Reaper of Souls

by Rena Barron

  “Did they help you move Tyrek?” I look past him to the fire. A chill crawls across my forearms. How could I have ever mistaken that coward for Daho?

  “I’m not helpless, you know.” Sukar arches an eyebrow at me. There is so much more behind his expression than I can handle right now. “I did that on my own.”

  “I want to see them.” I realize that I haven’t heard a sound outside the tent. An irrational fear overcomes me that this is another dream, that they’re all dead. I stumble away from Sukar, my legs awkward and clumsy, but he doesn’t try to stop me. I push past the tent flap, and the amber hue of the sun washes out my vision. I gasp, stumbling back.

  “I should’ve warned you.” Sukar places a steadying hand on my shoulder. “It’s temporary—your vision will adjust. The sun is strange here.”

  “I still can’t believe that we’re in another world.” I brace myself against him. “Under any other circumstances, it would be exciting.”

  “Arrah,” he breathes my name after a long silence between us. “Whatever you might be feeling after . . . after the other night, know that I don’t regret it.”

  I smile up at him, his face an outline of light and shadows. It’s all I can do not to burst into tears. My feelings twist around my heart like thorny vines, and, heavens, they make it hard to think. “What did you do with the dagger?”

  “I have it with me.” He moves his hand to pat a sheath underneath his tunic. “It didn’t feel right to leave it lying around.”

  I’m relieved as he leads me from the tent, the dirt and prickly grass warm underneath my bare feet. With every step, my body grows stronger. The camp comes into focus, the shape of tents and kettles above fires. Then I see people: stooped, emaciated, hollow eyed. Tattered clothes, dusty faces. I blink back my tears, despite their condition. “They’re alive.”

  “Tyrek and his minions had enough food to hold the tribal people captive for months,” Sukar says. “I wouldn’t doubt that he’d been planning to get you here for a long time.”

  I spy a woman crushing grains in a mortar, her withered hands shaking. I kneel beside her, and she looks up at me with suspicion in her golden eyes. The Mulani chieftain stirs inside me, her ka a ribbon of silk. She whispers in my head, guiding the way my words glide into a finely spun tapestry. I speak in her native tongue with ease. “Do you know where the others went—the rest of the tribes?”

  “Only the djeli knew,” she says, her voice brittle as paper. The keeper of stories. “She took her own life when the demons and their little prince attacked us. Any djeli caught did the same to protect the secret.”

  Sukar goes rigid, not needing to understand the words to recognize the pain in her voice. “None of them know how to find the other tribal people. I’ve already tried asking.”

  “You are truly the one who carries our chieftains’ kas.” The woman’s eyes well with tears. “You are blessed.”

  I can only nod and push back tears as she stops her work to squeeze my hand. I have a responsibility to the tribal people, and I can’t fail them again.

  “How could Tyrek control Iben’s gate to come here?” I wonder aloud, my voice trailing off. Dimma’s memories tangle with my own. Iben—the orisha of time. I remember him sitting across from Daho and Dimma. I’m only here to bear witness. I will not take sides in our family squabbles. The demons had killed many orishas, including him. “He’s dead.” The realization knocks against my chest like a hammer cracking stone. Tyrek wanted to bring Efiya back, and Shezmu helped him try. “Shezmu must have Iben’s power to control the gate.”

  Sukar pulls his sickles, his gaze pinned on the hills at my back. I whirl around to see shadows flitting in and out of my line of vision. The demons didn’t retreat when I killed Tyrek. They went to get reinforcements.

  “Give me Daho’s dagger,” I say, my voice trembling.

  “Maybe we can reason with them.” Sukar hesitates. “What if we tell them that you’re Dimma—that you were Dimma. That has to mean something to them.”

  “The knife,” I say again, and this time he places it in my hand, still wrapped in the red silk and stained with blood. Dimma’s love for the demons eats at my courage. She wouldn’t want to hurt them. She sacrificed almost everything to give them a chance against the orishas.

  But I’m not her.

  I close my fingers around the dagger. Now that I have more of Dimma’s memories, I understand the full potential of the blade. It melts into a bar of silvery light that lengthens until it becomes a sword.

  Thirty-Four

  Arrah

  Hundreds of demons swarm the hills in wisps of gray smoke that scorch the land. The grass withers and browns, the life leached from it in great swatches. They’re doing this to terrorize us, to show that they mean to take back the dagger, but I won’t let them. I can’t, not if I want to see the tribal people returned home. My legs feel heavy as dread courses through my body. The demons are a storm cloud promising utter devastation.

  I look around, desperate, as the encampment falls into chaos. Hundreds of tribal people take up arms with pots, pans, and the weapons the demons left behind when they fled. They wear tattered, dirty tunics and kaftans caked in grime. Some are so underfed that they can hardly stand. I clench my teeth, wishing that I could bring Tyrek back just to let them exact their revenge. He deserved to suffer; instead, I’ve delivered his soul into my sister’s waiting arms.

  Most of the tribal people won’t be able to conjure magic in their weakened state. Some have little to no magic to start. Despite having Dimma’s memories, I don’t have her powers. Only a few dozen tribal people—the ones still strong enough—gather with Sukar and me to defend against the demons. Their eyes burn bright with white light. Some of them reach their hands to the sky to draw in more magic out of reflex, but there’s none here. This world is precisely what the orishas intended. Magicless. We’ll have to rely on our own strength and hope it holds out.

  Two Kes women with ice-white eyes and stark white hair kneel and press their hands against the ground. Their magic flickers in sparkles of gold across the grass and stings the bottom of my feet. At first, I don’t understand what they’re doing until the land between the demons and us blurs and stretches. They’re buying time, but it won’t work forever. The shift is so subtle that it feels like being on a calm sea. I’m at once fascinated and reminded that I don’t know enough about my magic. I want to live and explore the wonders of the chieftains’ gifts.

  “Are any of you good with controlling the wind?” I shout to the people gathered to fight. “It’ll slow down the ones who are incorporeal and force them to take physical form.”

  Seven people step forward—four from Tribe Litho, two from Tribe Zu, and one Aatiri. The Aatiri’s wide-set eyes burn with rage. His magic flares against my skin. He is the strongest of them, and he longs for revenge.

  I pick him and three others. “Take up a stance in one of the four corners around the camp and arch your wind to make a barrier. Leave no gaps between or above you.” I don’t have time to wonder if I’m doing the right thing. I have to act now. The demons are already pushing closer despite the Kes women’s efforts. I choose another group for the next task. “You six form a smaller ring around those too weak to fight at the center of the camp.” They nod and start to rally others into position. In truth, I hadn’t expected them to listen. I’m no one to them, but they keep calling me blessed one with reverence in their voices because I carry the chieftains’ kas.

  “Stay with them, Sukar,” I say. “Protect them, in case I fail.”

  As a windstorm whips past me, kicking up loose dirt, Sukar’s eyes travel to the sword of light in my hand. A look of uncertainty passes over his face. He doesn’t think we can win this time. “I’m not letting you face them alone; I’ll be by your side like always.” A flame kindles inside me, but I snuff it out. I can’t let myself hope, not yet.

  “If you find yourself ascending into death again, don’t blame me.” I shrug, playing at being ca
llous when all I want is to beg him to listen for once in his life. I can’t bear to lose him, Essnai, or Rudjek. They’re all I have left, and I need them to be okay.

  Sukar gives me a sidelong glance, and then he turns to the rest of the witchdoctors ready to fight. “Anyone talented with magic over souls can come with us to the front line,” he says. “The rest of you stand between the two wind barriers. If any of them change into physical form, don’t let them shed their bodies again.”

  “How are we supposed to do that, neké?” an older Litho man asks, addressing Sukar with the honorific of someone who’s not yet come of age. Neké wouldn’t be a slight in any other situation, but after everything we’ve been through, it’s a slap to our faces.

  “You must keep the tether between their souls and bodies intact, eké,” Sukar says. He uses the title only bestowed upon the head of a family, though this man is not an eké. He does not bear the traditional marks on his neck to denote him as such for Tribe Litho. “Do you need me to tell you how to do that?”

  The man grimaces, not missing the subtle sarcasm in Sukar’s words. “No.”

  The idea is brilliant in its simplicity, and it could work. The orishas trapped the demons’ souls in the veil in Kefu like they were fish flapping in a net. We have to make smaller nets. Seeing my look of surprise, Sukar winks at me. “You didn’t think you were the only one with a plan.”

  In another life, things could’ve been different between us. “Fight well, my friend.”

  Sukar searches my face, and I swear he can read my truest feelings. Does he know that I want him to kiss me, that I dread it, that I need it? That if we kiss even once, it will be my unmaking. We could never go back. He glances away, guilt washing over his features. I should say something, but no words will make this easier for either of us.

  I inhale a sharp breath, bracing myself for the onslaught. Sukar and I lead three dozen tribal people. The four holding the windstorm open a door for us to leave. Dirt and leaves and grass swirl everywhere, except for beneath the arch.

  “He is coming for you, blessed one,” whispers one of the tribal people in that dreamy way that only a seer speaks when gripped in a vision. “Soon you must choose.”

  I hesitate as the others press forward. The words have an air of inevitability. Every inch of me shakes with anticipation and dread. It’s an awful feeling that makes me want to scream. Who is coming for me? I want desperately for it to be Rudjek. Maybe he’s found a way here. But I can’t quell the part of me that hopes it’s Daho. Can I convince him to put an end to the war with the orishas and spare my people from further suffering? I need to see him for myself, not through a memory, not as a voice in my head. I need to see the reality of him, not some romanticized myth.

  The demons charge toward the camp, a third of them in human bodies. The rest are smoke shaped into echoes of their towering forms with outstretched wings.

  My instincts take over. I run, then leap toward the demons, my feet supported by pillars of wind, as I wield the sword of pure light. The edges are sharp enough to destroy worlds, and it slices through souls with ease. I careen through the air, spinning and twisting, my soul aligned with the chieftains’. We are one in a way that I’ve never experienced before—one body, one soul, one purpose. Dimma is with us: her memories, and a shadow of her magic.

  I absorb soul after soul into the blade, pushing through my heartache. I remember the day Dimma forged the dagger to protect the very people I’m imprisoning now. Some of the demons try to escape, but I pursue them through the hilltops and the forest, hunting them down one by one. I tell myself that these aren’t the demons that Dimma fought to save—those people had been innocent and kind. They wouldn’t follow Efiya and Tyrek and do such awful things.

  I float in front of a cowering demon in the body of a Zu boy. It’s Rassa, the warrior whose mask ended up at the street fair nearly a month ago. Tyrek and the demons really did plant it to lure me onto their trail. Rassa was no older than seventeen. He had his whole life ahead of him—and this demon took his body. I point the sword to his throat, reeling with rage.

  “I know that sword,” the demon says, his eyes wide with surprise as he scuttles back from me. “Are you the abomination that destroyed my people?” Venom threads through his words, and I welcome the pain that strikes my heart. I deserve every bit of it. I deserve much worse for what Dimma did. Some of the demons had hated her for changing them. They despised her gift of immortality.

  “Yes,” I hiss before I reap his soul. There is no malice behind my action, only regret.

  I turn back to the camp, a hundred souls collected in the dagger and still twice as many to catch. Half the witchdoctors who’d led the attack with me and Sukar are sprawled out in the grass, bleeding to death. The other half fight to hold back the horde of smoke from reaching the tribal people too weak to fight.

  I land in the field behind the demons, and their smoke curls around itself as they turn their attention on me. “I have what you want,” I say as the sword returns to its dagger form. I hold it up for all to see. The demons only pause for a moment. I can sense their eagerness to take it from me, yet they hesitate. “Know this: if you do not surrender, I will reap every single one of you with it. You will join Efiya and Tyrek in eternal darkness.”

  “Tell them who you are,” Sukar shouts from behind them, his voice pitched high on an unnatural wind. “Tell them the truth.”

  Unlike Sukar, who hopes the truth will make them see reason, I know it will do the opposite. Already suspecting, the demons whisper among themselves. “I am your queen, returned from the grave,” I say, my voice choking with more emotions than I can bear. “I am Dimma.”

  As the truth sinks in, the demons’ shock transforms into pure rage. Good. I need their hatred to give me the strength to finish this. I brace myself for the attack, knowing that it will come swiftly. Before they take one step toward me, Sukar yells, “Now!”

  The tribal people wield their magic to slingshot shards of craven bone at the demons. Their aim is true, and the shards hit their marks. I stare in disbelief as the anti-magic sends a ripple of black veins through the demons’ smoke. It forces them to take physical form again. Some look like the demons from Dimma’s memories with massive wings and sharp teeth. Others revert to their stolen bodies. Tribal people, Tamarans, Estherians. Kefians. Two hundred of them look upon me with anger, fear, and pain written on their faces.

  They charge at me headlong. Had I really thought that evoking Dimma’s name would change their minds? These demons serve Tyrek and my sister alone, and they’ve committed themselves to this course. I don’t need much time to do what must be done.

  Among the carnage, I spot Sukar’s grim face, streaked with sweat and blood. He looks miserable as I descend upon the demons like a wraith and reap their souls one by one. When I’m done, I stand in front of their dead bodies, bathed in blood, full of shame, knowing that if given the chance, I’d do it all over again.

  Thirty-Five

  Rudjek

  Of all the rotten ways to die, a demon devouring one’s soul has to be the most undignified. I wallow in the mud, clawing at my armor—snatch off my helmet and my breastplate. Dirt and sweat sting my eyes. I am easy pickings for the demon inside me, like a lamb brought for slaughter with no way to escape.

  I grab for someone, for anyone, and my hand closes around a leg. My scream is a roar. Majka. I can do little more than clutch on to him as my vision goes black. I convulse, and my teeth tear into the inside of my mouth. I choke on blood and vomit until the demon forces me onto my side. My world is pain as he inhales his first breath in my body. It’s a raggedy, hoarse scrape against my lungs, an ancient sound, the first sign of my impending death.

  “Get the burning fires out of me!” I demand through gritted teeth.

  My anti-magic pushes against the demon as he squeezes my heart. It is a he. He makes that known as his presence slams into me like a hammer smashing rocks. I’m losing ground. He’s too strong. Fadyi war
ned me that the demons would exploit my weaknesses. I should’ve listened.

  Let go, Rudjek, says a slippery whisper in my ear. No, not in my ear, in my head. The demon. I am still clutching Majka’s leg, wishing that he’d move. Move, damn it. Move. Your body belongs to me now.

  The demon pries my fingers from Majka’s legs, and I fight to regain control. I attempt to expel him as I did with the Zeknorian poison, but he squeezes my heart again. As my anti-magic pushes against his soul, it feels like claws ripping out my guts. He screams in my mind, and I take some grim satisfaction from our joint pain. I won’t make this easy for him—I won’t stop fighting until one of us concedes.

  Majka is heaving in gulps of air, his eyes blank, his lips trembling. Pain bursts through my body, but I grit my teeth. Every breath I take, every move, is agonizing.

  “You’re going to be okay, Majka.” I press my hands against the wound in his chest. Blood gushes around my fingers. It’s hot and sticky, and there’s so much. He’s bathed in gore, his face ashen. “Stay with me!”

  Kira crawls to his other side. Tears streak down her cheeks as she glances around wildly. “Can you heal him?”

  I want to yell at her for having to ask. Doesn’t she know that’s what I’m trying to do? I push out my anti-magic, but it bounces off Majka. “It isn’t working.”

  The demon drags me to my feet, my body moving in jerks. Jahla isn’t under the gate anymore. She’s running toward us—she’s coming for Majka. The gate begins to fade. We can’t let it close—it’s our only way to get Arrah back. I am a bastard for thinking it. Majka is dying, and I’m useless to help him. Three cravens race to the gate to add their anti-magic, and it flickers back into sight.

  Jahla pushes me out of the way, and I fall back, staring at my friend. She can save him—like she’s done for me so many times. She presses her hands to his torn chest.

  “He’s going to be okay,” I say, and it’s a plea to whatever awful god is listening. “Save him.”