Isa remembers the conversation in the king’s study when Ayo argued in favor of KiYonte expansion. She thought him foolish and arrogant at the time, but now it seems he was the only one attuned to the Shirika’s mood.
Dear Mother, was that only weeks ago?
Something distant flickers in the Arc’s gaze. “My colleagues respected him, as they respected his father before him, but he was too much a guardian of the status quo when they wanted a conqueror. The Crocodile, however”—the Arc bares his teeth—“reptile that he is, sensed opportunity in the air and hatched a scheme to lure the Shirika away from Mweneugo by convincing them that he was the conqueror king they sought. Of course, I shunned him right away, but my colleagues . . .” Disgust contorts the old mystic’s lips. “I did not know they would be so fickle.”
A member of the Shirika speaking ill of his colleagues? Isa breathes deeply to stop her world from spinning. “Then how can you be sure that it wasn’t one of them who helped him with the massacre?”
“They would not have involved themselves directly,” the Arc says. “It would have been reckless and illogical. I suspect they promised the Crocodile that they’d look the other way should he move to take the throne—provided, of course, that any associated violence couldn’t be linked back to him.”
“Hence the use of a foreign alchemist,” Isa concludes.
“Indeed.”
Whoever they are, they’re probably thousands of miles away by now. It suddenly occurs to Isa that without a legion of their own, all the Saires had standing between their total oblivion and continued predominance over the other clans was the Shirika. Great mountains, to be sure, so great they were all too easy to take for granted, but somehow, Kola Saai managed to convince them to move.
And yet . . . Isa dares to meet the Arc’s gaze, this god in flesh. “Why are you helping me? Why have you gone against your brothers and sisters?”
“I disagree with their methods,” he says. “I’d like to see a KiYonte empire in my lifetime, but this is not the way.” He gazes thoughtfully down the stone path. “You will find this upsetting, Your Majesty, but your father is the unwitting architect of your clan’s predicament. I recall having a long discussion with him during which I warned him of what could transpire, but he chose to disregard my advice. He was too lenient with the headmen, made too many concessions in the name of peace when he ought to have tightened the reins. He was the first king with the power to give the Yontai what it really needs—not empire but unity—and he squandered the chance.”
A mix of confusing emotions rocks Isa’s already unstable world. “Unity, Your Worship?”
“The end of all clan divisions,” he says. “Every headman ousted and all the legions united under the mask-crown. Our divisions serve no purpose but to give grasping men like Kola Saai the weapons they need to control and weaken us.”
He says us like he sees himself as KiYonte, as one of us, not apart from us as he truly is.
Isa brings one hand to caress the marks on her neck, the snaking lines of the four-tusked elephant. She was born with them by virtue of being a Saire, a brand that will now be the death of her people. “I thought the clans were sealed in blood a long time ago. Are they not inescapable?”
The Arc seems pensive. “I suppose they are. Getting rid of them would be next to impossible. But that wasn’t what I had in mind when I spoke to your father. I had a more . . . brute-force solution to the problem. I even offered him the services of my guardians. He could have secured his hold on the entire kingdom in one night had he agreed.”
Isa is shocked to hear him speak so freely of assassination, and by divine Jasiri for that matter, but something he said grows at the back of her mind like a seed scattered accidentally by the wayside. She considers him carefully. “You said next to impossible.”
Genuine confusion spreads across the Arc’s face. “I beg your pardon?”
“You said getting rid of the clan marks would be next to impossible,” Isa repeats. “That is not the same as saying it is impossible. If it can be done, if there is a chance these marks can be erased—”
“Part with the thought, Your Majesty.” The Arc’s voice carries no threat but a dire warning. “You do not know what you speak of.”
“It would save so many lives,” Isa says like she hasn’t heard him. “The sudden removal of these marks would sap interclan hatreds and stop the violence before it even started. And even if violence broke, my people wouldn’t be easily identified.”
For a heartbeat the Faro gazes longingly at her, like he wants to tell her whatever it is he knows, but then he shakes his head. “Forgive me for bringing it up. These are merely the musings of a disheartened old man. Your father was like a son to me. He could have done so much. So, so much. Those who killed him took a bright star out of my sky, and I wish them nothing but evil.” He bows to Isa. “Good day to you, Your Majesty.”
And then he leaves her standing there with two bloodroses, unaware that he has ignited a flame in the pit of her stomach, that he has thrown her a sliver of hope, one she has latched on to like a drowning woman to a lifeline.
Later, she visits Jomo in the citadel’s administrative wing, where he has commandeered office space for himself among the clerks who serve under the high priest.
She finds him seated behind a desk cluttered with paper, sorting joylessly through a stack of mirrorgrams with puffy, unfocused eyes. The top buttons of his embroidered indigo shirt are undone, the matching kufi hat is awry on his head, and the fuzz on his cheeks is beginning to move away from stubble territory and into a full beard. Isa has never seen him look so disheveled.
In the corner, a young male votary in a crimson tunic and white face paint types away at the brass keys of a mirrorgraph, concentrating on the string of illusory ciphers flashing above the machine’s central crystal as he translates them into demotic script—incoming messages sent from distant mirrorgraphs.
Upon Isa’s appearance, both men snap their heads to the doorway. The votary is the first to rise from his chair and bow. “Your Majesty.”
Jomo’s face brightens a little, and he starts to look around for his cane, but Isa quickly motions for him to remain seated.
“Please, don’t. I can come back later if you’re busy.”
Behind his desk, Jomo snorts. “Attending to you is literally part of my job description. I’d be a terrible herald if I sent you away because I’m too busy.” He gestures at the chair in front of his desk. “Please, Your Majesty, sit.”
The votary politely excuses himself while Isa settles down. Her lips quirk involuntarily when she notices the half-empty bottle of Valausi rum on the table. Some indulgences are difficult to give up even in the worst of times, it seems.
“You haven’t slept at all since we last spoke, have you?” she says, eyeing him. “At this rate I might have to order you to get some rest.”
Jomo blinks at her several times, then sits back in his chair with a heavy sigh, scratching his beard. “I look terrible, don’t I.”
Isa nods, her smile widening slightly. “Nothing a bath and a few hours in bed won’t fix.”