Beasts Made of Night

by Tochi Onyebuchi

  “No,” Omar says. So quietly I barely hear him. “I want to stay.”

  So we stay. I chew through all the plums in my haul, but I don’t have the heart to rain more down on Omar’s head. Seems like too serious an occasion.

  I let out a sigh, then watch the village feast. Eventually, the dancing ends and the men clean up and everyone says their goodbyes. I yawn and turn toward the others, ready to gather everyone and head home. But there’s no little head poking out from behind the tree.

  “Hey, Bo.” I look around. “Where’s Omar?”

  Sade takes a step toward the house. “By the Unnamed . . .”

  Ifeoma joins us. “He’s aki. If they see him, they’ll throw him out. They might even call the Mages. We can’t let him—”

  “Wait,” Bo says. Then he points right to the roof of Omar’s family’s home.

  The little aki climbed up onto the roof of his old home. He’s curled up, holding his daga close to his chest. He’s going to sleep up there. I know already that there’s no way we can talk him out of it.

  My room’s night-blue by the time I hear footsteps shuffle outside my door. I left the door open for ventilation, but it doesn’t make a difference in the summer heat. Even the breeze is stifling this time of year. My pillows are soaked with sweat. Sleeping under the window is no help. So I’m wide awake when Omar tiptoes past my door. He came home after all.

  I wait till he’s gone, then I get up and follow him down the hall to where he sleeps with a bunch of the other aki. They’re all bundled together on pallets on the floor like snoring puzzle pieces. Omar’s back is to me as he unstraps his armband and hangs it up on a peg in the wall. The moonlight streaming in through the window catches his wrist and bounces off a new stone on his bracelet.

  I’m barely back on my pillows when I see him in my doorway.

  “Yeah?” I ask, pretending to be more annoyed than I really am.

  “Um. Thank you.”

  “What? For the daga? Eh, you don’t need to thank me. You’re one of us now.”

  “No. For . . .” He looks down at his hands, then at the bracelet on his right wrist. “For bringing me back home. So that I could see my sister’s Jeweling.” He holds up his wrist to show me the small sapphire hanging from his bracelet. “This was one of the stones she danced on.”

  I push myself up on one elbow. “Now you two will always be joined.”

  Omar smiles. “Thank you for letting me see my home one last time.”

  “It was Bo’s idea,” I lie. “You should be thanking him.”

  I turn over, but I can tell he’s still watching me. He waits a beat before padding down the hall. It feels like forever before I finally fall asleep.

  CHAPTER 7

  THE SOUND OF knocking at my door wakes me. I was in the middle of a really good dream.

  It wasn’t the type of dream you remember completely. It was the kind of dream where the details are blurry, but the feelings remain. As soon as I wake up, I want to go back. There was a pretty girl in it, and sky as blue as the crystals Mama wore around her neck. I’m sure there was other stuff I liked in there too. Whoever’s at my door is still knocking, and I shut my eyes even tighter. Maybe if I wait long enough, they’ll figure out how to get whatever they need from someone else and they’ll go away. But I know I’m not that lucky.

  The footsteps draw nearer, and the knocking gets louder.

  I give up and peel my head from my pillow. I’ve drooled all over the thing. Again. I wipe the saliva from the side of my mouth, rub the sleep out of my eyes, and run my fingers through my messy hair.

  It’s Omar. Looks like we’re joined at the hip now.

  “There’s a Mage downstairs,” Omar says quietly. “He’s come for Bo.”

  “What?” Then I remember the night at Zoe’s and Aliya, the Mage girl with the glasses. “Is she still there?” She was cute. A little strange with all that talk about equations, but still cute.

  I hop up and rush to my window to see if they’re in the street. I can see the top of the Mage’s hood. Bo is standing next to her, fitting his armband around his bicep and tugging his shirtsleeve down over it. He stretches his neck from side to side, rolls his shoulders back.

  On my way out of the room, I snatch my armband and knife from where they hang on the wall. I struggle getting my arm through, fumbling with the straps as I take the stone stairs three steps at a time. I burst out the front entrance just as I slip my knife into its scabbard and run right into the Mage.

  The Mage stumbles back. The hood slips a bit, exposing the Mage’s face. I’m absolutely certain both the Mage and Bo can hear the disappointment in my sigh.

  It’s not her.

  This Mage I don’t recognize. He has skin as thin and pale as parchment. His eyes, narrowed and glinting like silver ramzi, look me up and down. A smirk curls the Mage’s lips.

  “Ah, the Lightbringer,” he says, and I can hear the venom in it.

  I catch Bo’s eye, and he doesn’t seem fazed.

  “Got a job,” Bo says, adjusting the straps under his sleeve. “At the Palace.”

  My eyebrows shoot up. “The Palace?”

  Bo nods and shrugs, like he’s seen it all before and I’m the wide-eyed new kid he’s stuck with. Like we get called to the Palace every day. “So you’ll be needing backup then?” Even though we both know Bo can take care of himself.

  Bo rolls his eyes, and I stifle a chuckle.

  “Come on. How much could it hurt to have some backup? In case there’s just too much sin for you.”

  The Mage steps between us. “Enough. Only those with prior approval from the royal family may set foot in the Palace. You were not selected for this job.” He twists his mouth. “Aki.”

  I slide my daga out of its sheath and twirl it between my fingers. “I’m not doubting my fellow aki’s abilities. Not in the slightest. Nor am I in this just for the money. I believe you should work for everything you’re given.” I wink at Bo. “Tell you what, if it turns out you don’t need my services, it’s free.”

  My daga whistles with each pass, each twist. Suddenly, I shoot the knife forward, inches from the Mage’s chest, then pull it back and run my index finger over the tip, as if testing its sharpness. “But. Say the sin-beast gets out of control or runs loose. Or, and may the Unnamed prevent this from happening, it devours my fellow aki here. Then, you’ve got a sin-beast on the loose and you’re out an aki. It can’t be too easy to come across guys as good as us, can it?”

  The Mage hesitates.

  I snap the daga back into my hand. The Mage’s face slackens, and I try not to smile. “Just tell the royal family they’ll finally get their chance to meet the Sky-Fist. The one they call Lightbringer.” I slip my daga back in its sheath. “I guarantee you they’ll relish the opportunity.”

  Even if Bo and I were stacked on top of each other three times over, we still wouldn’t be able to reach the vaulted ceiling above us. Ornate crystal chandeliers hang overhead, filling the hallway with light. The guards at the door have their pikes out in front of them, and their backs are like planks of wood. Banners hang along the marble walls emblazoned with the Palace sigil. Portraits of the holy men sit in between. They stare down at us, their eyes following our every move.

  I stand a little straighter, push my shoulders back. I don’t slouch like I usually do. I have a theory about the people who live in places like this. It’s not just about the royal family. I see it wherever the well-to-do scholars and lawyers and religious officers live. They build places like this with ceilings high overhead and walls very far apart to make a person feel small. They build places like this to make it seem like human beings don’t live here. People don’t live here. Things bigger than people do. Out there, you’re angry at the royal family that governs Kos and dictates everyone’s lives. In here, you’re scared of them.

  I wonder if I
’ll get to meet any of the Kaya family. Bo’s the man of the hour, and I’m just supposed to stand around while he takes care of business, but will I still get to stand in the same room as King Kolade? Marble statues of him litter the Forum. Maybe I’ll catch a peek at his sister, Princess Karima, who, they say, has the ear of the arashi. The stories say she’s carried about in—these are the exact words—a cloud of arashi-breath that makes her glow like the stars.

  Bo takes a deep breath. He always pretends to be so serious, like he’s setting an example for me. The one time he smiles? When he’s about to Eat. I think it’s the way he copes with sucking the venom out of sin-heavy people. We all have our ways. I always try to let go of the tension in my bones. To let my body flow on its own. It’s like a choreographed dance I’ve memorized. Sometimes, I catch myself. Sometimes, I’ll get too excited to kill the inisisa.

  Very early on, when I was just starting to Eat, Auntie Nawal would take me aside and caution me softly about my eagerness to Eat. She called it sin-lust. I think it made her sad. So, instead, I try now to just focus on myself, my movements. I try to remember the powerful things I can get this body of mine to do.

  “You OK?”

  Bo’s voice snaps me out of my daydream.

  “Huh? Oh, sorry,” I say. “I was just in my own head. Thinking.”

  “Stay with me, brother.”

  A door up ahead opens and out sweeps a girl, one I’ve only seen in portraits and from a distance during royal processions: Princess Karima. She’s even more beautiful in person. I have to stop myself from gawking. The light shining through the ceiling windows turns her dark hair gold, like the train of her dress. On anyone else, the precious metals smelted into cloth would look wasteful.

  “Hopeless,” Bo snorts, seeing my expression.

  The girl stands only a few paces from us, with warm brown eyes and full lips that curve into a smile. A loud cough from the Mage makes me remember my place, and I quickly bow.

  “May the Unnamed protect you, Princess,” Bo and I say together.

  “And you as well, aki,” she says softly.

  I straighten and peek up at her face. I’m surprised to see there’s no sign of disgust when she sees my tattoos. Instead, there’s a kindness in her eyes that shocks me.

  “May I?” she asks.

  “Princess?” I ask in confusion.

  “Your arm,” she says.

  Stunned, I roll my sleeve back and offer my right arm. For the first time in a long time, shame rises like bile in my throat. Back in the Forum, I’m used to the hisses and the sneers at my sin-spots, but here, in the beauty of the Palace and before the princess, I’m ashamed. They’re telltale signs that I do not belong. That I am someone lesser. I’m the most sin-heavy thing here.

  The princess takes my forearm in her hands and turns it over, eyes roving across my cursed ink. I nervously glance at Bo and the Mage. The princess focuses on one mark in particular: a group of small dragons whose flight patterns encircle my wrist and extend up to my bicep. As she examines the fresh lion on my forearm, I rack my brain for some formality, some sense of ritual. Is there something I’m supposed to do? Like kneel or duck my head? Is it blasphemy to continue looking at her shining face? Am I supposed to say something? Before I can come to a decision, she lets go of my arm.

  “These are so dark. Your friend’s have faded, but yours have not. What you do . . .” Princess Karima doesn’t search for words. She waits for them to come to her. “I hate that you must do it.”

  So do I, I want to tell her, but I feel the Mage’s heavy gaze on me, and I stay silent.

  “What do you call them?”

  “Your Highness?”

  “Your markings. What do you call them?”

  I look at my arms, turn them over. I call them many things. Brandings. Sin-spots. Markings. Sometimes I call them by the sinners that gave them to me. Liar. Thief. Adulterer. Brawler. “Sins, Your Highness. I call them what they are.”

  Princess Karima looks at me, like she can see straight through my rib cage directly into that space where my soul is supposed to sit. After a long moment, her brow smooths and she smiles again. It’s like a mask has dropped back over her face, reflecting nothing but a kind of amusement with the world. But I know what I saw.

  A door opens behind Princess Karima. “Please,” she says.

  I’m not surprised to see Izu again, waiting for us. Maybe he likes my work. Even though he has his hood up, I can see the glint of his polished eyes. Princess Karima waits at the door, and I realize there’s no reason for her to follow us inside.

  “May the Unnamed protect you,” she says with a small bow of her head, then she’s gone.

  I watch her go before I remember myself and trail a little behind Bo as we enter the private chambers. I still have no idea whose sin we’re here to Eat. Usually, I don’t care, I’m just here to do a job, but something about the way the princess looked at me makes me think this is not a regular job. My stomach twists at the thought.

  The blood-red curtains inside the private chambers are pulled back, and sunlight floods in. Books are scattered about the floor with torn-off pages floating in the cross breeze. Ornate rugs hang from the wall with tiny, perfectly angled geometric patterns stitched into them with golden thread. One of the rugs has been removed from its peg and lies crumpled up a few feet away from the altar. I have a hard time believing anyone in the royal family is this messy, or that someone isn’t immediately here to tidy things up. Then again, we’re not exactly the royal family’s most important guests.

  Someone stands by the large windows toward the back of room. His back is to us, and I crane my neck to try to glimpse his face. When he turns around, I stifle a gasp.

  King Kolade has a sharp, narrow jawline, with eyes the color of clean river water. His blond hair, which brushes against his shoulders, is black at the roots. A simple crown sits upon his head. His dark brown skin, blond hair, blue eyes are striking. There’s no one else who looks quite like him in all of Kos.

  I bow at the waist, making sure I see nothing but marble tiles.

  I feel a shadow pass over me. When I lift my head, I see Izu standing over me and Bo.

  “You,” the Mage hisses.

  Bo rises. Izu’s hood is still up, but his eyes are as sharp and cold as shards of ice.

  “And you,” he says to me, “by the wall.”

  The Mage moves in close to Bo and speaks in a quiet murmur. I strain to hear him. “This will be quick,” Izu sniffs. “A small sin-beast, a lizard most likely. Do not expect too handsome a payment, aki.”

  I stand by the wall, beneath a row of prayer rugs, just a few feet from the guards who stand at the door. Kolade’s servants, dressed in white robes that contrast starkly with their pitch-black skin, rush past me and into the hallway. The room settles into a heavy sort of quiet. I can practically wrap my arms around it.

  I’m not surprised the servants left so quickly. A Mage had been called. Two aki, covered in sins, stand at the ready. There can only be one terrifying conclusion: King Kolade, supposedly the most pious man in Kos, needs to have a sin removed. Maybe they already know, and all of this is just to keep up appearances, present the illusion of ritual. Just for show, like everything else here.

  Izu and King Kolade head to the center of the room and stand on an intricate star pattern made up of small golden tiles. Its points radiate outward to all the room’s corners. The Palace guards pull the drapes shut, stamping all the light out of the room. It feels wrong to see King Kolade get down on his knees before the Mage. Izu places his palms on King Kolade’s forehead.

  Words I can’t understand spill out of Izu’s mouth. They’re in the same language as our holy verse, but there’s no music in them. The words are harsh, ugly.

  Halfway through, King Kolade seizes. He clutches his chest. His eyes bulge. Convulsions shudder through him. Gritting his
teeth, he pitches forward. His moan turns into a growl. I sneak a look at Bo to see if he’s nervous.

  Feelings rush through me. Vindication at seeing a member of the royal family kneel before someone else. Satisfaction at seeing them in pain. But the ritual is also a reminder that the Kayas sin just like the rest of us. If an aki ever spoke of this, a Mage would discover it, and the sin-eater would vanish. No one would ever know what happened to them. Exposing the royal family would mean preparation for a swift burial. There are days when I want to climb up on a dais in the Forum and shout out to everyone in Kos that the royalty carry sins just like we do. But I’d barely be able to finish a sentence before a guardsman would cut me down. No one is supposed to know about this part. It would be treason of the highest order.

  King Kolade falls to his hands and knees, retches, then retches again, then vomits thick black bile onto the marble tiles. The brackish puddle stirs. The sin-beast is coming.

  Bo’s dancing on his toes a little bit. He’s already got his daga in his hand.

  King Kolade spits the last of the sin out. Izu helps him to his feet and leads him to a chair. King Kolade sinks into it, exhausted.

  I raise my eyebrow. If a small sin takes that much out of the king, then maybe he really is that pious.

  Bo walks to the writhing puddle of ink. It begins to take the shape of a tiny lizard. He flips his knife in his hands, flips it again. He’s smirking a little bit, and I can tell he’s thinking what I’m thinking. Typical royals, wasting precious ramzi on an aki for a sin like lying.

  Just as Bo gets ready to stab the thing dead, the lizard explodes outward, crackling with energy. It grows and grows and grows until its scaled back brushes against the ceiling. Tremors shake through it. Arms burst out of its torso. Scales ridge its back and belly. Its long tail whips back and forth, whistling past my ears. It’s no longer a lizard, but a dragon.

  The dragon drags its claws against the floor. It crawls toward Bo, then stands to its full height, towering over him.