Something pricks the back of my neck. I slap my hand across it and stare at the smear of blood on my palm and the crushed mosquito. If Efiya releases the Demon King, will humans be nothing more than mosquitos to swat? A bout of dizziness overcomes me as the witchdoctors’ voices start again. They whisper of their hopes, dreams, and fears, as if confessing to me will give them another chance at life.
There’s not much time left for me. How many years did the magic take to break my mother’s curse? Too many. How does one tell their best friend that they will be dead soon? Dread sinks in my belly, knowing how it will devastate Rudjek when the dagger finishes the deed. This night will be one of our last together.
As I’m washing up, the moon and stars disappear. A knot tightens in my stomach. Koré, the moon orisha, is gone because of me. She sacrificed herself for a charlatan because she wagered that I could stop Efiya. I hope she’s right.
Without the moonlight, I stumble through the trees along the path to camp. I’ve walked for too long and see no sign of fire. Have I gone in the wrong direction? Chills rake down my back as Familiars flit in and out of the trees and across my path like a pack of wild dogs. My heart slams against my chest. Wherever they go, trouble follows.
Efiya.
I break into a run, bushes cutting across my feet and ankles. The camp is nowhere in sight. No matter which direction I go or how far, the path takes me back to the stream. Sweat streaks down my forehead as I stop with my hands on my knees, panting. My chest burns. I’m trapped in a maze.
She has him.
I should’ve known better than to let Rudjek come with me, no matter what the orishas say. Efiya is more terrible than our mother. A girl with almost limitless power, who can’t even tell the difference between right and wrong.
“Rudjek!” My voice echoes in the dead of night.
The silence that answers is vast and impenetrable.
Tears cloud my eyes as tingles crawl up my arms like an army of spiders. I imagine the worst. She’s torturing him. She’ll make it slow and painful if she’s in the right mood. I should’ve sent him away the moment he appeared at the Temple.
Oh Heka, please, no.
I can’t lose Rudjek too—not when I’ve only just gotten him back after all this time. It’s foolish to pray to a god who has turned his back on his people—a god who let Efiya slaughter the tribes like cattle—but I pray anyway.
“I will find my way out of this maze,” I shout into the darkness, through gritted teeth, “and I will find Rudjek!”
Deafening silence rings in my ears like bitter laughter. The chieftains helped me before, but they don’t speak now, when I need them the most. There must be another way. I wrack my memory for a ritual that can help. Efiya can’t affect my mind, so the maze must be only a trick of the eye. I only need to see the right path, like I did escaping the villa in Kefu. At the water’s edge, I pick up several stones and throw them into the trees. Some travel far, but some disappear into thin air only to land at my feet. I could throw rocks all night and pick my way through, but by that time Rudjek could be . . .
The witchdoctors’ whispers finally come. One voice stands out above the rest—a man with a tone that flows like a gentle river. I focus on only him—his words. I can see him in my mind. He’s tall with semi-translucent brown skin. The Kes chieftain. I don’t let my fear push aside his voice. I sink into it, let it flow through me, and it invades every space in my mind until his is the only one I hear.
I am not alone.
I can show you the way.
“Show me,” I whisper to the darkness.
The Kes chieftain appears at the edge of the tree line. He shifts in and out of focus. He only stands there, waiting. His eyes, white speckled with gray. His cheeks twitch like he wants to speak but can’t. It could be that the energy to create this fragile physical form leaves him too weak. He looks down at me, then beyond the trees to tell me to hurry. I step aside and he begins to wade through the trees, twisting and turning, walking in circles. I can no longer hear the gentle flow of the stream, even though it appears to be within an arm’s length.
Instead I hear laughter. Rudjek’s laughter. I let out my pent-up breath. If he’s laughing, then he’s okay. But why is he laughing? The witchdoctor in my mind fades to nothingness, and I lurch forward, shoved through an invisible door.
I’m back at the stream again. No, no, no. I ball my hands into fists. But the moon has returned and the stars too. If they’re back, then I must be out of the maze. I run through the trees and this time I can see the campfire in the distance. As I grow closer, I slow my pace, legs threatening to collapse.
Rudjek’s bare back is to me, facing the fire. He shifts his position and—someone else is buried beneath him in the furs. Her sweet laughter drifts from the covers like birdsong. I move closer, so close that I stop on the opposite side of the fire and smell her cloying scent mingled with his lilac and woodsmoke. Flashes of her honey-brown skin and her ruffled black tunic burn into my eyes as his fingers traverse the peaks and valleys of her body. He cradles her in his arms, holding her like she means everything in the world to him. No, like she is his world.
My presence, or maybe the tickle of wind against Rudjek’s back, causes him to glance over his shoulder. When our eyes meet, his go wide and he climbs out of the tangle of furs clumsily. He jerks his head back and forth between the girl still lying in the furs and me, an expression of shock on his face. When she sits up, I stumble back.
I can’t breathe. I can’t fathom what I’m seeing—who I’m seeing. I clasp my arm around my waist.
Efiya smiles.
“Arrah?” Rudjek gapes at Efiya, then at me.
He acts like he cannot tell us apart. Efiya and I look like sisters, yes, but she’s taller, more feline, more beautiful. Even in the night we could not pass for each other. Even if she did not have green eyes when mine are the color of sunset. Are we that interchangeable in his mind? “I don’t understand . . .”
“You don’t understand?” I say, magic raging inside me. “You attempt to bed my sister and now you seek understanding?”
His mouth drops, his face almost as diaphanous as his mother’s. He draws farther away from Efiya. “Your sister?”
“Aren’t you glad,” Efiya says, lying back again, gazing up at the stars, her voice slick with seduction, “I protected your virtue from this pathetic creature?”
Rudjek shakes his head. His whole body shakes. Did he really think that she was me? But Efiya can kill gods—changing her appearance has always been child’s play. I don’t ask why she’s done this. She wants to punish me, to make me suffer, to destroy what little joy I have left in this world. I thought that she would torture Rudjek to get back at me, but it never crossed my mind that she would do something like this. That she would use him to torture me.
“Arrah . . . I . . . I didn’t know,” Rudjek stutters. “I thought . . .”
Efiya stands. “No need to thank me.”
I cannot tell if she’s talking to him or me. Rudjek lunges at her, but Efiya’s magic latches on to me and we disappear into a storm of wind and rain.
The world washes away—the valley, Rudjek, the tent, the campfire, all gone. Thunder cracks in my ears and lightning strikes so close that it singes the hairs on my arms. Rain beats against my body in a constant assault and clouds wrap around our feet. We stand on top of a mountain peak, and the cold chills me to the bone.