Akanni stared, not entirely sure she’d seen anything at all. She pushed herself up, her elbow twinging where it had struck the stone of the floor. The alarm bells continued to ring, and the voices continued to cry out. It was only now, with her door open, that she could make out their words.
“The Kazi, he is dead!”
“Fire! Fire in the prayer closet!”
Shock, cold and unyielding, dropped through Akanni. She sat frozen on the hard floor. Words from the hallway crashed into her thoughts as they washed over each other.
Her father was dead. Poisoned. And the sun would rise to the discovery of her brother’s charred remains at the base of her mother’s now-ruined altar.
“The wrath of an angry Goddess fulfilled” was the lie Tosin spun. It would not have worked, except as she wept at her father’s bedside the next day, Tosin had her room searched and recovered a vial of the toxin that had killed her baba.
“The Kazili wanted the throne, and plotted against her father!” Tosin had railed. “The prince must have uncovered her plot, and she killed him as well. The body was stabbed through the heart. There was blood on her dagger! Blasphemy! Murder!”
Akanni could hear him riling up the guard as she raced through the palace with those most loyal to her and her family, intending to flee.
“Hunt down the Kazili Heshenae! She must pay for her sins!”
Tosin’s voice chased Akanni from her home that day, and across the savannah for three seasons hence. During that time, she told her story to the few who would listen. Some joined her. Others . . . well. Her small encampment remained on the move, trying to gather numbers and strength, going from allied country to allied country to seek the aid of any who would see her returned to her home and her throne.
But even as she worked, so did Tosin. He spun his web of lies to reach farther and farther. Many people believed him. Those who did not feared going against the High One. And the evidence against her, false as it was, was condemning. So Tosin named himself the Lion, then took command of her family’s armies to begin the hunt. He would track down the heshen and bring her to the Goddess’s justice. Then, Her will fulfilled, he would see to it the throne was secure.
So Akanni lived in exile, training, planning, managing to stay three steps ahead of Tosin, until three nights ago, when a contingent of his men discovered her with a small band of attendants, trying to get word to the lord of a local city, hoping to gain another ally. The attendants were slain, and Akanni captured.
And here she stood, defiant still. “I saw you with the man in the cloak. The same man who left the poison in my room after he used it to kill the Kazi.” She had told the guards of the intruder, but when they searched the grounds, they found no trace of him. Then they dismissed her story altogether when they found the vial. “You had him drug my father—did he slay my brother, too?”
Tosin gazed at her, still wearing that look of slight amusement. “You always were smarter than any girl has the right to be.”
“Mark me, Tosin. I will end you, and then I will find the one who helped you murder my family.” Anger coiled through her like a living, wild thing, ready to pounce. She was still shackled, but chains could be used to kill.
Tosin’s laughter brought on the familiar chill along her back. It wasn’t the amused laughter from before, but more a bitter, cruel thing that curled his lips. “Should we let her in on our little secret?” he said, but not to her. His eyes moved to somewhere over her shoulder.
Akanni spun and came face-to-face with the last person she ever expected to see. Her lips worked uselessly at first, but she took a breath that was half gasp, half sob, and forced a single word free.
“S-Seth?”
Her brother stood over her, far taller than he had been when she last saw him. His face was set in the hard lines of their father’s. He watched her with rich, brown eyes. Their mother’s eyes, but his were not gentle like hers. They were cold, glassed with a deep sadness.
“Sister.”
Shock maintained its iron grasp on her mind. “W-what . . . what is this?” Her voice was small in her ears, pathetic.
“This is the will of the Goddess,” Tosin said from behind her. Water sloshed as he climbed from his bath. “Once I have slain the Kazili Heshenae, I will bring her body to the great temple and lay it as a sacrifice on the altar. From the ashes, and by the blood of the devout, our prince will be reborn. It will be rhakah, the Goddess made flesh, like the days of old. You see, I said I would secure the throne, but I never said for myself.”
Akanni trembled hard enough that her shackles rattled. Tears streaked her face. “It was you,” she whispered, her eyes on her brother’s unchanging face. “The m-man in the cloak. It was you.”
“Yes. It was me.” Seth’s voice had deepened with the approach of manhood. Both of them had one season before they were of age.
She dropped to her knees, doubled over. “W-why?” she asked the dirt between sobs.
“Because it was up to me to set things right.” Seth shifted, and his hands pressed to her shoulders as he knelt in front of her. “You had strayed so far from the path, and Baba refused to bring you back. I . . . begged him. He said it was not our place, that we should give you time.”
Seth’s hold tightened. “But time is not something we had. Baba was fading. I saw it, I know you did. He would not see the next turn of the seasons, and you were moving further and further from the Light. He would be dead, and with you being the eldest, Amma’s throne would pass to a heshen. The Goddess would surely destroy us all. I swear to you, sister, I do this out of love. Love for our people. Love for the Goddess. Love for Amma. If she could see you now, see how far you have fallen, she would weep.”
Akanni wept. And as she did, Seth’s fingers stroked her hair like he used to when they were little.
“I went to Tosin with my concerns. He prayed and fasted, and the Goddess granted him a vision, a way for us to avoid the destruction of Oramec, of so many innocent lives. This . . . this plan. It broke my heart. I did not want to see the truth of what needed to be done. I thought I could avert this future another way. At our cousin’s wedding, I asked Baba to consider passing the throne to me. He refused, even when I told him of my fears. Do you know what he said? ‘To the Deep with the Goddess.’” Seth’s voice trembled. “Can you believe that?”
Akanni stopped crying. Her fingers curled in the earth.
I am stone.
Her heart pounded in her ears, but she heard her brother’s words ring clear.
“I asked. One last time, when we returned home. He said it was blasphemy. Him! Accuse me of being heshen, after what he said!” The anger in Seth’s voice would have frightened her before, but an icy hardness had poured through Akanni and encased her wailing heart. “I knew what I had to do. I knew it would be hard, but . . . all trials are.”