“Taj,” she whimpers. “Taj, please. Don’t.”
But then the first sins choke the rest of her words in her throat. I grip her head tightly as ink spills out of her mouth. Her dress changes colors so fast it’s like Gemtown during the day. She pitches forward, but I hold on to her head. Her body convulses, and ink spills and spills and spills like a waterfall onto the floor. We’re both on our knees, and it hasn’t stopped. She tries to raise a hand, to beg me to end it, but I grip her head tighter. Even as some of the ink molds itself into inisisa, more and more pours from her. Tears run down her face. But I tell myself it’s not from guilt. It’s from pain. Well, if she can’t feel guilt, then she will at least feel pain.
After what feels like forever, she dry-heaves, then falls out of my hands. Her hands and knees splash in puddles of sin as she tries to get away from me, but each place in the pool that she touches turns into another beast. A snake, a lynx. Behind her, a bear and a dragon. Her dress is so black it matches the lake of sin she crawls through.
But when she turns and looks up, she sees me standing over her.
The floor groans beneath the weight of all these inisisa. They fill the room entirely, the necks of the taller ones bent against the ceiling. And they all, as one, look down on Karima.
“Taj, change them.”
Even now, she commands me. I try to steady my breathing, but I can’t. My arms and legs tremble. I can’t change them. To do that would mean I’d have to bring myself to forgive her. And I can’t.
“Change them, please.”
My face turns into a mask. I can feel my features freezing into that same expressionless look I saw on Juba’s tribespeople. Whenever emotions warred within them, they would put it on. I don’t know what exactly my face looks like, but it’s enough for Karima to gaze at me in horror. “You will pay for your sins. You are just like your brother, Kolade. Do you remember him?” I step toward her. “Do you remember how you cursed him for casting the burden of his sins on others? For painting his sins on us because he could not be bothered to live with his guilt?” I’m shouting now. The refugees. The families split apart. The shattered marayu. The aki who died fighting back. “You are no different. But where he escaped punishment, you will not.” I step away from her. “Your sins will eat you alive.” I finally still the tremors that wrack my body. Then I close my eyes and connect with every inisisa in the room. This is it. This is how it will end.
“Taj!”
The voice snatches me back. I turn, and the inisisa part to give me a straight line of sight to Aliya, who now stands next to Bo at the large balcony entrance to the room. Her robe hangs in shreds and tatters about her, but she walks with strong, determined steps. Arzu is there too. They all survived.
The door connecting this room with the rest of the Palace bursts open, and the heads of the inisisa turn to see Chiamaka leading a group of aki and Mages and Kosians into the room. They stop in their tracks when they see the beasts that fill nearly every inch of this chamber.
Fine. Karima’s death will have an audience.
But the look that Aliya gives me stills me. “Taj, don’t.”
I clench my fists. “Why not?” After all she did . . .
“Because that is not Balance.”
I point to Karima, who lies on the floor at my feet. “You want me to forgive her? Aliya, I tried, and I cannot. She feels no guilt! Even now, with all of her sins staring down at her, she feels no guilt! Nothing!”
Now Aliya is close enough to touch. “The other side of guilt is forgiveness.”
“But it isn’t fair.” I know I sound like a child, but that is how this feels. It feels like what it meant to be born aki in this city, where people kicked you in the street and used you like a dishrag until they couldn’t anymore. It feels like playing a game you were never meant to win.
Her hand alights on my shoulder. Patches of soot mar the markings on her arms and fingers. “Fairness and Balance are two separate things.” She squeezes. “Killing her will not save Kos.”
I simmer. “And you, Arzu?” I snap. “You would forgive her too? After what she did to your family?”
Arzu says nothing.
“Aliya, I can’t,” I tell her, even as tears spring to my eyes.
“Let me.” Bo’s voice cuts through the air. Suddenly, he moves.
“Bo, wait!” But it’s not enough to stop him from slicing at the inisisa, toppling them one by one. He dances through the shadows, and the ink spins and twirls and swims around him until every inisisa in the room is a puddle of ink again. I know what he’s doing, and pain lances my heart so swiftly that I drop my daga.
When he’s done, he stands in the middle of the room, surrounded by onlookers. He stares straight at me. And smiles. “Taj, when you bury me, bury me close to our home. And if the flowers on my grave are not regularly tended to, I will haunt you.” He winks, then opens his mouth and closes his eyes as all of Karima’s sins arc into the air in slick, black streams and dive down his throat.
Tears run freely down my face.
When it is over and the room has been emptied of sin, Bo pitches forward, and I catch him just in time. I try to see if there’s any of him left, but his limbs have already gone cold and his eyes have already gone blank. He’s Crossed.
Suddenly, Aliya’s at my side. She comes down to her knees and wraps her arms around both me and Bo. It feels as if I’ve been reunited with my missing parts. The poems on our skin meet one another.
“Arzu?” The gear-head has her mask off, her blond hair tied in a ponytail over her shoulder.
Arzu freezes when she sees the woman. Chiamaka. The half-limb from before. Arzu looks at Chiamaka as though nothing else in the world exists.
The two women stand there, paralyzed, frozen in disbelief. Tears begin to leak from Chiamaka’s eyes.
“By the Unnamed,” she gasps. “I thought you were lost.”
“Mama?” Arzu whispers. “Mama, is that you?” Before she can get an answer, Arzu runs into the woman’s embrace.
Chiamaka takes her daughter’s face in her hand and says, “Yes, my daughter. It’s me.”
Outside no longer sounds like chaos. It no longer sounds like screeching. Like thunder. Like death.
It sounds like cheering. And weeping. The good kind of weeping.
The joyful kind.
“Taj, look.” Aliya points out toward the balcony. On the ground, Kosians stand or kneel, hug themselves or weep over the fallen, but some of them are shouting. Some of them are even singing.
Night has fallen.
Red glows under the clouds. Dark, purplish red. Like a bruise on the sky. It rises in rays and sways. Stars begin to shine through the tides of light.
“.Ut.ut.ui.u n’abal.i.” Aliya is breathless when she says it. “Falling red flames.”
The light turns into glowing curtains. Blue joins the red, then columns of green waver in the curtain of color.
The gemstones. People are wearing them, tossing them into the air, holding them in bundles toward the sky. The aki, faces wide with smiles, are bathed in colors.
My city glows with light.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Preparing a book for the wild a second time has only been more surreal than doing it the first. All throughout, however, I had help. I thank my publisher, Razorbill, and specifically #TeamBeasts: Ben Schrank for his wisdom and deadpan humor; my associate publisher, Casey McIntyre, for her superlative organizational skills and tireless advocacy for Taj’s story; my agent, Noah Ballard, for his reassurance when I stood in the quicksand of doubt, and for the sandwiches; my copyeditors for their superhuman skill; and, of course, my editor, Jess Harriton, for her enthusiasm, her patience as the book endured its seismic changes, and her certainty that, all the while, I was heading in the right direction.
I thank every Bookstagrammer, every blogger, every person who sho
uted from the rooftops that Taj’s story was worth reading. And I thank every person who thanked me for writing it.
I give thanks to Nigeria for giving me its history, my history, and its sense of humor, now, to an extent, my sense of humor. Wrapped in that green and white flag, we are alchemists.
Finally, I must thank my Penguin Sister Julie C. Dao, whose steps have mirrored mine, whose shoulder is likely soaked through with my tears, and who has been among my loudest cheerleaders and most beloved confidants. You have my heart, Sis. See you at Denny’s.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tochi Onyebuchi holds a BA from Yale, an MFA in screenwriting from Tisch, a master's degree in global economic law from L'institut d'études politiques, and a JD from Columbia Law School. His writing has appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction and Ideomancer, among other places. Tochi resides in Connecticut, where he works in the tech industry.
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