by Fiona Zedde
“She and I weren’t together in that way,” Nyandoro said.
But Duni wasn’t listening to her. She gathered the loose ends of her kanga around her shoulders and neck, huddling inside the cloth like she was trying to hide. “The least you could have done was tell me the truth, say you don’t want me anymore. I’ve been mourning you.” Tears cut into her cheeks. Her chin wobbled.
“Stop this!” Nyandoro snapped at Yemaya.
The Orisha merely raised an eyebrow at her. “If you won’t handle your business, I will.” She moved closer to Duni, a crying misery, who backed steadily away from her.
“You are her new wife?” she asked Yemaya.
“No, I am not.” A flicker of cruel amusement crossed the Orisha’s face. “Leave this place and come with me. There’s nothing else for you here. Your parents are dead. Your husband has abandoned you.”
“She told you about me?” Duni looked even more betrayed.
“She knows everything,” Nyandoro snapped. Her patience was near its end with Yemaya’s meddling in her life. “I didn’t need to tell her.”
“But you did! I never thought you were this cruel.” Trembling like her body was caught in a storm, Duni turned and darted away from Nyandoro and Yemaya both. But Yemaya made a sound of impatience and grabbed Duni. She touched her forehead and Duni collapsed at her feet, sprawled in the dirt.
“No!” Not like this. The terror of losing consciousness then waking in a new and dangerous place was something Nyandoro knew well. She didn’t want that for Duni. She ran to her, but Yemaya already held her limp body in her arms.
“You know where we’ll be,” Yemaya said. Then she disappeared with Duni.
Nyandoro spent valuable moments gaping after them like a landed fish before she rushed after them, using her new power to travel across hundreds of maili in the blink of an eye.
The palace. She appeared inside its main hallway with a flutter of her robes. The torchlights were bright and she winced against their glare. Anesa, already walking through the hallway ahead of her, turned with a sleeping child in her arms. She looked over Nyandoro’s tumbled appearance, the cowl falling down around her shoulders, her breathlessness. Nyandoro calmed herself and wished the girl a happy evening. Then she left for the guest quarters, sure that was where Yemaya took Duni.
In the wide east wing of the palace, she searched room after empty room, then rechecked their collective memory. Yes, she was in the right place. But Duni wasn’t here.
Nyandoro forced herself to breathe evenly, deeply. She pressed her back to the cool stone wall of the last empty sleeping room. Why would Yemaya do this thing after Nyandoro had given her everything she wanted? Her life. Her family. Her loyalty. She slid down the wall, then used her power to quietly shut the door so none of the passing women could see her. Tears burned behind her eyes. Her face grew hot.
The last time she’d cried was…
No. She did not have time to cry. There were women in peril and droughts and…
Shit.
Wet salt dripped into her mouth. Her head thudded back against the wall and she simply sat there.
Waiting. For the next time they needed her. For her next chance to give up everything else she had.
“Don’t be such a baby.”
It took her a moment to realize there was another voice in the room. A familiar voice. Because she didn’t want to move too quickly and push the illusion away, she opened her eyes and slowly turned.
The room’s largest window looked onto the valley’s winding path leading down through the trees and to the water. Kizo sat perched on the ledge of this window. His feet dangled outside, but he was looking over his shoulder at Nyandoro. The last time she’d seen him, his head had nearly been cut from his body and he lay in a pool of blood big enough to drown in. He shouldn’t be here.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said.
He laughed, his teeth white and cheeks plumping in humor. “Neither should you.” Then he shook his head, the snaking vines of his long hair moving over his bare shoulders and back.
Longing, heavy beyond measure, pressed into Nyandoro’s chest. She wanted to go to him. She wanted to touch him to see if he was real.
But she stayed still, her back pressed to the wall, only her eyes devouring her brother. He wore one of his favorite outfits, which was to say he was nearly naked, only a short kanga around his waist. His chest gleamed in the moonlight pouring in through the window.
Part of her knew why she was seeing him. Being the Rain Queen, Yemaya’s consort and the embodiment of her power on the earth, Nyandoro was now able to see into realms normal human eyes could not. But it didn’t make seeing her brother any less frightening. The loss of him hit her again, like a punch to the chest, and left her breathless. Truly, she was alone now. Nyandoro breathed through her mouth, slowly, blinking at him, missing him, then she swallowed her pain. It had no place in the Rain Queen’s palace.
“They slaughtered all of you like animals.”
Kizo made a dismissive sound. “That’s in the past, and our family is in another world now.” He gestured to himself. “This body does not exist.” Kizo pointed to the valley beyond the window, the world outside out. “This is what you have now, and this is what you can change.”
“This is nothing.”
“Stop being such a baby. It doesn’t suit you. Not now.” He hopped down from the window and crept toward Nyandoro on soundless feet. Silver light poured through the window and followed him. “Think about Duni,” he said. “Don’t make me claw my way from heaven to throw her on top of you. That’s not very celestial.”
Nyandoro drew in a breath that actually hurt. She didn’t realize she was sobbing until her brother’s hand squeezed her shoulder hard enough for her to feel it. “I don’t think I can do this,” she said.
“This queen stuff is no big deal.” He shrugged. “I’d do it for you, but I’m a bit indisposed at the moment.” He nudged her with a smile. “The hardest thing for you to do now is forgive yourself and love Duni again. Allow her to love you.”
“I never stopped loving her,” Nyandoro croaked. Her tears fell harder and she felt on the verge of falling over onto her dead brother’s knees.
“I know.” Kizo squeezed her shoulder again and rose to his feet, a graceful line of beautiful dark. “Now get up. Iya didn’t raise any of us to live on our knees, queen or not.” The teasing familiarity of his tone pressed against her face like a cool cloth.
She drew in a breath, then two. “Okay.” She stood up and wiped her face. “Okay.”
“That’s the sister I know.” His face brightened with laughter. “I’d say give Duni a kiss for me, but that would be a little strange.” He was leaving. His body language said as much.
Nyandoro panicked but stopped herself from begging him to stay. “Will I see you again?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. We’ll just see how this goes. This spirit of the other world thing is new for me. And I suspect that your new…” He looked deliberately around the luxurious room. “…status has something to do with my access to this world.”
“At least this Rain Queen business is good for something.”
“It’s good for a lot,” Kizo said. “Did you see all the wives you have now?”
She drew back. “I won’t share a sleeping mat with them!”
Kizo shook his head, looking genuinely sad. “Yeah, I would have made a much better Rain Queen than you.” He glided to the window and looked out. “Fix your life, sister.” Then he was gone.
She sat on the window ledge for a long time after he disappeared, turning over the words he’d left her with. Thinking about what it meant that sometime in the future, if she was very lucky, she would see him again. Eventually, she climbed down from the window, feeling an ache all through her body that was more emotional than physical. She knew this body of hers was strong, and that Yemaya protected what was hers from the ravages of time. She knew she was young. But already, it felt like a hundred seasons si
nce she’d been pulled from everything she knew as familiar, even though it had only been two or three moons. At the door, Nyandoro drew a deep breath and then opened it.
The hallway was empty except for the fluttering hem of a bright blue robe disappearing around a corner. From a nearby room, she heard the sibilant sounds of a whispered conversation. Her sandals tapped softly against the painted tiles and torchlight flickered above her head, lighting her way down the corridor. Air flowed freely through the stone archways and high windows, bringing the scent of the sea. This was her life now. Quiet and lonely.
At the entrance to her rooms, something made Nyandoro pause. A sound. Quiet breathing. She looked around but saw nothing except for the long stretch of empty hallway behind her. She shoved open the thick blue door.
Duni lay on her sleeping mat. Draped in a long blue tunic of the style favored by the wives, she had her eyes wide open and watched Nyandoro’s every step into the room. She’d been bathed and her hair combed, oiled to a fine sheen and puffed around her head like a dandelion. The bath and grooming had resurrected the beauty in her that Nyandoro was familiar with. But the sadness on Duni’s face, worse even than when Ibada had thrown her out, wasn’t something Nyandoro wanted to get used to. Duni sat up in a rustle of cloth and drew her knees to her chest. Although her posture was one of vulnerability and dread, the look she gave Nyandoro was pure venom.
“Why did your woman bring me here?” she asked.
Nyandoro shut the door and thought about telling Duni she was free to go, and to forget everything that happened that evening. She even opened her mouth with the words resting on her tongue.
But.
“I’ve killed men.”
Duni jerked back, as if from a slap, her face settling into lines of shock.
“A man’s blood dripped through my fingers like water, and the feel of it made me glad.” Nyandoro skirted the high and wide sleeping mat to sit on the low stool she’d seen some of the servants use. Duni was beautiful there. So impossibly out of her reach. She might as well have been ripped open in the dirt like Kizo, like her iya, and all the others. Duni rested her chin on her upraised knees and stared at her.
“Well, don’t you have anything to say?” Nyandoro asked after the silence threatened to choke her.
“Were these bad people?”
The childish question almost made Nyandoro laugh. “Does it matter?”
“Yes, it does.” Duni pressed her back into the wall and shivered. The stone must have been cold. She pulled a large pillow from the end of the sleeping mat and put it between her skin and the wall. When she moved, Nyandoro saw there was no back to her tunic. The cloth draped low just below her spine, leaving her back bare and a warm mahogany in the torchlights. Duni would be soft if she touched her.
But Nyandoro jerked her thoughts back from such dangerous territory. “I’ve done things since I’ve been here that changed me from the girl you knew. I cannot be a wife to anyone. Especially not to you. You are…” good. Nyandoro didn’t deserve her.
“You’re right,” Duni said, and Nyandoro winced. “You have become someone different since you’ve been away. You’re making decisions for me like my no-longer-husband used to. The girl I knew would never do that.”
“No!” Nyandoro refused to accept the comparison to Duni’s old husband. He had acted selfishly, taking wife after wife without consideration for the women. He’d thrown Duni away like she was nothing. She stood up, suddenly agitated, her robes swishing around her feet. From outside came the faint crack of thunder. Lightning illuminated the dark sky. “I am not Ibada.”
Duni squeezed her arms around her knees and stared back at her. “True. At least he had the courage to take me for a wife.”
Thunder exploded nearby, shaking the room. “Are you trying to make me angry?”
“Only if the truth angers you.” Duni rocked back against the wall, her hands braced flat on the sleeping met. Nyandoro realized then that Duni was shaking. She was afraid. The anger left her body in an explosive breath. The thunder outside died away, and the lightning flickered weakly before leaving the sky dark again. Moonlight burned at the edges of the windows, silently accusing as they reminded Nyandoro of Kizo and their earlier conversation.
“Duni…I would never hurt you.” She sat carefully on the edge of the sleeping mat.
“Liar.” Duni’s voice shook. A tear slid from the corner of her eye and down her nose. “You hurt me when you didn’t come back. You’re hurting me now.”
“That’s not what I want,” Nyandoro said. “You’re my family. The only one I have left.” Despite her ambivalence about Duni’s presence at the palace, she was desperate to make her understand. She reached out, but Duni jerked her hand away. “After everything that happened, I was only doing what I could to protect you.”
“You do not abandon family to the jackals and come back to look over the carcass.” More tears fell. Duni angrily wiped them away. “That’s what you’ve done to me, Nyandoro. You didn’t protect—” Duni broke off with a gasp. She pressed back into the wall, terror distorting her face. Nyandoro whirled around.
Yemaya stood in the center of the room as herself. The blue and white of her seven-layered skirts moved in their own breeze, and her face shifting through all its aspects. Old woman. Virgin. Sea sorceress. “Must I do everything for you, beloved?” Her voice was like thundering waves crashing around Nyandoro’s ears, strong and fearsome.
“What are you?” Duni asked, her eyes wide.
“No one you need to be jealous of,” Yemaya said. “Nyandoro is mine, but she is also yours in the way that matters most to you.” Her voice lowered and become kinder, more human. “She loves you. She did not come to this place of her own free will. But she went to find you because she couldn’t imagine a life here without you.”
Nyandoro narrowed her eyes at Yemaya. She had no right to tell Duni what Nyandoro hadn’t even allowed herself to admit.
“Yes, beloved?” Her tone was amused now, a playful breeze over calm waters.
It made Nyandoro feel anything but calm. “Stop!” she snapped. “I can tell Duni what she needs to know.”
“I’m getting more information from this woman than you’ve given me.” Duni moved away from the wall, her eyes trained on Yemaya. “Let her talk.”
“She is no woman,” Nyandoro said.
Yemaya laughed, but not unkindly, and the scales over her bare shoulders and breasts glimmered under the torchlights. Her eyes flickered to a lightning white then back to brown. “True.” She drifted toward Duni with a liquid brush of her skirts over the tiles. Duni trembled, obviously frightened, but did not move. “Nyandoro is right. She is not the same woman you knew before. But that just means she needs you and your love more than ever. She just won’t ask.”
“I didn’t ask for your meddling either.”
“You don’t have to ask me for the things you need.” Yemaya’s eyes glittered dangerously, letting Nyandoro know she was walking on a fine edge. Then she waved a hand through the air as if brushing aside her irritation. “Being my queen is not something to be endured until the next woman rises to take your place. Happiness is within your reach. Take it before it vanishes with the tide.”
Happiness? How was that even possible with all she’d lost?
The Orisha shrugged her glittering shoulders as if to say, that’s up to you to figure out. “Now that I’ve gotten the conversation started, I’ll leave you two alone.” The aspect of the wise woman took over her features, lined her face and whitened her hair. Her breasts sagged beneath the long string of beads making up her necklace. “Just do not forget, Nyandoro, Duni has lost everything too.” Then she vanished.
The sound of the sea, deep and lulling, lingered after her. Nyandoro breathed in the salt scent she left behind and released a sigh. Before she could speak, Duni moved from protective huddle against the wall and slid to the edge of the sleeping mat with her feet on the floor. She kept at least five hand widths of space between her
and Nyandoro.
“Don’t let your…whatever guilt you into letting me stay,” she said. “You don’t want me here. I’ll leave.”
If only it were that simple.
Nyandoro considered her options, looking ahead to the hundreds of seasons she had yawning before her, all spent alone. She held out her hand. “Come,” she said.
Duni watched her with suspicious eyes, her own hands clasped in her lap. Nyandoro held her hand steady, palm up. This wasn’t the time for her to close herself off in a protective shell. She was no longer responsible just for herself. Not anymore. Like she’d told Duni, the child who ran through the streets of Jaguar Village didn’t exist anymore. Ny had had the luxury of thinking only of herself, of her own desires and the most expedient ways of fulfilling them. That child was dead. Long live the queen. The queen had responsibilities and one of those responsibilities was Duni.
But there was another truth Nyandoro couldn’t hide from herself.
“Please,” she said. “I…I need you.”
Surprise tugged Duni’s eyes to hers, her eyelashes a fluttering of wingbeats against her cheeks. The silence deepened. Then finally, finally, she took Nyandoro’s hand. Relief made Nyandoro pull her close, drawing in the scent of the mint oils the wives had rubbed into her skin and hair, the womanly essence that was uniquely Duni’s. Her skin was soft, and Nyandoro missed softness. She’d missed her.
“Many things have happened since we saw each other last,” Nyandoro said. She pulled her hands away from Duni, fingertips lingering briefly because she wanted so very much to keep touching her. “Let me show you.”
The darkness in the palace, in the valley where it nestled, seemed more complete than anywhere Nyandoro had ever been. But the dark, like in Jaguar Village, was nothing to be feared. Instead, it was a soft cocoon of comfort that held them all until the sun rose, bringing an equally complete and all-encompassing light.