I shrug because it’s better than a lie. I catch the scent of something burning in the kitchen. “What is that awful smell?”
“Whole bird stew,” calls Essnai. “My mother’s special recipe.”
Sukar pitches his voice low, “It tastes worse than it smells.”
“I heard that,” shouts Essnai.
“It’s time, Arrah,” Grandmother whispers in my mind. “Go.”
I don’t question her. My legs move before I can process what I’m doing.
“Hey, where are you going?” Sukar runs to catch up with me. “It isn’t that bad.”
I don’t stop until I’m standing in the middle of the courtyard and the night breeze cuts through me. Save for the moonlight, shifting shadows shroud most of the courtyard. “Someone is coming.”
Essnai catches up too, and they both look toward the gate. A ripple of magic sparks from my skin, reaching out, searching. It latches on to something. Sukar startles at my side and pulls out his sickles in one breath. His tattoos burn so bright that I cover my eyes. I groan as a gust of wind hits me so hard that I almost lose my footing. We all do. I don’t have time to wonder what’s happened as the light from Sukar’s tattoos fades and the magic settles inside me.
Someone lies curled on the ground not ten paces from us, in a tattered, bloodstained elara. Not someone. I half run, half stumble. The whispers reach a fever pitch and drown out my screams. I collapse at Rudjek’s side. Tears blur my vision and choke in my throat. There’s so much blood. Too much blood, and dirt like he’s been dug up from a grave. My magic reaches out to feel for his ka, but it rebounds and dissipates in the air. I push thoughts of healing toward him, but that magic flickers away too. The Litho chieftain within me has an intimate knowledge of death and he’s brought many back from the brink. But no matter how hard I push, the magic bounces off Rudjek’s broken body.
Gods, no. How could he come to be here after the gruesome scene in the Dark Forest, and be too far gone to save? There has to be a way. It can’t be too late.
“Arrah.” Essnai squats beside me. “He’s ascended.”
“No, no, no,” I whisper. “He’s going to be all right.”
Both Sukar and Essnai pull me away, and I don’t have the strength to fight them. He’s dead and the cursed cravens sent his corpse to taunt me. There can be no other answer.
Silence stretches the moment out, dragging my anguish with it, but then he moves.
“Twenty-gods.” Rudjek coughs. “Am I dreaming again?”
Something inside me collapses, and I reach for him.
“Am I?” I ask through tears. “Are you real?”
Rudjek rolls on his side, his obsidian eyes tired and bewitched. “You’re a hard girl to find.”
The words vibrate in his chest—a chest cut from stone and warmer than a thousand suns. Bits of his smooth brown skin show through his shredded elara. I run my fingers across his tattered clothes to make sure he’s not an apparition—to make sure he’s real. My skin tingles with the first inkling of heat. The way it always does when we touch. There’s no wound on his belly, unlike in my vision when the craven almost cut him in two. So much blood, and no sign of where it came from. I don’t care. He’s alive and he’s here with me. Sukar clears his throat from behind us, and I jerk my hands away.
“How did you get here?” I ask as he sits up. “How did you know to come?”
“Re’Mec sent me back,” Rudjek answers as Sukar and I help him to his feet.
Sukar crosses his arms. “How did you get mixed up with an orisha?”
“Long story,” Rudjek says, taking in the empty Temple grounds.
He kept his promise. He looked for me.
I search him thrice over for injuries, while he stares down at me like I’m some spirit conjured from thin air. His gaze is of longing and pain and regret. Except for the fact that he smells atrocious, he’s okay. He’s more than okay. He’s alive.
“I saw you . . . die in the Dark Forest.” The scene of Rudjek lying in the clearing replays in my mind.
“I did die in the Dark Forest.”
“Another long story?” Essnai sighs.
He inhales a ragged breath. “Even longer.”
As Rudjek searches my face a wave of heat burns up my neck. I have no doubt that like Tam, he sees what the rituals took from me. His eyes beg for an answer to a question he doesn’t ask. “Re’Mec told me everything.” He doesn’t elaborate. He doesn’t have to. The silence between us is deafening.
“Good—we’ve all finally arrived,” comes a voice like crumpled scrolls.
We turn and Sukar stutters, “Uncle?”
Barasa stands in the courtyard, his yellow kaftan tattered and dirty. “Who else would trap his ka in this gods-awful place?”
Sukar laughs—tears swimming in his eyes. “Only a fool.”
The seer appears to be flesh and blood, but as I stare at him, he becomes mist shaped into a man. The way Arti had been in my vision before she took form. It was his magic humming on the wind when we first reached the Temple. The magic of a dead man.
“A fool who needs to deliver a message.” Barasa waves for us to follow him. “The wind tells secrets.”
Sukar and Essnai do so without question. Rudjek raises an eyebrow at me, and I shrug. We’re so close that our fingers brush against each other as we follow too. We rush into the vestibule and pour into the Hall of Orishas. Thinking of what Sukar said earlier, I try to imagine Efiya in the Unnamed’s place. Could my sister somehow be her? The magic inside me reaches out to the statue, seeking answers, but Barasa breaks my focus.
“There isn’t much time,” he explains. “I must deliver the message that binds my ka to this place before the magic fails.” His voice falters, then he frowns. “I am aware of recent events . . . of the tragedy that has befallen our people.”
I glance down to hide from the pain in his eyes—pain that’s like a rancid wound growing worse. “Does Efiya know that I’m here?” My question echoes in the hall, and we all seem to hold our breath.
Barasa nods, his face pinched. “Yes, but she’s too busy killing orishas to care at the moment.”
I grit my teeth, remembering how Koré fell at my sister’s feet. “How many?”
“Along with the Twin King . . . Ugeniou, the harvester, and Fayouma, the mother of beast and fowl,” Barasa says.
I lean against an orisha statue, not even seeing which one as I absorb this new information. “Eleven left if we count the Unnamed.”
Barasa snaps his fingers and the torches along the walls flare to life. “The Temple is safe for now.” He shuffles across the floor, half floating, half walking. His pale yellow kaftan rustles in his wake. “It’s warded against demon magic.”
“Why didn’t you appear before now?” Sukar crosses his arms and glares at his uncle. “I’ve been up here more times than I can count and you never showed yourself to me. I’m your nephew. I performed your burial rite, for Heka’s sake.”
“Always so fussy! Pipe down, boy.” Barasa pats Sukar on the shoulder. “Don’t you think I would have shown myself if I could? The orishas had a hand in the magic binding my ka to the Temple, and they wouldn’t let me appear until both of them were here.” The seer juts a crooked finger at me, not meeting my eye, then at Rudjek.