My shoulders dip. My knees buckle. It feels like someone’s wrapped a chain around my sprained ankle and is slowly tightening it. I keep going, but the world starts to go gray.
I collapse.
CHAPTER 10
SOMEONE’S SHAKING ME.
I catch the very tail end of a dream: Princess Karima, glowing. And she’s reaching out a hand to me. I know she’s a hallucination, like the princeling. I know she’s not real. But still I try to lift up a hand to get to her, to touch my fingers to hers. She drifts away. Something’s holding me back.
“Taj? Taj!”
I blink. The world is fuzzy. Slowly, it hardens, the lines becoming clearer until I can finally see the face in front of me. “Omar.”
His name comes out of my mouth thickly, like drool. My lips crack when I smile. “You’re not supposed to take care of me. I’m supposed to take care of you.”
“Taj, you have to get up.” The kid has been trying to pry me loose from the wall, but he stops. “They’re looking for you.”
I struggle to turn my head and look around. This place is alien to me. Then I remember running. So much running. And a roof. Slipping and falling in an alley.
I try to ruffle Omar’s nappy hair, but my hand drops heavy at my side.
“Come on!” Omar pulls and pulls, grunting with each tug.
Things snap into place, and I remember everything else that happened. Eating the dragon. Bo’s capture. How long have I been out? The sky is orange and red overhead. Has the sunset call to prayer sounded yet? I try to get to my feet, but my ankle screams in protest.
Bo. Where have they taken him? I need to find him.
Omar slips my arm over his shoulder and helps me along. He’s practically carrying me. “They’ve started raiding homes and snatching up aki.”
I frown. Guilt curls in my stomach. Can’t think about that now. Once I get to safety, I can settle down and start figuring things out. I’m no help to anybody if I get caught.
In the distance, it sounds like war. Shouts and commands and pleas. People struggling against one another, pushing and shoving and pulling, other people crying out in pain. People weeping. I grit my teeth. All this because they’re looking for a runaway aki. All this because they’re looking for me.
Omar pulls me down another path and into a small curtained opening we both have to duck to get through. This is the marayu. That’s when I realize why I didn’t recognize the dahia. It was Baptized not long ago. Homes toppled and temples destroyed and buildings demolished. After a while, it’s hard to keep track of whose dahia has been most recently destroyed. The Kayas have made it unrecognizable. But Omar knew the way. I want to thank him for it, but I don’t have the energy to form the words.
Darkness hangs low in the room. Someone has put out a pallet against one wall, with a bowl of water beside it.
“Lie down,” Omar tells me. He helps me onto the pallet. He’s got new tattoos on his wrists and forearms. He doesn’t scratch them. It’s almost like he’s forgotten they’re there.
Omar catches me staring and smiles. There’s a bit of pride in it. He doesn’t bother to hide his sin-spots here. Not anymore.
“I’ll be back,” says Omar. “One of the Aunties will come by. She’ll see to you.” Then he’s gone. There’s more confidence in his voice. It’s gotten deeper, more sure of itself. I’m proud of him. He sounds like he can take it now. He’s no longer that lost, weepy little boy watching us bury Jai. It’s bittersweet, though. Amazing how quickly Eating forces an aki to grow up.
I watch him go, then lean back on the pallet.
What’s going to happen to Bo? Is the king rounding up aki because of me? I can feel the guilt creeping back in. Maybe it’s the new sin burning its way over my body, but when I look down at my chest and stomach, there’s nothing new there. This guilt is mine, not King Kolade’s. An image flashes in my head. A prison cell. Cold and gray and damp. Would Bo be alone or surrounded by other aki? Would there be anyone we know, anyone we’d recognize? Maybe the Palace guards captured only the younger aki, Omar’s age or younger, who haven’t yet learned how to evade the guards and escape.
Suddenly, fire burns through my calf, cuts at my skin like a knife. The pain grips my left leg like a vise, carving up my thigh to the small of my back, where it branches out. I can’t see what’s happening, but I can feel it. Every line. Every curve etched deep into my skin. I know that wings are spreading across my shoulders and sharp claws are burning down my arms to curl around my biceps. I squirm on the pallet as the tattoo of the dragon’s neck and head form on the back of my own neck. Its open mouth appears just beneath my jaw with a tattoo of black fire spraying needles of hurt into the back of my head. The world turns red, then gray, then black. The pain leaves me breathless. It’s never hurt like this before.
I hear a rustling of the curtain, and a lamp is lit in the corner of the room, spreading a small circle of golden light over the familiar sight of Auntie Sania kneeling by my side, like she’s done so many times before. Her long white gown pools around her knees. Weathered fingers glide through my hair and lift my head, and warm soup hits my lips.
“Slowly, Taj,” Auntie says to me.
I try to swallow, but it goes down too fast, and I gag and sputter it back up.
“Slowly,” she says again.
I manage to get some of the broth down, then she lowers my head back onto my pillow. Silver spots float in my vision again, telling me that I’m in pain even though I no longer feel it. Like my body’s breaking down, but I can’t tell how or where. I blink them away, because I know now not to shake my head. When I open my eyes again, Auntie Sania has her smile turned down on me.
“Good to see you again, Taj.”
“Auntie,” I say weakly.
“It’s all right,” she shushes me. “Auntie Nawal sends her best wishes. She is tending to the others.” Other aki swept off the streets and out of the hands of Mages and Agha Sentries and Palace guards during one Baptism or another.
I can’t help but think about when I first arrived at the marayu to stay with the Aunties. It all comes back. The grief of leaving Mama and Baba when I became an aki. The looks on their faces when they discovered what I could do, when they saw the white pupils of my eyes. I close my eyes, and I can see the sadness in Mama’s. And I see Baba’s stern gaze, trying to hold things together, trying to hold the family together. I see their room at night after I’ve snuck into the doorway. I see the fear that wracked them every night as they waited for Mages to arrive and take me from them. Their faces are so clear in my mind right now. As much as it hurts, I want to hold on to this vision of them.
Tears leak down the side of my face.
Auntie Nawal had taken me in. She’d been the one. After I’d run away, it had been her. Marya had told me about the marayu and the Aunties who took in aki who had been thrown out of their homes or who, like me, had run away. I remember refusing, not wanting to be separated from my obi-njide, my sister in everything but blood, the holder of my heart. But she had found the Scribes, and I needed a home. Auntie Sania had given me the first meal I hadn’t had to steal in years.
“Omar,” I whisper, suddenly remembering the little aki.
“He’s safe here.” Auntie Sania looks me over, and I can tell she’s scanning for new tattoos. “You’ve been busy.” She soaks a cloth in warm water and squeezes. “Sweetheart, you should find a nice girl.” She presses the cloth to my forehead. Relief. “Surely there is safer work out there for you to do. Maybe take up a trade. Stonesmithing. You were always good with your hands.”
I chuckle and try not to choke. I think I’m catching a fever.
“Taj, what happened? Why are the guardsmen looking for you?”
I stare at the ceiling awhile before I speak again. “They took Bo.”
“Bo,” Auntie Sania says. It’s not a question.
“
We were brought to King Kolade.”
“The king called you?”
“Yes. And he . . .”
A crash. Loud voices in the other room.
“Keep quiet, child.” Auntie Sania’s movements are swift and practiced. She has done this many times before. She moves the bookshelves that line the walls, kicks dirt around, then drags some chests across the floor to make the room look like an abandoned storage closet, all of the furniture arranged to hide me.
Before I can say a word or get up from my pallet, Auntie Sania puts a hand to my shoulder. Strong enough to force me back down.
“Shhh,” she whispers. “I will deal with them, Lightbringer.” She winks.
She blows out the lamp, and the smoke follows her out of the room.
I eye the curtained entrance Omar carried me through. The curtain sways. Shadows cross it. Guards rushing by. Then nothing.
The noise in the other room grows louder. I hear Auntie Nawal’s voice, then Auntie Sania’s.
“There are only children here. These are too weak to Eat. Do you see? They are nothing but orphans. We are permitted to work by King Kolade himself.” Parchment unrolling. “See here our decree.” Pushing and stomping.
Then, suddenly, a panicked cry.
“No! You can’t!”
The booming footfalls draw closer. I need to get out of here—I can’t just lie down and wait for them to find me. I push away the blanket. Just as the first guards kick away the door to the room, I scurry through the curtain and out into the alley.
“There he is!”
Guards fill the street. I look left. I look right. Palace sigils everywhere.
I make a run for it. Something hard smashes into me out of nowhere, hurls me into a wall. Pain wracks my whole body. My ankle gives way under me, and I hear a definite snap. Rough hands bring me to my feet.
“Is this him?” someone barks.
“We are looking for the one named Taj,” says another guard. “Are you him, aki?”
As I struggle, I catch sight of Auntie Sania’s face. Palace guards flank her, ready to grab her if anything happens. One of the guards sneers when he sees my expression and unsheathes his sword. He slowly holds its point to Auntie’s stomach. I struggle harder in the grip of the Palace guards. If they hurt her . . .
“Leave her alone,” I hiss through clenched teeth.
The guard holding me kicks my legs out from under me, and I fall to my knees. A cheap trick, and I wish more than anything that I had my daga with me so I could make him pay for it. “Auntie!” I call out to her, because I don’t know what else to do.
“Boy, what is your name?”
I can’t give them the satisfaction of answering. I won’t.
“Bring the servant,” their leader hollers.
One of the Palace servants steps through a wall of guards and looks at me. I recognize him as one of King Kolade’s servants, the one who brought Izu the box full of ramzi. The disgust is plain on his face. He doesn’t even bother to hide it. I sneer right back because he’s just as much under someone’s foot as I am, only I get paid and he doesn’t. He’s got no right to look at me like that. I manage to get myself to smirk. At least I’m someone worth chasing down.
“It’s him. That is the aki that ran from the Palace,” the servant says.
The guard holding me jerks me upright. Two more guards grip me by the arms and drag me away. I try to turn around and see Auntie Sania’s face. She stands there between those two Palace guards, her fists trembling at her sides. She fights tears as she mutters a prayer under her breath. I know she’s trying to keep calm for the others, the little ones who are surely watching from the windows of the orphanage overhead or from their other hiding places. They watch her, and they watch me. I almost miss it, but one of them, a little girl perched by a window, presses her index and middle finger together against her heart, then raises them in my direction. I squint and see her white pupils. Aki. The same way Marya and I say goodbye. I smile, but before I can return the gesture, the Palace guards drag me around a corner.
I hobble on my ankle, trying to keep balanced—anything I can do to walk on my own or at least pretend that I’m doing this of my own free will. But the pain in my ankle is nothing compared to the burn of the sin that wraps around my body, a burn so strong it feels as though the dragon I killed is breathing fire right onto my skin.
Auntie Sania’s whispered words reach me. A prayer growing more and more faint until it’s gone, broken off in mid-speech. Unfinished.
My body’s on fire. I go limp and let myself fall. I’m not going to make this easy for them. They’ll have to carry me to prison.
CHAPTER 11
IN THE DREAM, I’m a little kid. Maybe up to Baba’s waist.
Mama’s been sick for a whole month. In the last few days, she’s been unable even to walk. Her skin has gotten paler, and Baba sits at her side almost all day, patting her forehead with a wet cloth to cool her fever. Sometimes he picks me up, bounces me on his knee, tells me stories. But most of the time, I try to stay out of the way.
I hear knocking at our front door. Baba rushes out past me, and I spend a few seconds in the doorway to Mama’s room, watching her breathe slowly, then cough so hard my own chest hurts. She wheezes, trying to catch her breath. Tears spring to my eyes. I’ve never seen her like this. There must be something I can do. I think I can make a potion, like from the storybooks Baba reads me. A healing potion.
I go into the kitchen and climb up on the counter to find herbs and a bowl to mix them in. The door opens, and Baba walks in with man in a black robe right behind him. The robe has a golden fist threaded on it. They walk by so fast they don’t even notice me, but I see a little girl trailing behind the man. Her shoulders are hunched, and I can’t see much of her face. She doesn’t look much bigger than me. There’s a collar around her neck. The robed man leads her through the house by a chain. She doesn’t make a sound. Her brown clothes are dirty and torn, and her curly hair is tied up in a poof on her head.
I wobble on the counter, try to grab the handle of a cupboard, and crash to the floor. Calabash bowls shatter around me. Oh no, Baba’s going to be so mad if I wake Mama up. Two seconds go by, then three, then four. No stomping footsteps. Slowly, I bring my head up. I hear voices mumbling softly.
The biggest pieces of the broken bowls are easy to gather. I toss those into the rubbish bin out back and sweep the smaller pieces into a corner with my foot.
They’ve pulled the curtain shut over Mama’s room, but I can peek in through a space in the beads.
The girl has tattoos of animals running up and down her exposed arms and legs, like an aki. What is a disgusting aki doing in our house?
The robed man turns to Baba and says a few words I can’t hear.
“Yes, Mage,” Baba says back. Then he stands against the far wall, and I lose sight of him.
The Mage kneels by Mama’s bed and whispers strange words.
Mama sounds like she’s choking, and I grip the edge of the doorway. I need to save her. This Mage is hurting her.
I burst through the curtain. Mama is shaking on her bed, and everyone else stares at me, including the girl with the white-pupiled eyes. A puddle of black ink spreads toward me. Tendrils shoot out from it on either side. They turn into legs—eight of them—scratching at the floor. It’s the biggest spider I’ve ever seen. I know what it is from the scary stories my friend’s older siblings tell, from whispers in the streets.
It’s a sin-beast. Inisisa.
“Taj!” Baba yells. “Taj! Get out of here!”
I scramble backward, and the spider leaps for me.
Something sharp stabs my foot and I yelp, running out of the room. I can feel it chasing after me. So fast. I run through the living room, knocking over chairs and cushions. I leap on our couch, and it follows me, pausing only for a little bit to look at m
e before chasing right after me again. I’m backed up against the wall. It stands between me and the kitchen.
I can’t escape. I squeeze my eyes shut, waiting for it to attack.
“No!” someone screams.
In a flash, the little aki girl bounds into the room and leaps onto the spider’s back. Her knife glints in her hands, and she stabs the inisisa in its rear. It swats at her, and she crashes against the far wall. It turns to face her, but she recovers quickly, lunging for it again. This time she plunges her knife right between its beady eyes. The beast tries to jump toward her but wobbles, then collapses completely.
The little girl wipes blood from a gash on her forehead. She steps forward and plucks her knife out of the sin-beast.
The beast turns back into the puddle it had been when I first saw it. In a single stream of dark ink, it rises from the floor and shoots into the aki’s open mouth. The girl trembles, then falls to her knees, coughing. She coughs like she’ll never stop coughing, but eventually she gets back up. When she glances my way, I see tears streaming down her cheeks.
There’s a new tattoo on her face: a spider with four legs running down her left cheek and four legs running down her right.
CHAPTER 12
I WAKE UP to softness.
I’m lying on cushions. Satin. Definitely expensive. And, of course, I’m drooling all over them.
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