I strain against Arti’s magic, the demon magic, but it tightens around my body and ka. Sharp pain cuts across my ribs and spreads to my belly. Koré said that the curse wouldn’t kill me. So I’ll keep pushing until either it cracks, or it tears me apart. My legs are the first to give. Rudjek launches forward, and as he grabs my arm, the magic relents. Relief floods through me, and the curse uncoils in my limbs, as though testing to see if it hurt me. It reaches for my mind, tickling at the base of my neck, and stops there.
Rudjek glances down at his craven-bone emblem. “Arrah . . .”
“You felt that too?” I ask, hopeful.
It wasn’t the same as with Sukar at his Coming of Age Ceremony. That had been like the sting of fire ants. This feels like a simmering fire pressing against a cold night, the crash of waves against a rocky shore.
Still entangled with me, Rudjek looks at me with flushed cheeks. “That felt . . . nice.”
The Gaer tree nudges against my back. No thorns this time. Rudjek’s hands are warm on my forearms, and he’s so near that his chest almost brushes mine. He realizes how close we are and makes to pull away, but I hold on to him. I need him to make the connection between the children and the Temple, but he mistakes my intentions.
“Arrah.” He recites my name in his throaty timbre—drawing it out like a song.
There it is.
My undoing.
Rudjek beams at me with that look again, but I tense at the five men lurking behind him. I don’t recognize any of them—and they’re not City Guard or wearing fancy elaras. Rudjek gives me a knowing nod, and turns on his heels, his hands on the hilts of his shotels as the men draw closer. Their faces are hard, with deep lines etched into their skin. Smut and dirt stain their threadbare tunics. But it isn’t their appearance that sets me on edge, it’s the glint of trouble brewing in their eyes. “The orishas have answered our prayers,” one of the men muses. His voice is low and seething like stone grating against stone. “They have delivered the son of the Vizier and daughter of the Ka-Priestess. If we punish you, they will forgive Tamar for the tragedy that has befallen the Kingdom.”
The tragedy that is my mother.
Rudjek draws his shotels before the man finishes speaking. I can tell there will be no negotiating. No talking them off this path. People want answers, and men like these speak with their swords first. The Vizier doesn’t let Rudjek leave their estate without attendants for a reason. Majka and Kira aren’t servants who fetch his slippers or pin his cloak about his shoulders. They aren’t just his friends. They’ve been arena-trained for most of their lives before passing a rigid test to become gendars.
The Omari family has enemies. They’ve held the Vizier title for generations and no shortage of people want to unseat them. My mother chief among them. What of the enemies she’s gathered over the years? The families of the children she claimed for Shezmu.
The men pull their shotels, the curved blades like crescent moons. Although they each have one to Rudjek’s two, their blades are no less sharp. It’s not like at the Blood Moon Festival where the Litho boys had been all talk. These men advance without warning and Rudjek rushes forward to meet their steel. I grit my teeth—desperately searching for anything to use as a weapon. If only I had my staff, or even a halfway decent stick, but there’s only the tree and the soil shifting beneath my feet.
Rudjek clashes swords with two of them, and spins to stop another headed straight for me. His steel is a flash of brilliance as he becomes one with his weapons, stalking and leaping like a great leopard. The men aim their shotels for his throat, his heart, and his stomach. All the spots to kill, but he bats them away with finesse and ease. He always brags that he’s one of the best swordsmen outside of the gendars. It may be true, though he’ll never get me to admit it.
Spinning on his heels, Rudjek slices through one of the men’s shoulders and cuts another across his side. Tension stiffens his neck as he strikes and draws back. He wants them to relent, but they keep coming. Another cut. This one across a forearm.
Bile creeps up my throat as blood pours from the men’s wounds, and my thoughts drift to the Temple. To the children. The magic in my chest flares and I grab fists of dirt and throw it at the two men closest to me. At least I can slow them down.
They drop their shotels and claw at their faces.
Dirty swine.
Serves them right for attacking us. Let the dirt burn their eyes.
I scoop up two more fistfuls and gasp. The other three attackers stumble back, their wide eyes pinned on their friends. I back against the bald tree too, my hands trembling. I only meant to stop them.
The men’s screams ring in my ears as the soil burns through their flesh and blood runs down their cheeks. They fall to their knees, their skin blistering and cracking. I can’t breathe as the demon magic coils around my heart like a protective cocoon. This is my mother’s doing. This is her cursed gift.
Twenty-One
I’m still shaking when we reach the bottom of the precipice that leads up to the Almighty Temple. Black smoke billows from the cliffs in earnest now; it’s hard to tell how much of the Temple has burned. As we shove our way through the crowd, I see flashes of our attackers’ faces. Their skin melted like churned butter in the heat. I keep wiping my hands against my tunic, desperate to wash away the horrible thing that I’ve done.
I’m not like her. I mouth the words as Rudjek pulls me along behind him. The crowd pushes against the line of City Guards blocking the path. They shout that Re’Mec sent a firestorm to strike down the Temple for allowing such desecration. They whisper that the seers are dead. I hope it’s true—at least of my mother. That would mean this nightmare is finally over. If Arti is dead, I will spit on her body for the wrong she’s done and what she’s made me do. Even then, it won’t absolve me of my part in the ritual, or my crime today at the sacred Gaer tree. The orishas should strike me down, too.
Rudjek and I are so close that his breath is on my face, and I can almost taste his fear. There are shotani in the crowd, hiding in plain sight, dressed as commoners or posing as City Guard. The echo of their magic dances across my forearms. I used to think of their magic as taunting, beyond my grasp. But no more. Now that I’ve seen a glimpse of what this curse is capable of.
A guard steps in my path. The man is twice my height and glares down at me with hazel eyes sharp enough to cut stone. Behind him people pass buckets of water up the steep precipice. They have wet cloth tied around their mouths and noses to fight off the smoke. “We need to get to the Temple,” I shout over the noise of the crowd, an ache growing in my belly.
“No one gets through!” the guard yells, spit spraying my face. “Orders from the Vizier.”
“But . . .” I try to push around him.
“You heard me, girl,” the man barks as he tightens his grasp on his shotel.
“Step aside,” Rudjek demands, authority threading through his words. Disheveled after the fight, he wears an expression as unwavering as his father’s. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”
The guard spots the lion-head crest pinned to Rudjek’s elara. His face turns grim, and he curses under his breath before moving. The panic in my belly eases a little, but it doesn’t go away.