Realms waited—some million warriors strong—headed by Sanjeet and my living royal council siblings. Some of the warrior cohorts had begun traveling to Ebujo over a year ago, when I had first announced my agreement with the abiku.

  No one wanted a supernatural war, and if the abiku held up their end of the new treaty, there wouldn’t be one. The moment I entered the Underworld, the empire’s debt to the abiku would be satisfied, whether I came back or not. But despite the crippling expense of mobilizing the army, we couldn’t leave the fate of Aritsar to chance.

  “You’re sure I can’t come in? Just to see you off?” Dayo asked me for the hundredth time, when our procession stopped at the temple.

  I squeezed his hand. “I told you—I need to do this alone. If everyone else is there, it’ll feel like saying goodbye.”

  “You’re letting her come in with you,” Dayo mumbled sullenly, pointing at the palanquin behind us, from which Ye Eun was disembarking.

  “I was so surprised she asked, I couldn’t say no.” I glanced warily at the looming temple doors. “If I were her, I’d never want to see this place again.”

  He eyed me up and down. “Shouldn’t you at least wear a cloak? It’s supposed to be freezing down—where you’re going. At least take a shield. Or armor.”

  I shook my head. “Ye Eun and Woo In warned against it. Living souls are weak in the Underworld—every ounce you carry feels like ten pounds.”

  I wore nothing but a simple woven wrapper: cerulean, to remind me of the open Oluwan sky. I had no weapon. No supplies—not even a map. Instead, Ye Eun had made me stand naked in front of full-length mirrors, memorizing the glowing twists and turns inked onto my skin. If all went as planned, I could find my way through the Underworld with my eyes closed.

  Dayo held my hand so tightly, when he finally released, it felt like I had shed a second skin. Then I took off the lioness mask, pressing it to him. “Hold on to this.”

  “Tar, no—”

  “Just for a while.” I kissed his cheek. “Do you love me now, Ekundayo of Oluwan?” I asked, echoing the question he had once asked me.

  “Always have,” he whispered. “Always will.”

  I pressed my brow to his, flooding both our minds with the dual-Ray, inhaling Dayo’s scent—the warm, sweet essence of my other half. “Then wait for me,” I murmured.

  And I rose from the litter, entering the temple without looking back. The Ray sweltered over my skin—a hot beam at my back, as though Dayo’s vision were a coal, growing cooler and cooler until the vast stone doors shut, separating us for what could be eternity.

  Ye Eun and I entered the temple’s central chamber—a vast, ceilingless room of pale limestone, shot through with veins of purple—memories seeped into me from the floor, and bile soured my tongue. Only two years ago, I had seen dozens massacred here, murdered by monsters that rose from the Oruku Breach: the yawning chasm at the far end of the chamber, guarded by warriors, and glowing with malevolent blue light.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” I told Ye Eun as we neared the chasm’s edge. I choked out the words, trying not to breathe—the pit stank of sulfur. Standing near it made me want to scrub off my own skin, as though the stench alone could infect every pore.

  Ye Eun sighed softly, foul wind from the Breach tousling her short hair. “I know,” she said. “But it was the only way I could make sure you’d enter the Breach.”

  “Make . . . sure?”

  “I can’t let Ae Ri be sacrificed.” Her gaze was frank. “Not like I was. She’s all I have.”

  I breathed a laugh. “If I hesitated, were you planning to push me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah.” I gulped. “Well, no need for that.” And despite Ye Eun’s motivations, I was grateful for the company.

  The faint voices of the singing townsfolk, combined with the fainter roar of the largest army in five oceans, rung in my ears as I stared into the wide, smirking Breach. It reminded me of an eye: a perimeter dazzling with color, with a void at its center that seemed to go on forever.

  “Ye Eun?” I said, pulling my gaze back to her face.

  “Mm?” Her arms were crossed tightly across her chest. Though she avoided looking at me, water glinted on her cheeks and her chin quivered.

  “Can you promise me one thing?” I asked. “Once this is all over . . . Live for something besides Ae Ri.”

  She blinked with surprise. “But she needs me.”

  “I know. But she’ll grow up. Her family will expand.” The image of Dayo and Ai Ling cooing over Ae Ri flashed in my mind. “So will yours. And protecting someone else isn’t a purpose, Ye Eun. I learned that the hard way.” I smiled at her sadly. “What did you enjoy before all this? Back when you thought heroes could save the day?”

  She bit her lip, tracing the purple patterns on her thin arms. “I liked flowers,” she said at last. “They were hard to grow on Mount Sagimsan. Too rocky. But I always managed. I think . . . maybe somewhere sunny, like Oluwan, I could grow lilies again.”

  “That’s a start.”

  She inhaled thoughtfully, then reached in her pocket and pressed something into my palm: a tiny white blossom, pressed and dried. “It’s from your flower crown,” she mumbled. “The one I made you when we first met. I don’t know why I kept it. But . . . I liked having it in the Underworld.”

  My fingers closed around it. “Thank you.”

  Another beat passed in silence. The chilling blue light danced across our faces.

  “It’s probably easier if you go backward,” Ye Eun blurted. “That’s the one thing I regretted when I did it. Going face-first. Backward, you can keep your eyes on the light until it’s gone.”

  I swallowed hard. “Backward it is then.” I turned around, placing my heels on the edge of the Breach. My heart pounded against my chest. “Ye Eun?”

  “Empress?”

/>   “I—I think I want that push, after all.”

  She chuckled quietly and nodded, tears running over her pursed mouth. “For Ae Ri.”

  I took in her brave, slight features, hardened by invisible scars. “And for lilies,” I said.

  Then I placed her small hands on my shoulders. When at last she pushed, a small wail escaped her lips—and my heart leapt into my throat as I fell down, down, to the bottom of the world.

  The vertigo of freefalling lasted only a moment, replaced by a sickeningly slow descent, as though the air had thickened, and I fell through cold, brackish water. Around me was darkness—not black, but dense with clouds of murky green and cobalt. The mouth of the Breach faded quickly to a bright pinprick, but Ye Eun had been right—having something to look at comforted me, if only a mite. I learned immediately that screaming was a bad idea—the fog had a taste, and it was foul.

  Down, down, down.

  My hair billowed in a cloud around my ears. I could hear music—but not the songs of Ebujo City. A chaos of drumbeats and voices filled my mind, overlapping snatches of stories in whispered languages, as though the fog were full of memories. When at last my descent ended, I lay in a cavern lit by ghoulish floating lanterns. I had landed roughly on a pile of something uneven . . . but before I could investigate, I gagged, choking.

  No air.

  There was no air down here—inhaling, exhaling made no difference. My heart raced, sending sharp pains through my chest. Make it stop, I wanted to say as I flailed and gasped, a fish on a riverbank. This was a mistake. A bad dream. Make it all stop. But I didn’t—because that was what they wanted. The abiku couldn’t touch me without an invitation, but if my words gave them the smallest opening, they would take it.

  Ye Eun’s calm voice echoed in my mind from months of training. Six steps to remember—six tasks to escape the Underworld.