“We have this conversation every time I die,” I say. “I don’t want to have it again.”
“I need you to understand.” Fram’s voices brim with memories that manifest as rain around their bodies. “You were very young. An infant. The Supreme Cataclysm birthed the rest of us within an eon of each other . . . Koré and Re’Mec, then the others . . . but you came much later. No one knew what to do with you, so we left you to your own devices. Such a horrible way to raise a child, but we were still learning too, even if we thought we knew everything.”
“That is the failing of our kind,” I say. “We think we always know best.”
“I see rebirth has taught you something after all.”
“It’s taught me that I can never atone for what I’ve done.”
“That’s true.” Fram nods, both heads in concert. “The damage can’t be undone.”
Silence stretches between us in this place void of time. Even here, the Supreme Cataclysm calls to me and I ache to rejoin it. It would be so easy to be unmade, to have no past or future, no memories at all. To start anew, or not. No one knows what becomes of the things the Supreme Cataclysm unmakes.
“Do you still love him?” Fram asks.
We don’t need to say who they speak of; there’s only always been him since that day by the frozen lake. I ache for the centuries we spent watching the world change. For the new life we created. I can feel that he’s stronger than when I’ve died before; he’s on the verge of escaping his prison. His call tugs at me, and I want nothing more than to go to him.
Supreme Cataclysm, yes, I still love him.
An echo splutters in my ka. A raging river, a firestorm. It refuses to be brushed aside as memories in someone else’s story. I am Arrah and I am Dimma too. We are the same, but apart. She has her thoughts and I have my own. We exist as one and as two. Had I not been facing Fram, I would not understand the duality in myself—the two sides. Both broken without the other.
“And what of the craven?” Fram asks, their voices a wisp of wind.
“Rudjek.” I whisper his name and memories of him flood back into my ka. The deep timbre of his voice, his shy smiles and arrogant grins. The feel of his soul intertwined with mine like warm water splashed against my skin. He makes my ka sing, and I would go to the ends of the universe to see him laugh. I love him too, in this life and in death. Daho is my past, and he is my future.
“Careful, sister,” Fram warns. “An orisha’s love is dangerous. You know that best of all.”
“Are you going to send me back?” I ask.
They’re indecisive by nature and lose themselves in thought. “No,” they answer with finality. “‘If you are reborn, it will give Daho hope. Once he loses hope, we can finally destroy him.”
“You still don’t understand.” My ka pulses with frustration. “Sending me to my end will not quell his thirst for revenge. Have you not learned from the first time you killed me? I must be the one to stop him. I must put right the wrong that I’ve done. With Arti and Efiya gone, he’ll have no way to escape his prison, and Koré and I can find a way to destroy his soul once and for all.”
Fram shakes their heads. “You, Arrah, mean well, but you, Dimma, would go to the Demon King at the first chance. The best solution is for you to rejoin the womb. It’s time for you to return to the Supreme Cataclysm.”
The witchdoctors’ souls are still intertwined with mine and their magic pulses in my ka. Dimma’s magic—my magic—is there too, chained and bound. All this time, I thought that I didn’t have any magic of my own, but Fram had locked it away, as they’d done with my mind. Countless lifetimes of frustration and longing because of them. My anger vibrates in the cosmic strings that connect me to the universe.
“Return me to my broken vessel now.” Dimma and I are in agreement, our thoughts singular for once. We may not agree on who we love, but we both want to go back to the mortal world, the world of the living.
“No.” Fram’s calming magic reaches for my soul. “Your time is over.”
I resist their pull with a burst of the borrowed witchdoctors’ magic. A million sparks of color light around my soul, pushing back Fram’s influence. The chain that binds my own magic bends, but does not break.
Fram steps closer. “Don’t do this. You will cause nothing but endless death.”
“I won’t go,” I say as my ka breaks their chain.
This place where time doesn’t exist trembles with my fury. It tears at the seams. I slip away through a crack and descend into the world again like a falling star. Fram is with me in their shapeless form. Their magic lashes against me like a hot whip and stops my fall. They drag me back and my memories unravel as fog curls around my consciousness. My true name fades away.
“No, I won’t go,” I repeat, my mind less clear, less certain.
“You must,” breathes two voices I don’t recognize, when I knew them a moment ago.
“Let go,” someone else whispers. It isn’t one of the chieftains, yet it is inside me too and I understand what it wants me to do. My ka is akin to mist, not solid by mortal standards, but enough to hold me in this trap. When I left my body twice before, I was afraid I would travel too far and become lost in the spirit world. This is something else, something much riskier. I’m going to let my ka unravel, let it become one with everything. The Kes chieftain spent most of his life exploring the spirit world, and he knows how.
I push my consciousness out in all directions, stretching beyond the confines of my ka. At first the unraveling is subtle and slow—a new awareness that creeps into my very being. My recent memories—everything that’s happened since I killed Efiya—slip away. I hold on to the idea of seeing my friends again—seeing my father one last time.
I’m falling, falling, falling through stars.
Forty-Two
I don’t know how I’ve come to be here. I was in the Temple with Efiya, then awoke in the sky. I killed my sister. What I’ve done tears at me. I want to scream, but I have no voice and the pain threatens to burn me alive.
Rudjek’s ka calls to me, sings my name, and I’m drawn to it.
As my ka pulls itself into one piece, I focus on Rudjek’s song and let it guide me. His sorrow pulls me back to the battlefield, and I sweep inside the Temple and settle into my broken body. When I crack open my eyes, my gaze lands on my sister and my heart aches. She’s gone. I’m dying too, but my thoughts and memories feel tangled and confused.
There’s a flash of light, then the sound of hurried footfalls.
“No, no, no,” Rudjek cries. “Arrah, no.”
He lifts me into his arms and I stare up at his broken face. “You’re going to be okay.”
“She’s alive!” someone shouts. It’s Majka.
“That shouldn’t be possible,” Koré says, farther away. “Are you sure?”
“Help her,” Rudjek demands.
My skin burns, and I groan in pain.
“You mustn’t touch her if she’s to have a chance to heal,” comes another voice, the craven called Jahla.
She means that his anti-magic is dangerous. I already feel a flutter of it. A tear falls from Rudjek’s eye, and when it lands on my face, I twitch from the burn. “Majka . . .” is all he says, broken, and his friend takes me into his arms. Rudjek backs away. It hurts to see his pain.