by Namina Forna
Elder Durkas watches me, a chilling hatred in his eyes. Who will he bleed for gold now that I’m gone?
As we pass the last houses on Irfut’s outskirts, White Hands gestures toward the girl. “Deka, this is your traveling companion, Britta. She is going to the capital as well.”
“Hullo,” Britta says again. Surprisingly, she doesn’t seem scared of me at all, even after what Elder Durkas said. But then, she’s an alaki like me.
I manage a small, shy nod. “Evening greetings,” I mumble.
“Britta will explain to you more about your kind,” White Hands says. “She should know. She’s the same as you. Well, almost.”
I cautiously examine Britta from the corner of my eye. She catches my look and grins again. Other than my parents and Elfriede, no one’s ever smiled at me so much. I fight the urge to duck my head in embarrassment.
“So yer new to this alaki business too,” she whispers conspiratorially.
“I just heard the word for the first time today,” I reply, glancing down.
Britta nods eagerly. “I didna know about it meself until I started bleeding the cursed gold durin’ me menses. Me da nearly keeled over when me ma showed him mine. But they did me right, called herself.” She nods at White Hands. “She came an’ took me two weeks ago. Apparently, I’m one of the lucky ones.”
When I glance up at her, confused, she explains: “Afore, most girls got executed in the temples the moment they were discovered, an’ their families were punished so they’d never speak of it. Now everybody gets sent to the capital. They’ve even started takin’ the younger girls, the ones who haven’t been proven by the Ritual of Purity. The minute they suspect ye, they cut ye an’ that’s that.”
Despised are the marked or scarred, the wounded and the bleeding girls….The quote from the Infinite Wisdoms rushes through my mind, and I nearly laugh at the irony, the wickedness of it all. Now I understand why they don’t want girls to get cut or wounded before the Ritual of Purity. It’s so the impure ones like me don’t discover what we are, don’t ask any questions before it’s too late.
It’s likely also the reason they don’t kill impure girls before the Ritual. Kill a girl any other time and her family will protest, but the rest of the villagers will ask questions, voice their objections….It’s the Ritual that gives legitimacy to the murder.
An impure girl is despised by Oyomo, her very existence an offense to Him. Her murder is sanctioned by the Infinite Wisdoms, and who can argue with the holy books? Who would even try? All the families can see from then on is the demon that somehow infiltrated their bloodlines.
The sheer wickedness of it stings.
Britta looks at me, pity rising in her eyes. “Must’ve been horrible, wha those bastards did to ye back there. I’m so sorry for wha happened to ye.”
More memories, all so sudden and powerful, my body trembles from the force of them. The cellar…the gold…Blood rushes to my head, and light becomes pinpricks. I close my eyes against it, faint.
“Ye all right?” Britta asks, concerned.
I slowly nod. “I am,” I say. Then I clear my throat, try to change the subject. “So what did White Hands tell you about our kind?”
Britta’s eyebrows rise. “White Hands? That’s herself’s name?”
Her surprise is so unexpected, so genuine, I smile and shake my head. “I don’t know what her real name is. I gave it to her because of the gauntlets.”
Britta nods, quickly understanding. It’s bad luck to ask the emperor’s emissaries directly for their names. Never invite trouble into your house, as the saying goes.
I prompt her again. “So what exactly am I? What are we? White Hands never explained fully.”
“Demons,” Britta says, the word a shard of ice through my heart. “Well, their descendants, leastways.” She leans closer, eyes wide as she whispers, “She says we’re the descendants of the Gilded Ones.”
“The Gilded Ones?” I repeat, alarm rushing over me.
I know the Gilded Ones—everyone in Otera does. Four ancient demons, they preyed upon humanity for centuries, destroying kingdom after kingdom until everyone finally banded together for protection, forming Otera, the One Kingdom. It took several battles before the first emperor was finally able to destroy them, and he only did so using the might of Otera’s combined armies.
Every winter, villages enact plays chronicling the Gilded Ones’ defeat. Elderly aunts wear masks carved in their images to frighten naughty children, and men burn straw figures in their likeness to scare away evil.
And I’m being compared to them. Being called one of them. Heart drumming a sudden and panicked beat, I rummage in my pack and unearth the golden seal White Hands gave me, quickly counting the stars embedded in the ansetha. When I see what’s there, tears sear my eyes. Four. Four stars in the symbol. Four Gilded Ones.
Why didn’t I suspect this? I should have known, should have at least suspected the moment my blood ran gold. The Gilded Ones were female, after all, and they were always depicted with gold veins running over their bodies. No wonder Oyomo took so long to hear me, no wonder I had to submit to the executions, the bleedings, for so long. I am an insult to the natural order itself.
Britta doesn’t seem to notice my despair as she smiles at me. “Oh, ye got one of those too,” she says excitedly, holding a golden seal identical to mine. “White Hands gave it to me when me ma an’ da handed me over. Most saddened they were to see me go, but it was—”
“You were telling me about the Gilded Ones?” I quickly remind her, trying to stop her from saying anything more about her parents, about her life before now.
She’s not even horrified. Not even the slightest bit disgusted by what she is. But how could she be when her parents protected her, kept her from harm—from dismemberment—while mine…Tears prick at my eyes when I remember Father’s words: It would have been better if you had just died.
Did he even cry when he heard of my death, or was he just relieved—grateful to be free of his unnatural burden? Does he even think about me anymore?
I dig my nails into my palms to stop the thoughts from circling, and to try to focus on Britta as she answers my question. “Oh yes—the Gilded Ones,” she says brightly. “By the time Emperor Emeka destroyed them, they’d already intermixed an’ had all sorts of children with humans. We’re the result—their grandchildren thousands of times removed, I suppose.”
“So we are demons,” I conclude, a dull, heavy feeling settling over me.
“Half,” Britta corrects. “Less than a quarter, probably. White Hands says we change only when we near maturity, which is sixteen for our kind. Once we begin our menses, our blood gradually turns gold, an’ that makes our muscles an’ bones stronger. That’s why we heal so fast an’ are quicker an’ stronger than regular folk. It’s ’cause we’re like predatory beasts now, like wolven an’ such.”
Predatory beasts…Bitterness jolts me at the words.
I remember the surge of strength I experienced when the deathshrieks came, remember how I could see in that dark cellar even when there weren’t any torches. Now I understand why. It’s because I’m no better than an animal—a fiend skulking at the edges of humanity. Perhaps that’s even why I could sense the deathshrieks, why Mother could sense them as well.
But that doesn’t make sense. Mother wasn’t alaki. If she was, she would have bled the cursed gold when the red pox turned her insides to sludge, and then she would have fallen into the gilded sleep, her body taking on a golden hue and repairing itself while she slept. Then she would have come back.
She would have come back….
“By the time herself came, I could almost lift a cow.” Britta grins. “Very helpful when yer milking an’ they begin to get all unruly. I heard yer a farm girl too.”
I nod slowly, but my mind is far away. I have a lot to think about. A
lot to grieve.
The next week passes swiftly, a blur of howling snowstorms, freezing roads, and frightful nightmares. Even though I’m no longer in the cellar, I sometimes have dreams that the walls are closing in on me again, that the elders are approaching, knives and buckets in hand, gold-lust in their eyes. I wake up in the wagon crying, chest heaving with great sobs, while Britta edges ever nearer, concern in her eyes. I know she would hold me if I let her, but I’m not ready to be touched by another person’s hands.
Most days, I just feel like screaming until my throat collapses.
Sometimes, when I wake, the furs covering me are in tatters. I’ve ripped them apart in my sleep, shredded the tough hides as if they were parchment. Even the strongest men in the village couldn’t manage such a feat. More confirmation I’m unnatural, the spawn of reviled demons rather than a child of humanity.
It’s almost a relief when I look up after eight days of traveling to find we’re in Gar Melanis, the port city where we’ll board the ship to Hemaira. The entire city is smothered in darkness when we arrive—the ramshackle, soot-covered buildings crowd against each other, dim oil lamps brightening murky interiors. Our ship, the Salt Whistle, creaks at the dock, an aged, squat passenger vessel with graying sails and chipped blue paint on its sides. Wiry sailors dart across the snow-slick deck, settling passengers, hauling baggage and supplies. Families huddle together against the cold, mothers in their plain brown travel masks, fathers with miniature copies of the Infinite Wisdoms on their belts to ensure traveling mercies.
The moment we board, I find a quiet corner and look up at the night sky. Bright green and purple lights are rippling across it: the Northern Lights, heralding the return of Oyomo’s chariot to its Southern home. It’s a sign: after all those weeks in the cellar, Oyomo has finally answered my prayers. I’m on my way to Hemaira, to my new life as a soldier in the emperor’s army—a life that will bring me absolution.
Thank you, thank you…The prayer of gratitude circles my mind.
“Enjoying the view?”
White Hands is approaching, Britta and the equus at her side. As usual, there’s that look in her eyes, that amused smirk that’s always visible under the shadow of her half mask. It makes the skin on my arms prickle, an uneasiness I do my best to stifle. What if White Hands is lying? What if all of this is a trick—an underhanded plot to corral all our kind into the same place? I wouldn’t put it past her.
I’ve never met anyone so secretive in my life, not even the priests. Britta and I have spent over a week in her company, and she still hasn’t told us her real name. We now call her White Hands outright, since she’s made no objections.
I school my features and turn to her. “It’s beautiful,” I reply.
“Isn’t it?” Britta is in such a hurry to join the conversation now that I’m talking, she doesn’t even pay attention to her surroundings as she walks over. “Almost reminds me of the sky in—ARGHH!” she yelps, tripping over a mound of netting, but she’s up in seconds, dusting herself off and smiling ruefully, not a hint of embarrassment to her. “Almost broke me neck. Lucky our kind is hard to kill, ain’t that right, White Hands?” she quips.
The older woman shrugs. “Most alaki die very easily, actually,” she murmurs.
Britta’s forehead wrinkles. “But wha about the gilded sleep?” she asks.
“That happens only if it’s an almost-death.”
It’s my turn to frown now. “An almost-death?” I ask, walking closer. I’ve never heard of such a thing.
“For alaki, there are two types of death,” White Hands explains. “Almost-deaths and final ones. Almost-deaths are fleeting, impermanent things. They result in the gilded sleep, which lasts a week or two and heals the body of all wounds and scars—except, of course, those acquired before the blood turns.”
A chill shudders through me. I no longer have any scars—not even the ones from childhood. They all disappeared the moment I had my first almost-death.
I’m so uneasy now, I barely notice Britta frowning down at a tiny scar on her hand. “Guess I’ll never get rid of this, then,” she says with a sigh.
White Hands ignores her and continues. “An alaki can have several almost-deaths, but she has only one final death—one method by which she can truly be killed. For the vast majority of alaki, it’s either burning, drowning, or beheading. If an alaki doesn’t die from one of these, she’s practically immortal.”
I suddenly feel light-headed. Practically immortal? I don’t want to remain undying forever, to live despised and reviled as I am. I don’t want to remain like this one moment longer than I have to.
I have to win absolution. I have to!
Beside me, Britta has an awed look on her face. “Immortal…,” she breathes. Then she gasps. “Does that mean we can live forever?”
“I said ‘practically,’ ” White Hands corrects her. “Nothing is undying except the gods. Your kind does, however, age very slowly—hundreds of years to each human one. Add to that the swift healing, the ability to see in the dark, and no wonder people are so frightened of your kind—especially the ones who are hard to kill, like Deka.”
Britta’s eyes flit to me again, and I tense, waiting for that look to come into them—that disgust I saw so often reflected in the elders’ eyes. But she’s not even looking at me. Her entire face is screwed in thought as she stares at White Hands.
“White Hands?” she asks. When the older woman turns to her, she continues. “We’re not going to start eating people, are we? I mean, the Gilded Ones did, an’ we’re their descendants with all these abilities an’—”
“Have you started developing sharp teeth?” White Hands asks, cutting her off.
“What?” Britta frowns, taken aback. “I mean, no, but—”
“Does the thought of eating human flesh appeal to you?”
Disgust mottles Britta’s face. “No, of course not!”
“Then don’t ask me any more stupid questions. Eating people indeed.” White Hands humphs, shaking her head. She motions for us to leave. “Run along and secure your beds. It’s a long journey to Hemaira.”
As Britta and I walk toward the stairs leading down into the hold, Britta grumbles to herself. “I don’t think it was a silly question,” she mutters. “All that talk of predators an’ seein’ in the dark an’ such—it was a logical conclusion.”
Britta sounds so offended, a laugh bubbles inside me, momentarily pushing aside my dread. I try to hold on to the feeling as we walk through the door and enter the hold.
* * *
“Here we are.” Britta’s cheerful voice is like a balm to my thoughts, which have been steadily darkening since I entered the hold.
I try not to notice the shadows, the walls curving inward. Try not to notice the black edging my vision, the sweat dripping down my back. “This isn’t the cellar….This isn’t the cellar…,” I whisper to myself.
The cellar was dark, still. It smelled of blood and pain, not sour wine and seawater. There were no torches flickering in the shadows, no passengers unpacking their belongings and settling into their spaces.
I force my attention back to Britta, who’s pointing at the corner we’ve been given, where there’s just enough space to spread out two pallets and string a curtain for privacy. “Once we put our pallets down, it’ll almost feel like home,” she says.
There’s a strange note in her voice, but she avoids my eyes when I glance at her and bustles about, chattering ever more cheerfully.
“Course, it could use a few touches….Maybe a bright cloth or somethin’. But it really is nice, really it is.” Her voice sounds even more strained now, and when I look down, I see that her hands have clenched her skirts so tight, her fingers have turned the color of bone.
Finally, I understand.
Just like me, Britta has been branded impure, wrenched from everything she e
ver knew, and forced into a terrifying new life. Family, friends—even the village she grew up in is lost to her. For the first time in her life, she’s completely alone in the world. And she’s afraid. Just as I am.
That’s why she tried to get closer all this week, comforting me when I cried from my nightmares, pretending not to notice whenever I started to scream for no reason….She’s not like me—used to being alone, being hated….She needs to be accepted, to be part of a community. Except I’m the only community she has now—she and I connected by our demon ancestors and the golden blood that binds us. That’s why she was always there, waiting if ever I wanted to reach out and talk to her.
But I’ve been so focused on my own misery, I never did.
I try to breathe back the crowding darkness as I turn to her. “It must have been difficult, leaving behind your family, your village,” I whisper. A tentative opening to conversation.
Britta’s eyes flick to mine, and her chin trembles slightly. “It was…but they’ll be waiting for me when I return.” Her lips firm into a bright, determined smile. A mask that does its utmost to hide the pain, the uncertainty shining in her eyes. “Once I’m pure,” she declares, “I’m going back home to me village. An’ then I’ll see me ma and da an’ all me friends.”
I nod quietly, not knowing what to say. “That’s good. It’s good to have friends.”
“We should be friends.”
Britta leans closer, her mask of a smile desperately brittle at the edges. “I know we just met,” she says, “an’ I know after wha happened, ye find it difficult to trust anyone. But Hemaira’s a long way away, an’ I don’t want to do this alone. Yer the only one who understands wha it feels like. Who understands…”
She extends her hand. “Friends?” she asks, hope and fear shining on her face.
I look down, considering her extended hand. Friends…What if she betrays me like everyone else did? Like Father, Ionas, the elders…But no, Britta isn’t one of the people who cast me out and tortured me—she’s an alaki, the first and only one I’ve ever met.