Once we’re through the line, Rudjek touches my shoulder and we stop. His hand is ice-cold and my legs tremble beneath the weight of his searching eyes. Though I don’t want to talk about the awful thing I’ve done, I can’t avoid the subject forever. Behind him a man with a braided beard and sun-blistered skin pushes his way up to the same guard who let us pass.
“That was magic, Arrah,” Rudjek says. “I thought that . . .”
“I can’t explain . . .” The curse clamps down on my words.
“How long have you known?”
“Not long,” I answer. Damn this curse. Damn it for what it did to those men and for holding me hostage. Koré had said that the demon magic would keep me safe. I didn’t expect anything like what happened beneath the sacred Gaer tree. This curse is a sick, twisted joke.
All my life I’ve longed to have magic like my father, like my mother. I wanted to make Grandmother, the great Aatiri chieftain, proud. Years toiling over blood medicines in Oshhe’s shop. Years undertaking the tests at the Blood Moon Festival. The anticipation that I might one day reach into the sky and pluck up a spark of magic. The frustration of constantly failing. Then giving up my years for enough magic to see the child snatcher—to see my mother. I don’t want this . . . gift. If I could, I’d claw it from my chest.
“Let me through!” the man with the braided beard yells. “My boy’s up there.”
My heart sinks as I think of Kofi’s father. The families deserve to know what happened to their children, even if it won’t ease their suffering.
“Same as I told you last—”
Before the guard can finish, the bearded man punches him in the face.
All it takes is one person unable to hold back his rage, and fighting erupts in earnest. Fists swing, followed by flashes of silver. Within moments the crowd overruns the guards. Some abandon the water chain to help restore order, but no one bothers us as we climb the cliff.
Halfway up, we slow to catch our breath. Rudjek’s eyes are bloodshot, his skin smut-stained. The smoke draws tears from my eyes and soot coats my tongue, too. Choking back a fit of coughing, Rudjek offers me his hand and I take it. We stare at each other in silence, our fingers intertwined in an unbreakable bond. A bond that started all those years ago over a fishing pole beside the Serpent River. We don’t need words for this moment. This small gesture is a declaration of all the things we’ve never said.
The second afternoon bells toll as we reach the summit and pass through the Temple gates. My chest hurts from breathing in smoke. People scatter across the courtyard and gardens in disarray. Some shout out orders, some look dazed and confused. Smut and grime cover everyone and everything. Of the five buildings once linked by the half-moon ingress, three stand unscathed. The fire is under control and the last tendrils of smoke drift up from the desecrated Hall of Orishas. The building next to it, where I attend lessons, is nothing but cinder and charred stone too.
Free from their shadowy home, the orisha statues remain untouched by the fire. They towered in the hall, but that was nothing compared to their magnificence beneath the open sky. Even the Unnamed one looks ethereal. Sunlight bends around their eternal darkness, the effect breathtaking and surreal. Where each statue sits, a patch of forever night persists in the heart of day. Beyond them, the rocky cliffs sketch a line against the horizon.
Three bodies lie on the ground near the part of the gardens that collapsed during Arti’s vile ritual. Their faces are covered, but one wears a kaftan blackened by smut. My muscles seize and I stop. It’s not my mother. That would be too easy. No simple fire could put an end to her.
The Vizier appears from one of the buildings the fire spared, a dozen gendars on his heels. They’re in full battle armament, their red tunics beneath silver breastplates. The poor bastards must be sweating rivers. They wear two shotels on either side of their hips in leather scabbards. The Vizier raises one hand to stop them in their tracks. His white elara is pristine amidst so much devastation.
He advances on us alone, his hands on the hilts of the polished swords sheathed at his side. His gaze rakes over me like I’m nothing more than a gnat for him to swat. Then he takes in Rudjek’s dirty elara. The smut and bloodstains. His eyes shift from annoyance to disgust.
“I see you haven’t learned your lesson,” the Vizier snaps at him.
Rudjek crosses his arms by way of a response.
A stitch catches in my side from the climb. “Is my mother . . .”
“Dead?” the Vizier spits, seething. “Unfortunately, no.”
I can’t look at him without remembering that he accused Arti of bewitching the Almighty One. Does he think that I’ve bewitched his son, too? His accusation set her upon this path. He isn’t to blame for her actions, but his hands are dirty too.
“Must you always be so crass?” Rudjek frowns at his father. “What happened?”
“I’d think that would be obvious by now,” he answers. “Someone set fire to the Temple.”
“The children.” The curse tightens in my chest. “Is it true?” I work out what the magic will let me say. “Is it true about the children?”
The Vizier grits his teeth. “Yes.”
I choose my next words with care. “Two tragedies befall the Temple, and . . .”
I let the statement trail off, leading. I need them to figure out the truth.
Rudjek grimaces. “You think that someone in the Temple killed them?”
Yes. I struggle to get the word out, even to nod, and they both notice.
Now put the rest together, Rudjek, I beg with my eyes, with my heart. It’s Arti.
“I don’t like you one bit.” The Vizier glares at me. “And I’m sick of your riddles.”
“Nor do I like you,” I shoot back, “but I’m trying to help.”
“Mind your tongue or lose it.” The Vizier’s tone is the calm before a storm. It’s not an empty threat.
The demon magic seethes underneath my skin, like a taut cord aching to snap. I take a step forward so I stand toe to toe with him. This is a mistake. I should stop before things get worse, but I hate the way his lips curl into a mocking smile. A not-so-subtle challenge. How dare he threaten me when he had the Ka-Priest break my mother’s mind beyond repair? He should pay for his crimes and right now, I’m of a mind to make him.
Another force pushes against me; its sharp fangs prick my neck in warning. My eyes land on the craven-bone pendant on the Vizier’s elara and his smile turns darker. Dirty, cheating swine. He’d be nothing without those bones to protect him.
Rudjek steps between his father and me. He shifts his stance wide and reaches for the hilts of his shotels to rest his hands. The two face each other, mirror images, both unyielding. “Leave her alone.” Rudjek squeezes the hilts so hard that the color bleeds from his knuckles. “You’ve done enough damage already.”
“I haven’t the time for this foolishness.” The Vizier walks a few paces away and waves for his gendars. “I have the Kingdom to run.”
The soldiers lead the seers from the part of the Temple that hasn’t burned. Smut spoils their tattered robes. It’s obvious why the Vizier doesn’t want more people here. In this state, the seers look worse than the charlatans on the streets peddling good luck charms. The attendants come out next and I let out a sigh of relief. Sukar is among them. He’s busy helping another attendant who’s been badly burned and doesn’t see us across the courtyard.