I’m relieved to see my friends helping. I know this is Rudjek’s doing—he’s always been good at taking charge. The market thrives with life, and the ebb and flow of the crowd puts me at ease. I could wander through the streets all night and never see the end. Not so different from the days I come here for hours to calm my restless mind.
When the brightness molds itself into a hooded figure that moves through the crowd, I freeze. My vision shrinks and there’s only her. Everything else blurs and fades to the background. She wears a flowing green sheath that drags across the muddy ground; a matching shawl hides her identity. Her body glows with a soft light that at first glance is beautiful, but the edges are sharp as glass. If I come too close, her light will cut into my ka, and then nothing will be left of me. Yet I can’t stay away. She is the reason I’m here. She is the child snatcher, and definitely different from the green-eyed serpent. The fog clouding my mind lifts, and my purpose comes into focus again. I know why I’m here.
The child snatcher’s heavy steps vibrate in my ka, and draw sparks of magic from the sky. The woman darts this way and that. Soon it becomes clear that she’s circling the children like a vulture above carrion. The echo of my heartbeat tugs at the tether to my body.
Gray mist creeps along the dirt paths in the market. It slows my progress, but I push harder. With each step the pain that rips through my body underneath the tree is sharper than the last. Is this the child snatcher’s doing? Does she know someone’s hunting her? Or is my ka too far from my body? My teeth grit so hard that my jaw aches, but I won’t stop until I know the truth.
In this part of the market, people huddle together, and no one is without a weapon. They carry everything from shotels to butcher knives to staffs. The City Guard is out in full force too, along with a large contingent of gendars. They distract me until the woman’s scent of honey and coconut cuts across my path. She smells familiar, and that confuses me.
I push my legs with all my might, but it’s no good. My ka moves as if it’s wading through a bog. Blood coats my tongue as the tether between my body and ka stretches taut, so close to snapping. No point of wondering what will happen if it breaks. Nothing good can come of it. I try to memorize everything about the woman. She’s shorter than me, wide-hipped and fine-boned, a flash of golden eyes. My heart threatens to crack my chest open as she ducks into an alley.
Staying in the shadows, the woman follows a girl not much younger than me. The girl keeps glancing over her shoulder, as though she can sense the danger. When the moonlight catches the oval ring on the woman’s left hand, I stop breathing. My body seizes. No, it can’t be. This is a dream. Wake up, Arrah. Wake up now. The alley spins and my vision fades in and out. I’m in two places again, lying on the ground and in the market watching something horrible about to unfold. Watching the child snatcher, watching my mother.
My ka snaps back to my body. I lie in the soil beneath the bald tree, gasping for air, whole again, my bones threatening to snap in two. The moon curves into a wicked smile. What I saw can’t be real. None of it makes sense. Hot tears slide down my face as I slip into darkness.
Time to pay magic’s price.
Koré, Orisha of Moon, Twin King
Well, this is an interesting turn of events. I must admit that I didn’t see this coming.
You have been busy, haven’t you, old friend? Working your wicked magic right under my nose. We’ve been together a long time, you and I, and every day you grow stronger. It shouldn’t be possible, yet here we are. My box won’t hold your soul forever.
The War was long and bloody, and quite entertaining at times. But you couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you? Our sister was gone, and all you had to do was stop eating souls, live out the rest of your unnatural life, and die. Was that so hard? Oh but no, that would be too easy. When she died, you showed your true face, the one you kept hidden beneath the surface. Perhaps it was she who suppressed your inner beast.
The two of you were always so synced in a way that I could never understand, your souls so intertwined. It was really quite lovely, had you both not been so naive. Had she not died, I do not believe for one moment that the outcome would be different.
You cannot change your nature. Even without souls, you were always destined to become a monster. Our sister only complicated matters. Looking back on it, we were fools for thinking you would just fade into the ether after she died.
It pains me that twenty of my brethren sacrificed themselves to chain you with their own kas. It was only supposed to be a temporary solution until I could find another answer, but time is tricky, isn’t it? Five thousand years is a blink of the eye in an orisha’s life. That said, anyone would turn aloof chained that long, as they have grown.
Do you think you’re the only one who’s been planning?
There is always a weakness in armor, old friend, no matter how strong.
I pledged my life to mortal kind, and I won’t let you destroy it. It was a foolish promise at the time, but they are a reflection of me—a poor one, but a reflection no less.
Enough talk for now, old friend. I must sharpen my knives.
Part II
For where she walks death follows
Her heart is black and hollow
For her love is a dangerous thing
Full of heartache and pain.
—Song of the Unnamed
Thirteen
When I was little, my father told me lots of stories. Funny stories. Sad stories. Silly stories. But out of all his tales, he only told me one love story. The memory has always stayed with me and now it comes back in my dreams.
We’re working in the courtyard on a lazy afternoon, the sun beating down our backs. Sweet honeysuckle lingers in the air. It’s the start of Su’omi—the season of rebirth—right after I’ve turned eight. “The heart is a fickle thing, Little Priestess,” my father remarks, pruning a shrub. “When magic is involved, it can grow as black as the hour of ösana. There are few things more powerful than the human heart.”
I lie on my belly in the grass with my legs fanning in the air. “Do you love Arti?”
After a long silence, he warns me, “Love is a word that we must use with care.”
Another long pause.
“Your mother . . . she is Mulani.”
He says Mulani as if her tribe explains her coldness. She spends more time in the Almighty Temple than she does at home, and she never has a kind word for anyone. Especially me. I’ve met many from her tribe and none are like her. Other Mulani strike me as standoffish, temperamental even. But my mother’s amber eyes have always been hollow when she looks at me, as though she’s never satisfied with anything I do. The more I try to latch on to her, the more she pushes me away. I can’t remember her ever smiling or being happy.
“What am I, Father?” I ask. “Am I a daughter of Tribe Aatiri or Tribe Mulani?”
“You are the daughter of my heart.” Oshhe nudges my chin.
I laugh at that, delighted by his words.
“Do you want to hear a story about love, Little Priestess?” Oshhe asks.
I nod my excitement as my father puts aside his shears and settles on the grass beside me. The sunlight makes his ebony skin glisten and his brown eyes shine. He tucks his long legs beneath him and pulls a sachet from his pocket. “We can’t have a story without candies.”