A tinge of shame warms my cheeks—still in shock that a god died to save me.
Sukar spits in the grass. “Are you here to talk or fight at our side, orisha?”
“I have to watch my tongue.” Re’Mec presses his palm to his chest in indignation. “But insulting me is okay?”
“Stop acting like an overgrown child,” I snap. “Are you here to help us or not?”
Re’Mec and Rudjek both cock an eyebrow at me.
Birds of prey squawk as they circle overhead. Like the Familiars, they await their feast. For there will be blood soon and bodies to fill their bellies. The sting of demon magic carries on the breeze. It crawls across my skin like centipedes, but the witchdoctors’ magic rises to meet it. It curls around my body in a swirl of dancing light. Colors that pulse like a heartbeat.
Two falcons land at the base of the Temple. It isn’t only the awareness in the birds’ black eyes that gives the cravens away—it’s the way their plumage gleams beneath the moonlight. Their presence mutes my magic. The dancing light dims. The falcons fold their wings, and their bodies shift into shapeless gray masses.
“Twenty-gods, Rudjek,” Majka says. “Can you do that too?”
Rudjek tilts his head to the side like the answer should be obvious. I’m wondering too, but he doesn’t confirm or deny it.
“They’re close,” Fadyi says when he’s done shifting back into his human form. Räeke stands beside him, one of her too-large eyes sitting much higher than the other. We all stare at her, and she blinks, then shifts to correct the mishap. “We need to prepare.”
Re’Mec beams at the cravens with sparks of sunlight in his eyes, like he’d go to the ends of the world for them. The same way they look at Rudjek. He’s every bit his sister—if not even more insufferable, but they both tried to help in their own convoluted way.
Re’Mec speaks to the cravens in a language that’s clipped and tonal.
“He’s telling them to keep a distance from you to not dampen your magic,” Rudjek says, a smile teetering on his lips. Lips that, I know now, taste like sweet milk candy. Lips I want to taste again.
He must read my expression because as heat creeps up my neck, he blushes too.
Jahla tilts her head to sniff the air. “Two thousand. Half demons, half shotani.”
Kira retrieves two daggers. “I rather like those odds.”
Koré and Kira would have gotten along. They both lusted for blood and loved their knives. Now Re’Mec has gifted Kira with blades almost identical to his sister’s. She will honor the fallen Twin King tonight. And I will honor you, Grandmother. I promise. I will honor all who have fallen in my mother’s and sister’s paths.
“We’re on holy ground.” Sukar scoops up a bit of soil and lets it fall between his fingers. “Heka willing, we will come out victorious.”
If only Sukar knew how unholy these grounds are, had seen the vault of bones beneath his feet.
Fadyi and Jahla move to flank Rudjek. Re’Mec stands ahead of them, all pretense gone as he faces the onslaught of night. The twins, Ezaric and Tzaric, shift into identical great leopards. One winks at me and I wink back before they move to flank our rear along with Räeke. They’re so much more interesting than the stories told in Tamar to scare children.
Kira and Essnai exchange a longing gaze, an unspoken understanding between them. My heart aches for my friends—I want them to be together back home, safe like before my mother ruined everything. I can’t stand the thought of them putting their future at stake to help me. It isn’t fair. It isn’t right. You will lose many friends before the end, the memory of Arti’s voice whispers to me. I clench my fists against my sides. I won’t let that happen.
I stand at Rudjek’s back, Sukar and Majka flanking me. Essnai is behind me next to Kira with three of Rudjek’s guardians at their backs. The cravens have given me a wide berth, so that when Efiya comes, nothing will block my magic. The press of Daho’s dagger is cold against my waist, and though I know it means my death, it’s soothing. With it, I have a chance to end my sister’s reign of terror.
Majka strokes his chin, pretending to be in deep thought. “By my math, we’re outnumbered by a million to one.”
“Your math is bad,” says Essnai, narrowing her eyes at him.
“If you can’t handle your share, Majka,” I tease, “I’ll lighten your burden.”
Shadows too coordinated to be Familiars flit in and out of the torchlight set about the Temple. They close in around us, and my pulse thumps against my eardrums. Even though the odds are against us, anticipation courses through me. The magic tingles across my skin like the light of a thousand suns beaming from within me.
“Look what I can do.” Rudjek stares at his shotel wedged in the stone, and the space between him and his sword wrinkles like currents on a river. The shotel shakes loose and flies back into his outstretched hand. “Räeke taught me that.” He casts a grin over his shoulder at me.
“You’ve been holding out on us, you bastard,” Majka says.
I cross my arms. “I can call a firestorm.”
“Show-offs,” Sukar and Essnai muse at the same time.
The clanking of metal fills my ears as everyone readies their weapons. Sukar casts me a hopeful smile as he raises one of his sickles to me and nods. My staff is inside the Temple. I don’t need it. I need magic tonight, and I have no intention of failing. Not again.
The shotani descend upon the valley first, moving as silent as the dead. The demons sweep in behind them—their eyes glowing in the night like hungry hyenas. With the shotani in black tunics and the demons dressed in red gendar uniforms, it’s hard to gauge where the army ends. They have us surrounded.
“Why didn’t anybody think to invite more cravens to this fight?” Majka asks.
Rudjek crosses his shotels in front of him. “You’re lucky any came at all.”
Re’Mec raises his hands to the sky, and the moon brightens so we can see better.
When Efiya steps from the void into the valley in front of Rudjek, time stops. He stands completely still, his hands gripping his shotels. I’m frozen too—but not my mind. Everyone else stands as still as statues. Efiya leans close to Rudjek’s ear and whispers. His lips move, but the wind swallows his words. Fire burns deep in my belly. What are they saying to each other? The magic inside me pushes against hers. It rebounds and slams into my chest so hard that I cough up blood, but her grasp on me untethers.
Then my mother strides out of the shadows with Oshhe on her heels, and tears spring to my eyes. My heart both soars and falls. My father is nothing more than loose skin and bones, his face hollow. Arti doesn’t look any better. She rushes toward me with urgent steps, her eyes wild.
She glances at Efiya, who is still whispering in Rudjek’s ear, then back at me. “Give me the dagger,” Arti hisses, desperate. “Give it to me before it’s too late to stop her.”
I desperately look between my father, my mother, and my sister. Arti’s voice throbs in my head, poking holes in everything I know about her. I want badly for it to be true—for my mother to finally come to her senses. But no, she doesn’t want to stop Efiya . . . she wants the dagger so I don’t ruin her plans. Efiya still hasn’t released the Demon King’s ka. She needs her. I don’t believe Arti has suddenly changed her mind after all the awful things she’s put into motion. This is another trick.