When the white-robed saviors cut through the wall of shotani, they race across the field to help us. There are only five of them—I’m astounded that they’ve killed so many so fast.
Yet every time we kill a shotani, more join the fight. Majka favors his right side, and blood runs down Sukar’s face. I fight harder, wilder, not caring how I cut down the next shotani, only that each one falls. Fire tears through me and awakens the voices.
They whisper of thunder and lightning.
They whisper of firestorms.
They whisper of murder.
I clench my teeth to hold back my rage. My pores are on fire and it feels like the entirety of me—my very being—wants to burst into flames. I can stop a few shotani with my staff, but with my magic I can stop them all. In the end, I’m tired and give in to the urge to unleash my fury. The hairs stand up on my forearms as the first bolt of lightning strikes a shotani and sets him on fire. Another bolt slices across the sky and strikes again. I don’t stop calling the firestorm until the rest of the shotani are dead.
Re’mec, Orisha of Sun, Twin King
Are you ready to hear the true story of Oshin Omari and the cravens?
You’re looking quite well, by the way. The wound is healing as expected.
When Oshin walked into the Dark Forest, the cravens were waiting for him. The elder was kind. She made his death quick and painless. Then she commanded her only son to shift into Oshin’s form so that he could return to Tamar to influence the king. Her son took the body of a craven who had died of old age to prove Oshin’s victory. He did indeed use the bones to make trinkets that protected against magic, though he himself didn’t need it. For the cravens are anti-magic and immune to its influences.
I see you’re taking this quite hard.
Let me make this clear to you. You are part craven, Rudjek.
I bestowed many gifts upon the cravens. You will discover them if you live long enough.
Why? Now we’re getting to the heart of the matter.
A war is coming, Rudjek. It will take all our efforts to stop it from destroying this world. We cannot do it alone. You must convince the humans and cravens to ally.
We are much weakened after our war with Daho. You know him as the Demon King.
He is a clever bastard, I must admit.
While trapped in our chains for thousands of years, he’s found a way to strike. He used your Ka-Priestess to do it. She’s quite clever too. Had I intervened when the former Ka-Priest violated her mind, we wouldn’t be in this predicament. Alas, I cannot change the past.
He wasn’t always so awful. Daho, I mean.
My sister found him abandoned by his people and dying beside a frozen lake.
They were both children then, and we paid no mind when she healed him.
When he became a man, she started to understand death, not a concept that is easy for an immortal to grasp. Fram, the orisha of life and death, understands it the best of our kind. It’s their nature.
Our sister didn’t want to lose Daho, so she taught him how to consume kas to extend his life. The first ka he consumed was the man who had killed his father and taken his throne. Quite an unfortunate mistake.
They didn’t know that consuming someone’s ka would change a person’s nature. Daho had consumed the ka of a very ambitious demon who would stop at nothing to gain power. Thus began his insatiable thirst for souls.
We spent too much time debating what to do about Daho. Another mistake. He became immortal and raised an army of immortals comparable to the orishas. They destroyed whole peoples in their lust for souls.
We decided to strike at his heart, our sister.
It was not an easy decision, but we knew losing her would weaken him.
Fram killed her. At least we thought she was dead.
Fram has a soft heart. We should have known better than to trust them.
I won’t bore you any longer with our family problems.
But know this, Rudjek, your stake in this is as personal as ours.
Thirty-Seven
The shotani lie dead at our feet. I killed them. I struck them down with lightning that set their bodies on fire. I’m shaking and Rudjek grabs my shoulders to steady me, but he’s shaking too. Blood stains his tunic where the shotani’s double blade dug into his flesh. There’s so much blood, and his face is ashen and tired.
Magic has a price.
Even if the cost is no longer my years, it’s a part of my soul. I killed those people, just as I killed Merka. Like I did to the men by the sacred Gaer tree. Yes, they tried to kill me first, but that doesn’t absolve my conscience of the deed. How many more will I kill before I meet my end?
“We’re okay.” Rudjek rubs his hands up and down my arms and not even his warmth can stop me from trembling. “Thanks to you.”
Thanks to me—the charlatan-turned-witchdoctor, willing magic that’s not my own.
I want to sink into his arms and bury my face against his chest, but I want to shove him away too. I’d do anything so I don’t have to remember him tangled in the furs with my sister. Rudjek reads my mood and his hands drop to his side. He’s suffering too.
I turn my back to him to see the newcomers keeping their distance but watching us like hawks. No, they’re watching me. None of them have spoken a word since arriving. More shocking is that none of them have so much as a drop of blood on their white robes.
“They’re from the Dark Forest.” Rudjek gestures to them. “They’re here to help.”
All the stories said that cravens had tree-bark skin, claws, and a horned nose. These are . . . people. They stare at us with as much curiosity as we do at them. They’re not what I saw in my vision of Rudjek’s death. But now that my nerves have started to calm, I can sense their anti-magic. Like in my vision, it’s an invisible shield between them and me, and my magic feels as though it’s fallen asleep. “Cravens?” I quirk an eyebrow.
Rudjek smiles sheepishly. “They’ve shifted their appearance so they don’t scare you.”
“Who’s scared?” Majka glances to Sukar. “Are you?”
Sukar wipes blood from a shrinking wound on his cheek. “I’m bored again.”
Rudjek grins at the cravens and they beam back at him. “Am I glad to see you.”
They look about our age, no more than seventeen or eighteen. Three boys and two girls.
Seeing that we’re still speechless, Rudjek coughs. “They’re my . . . um . . . guardians.”
“This keeps getting better.” Majka puts his hands on his hips. “You’re future Vizier of the Kingdom, now you have craven guardians. Next you’re going to tell us that you’re an orisha too.”
“Why do you need guardians?” I ask.
“I’ll explain later,” Rudjek says, too eager to change the subject.
He introduces the cravens, and it’s easier to focus on them so I don’t have to think about tonight. They’ve mastered their approximations of the human form, with subtle differences. Fadyi, their leader, is the best shifted of the five. He has wide-set eyes, a broad nose, and fine lines that give texture to his chiseled jaw. His hair is short on the sides, leaving a shock of black curls down the middle. Jahla’s form is nearly as detailed as Fadyi’s. She’s added a splash of freckles across her nose. Räeke is the shortest of them with hazel eyes a little too large for her face. Ezaric and Tzaric are twins with long locs and impossibly smooth skin.