Tam squints like he doesn’t recognize me at first. I poke my tongue against the hollow place where the missing tooth should be, feeling a flush of heat creep up my neck. “I was at the Temple the day of the fire.” He frowns. “When it was clear the Vizier was going to exile your mother, I heard the Ka-Priestess say she’d go to the Aloo Valley.”
I push back my tears. I don’t know if it’s true, but I can’t put it past my mother. She must’ve known the news would make it to Rudjek’s ears one way or another. “Either she was lying,” I spit. “Or you’re lying now.”
“I’m sorry.” Tam shakes blood from his sword, but he doesn’t sound sorry.
“As much as it pains me to admit it, he’s been helpful.” Sukar wrinkles his nose. “He warned us that it was demons stalking the city and killing people before anyone else had a clue.”
“And how would you know?” I say, itching to let my new magic burn Tam.
Tam cocks his head. “You said it yourself, that day in the Temple when you asked about the green-eyed serpent. I told you that was what the orishas called demons.”
Magic stirs around the dead scholar woman at our feet—it lifts from her skin in wafts of smoke. The sight of my father’s magic guts me—and I stumble back. With her death, the woman turns wrinkled and old as the magic leaves to rejoin the sky. “If demons are this easy to kill, then why did the orishas have such a hard time stopping them before?”
“They’re in a weakened state right now.” Tam sheaths his shotel. “Ask again once one has consumed a hundred or a thousand souls.”
“Why are you here, Tam?” Essnai demands, her tongue sharp.
“Same as you.” He grins. “I stumbled upon this little grub fest and meant to stop it.”
I storm out of the alley, unable to stomach Tam any longer. Rudjek was his friend, but he doesn’t even care that he sent him to the Aloo Valley to die. He’s too damn selfish and happy playing hero on the city streets, basking in his moment of glory.
“What happened to her?” I hear him ask Sukar before I’m out of earshot. “A bit rough around the edges now, eh?”
Essnai catches up with me. “I would’ve broken his legs.”
“I should’ve done worse,” I say, still seething.
Sukar slips up beside me as we pass the first Ka-Priest’s tomb. A stump with jagged splinters is all that’s left of the sacred Gaer tree where I first saw an inkling of the future. Where I saw Efiya’s serpent eyes. Where I made my first kills.
The path to the Temple is overgrown with weeds and littered with offerings to the orishas. Withered flowers and fruit picked clean by birds, clay dolls carved in the orishas’ likeness. Re’Mec with his ram horns, Koré with her writhing hair, Kiva with his lopsided eyes. Two-headed Fram. How could they do nothing? They’ve failed Tamar and the Kingdom much the same as Heka failed the tribal people. What’s the point of gods if they turn their backs when we need them the most? But I’m not being fair: they haven’t all turned their backs. Koré helped me break Arti’s curse, and she sacrificed herself to save me—a charlatan.
Halfway up to the Temple, I stop to catch my breath, my gut twisting. We’ve climbed high enough that we have a view of the entire city. Tamar lies in waste. Whole neighborhoods flattened to rubble. Others scarred by fire. Essnai and Sukar tell me that the new Almighty One purged any citizens loyal to the Temple. Had I seen this in a vision, I would’ve dismissed it as a dream.
Still staring at the city, I say, “I need to tell you something.” Again I can’t meet my friends’ eyes as I speak. They rustle at my side, both waiting for me to work up my courage. “When the witchdoctors died, the chieftains bound their kas to mine . . . they are with me now.”
“Twenty-gods, Arrah,” gasps Essnai. “That explains your magic.”
“Well, twenty-one-gods, if you count Efiya,” Sukar muses.
“Not the time, Sukar,” Essnai warns.
Despite myself, I crack the tiniest smile. I’ve missed them so much. There were times in Kefu when I didn’t know if I would ever see my friends again.
We arrive at the Almighty Temple—where it all started. Where Arti performed her egregious act of desecration. There’s no one here now, not a soul in sight. No shotani lurking in the shadows. “The Vizier had guards up here until the Almighty One relieved him of his position,” Sukar says.
I grit my teeth upon hearing his title and feel a little satisfaction in knowing that he’s fallen too. “There’s something here.” A flutter of magic that’s so faint I almost miss it hums in the air.
“We’ve been up here a dozen times.” Sukar shakes his head. “There’s not much left. The seers destroyed their records before Tyrek had them arrested.”
The Temple looks much the same as before it burned. A half-moon ingress connects the five buildings again. The orishas have returned to their shadowy home beneath a new Hall of Orishas. But the parts still under construction stand out in sharp contrast against the old stone.
The last time I saw Rudjek, we were here. I’d stood by while he fought off gendars—I’d stood by and done nothing while the Vizier banished my family. Yes, Arti deserved it. She deserved worse. But the Vizier banished me out of spite. He did it to keep Rudjek and me apart.
“Call to him.” Sukar snaps me out of my daze.
“What?”
“You have the kas of the five chieftains inside you.” Sukar points at my chest. “They each possessed great power—with that, you should be able to see across time and space to find Rudjek.” His voice drops. “Or at the very least you’ll see what happened to him.”
“After she’s rested.” Essnai takes hold of my arm and leads me across the courtyard. Sukar trails behind and I don’t argue because I’m bone-tired. At first I mistake Essnai to mean that I need to sit down, but she walks me to Sukar’s room in the attendants’ barracks.
“Sleep,” Essnai issues a gentle command before she and Sukar leave me alone.
I lean against the door and blow out a shaky breath. There are Zu masks of people and animals, and some in combinations of the two, painted in bold colors on the walls. His room is simple with a bed, desk, basin, and dresser. It smells of ink and sweet perfume.
Where are you, Rudjek? I need you. I miss you.
Sensing my want, the magic rises to the surface. I could calm it, but I don’t. I don’t want to sleep. I want my best friend back, and now I have magic to answer my call and do my bidding. I command it to take me to Rudjek, and as sparks of magic light on me, the sound of water sloshing around the bow of a boat fills my ears. Suns and moons travel in a reverse course in my mind, and my ka leaves my body like it’s a discarded husk. This time I don’t feel pain at the separation. I’m moving so fast that I can’t make sense of the blur of images flashing before my eyes. But a force pushes against me, shoving me back, trying to keep me from reaching my destination.
I won’t let it stop me. I push harder. I break through an invisible barrier and my ka lands in a clearing in the heart of the Dark Forest. Rudjek stands face-to-face with a thing of nightmares. The creature has tree-bark skin, a horned nose, and claws. Long, curved, razor-sharp claws. Claws soaked in blood. No, no, no. My mind reels and I stretch myself to descend closer, but the craven’s anti-magic keeps me at bay—anti-magic, and the fabric of time. This moment is in the past.