Reaper of Souls

by Rena Barron

  The shape of Mami’s heart appears in shadows and lights behind my eyes. I replace her old heart bit by bit with magic that reshapes into flesh and blood. Sweat trickles down my forehead. I work as fast as I can, weaving and braiding, but Mami stops breathing.

  “No!” Chima cries out, and I can hear a scuffle behind me.

  I push faster, harder, until something snaps that sounds like breaking bone. Mami’s ka shakes loose from her body. It’s a shapeless gray thing that tugs at the tether between us. I slip into darkness—and I hear a great roaring, a rattle, a call. It pulls at me, beckoning, compelling. I want to fall into it—let it swallow me whole.

  I realize that I’m ascending into death, pulled by the tether tied to Mami. But the sulfur and salt keep the both of us from going farther. The five tribes call death a crossing into the kingdom of souls to join with the mother and father—Heka. But this feels more like Re’Mec’s story of the Supreme Cataclysm—the great creator and destroyer.

  “You’ve finally come home, my love,” hums a smooth voice laced with honey. His breath is warm against my neck, and I sigh in relief. My mind falls to Rudjek, but, no. Rudjek’s voice is a rumble in his chest, still stuck between boy and man. This voice is young, too, but ancient and tender in a way that raises a deep longing within me.

  Something about the way it curls around my thoughts reminds me of the serpent that Arti carved into my chest. The magic that wielded my hand when I killed the men by the sacred Gaer tree. The magic that almost seduced me in Kefu. The Demon King.

  “No,” I whisper, and my breath comes out in wisps of smoke.

  In a rush, I remember the night Rudjek and I explored the tomb underneath Heka’s Temple. We’d climbed down the ladder, waded through the bones, and found the Demon King’s dagger. But a blank spot in my memory from that night splutters and stretches with new images.

  I desperately reach for my magic, but it’s too late. I thought the nightmare was over with Efiya and Arti gone, and the Demon King still in his prison. How could I be such a fool—how could I not know he’d turn to me next? I let myself forget the danger of having too much magic. Burning fires. The Demon King’s found a way into my mind when no one else ever has. Shielding my thoughts had been my only true gift before I received the chieftains’ magic. Now he’s taken that from me.

  I try to resist the pull of another new memory—one that reeks of the tomb and plays out in fits and starts. I sit in front of a frozen lake beside a boy with silver wings tucked against his back. His face is so beautiful in profile that I can only bear to look at him from the corners of my eyes. Gods. This can’t be happening.

  “Who are you?” I say, my voice trembling, but I know the answer.

  “You remember nothing?” His voice is a purr, a lullaby, sweet music.

  I can’t answer—I can’t let myself. I won’t like the answer.

  “I am Daho.”

  I don’t care what he’s calling himself now.

  “I—I know this place,” I stutter, unable to break from the sequence of the memory.

  “This is our place,” Daho tells me.

  “No,” I whisper, shaking my head. “This is a trick.”

  “Fram stole your memories,” he sighs, “but they’ll come back in time.”

  “I won’t let you play games with me like you did with my mother.” I grit my teeth. “I don’t know how you broke into my mind, but I’m not like Arti or Efiya. I won’t do your bidding.”

  “I’m not in your mind, Dimma,” he says. “You’re in mine.”

  As I hear the name, a sharp pain slices through my head as suns and moons flash before my eyes. They chase each other across the sky so fast that they’re a blur of never-ending fire and ice. My head feels like it will split in two. I squeeze my forehead between my palms, but the pain cuts deeper.

  “Are you okay, child?” A frantic voice drags me from the memory.

  When I open my eyes, my vision is muddy. I blink until the world comes into focus. I stare up at three worried faces. Mami is among them. It was her voice that brought me back. Chima clutches an amulet of the orisha Kiva, with his crooked eyes and bulbous nose. The charlatan murmurs a prayer.

  My stomach churns, and bile burns in my throat. I can’t trust the memory. The mind can be too easily molded and reshaped like I’ve just done with Mami’s heart. I’d thought myself better than my mother—that I’m different—but I’ve fallen into the same trap. The Demon King wants to manipulate me so I’ll free him from his prison, and I won’t let him.

  “You’ve got a strange look in your eyes, girl,” the charlatan says, fanning himself. “Perhaps the chieftains made a mistake giving you their magic.” His voice reeks of an unspoken accusation.

  Mami and Chima help me to my feet. He’s right again—it was a mistake. The chieftains had to know this could happen—that it would happen. I am the only one left with enough magic for the Demon King to reach. “Had they not given her their magic,” Mami says in my defense, “none of us would be standing here alive today.”

  “Her mother got that look sometimes, too,” the charlatan counters. “Mark my words—”

  “Leave.” I croak out a harsh command that stirs up the aimless magic in the shop. It flutters wildly around the shelves as if my anger has suddenly given it purpose.

  The charlatan stumbles back, his kaftan rustling in his haste.

  “You heard her.” Mami waves at him dismissively. “Get out.”

  The charlatan offers an apology before he turns on his heel and flees the shop.

  Heat creeps up my neck as the memory by the frozen lake replays in my mind. I swallow hard and disguise my trembling hands by brushing wrinkles from my tunic.

  “It’s not my place to ask, Arrah,” Chima says, “but did you have a vision?”

  He and Mami both look to me, their eyes anxious—him clutching his amulet and Mami wringing her hands. I can’t let anyone know, not even Rudjek. I have to figure out how to shield my mind from the Demon King. “No.” It’s a painful lie, but I see no other choice. “The ritual took more effort than I expected.”

  “Bless you, child, for giving me another chance to live.” Mami squeezes my hand. Once she and Chima leave, I rush to lock the shop and press my back against the door.

  I’m not in your mind, Dimma. You’re in mine.

  I immediately think of the Unnamed orisha with the serpents coiled around her arms. The orisha who betrayed her brethren for the Demon King—she’s his ama, his love. “She’s Dimma.”

  Why is he calling me her name?

  She is not me—I am not her.

  “I know who I am,” I whisper in the empty shop.

  The Unnamed Orisha: Dimma

  Everything in the universe will die. My brethren and I are the only constant. We are an extension of the Supreme Cataclysm. But what happens when the constant changes? You already know the answer.

  Even though I saw Daho almost die, nothing could prepare me for the rabbit. “It’s my pleasure, dear Dimma,” Daho says, “to introduce you to real food. No more wild berries.”

  I smile at him. It happens without conscious thought. I don’t quite understand why, but it makes me feel warm inside. But my smile slips when I see that he’s holding one of the small furry creatures from the mountain, limp in his hand. I come to my feet beside the frozen lake.

  “I would’ve preferred a chicken,” he says, “but a rabbit will do.”

  “What have you done?” I know this rabbit, the way I know every single creature on my mountain. “You took its life.”

  Daho frowns, his eyes searching my face. “Did I do something wrong?”

  My vision blurs with tears. “It was mortal—it won’t come back.”

  “We all die one day . . . well, not you, but the rest of us.” Daho stares down at the rabbit and inhales a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

  His words connect two missing pieces in my mind. One day Daho will return to the Supreme Cataclysm and be remade into something not h
im. That thing will not have his smile, his laugh, his face, his soul. I don’t want that to happen, but it’s the nature of mortality. How can I know this to be true and still not accept it?

  “I’ll bury it,” Daho says, his voice full of anguish. “I can’t eat it, knowing what it meant to you.”

  “Give it to me,” I say, and Daho does so without hesitation.

  I cradle the rabbit in my arms until his fur, flesh, and bone change into tiny sparks of light. They hold on to the shape of a rabbit for a moment, then the sparks drift apart, scattering over the mountain.

  “Dimma,” Daho says, his eyes wide. “That was beautiful.”

  Later that night, we’re in the cabin, and Daho’s stomach is growling as he curls up on the bed. “I can make food,” I decide after some thought, “but I need to understand it better.”

  Daho taps his head. “I can show you.”

  I take a peek inside his mind, careful only to skim the surface of his memories. I create a meal of roasted chicken, rosemary potatoes, curried green beans, and plum juice. Daho stumbles out of bed, his mouth open, his eyes wide. Although he tells me that the meal is delightful, I haven’t come to any conclusion about the taste. “How many times do you chew after each bite? Do you eat first, then drink, or drink first, then eat?”

  He bursts into laughter and takes a gulp of the plum juice. “It depends on the food and how hungry or thirsty you are.” He wipes his mouth, his eyes brightening. “Next time, I’ll cook for you.”

  I raise an eyebrow, and he laughs again. “Don’t give me that look! I used to sneak into the kitchens at night and practice with our head chef. I’m quite good at it; I can teach you.”

  When we’re done eating, Daho cleans up and settles on the bed. He wraps the blanket around himself. “Why don’t you sleep in the cabin with me?” His skin flushes violet as he glances away. “I mean sleep in the cabin. . . . You never stay at night.”

  I smile at him. “I’d like to stay sometimes.”

  “Come sit with me.” He pats the bed beside him. “I’ll tell you about Jiiek.”

  I climb into bed with him, and his voice is majestic as he tells me the first of many stories. Each night he tells me a new story, and I start to imagine myself eating cake, swimming in a river, soaring in the sky. We go from sitting together, to lying side by side, to lying face-to-face, to him holding me.

  I lie on his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat as his fingers tangle in my hair. “I would very much like to kiss you,” Daho says, his voice husky, after finishing another story.

  I sit up to look at him. “Like the demon boy and endoyan girl in your story?”

  “Am I that obvious?” he says, his color deepening.

  “Yes.”

  Daho props his back against the wall. “Can I tell you a secret, Dimma?” When I nod, he confesses, “I’m afraid that one day my stories will bore you, and you’ll send me away.”

  “I could never send you away.” I don’t tell him about the fear that’s been on my mind since the white rabbit. “Show me how to kiss.”

  He rubs the back of his neck. “I’ve never kissed anyone before, either.”

  “We can learn together,” I say, hopeful.

  Daho leans close to me and cups my face in his hands. His skin is warm and smooth and delightful. I press my lips against his palm, feeling his heat intertwine with mine. The moment stretches out, unfurling across time, second by second. As my anticipation builds, sparks of light twist around our bodies. Every inch of me aches with longing. I lean forward, meeting his lips, and our teeth bump together.

  “We need practice,” Daho whispers against my mouth.

  “Lots,” I say, pressing in closer to him.

  Thirteen

  Arrah

  I spend all night poring through the chieftains’ memories, trying to find a way to shield my mind from the Demon King. I search my father’s shelves, pulling down boxes of bones and dried herbs and animal parts. Myrrh oil, white ox bones, black copra skin, wormwood, honey brush, ragweed.

  Sweat stings my eyes as I get down on my knees on the floor to sort them into piles. I have the ingredients to perform six of the twelve rituals that the chieftains know to protect one’s mind. The other six rituals involve my ancestors’ bones, and I have no way of completing them.

  What the charlatan said was true. I can perform complex magic without rituals, but is that how the Demon King broke into my mind? Rituals help to hone magic, to refine its intentions. Magic without them, especially complex magic, is more unpredictable.

  Of the six rituals, I start on the laborious task to prepare three. A bone charm of animal teeth, set in a precise order. A sachet of crushed herbs that I must keep with me at all times. A blood medicine that needs three days to complete and that I must take every day. I brew enough to cover the trip to and from the tribal lands, until I’ll be able to make more.

  I work well into the morning, my fingers raw from crushing herbs and bones and brewing. My arms are shaking with fatigue by the time I put the second bone charm around my neck and stuff the sachet into my pocket. I can only hope that they’ll work against the Demon King.

  Essnai arrives at eighth morning bells with sweet bread and fried plantains and a sack across her shoulder. She wisps into the shop in a gold cropped top and billowy black trousers, her hair dyed the color of corn silk. A dozen bracelets jangle on each of her arms, an exact match to her crimson lipstick. How she manages to look so radiant this early in the morning baffles me. We eat in silence, and my headache dulls with each bite. I almost feel like myself again, except I will never be only myself, not with the Demon King in my mind.

  Essnai takes a sip of her tea. “You look like you haven’t slept in days.”

  “I haven’t.” I stare at the crumbs of sweet bread. I think about the frozen lake, the brisk wind that bit against my skin, the clean air that ached in my chest.

  “With good reason, I’m sure,” Essnai says, quirking an eyebrow.

  In the memory, the boy shifts his position, and his wings brush against my side. “Yes.”

  “Is there something you want to tell me?” Essnai asks, her question blunt.

  I snap out of the memory with a start and almost knock over my tea. “What?”

  Essnai frowns and puts aside her cup. “Sukar told me about the Zu mask, that you’re planning to go look for the tribal people. But that’s not what’s on your mind, is it? Did something happen with Rudjek?”

  I let out a shaky breath and rub my tired eyes. Did I really think that I could keep this a secret from my friends? I need to tell someone—I need to know that I’m going to be okay. “I heard him last night,” I confess, and Essnai’s frown deepens.

  “Him?” she asks in a tone that says she already knows who.

  “Yes,” I whisper. “Him.”

  “Oh, Arrah.” Her voice chokes up. “What can be done?”

  I tell her about the blood medicine, show her the bone charm and the sachet. “One of the rituals has to work, and if not one alone, all three together.” I squeeze my eyes shut for a moment, my heart racing. “I won’t let this get in the way of finding the surviving tribal people, but if I lose control—”

  “Don’t even say it,” Essnai interrupts me. “You won’t give in to him.”

  “Even still, if . . .”

  She narrows her eyes, her face dead serious. “Sukar and I will keep you in line.”

  I sigh, clutching the bone charm. “I hope so.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Her gaze drifts to my hand. “What did he say?”

  “He called me Dimma.” The name rings in my ears and sets my teeth on edge. It makes no sense. “Best I can tell, it’s the Unnamed orisha’s real name—his um, ama.” The memory by the frozen lake feels too personal to share, so I keep it for myself.

  Essnai studies my face like she can sense the doubt brewing in my mind. “You already know you can’t believe anything he says. He’ll try to trick you, but
you’re smarter than that.” She stares intently into my eyes. “You will beat him.”

  I hold her words close like they are another shield of protection against the Demon King. I don’t know what I would do without her, Sukar, and Rudjek. “Right.” I nod once, then change the subject. “We should leave for the tribal lands soon.”

  “Good—I’ve been itching to get out of the city.” Essnai bounces up from the floor. She doesn’t miss a beat as she grabs her sack and pulls out a red-and-gold sheath. “But first, Kira told me about your appointment at the palace today, so I brought something for you to wear. Can you get the wrinkles out?”

  “How am I supposed to do that?” I ask, cocking my head to the side.

  Essnai holds out the sheath. “Magic, of course.”

  I cross my arms, though I can’t keep a straight face. “Do you expect me to use magic for something so frivolous?”

  “Don’t be such a disapproving auntie,” Essnai says. “Have a little fun.”

  Not for the first time since receiving the chieftains’ gift, I hesitate. Even though I suspect performing complex magic without a ritual opened my mind to the Demon King, I still don’t know for sure. Will it happen the next time I call upon magic for any reason? I should have enough protection with the bone charm and the sachet, but I still worry. What if I can’t keep him out? I can’t not wield magic—it’s a part of me now, and I don’t want to give it up. Impulsively, I flick my wrist and conjure a wind that blows away the wrinkles in the sheath. I whisper a silent thank you to the chieftains when nothing else happens.

  Essnai smiles. “Leave your hair to me.”

  Soon she’s sitting on a stool with me on the floor as she unravels my braids one by one. Her fingers comb through my strands, untangling the knots. I close my eyes and forget about the Demon King, if only for a moment.

  When the midday bells ring, Majka and Kira arrive to escort us to the palace. Kira takes her ama’s hand and brings it to her mouth. “I dare not ruin lips as sweet and beautiful as yours.”