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First published in the United States of America by Razorbill, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2018
Copyright © 2018 Penguin Random House LLC
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Ebook ISBN: 9780448493954
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Onyebuchi, Tochi, author.
Title: Crown of thunder / by Tochi Onyebuchi.
Description: [New York] : Razorbill, [2018] | Sequel to: Beasts made of night. | Summary: “Taj has escaped Kos, but Queen Karima will go to any means necessary—including using the most deadly magic—to track him down” — Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018013400 | ISBN 9780448493930 (hardback)
Subjects: | CYAC: Magic—Fiction. | Guilt—Fiction. | Monsters—Fiction. | fantasy.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.O66 Cro 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018013400
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
To Mom,
as always.
And to Chinoye, Chibuikem, and Uchechi,
who, without fail, turn darkness to light.
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER 1
THE SETTING SUN cuts ribbons of red and blue across the sky. Night’s on its way, which means so are the inisisa sent to kill us.
The rebels say that after I peeled back the shadows of that boar, that sin-beast I called forth from myself, I passed out. Makes sense that I don’t remember it. But it makes it all harder to believe. Not remembering makes it easier to question things—to wonder if it’s all really true. Maybe I never called forth my own sin—this sin that turned into a sin-beast that glowed. Maybe the battle at the Palace was a dream. Maybe I could say the same for the arashi that flew out of the sky and set the city of Kos—my city—on fire. Maybe I dreamed up Princess Karima’s betrayal too. And Bo’s.
It’s easy to wish things were different.
It’s hard—it feels impossible, even—to go back and make things better.
I’m right on a cliff’s edge, and valley spreads about beneath me. There’s more green down there than I’ve ever seen in my entire life, so different from the browns and reds of Kos. Whenever I close my eyes, I see those streets, and I see the jewels of Gemtown sparkling in the sun, threatening to blind you if you look at them directly. I see Kosians wandering that part of the Forum where jewelers sold their wares, everyone in bright-colored robes and wraps, shouting to be heard over one another, arguing prices, examining gems, turning canes or necklaces or earstones over in their hands. Then I open my eyes again, and all I see in front of me is strangeness.
An explosion sounds in the distance. I don’t even need to squint to know it’s coming from Kos. It’s not the continuous roaring of the arashi, that enormous mythical monster that had come out of the sky, drawn by the army of sin-beasts Karima and her Palace Mages had summoned. It sounds more like a Baptism. Like a dahia getting demolished, a whole neighborhood quarter turned to rubble. My chest warms with anger. Things were supposed to be different. I can’t believe that Karima’s as callous as the previous rulers of Kos. I still remember her touch. I can feel her fingers running along the sin-spots on my arms and shoulders.
Leaves rustle in the tree branches overhead, and I turn around just in time to see Noor leap down and land behind me as gracefully as any Kos street cat. White-pupiled eyes shine out over the black cloth pulled up over her. I trained this young sin-eater once, in a forest just like this. She joined us in the battle to save Kos. And she fled the city with us when all was lost.
“Oga,” she says, by way of greeting. I still can’t tell if she’s calling me boss as a joke or if she really means it. I’d be surprised if she still looks at me as a leader.
“What’s the news, Noor?” I sit down by the ledge. She steps next to me, fists balled at her sides. She’s constantly coiled now; whenever I see her, she’s ready to knock out someone’s jaw or gouge out someone’s eyes.
“It’ll be time to eat soon.”
“All right.” I grunt as I get back to my feet. I should count myself lucky I got even that tiny slice of time to myself. I almost want to ask Noor to stay with me a little bit and watch the sun set, but some of the rebel Mages have been making noise about airborne inisisa. Scouts, they say. In the form of birds and sometimes bats. And if I were to sneak out from under the cover of the forest and one of those things were to see me, Karima would know exactly where to send her army. If I were the only one I had to worry about, it wouldn’t be a problem, but I know as soon as I step out and get spotted, every loose sin-beast in Kos will be sent straight for me. Noor and Ras and the others would try to get in the way, the rebel Mages would try to shield me, and by the end, there’d be a bunch of dead bodies everywhere just because I wanted to catch a sunset. Under those circumstances, it seems like not being late for supper is the least I can do. No need to make everyone’s job harder than it already is.
* * *
• • •
Even though we’re all equals in the forest, the aki and the Mages still dine apart. Once upon a time, we worked for those same Mages. For a few ramzi, we aki would go where the Mages sent us. They would call forth some rich Kosian’s sin, and, once we killed and Ate it, they would get a purse heavy with money. Then they’d hand us barely enough of the ramzi inside to feed ourselves.
A few of the sin-eaters keep me company. They are my bodyguards. I’m not sure how to feel about it. When I was in charge of these kids,
training them under the watchful eye of other Palace Mages, their skin was unblemished. No tattoos. No marks from battling inisisa. Then I had to train them how to fight, how to Eat sins. Now they sit or stand or lounge around me with bowls of egusi soup, and I see the mark of a sin-bird’s open wings on one of their arms. A sin-lion rears up on its hind legs along another aki’s thigh. One aki girl has a sin-sparrow tattooed just beneath her left eye. They chat with one another, but they mostly do the silent, stoic thing that serious bodyguards are supposed to do. It’s a thing Bo used to do.
As soon as I think of Bo, my heart sinks. Sometimes, when I sleep, I dream of our fight. I remember standing on the steps to the Palace and Karima telling me to come rule Kos with her. I remember telling her no and seeing Bo come up the steps. I remember feeling glad to have him back. But even in the dream, I know something’s wrong, and all of a sudden Bo is on top of me with his daga aimed at my heart, and it takes all of my strength to keep him from cutting it out of my chest.
Some of the Mages currently eating on the other side of the campfire were there to watch the whole thing. They saw Kos in its final moments. The one with the silver braids, Miri, is the one all the rebel Mages listen to, but sometimes Miri and Aliya head off together into the darkness, and it’s usually pretty soon after they get back that we have to get up and get moving again.
The urge sometimes bubbles up in me to go to Aliya, but it always evaporates a second later. I don’t know what I’d say to her, or what exactly I’d ask her. Maybe something about the inisisa I supposedly called from myself or maybe something about the fact that I can’t remember it. Maybe I would ask her if all those things she said to me on the steps to the Palace were real, all those things about me staying true to myself and not being seduced by Karima and the power she offered me. Maybe I’d go to her just to be near her. She’s different now. She’s not the same girl I met at Zoe’s all those months ago, so eager to learn about sin-eating and equations that she would spill tea all over me, but there’s still some of that curiosity there—some of that hopefulness. I see it at night when I catch her sneaking out to stargaze, her eyes bright and wide, just like they used to be all the time.
She’s chewing on some goat meat, and she’s got her head cocked to the side while another Mage whispers to her about something. She finishes, licks her fingers, then tosses the bones into the fire. Grease stains her robe, but she either doesn’t see it or doesn’t care.
I don’t notice that I’ve been staring directly into the fire until she nudges me.
“Taj, are you OK?” she asks.
I shake away the dizziness. “Yes. I’m fine.” But I’m not. I’m thinking about those explosions again, imagining houses crumbling in a Baptism, whole dahia demolished. I find myself replaying all those conversations Karima and I had. About sin and about Eating and about the Unnamed. I remember how her eyes lit up when she saw me. She didn’t sneer at my sin-spots. She didn’t wrinkle her nose the first time she saw me in the Palace. When she looked at me, I felt loved. And now, under her command, dahia are crumbling. Was she lying to me the whole time?
Aliya’s gaze softens. “You’re thinking about Karima.”
I shrug and hug my knees. “What did I even mean to her?”
“I am probably not the right person to answer that question. Better you ask me about the tau function or the etymology of al-Jabr, but I . . .” She trails off. “I don’t know if you can love someone and want their head separated from their body. In all the ancient texts I’ve read, I have yet to come across that circumstance.” She smiles and puts her hand on my knee.
People shuffle behind me, and I turn around just in time to see everyone breaking down camp. Not again.
Ras, with sin-snakes ringing both biceps, appears behind me, hand on my shoulder. “Time to go, Chief. Spotted some patrols to the north and to the east.”
“All right. Let’s move.”
Aliya and I get up. Aliya heads to the front of the group with the other Mages, and I lag behind. I break into a jog with Ras, and we catch up to some of the other aki as we reach a patch of dense forest. I look over, and Ras is smiling.
He catches me, tries to stop smiling, but can’t, which only makes him smile more. “Before my eyes turned and I became aki, I cleaned houses,” he says in between breaths. “With Mama. We cleaned houses in our dahia for money. All the other kids were running around, exploring the city, having adventures.” His eyes don’t stray from the path he’s cutting ahead for us with his daga. “This is my adventure.”
The other aki have gathered around us so that I’m at the center of a protective diamond formation. I have no idea what book they spun to learn that.
I’m grateful for them—this group of aki and Mages, young and old, thrown together by rebellion. They are risking everything to protect me. But running around from forests to fields to hillsides, constantly surrounded by Mages and aki who don’t seem to know any more about what’s going on than I do, is getting old. Yet they move with purpose. They know what to do. Sometimes it feels like this is everyone’s adventure except mine.
Either way, I’m running on a full stomach, which means I’ve come a long way from being a lowly aki in the streets of Kos scrounging for sins to Eat. For some reason, the thought of how much life has changed and how quickly makes me chuckle. All of a sudden, I’m smiling right alongside Ras as we dart through the forest toward safety, just as night washes all of us into darkness.
CHAPTER 2
THUNDER CRACKLES IN the sky as we reach the cave. The rain waits till everyone’s inside before it starts pouring down. The Mages watch in silence. Some of the aki—my bodyguards—take up posts at the cave’s mouth. A few of the others, the younger ones, sit nearby in a circle and laugh at something. Ugo, a kid with a single dragon spiraling up his leg, snaps his fingers at Nneoma and points to something he’s drawn in the mud.
“My favorite meal from home,” Ugo is saying while a few of the others hold their own side conversations. “Fresh fish.” He gestures at the drawing he’s made in the ground. Squiggles mostly, with a few lines around to suggest a table. “With kwanga surrounding it and makembe on the other side. What you call plantain. Or what the northerners will call planteen.” He swipes at the air as if to disregard that word.
The others get raucous, and Nneoma smacks his hand away. She has the hard, broad shoulders of a northerner, someone used to working the mines to farm gemstones for the royals. “That’s because that’s the right way to say it. I don’t know no plantain. We say planteen.” The others roar with laughter. Planteen. Planteen!
But Ugo barges through the protest. “You’ve got it wrong. Mainteen. Planteen. Enterteen.”
The others start rolling on the ground. “Are you trying to enterteen him?”
Nneoma tries to stay serious, but even she’s starting to crack. “Fine, have it your way. Plantain, maintain, entertain, remain!” The group erupts into another fit of laughter. “You southerners talk like your mouth is full of suya wrap anyway,” she says.
They were probably there for the Fall of Kos. It sounds weird in my head to think of what happened to my city like that. The Fall of Kos seems like something you read about in a book, or a story your mama or baba tells you during the fasting period before the Festival of Reunification, or something the Ozi talks about in his sermons. It sounds ancient and faraway. But it’s not. I see it almost every time I close my eyes to sleep. The inisisa rampaging the streets of Kos, the hundreds of Forum-dwellers sprawled out in the streets or in their homes with their eyes glazed over, Eaten by the sin-beasts that had been unleashed. The aki who Crossed, fighting to keep everyone safe. The others who died. These aki probably saw it all too. The sins they’re wearing they probably earned saving Kos. And here they are arguing about how to pronounce “plantain.” And protecting me.
Miri finds me standing at the mouth of the cave, staring into the forest. The rain has started
to come down in sheets. It’s as though I’m looking through curtains made of water.
“Taj.” She smiles. “How are you feeling?”
“To be honest, I feel like a housefly trapped in a jar. Do we have a plan?”
“That is just what we were discussing.” She nods to the other Mages.
“And?”
Her smile tightens. “We are waiting.”
That conversation was about as satisfying as I expected. No new information. No plan. No direction. “Those explosions,” I say finally. “Were those Baptisms?”
Miri frowns. A shadow has come over her face. “Dynamite.”
“Dyna-what?”
Nneoma walks toward us. “It’s what we use in the north to open up the earth for mining. Thunder sticks. You put flame to the string attached, then it BOOMs.” She mimes the blast with her hands. “Earth everywhere, and then there is a hole in the ground for you to dig into.”
Another tool in Karima’s hands. She’s tearing Kos apart.
Just then, I check movement out of the corner of my eye, and we all turn to see a group of aki carrying something large over their heads. From far away, they look like ants that found a giant gray leaf to shield themselves from the rain. Backs bowed, they enter the cave, then toss the thing to the ground. It makes a loud thunk that revereberates around the cave.
A bunch of the other aki crowd around it. By the time I get there, Aliya’s there too. She pulls down her spectacles and crouches over it, examining it in silence while the others whisper around her.
The hunk of metal has a rounded center with sharp edges. It looks like a shield. Something Palace guards would have, but bigger. Nobody can tell where it comes from, but somebody murmurs about how they bang metal up north of Kos. It’s too big and simple to be auto-mail. Auto-mail has gears and hinges. It is shaped like arms and legs and has mechanisms to mimic the movements of human limbs. For a second, I envision someone trying to fit this to a stub of an arm or to where a leg used to be. Nneoma taps the thing with her foot, then leaps back, like she’s been bitten by a snake.
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