When I reach the tan stone wall, I collapse against the iron bars and call for the porter. The wind swallows my voice, but he emerges bundled up against the downpour. It’s the regular porter at the Vizier’s estate, and he recognizes me.
“Twenty-gods, Arrah,” he barks. “What are you doing about this time of night?”
My mother’s magic boils in my belly. “I’m here to see the Vizier.”
“The Vizier?” The porter frowns. “What business would you have with him?”
Blinking against a flash of lightning, I squint up at his narrow face. The Vizier is not a kind man, my father said. That’s true, but he isn’t a child snatcher, and he didn’t carve a curse into his child’s chest. The porter’s eyebrows furrow as streaks of rain drop from his beard. I must look like a mess with my braids tangled and my clothes drenched, one shoe missing. When did I lose that? “We better get you to an attendant first. You can’t see the Vizier in the middle of the night looking like a runt from the streets. He’ll be right cranky that you’ve awakened him.”
As we cross the courtyard, a hint of blood and vomit covered by hibiscus and lilac oils taints the air. It’s coming from the arena nearby where Rudjek and his friends train. I trip over a loose cobble and the porter catches my arm, taking on some of my weight.
“The Ka-Priestess is going to skin your hide for coming to the Vizier,” he grumbles.
“Skin my hide?” I laugh, my voice hoarse. “How quaint that sounds.”
The porter side-eyes me and works his jaw. “We knew she’d be up to something with your father gone.”
It doesn’t surprise me that the Vizier keeps tabs on my family. Arti challenges him at every opportune moment. She questions his decrees, and rallies Temple loyalists against him.
“I swear your father’s the only one keeping that woman in check,” mutters the porter.
His words are hazy as my mother’s magic drains the surge of energy from my body. It must know what I’ve come to do and is trying to stop me. I fight to keep my eyes open, but my legs give out.
“What’s the matter with you, girl?” the porter demands, his voice distant and muffled.
Colors blur around the edges of the rain, and my vision fades as I’m lifted from the ground. I catch a glimpse of Rudjek soaked to the bone before the magic drags me back into darkness.
Fourteen
I awake to bright lights blinding me and an infuriating itch under my skin. When I try to sit up, the room spins so fast that bile burns my throat. Voices close in from all around me and nowhere at all. Ties on my wrists keep my arms pinned at my sides. Has Arti come back to do more harm? No, she wouldn’t need restraints. Her magic locked me against the bed without her lifting a finger. Someone stands close and a wisp of lilac and wood smoke dances in the air—the scent familiar and comforting.
I blink until Rudjek comes into focus. His face is stark, his eyebrows drawn in a deep frown. He bites his lip and fidgets with his hands, not knowing what to do with himself. He is so disheveled. There’s something endearing about seeing him this way. He’s not the son of the mighty Vizier, second to the Almighty One. He’s the boy who stayed out all night to guard the orphanage because he wanted to help.
I remember the little boy by the Serpent River fussing with his flustered attendants, men with shotels bigger than he was tall. He already had an air of authority about him. How could he not, raised in an estate that sat above the city like an ancient god? The place where I lie safe from my mother for the moment.
The boy standing before me now towers over his father, his frame no longer lanky. No more fishing pole jokes. When was the last time I’d teased him like that? Once, only his attendants had been cut from stone, but somewhere he had made that transition too. The drastic change hasn’t gone unnoticed. Not by the girls in the market who smile and fan themselves when he passes them, nor by me. If he weren’t an Omari, they would make bolder advances at him even with me around.
“Rudjek,” I say, my throat raw.
It will be quick, Arti said. I promise. All the memories flood back and tears slip down my cheeks. It was quick, and although not painless, it could’ve been worse.
“Arrah, are you okay?” he asks, stepping closer.
“Twenty-gods, Rudjek.” The Vizier grabs his arm. “Get out of the physician’s way.”
“I’m not in his way,” Rudjek snaps at his father.
The Vizier’s caterpillar eyebrows knit together as he gives his son a murderous glare. It’s the same look that stopped me from going to see Rudjek compete in the arena. No matter where I sat in the crowd, the Vizier always made it a point to cast his disapproving frown my way. If only he knew how much time Rudjek and I spend together in the East Market. Or how often we meet in our private spot by the Serpent River to fish or lie in the grass and talk for hours. It dawns on me that he must know. He’s the Vizier. Rudjek’s his heir. The only one of his three sons who could take his place one day. There must be nothing Rudjek does that the Vizier doesn’t know about. Did I not see a larger number of gendars in the market in my ka form on the night of the ritual? Some must have been there to keep watch on Rudjek.
“Either get out of the physician’s way,” the Vizier orders in a voice like ice, “or leave.”
“Son,” comes the soft purr of his mother, Serre. “Let the physician do his job.”
Rudjek groans in protest but doesn’t argue as he steps back.
I’ve never seen his mother without the gossamer veil that protects her skin from the sun. She’s a daughter of the North—a land of snow, ice, and white mist as thick as porridge. The North is not a kingdom, but a cluster of countries allied through a council much like the tribes. They don’t worship the sun orisha Re’Mec, and he doesn’t shine his glory upon them. They don’t worship any god. The scribes say it’s why they’re cursed with skin as thin as paper and sensitive to sunlight. The veins stand out against the tawny skin along Serre’s temples and beneath her flush of pale violet eyes. She isn’t pretty in the traditional sense, yet no one could deny that she’s striking.
A man dressed in simple blue linen thrusts a vial under my nose filled with a fume so strong it stings. When I jerk away, I end up face-to-face with the Vizier. It’s the middle of the night, and he’s dressed in his white-and-gold elara with a lion-head emblem pinned to his collar. He’s wearing a craven-bone wristlet and pendant too, as though he has something to fear from me. Does he think that my mother sent me to do harm? He knows I have no magic—or at least I didn’t before the ritual to trade my years.
I still don’t possess magic of my own, but now I can coax it to answer my call. After the worst part of the ritual was over, the magic did come. It filled me with hope and possibilities. It showed me that there were so many tapestries to unravel in the world, so many layers to peel away. My mother ruined that; she’s ruined everything. Thinking about her, I reel with shame and disgust.
Arti’s magic still tingles in my chest. What has she done, binding my body and ka to hers? When I was little, Oshhe told me stories of powerful witchdoctors who could command the living or the recently departed to do their bidding. Would I become like those poor souls—the ndzumbi? I won’t let myself become a monster like her. I’ll fight, even if it means giving up more of my years to break her curse.