by Natalie Mae
“If it pleases you, adel, would you bless this charm? I have a very important event coming up, and I could use your luck—”
“Will you sign this dress for me?” calls a shorter woman, making me jump when she grabs my elbow. “I have a quill—”
“Unbelievable what the sheep will believe these days,” grumbles a wrinkly old man. “She’s a filthy peasant who bathed and put on a dress!”
“Hen,” I say as someone pulls my cape. “I don’t know if I can do this—”
“The Illustrious Zahru will take no requests now!” Hen shouts, stunning the group into silence. “Her Holiness is here to support our new Mestrah. If time allows, she may speak with a few of you after the ceremony, but until then, you will give her space. Heed this warning, or have your darkest secrets brought to light.”
Disbelieving snickers ripple through the crowd. The two women closest to me shrug, and the noise rises again as they offer me their gods’ charms.
“Will you blow on these?” the shorter one asks. “We want your luck, too!”
“Gods, look at that scar.” Her friend jabs a finger into my chest, and I jerk back.
Hen slaps her hand away. “Lady Penna, does your friend know you want that luck because you’re trying to steal her son’s fiancée for your son?”
Horror ripples through Lady Penna’s face, but not nearly as strongly as it does her friend’s. The crowd titters again—this time not at me.
“That . . .” Lady Penna stammers, “. . . is absolutely not true—”
“You snake,” her friend hisses. “That’s why you two have been so helpful these past weeks?”
Hen’s eyes narrow. “Don’t act so innocent, Lady Mira. You’ve been jealous of Penna’s looks for so long, you started slipping aging powder into her tea!”
The taller woman gasps. “You’re the reason for my wrinkles? I’ve been paying a fortune to have them removed!”
“Good!” her friend snaps. “I should have put the entire jar in, you thieving wench!”
She cracks her hand across her friend’s face, who screams and tackles her to the floor. Chains of crystals go flying, two guards finally appear to separate the women, and Hen, arms wide, glowers at the nobility collected around us.
“Would anyone else like to challenge the gods?” she says.
I bite back a laugh as the nearest people quickly shake their heads. Clearly they’ve never faced the full power of a small-town gossip before. They back away, eyes shifting between my petite friend and the disheveled women who have just regained their feet. When Hen gestures to the doors of the throne room, the people blocking it move.
“There we go.” Hen beams as she takes my arm.
“Gods, I love you,” I say. “Also, you’re now officially my bodyguard.”
“I’m so proud of you, Hen,” Mora says, wiping a finger under her eyes.
Fara grunts. “And she only committed a small amount of sacrilege to do it.”
“My dear Aron.” Mora pats my father’s arm. “It’s like you don’t even know us sometimes.”
But with the crowd away I can breathe again, and I sigh in relief as my father and Mora argue about the proper situations in which one might impersonate the gods. I can’t say I’m looking forward to doing this over and over, but if that was the worst of it, I’ll manage. Who knows, maybe by the end of the night I’ll be so comfortable with the attention that I’ll have half a performance planned and be reenacting my story from atop a table.
Admittedly, that exact scenario may also require wine. But I think I’m ready for this, either way.
And soon, despite my nerves, the throne room presses all of that away.
The last time I was here, it was at the mercy of a stone-eyed Mestrah and his ruthless son, but the ghost of Kasta’s grip on my arm fades as I take in the splendor of the new decorations. The giant columns gleam a deep midnight blue, their scalloped sides wrapped with gossamer ribbons and gold-dusted lilies. Enormous tapestries, each depicting different gods presenting gifts to a woven Prince Jet, line the walls between blue-burning torches. The sprawling ceiling has been painted like the sky. It’s black and splattered with stars at the entrance we walk beneath, and silver-tipped and glowing on the far side, as if the sun will soon rise.
A gathering crowd waits on either side of an aisle strewn with palm leaves, but before a new group of nobles can converge on us, a pair of guards strides over.
“Gudina,” says the first, crossing one arm over her chest. “My apologies for the unruliness outside. We will stay much closer from here forward. If you’ll come this way.”
Torchlight flashes from her feathered armor as we follow. She takes us around the eastern spectators and into a rectangular space to the side of the thrones, where a plush scarlet rug marks the area as separate and cushions our feet. Six guards line its edges, and I’ve just started to realize we’re in very selective company when Hen tugs my arm and points at a young man with light brown skin and a fine red tunic.
“That’s the duke of Constanta,” Hen says, not nearly quietly enough. “World-class Airweaver, suspiciously good at cards, and possibly illegitimate.” She suddenly sobers. “Gorgeous, too. I’d planned on him being your rebound if things didn’t work out with Jet, but he just got himself engaged to the Amian king.”
“You’re already plotting rebounds?” I say. “Jet and I are barely at the ‘figuring it out’ stage!”
“Shh, his mother is right there.”
“Whose mother?”
“Jet’s!”
My heart drops into my stomach. I follow Hen’s gaze to a stout, striking woman with dark brown skin and bronze armor crossing her chest and back in an X. Tiny golden swords circle her short afro, and she rests her weight on a jaguar-headed cane. Her General’s honors glint from strings of leather wrapping her bicep: Cybil’s tiny metal helmet, for favor from the goddess of war; a collection of little silver wings, one for every kill; a balancing scale for wisdom.
It’s strange to see her here and not on the dais when it’s her son being crowned, though maybe that’s normal, since she and the Mestrah haven’t been romantically involved since Jet’s birth. That was, apparently, the moment the queen realized her husband had been lying about not still being in love with his childhood friend, and thus things between him and the General quickly ended. It’s actually a little heartbreaking, considering the Mestrah’s marriage had been arranged by his mother—to his clear disapproval—though I think he and the queen do love each other now.
I make a mental note to introduce myself later and pull Hen closer. “We’re standing with the General,” I whisper. I mean, yes, I probably should be used to famous people by now, since first, I apparently am one, and second, I’ve been much closer than this to her son, but it turns out that a death-defying race across the desert makes me even more intimidated by the finery of the court. Also, I’ve been living this past moon in a barn.
“I know,” Hen says, nudging me. “And she’s standing with the Living Sacrifice.”
I roll my eyes. “Please. I have enough issues already without you adding more.”
“Girls.” Mora puts her hands on our shoulders. “They’re starting.”
She nods toward a fair-skinned man in a red tergus at the base of the thrones, who’s raising a silver-capped oxhorn to his lips. He takes a deep, full breath and blows.
The marble floor vibrates with its commanding hum. Conversations hush, and the last of the crowd bustles inside, packing the designated standing areas. Hen and I move to the edge of the aisle, an arm away from the Constantan duke and two from Jet’s mother. Anticipation runs a slick finger down my back. This is what I braved a desert for. This is what I almost died for.
The horn bellows again, and eleven priests walk in.
The masks of gods cover their features: the feminine face of Talqo, goddess of healing; t
he winged face of Rie, god of death; and on and on as the nine other priests follow, the last of them wearing a golden mask crowned by Numet’s brilliant sun. Incense twists above the wooden bowls in their hands, and trains of gossamer fabric drag behind their robes, all identical shades of gray. Only their arms show any glimpse of distinction, their skin oiled shades of oak brown, silvery umber, pale peach.
Behind them march the three High Priests, all unmasked and tattooed. Again, there’s my quasi-nemesis, the grumpy man who continues to burden me with life-altering news every time I see him, and beside him walks a woman with short purple hair and stars inked around the edges of her face. The last is a tall woman with a shaved head and kind eyes, and when she takes her place on the fourth stair, she looks over the room with a smile.
The Mestrah and the queen are next. Jet’s father looks stoic and strong, the deep olive of his bare chest gleaming beneath a mantle of twisting antlers and a cape of flowing white silk. Strips of silver adorn his ceremonial kilt, and his scorpion-tined crown sits level on his brow. But my heart sinks as I notice that the sheen on his arms is sweat, not oil, and that he’s leaning into his falcon-winged staff more for support than ceremony. The queen is quiet and tight-lipped beside him. She looks lovely with her skin powdered to a porcelain finish and her hair in a sleek copper bun, but she does not smile at her people. Her hands are curled and tense, and though her eyes are green, not Kasta’s blue, a familiar shiver plucks at my arms when she turns their fire on the General.
Jet’s mother pays her no heed. Not with a nod of challenge or a wince of fear, though a brief shadow of pity weakens her smile and reminds me what the queen truly lost. With the Mestrah’s trackers still scouring the desert for Sakira, it’s not just that her children will never sit on a throne. It’s that neither of them even came home.
Anger flares through me at the thought, and I turn back to the entrance. The horn lifts and bellows a third time.
Jet steps into the doorway.
Pride surges through me as cheers erupt from the crowd. With his shoulders square and the torches bright on his face, Jet is a vision that shames even my memory of him from minutes ago. He’s changed into the most elaborate tunic I’ve ever seen, the fabric a liquid blue that I suspect is literally woven from water, its edges gilded with silver prayers and Numet’s lanterns. Gods’ symbols glow white on his dark brown skin, and strings of leather twine around his shins. Only his shoulders and short hair are without adornment—the places where the Mestrah will transfer his antlered mantle and the scorpion crown.
If Jet’s nervous about this, I can’t tell. He walks steadily, nodding as the nobility shouts his name, and the sight of him after everything we’ve been through brings a prickling heat to my eyes.
He finds me in the crowd and grins.
The people bow as he moves, and I with them, until he stops at the base of the stairs. Behind him, four jaguar-masked guards spread into formation. A single slam of their spears quiets the last of the cheering. Smoke from the priests’ bowls twists above the dais, and the Mestrah raises his arms, and as one, the entire assembly drops to one knee. The queen does, too, though her jaw is tight, and she doesn’t bow her head.
But it’s the first time I’ve ever seen the Mestrah smile.
“As Numet rides across the sky at day,” he begins, looking only at Jet, “and retires to Paradise at night, so does the reign of Mestrah begin and end. It is this Numet herself, Divine First Queen, did so declare for her children: that only the most honorable, the most deserving, and the wisest of us would be marked to lead, not by order of birth, but by—”
He stops, the echo of his words chilling in the sudden quiet. The crowd shifts, exchanging glances, and just as I’m worrying the Mestrah’s silence is the fault of his illness, I notice his gaze is no longer on Jet. It’s fixed on the back of the room, near the now-closed doors.
Where someone is still standing.
Someone dressed in a white merchant’s tunic instead of a fine tergus. Someone whose bronzed, muscled arms are sand-dusted and cut with shadow. Someone whose bicep is marked with a rigid, scythe-like scar . . . one of many wounds that should have bled him dry.
My own scar burns like a vicious new brand.
“Oh gods,” I whisper.
Kasta.
III
I can’t breathe.
Murmuring simmers around me like locusts’ song, but the ringing in my head soon overtakes it. This can’t be real. This is one of my nightmares, the kind that begin with Hen and Jet and everything that’s wonderful in my life, and end with Kasta and his dagger. He cannot possibly be alive. I saw how badly he was bleeding in the caves. I saw Maia corner him, two deadly swords in her hands.
I heard him cry out when he died, a sound that still grates against my memory like steel against stone.
But I realize . . . I only heard his cry. I never saw Maia stab him. I just assumed—
“Zahru.” Hen grabs my arm. “You said the stabby prince died.”
The nobles stir, conversation bubbling. Kasta’s name surfaces on the whispers, a harrowing buzz in my ears. When he steps forward, the quiet breaks like a river down a canyon.
Terror shoves through my body. I know there are guards here. I know Kasta is focused on his father, but my mind races with questions, each one making me dizzier than the last. How did he survive? Why is he here? Does he have the knife?
Can he still perform the sacrifice if he does?
Kasta’s face is steel as he starts forward. I shrink between a kneeling Fara and Mora until my father’s broad frame hides me and my eyes have no chance of meeting Kasta’s. But the closer Kasta comes, the more I wonder if he’s even thinking of me. He doesn’t look away from his father even once, except when Jet and the guards rise.
The slow smile that pulls his lips sparks a warning through my blood. But Jet only stares in response, with the kind of shock I’m sure I mirror: that we’re seeing a ghost.
“Zahru.” Hen turns on her knee, her expression strangely somber. “Would you like to tell me about that secret now?”
“I swear, I didn’t know he was alive,” I say, though guilt swirls in my gut, because I’m realizing there are far more secrets than this—especially concerning Kasta and how I escaped him—that I still haven’t told her.
Fara goes still. “That’s the boy who sacrificed you?”
“Don’t, Fara,” I whisper, though I know my father is disciplined enough not to start anything at such an event. Fara only exhales and pulls me closer.
The queen, once still, muffles a sob and rises.
The Mestrah raises a hand to stop her. “Kasta,” he says, and though he doesn’t yell, his voice silences the crowd. His expression wars between confusion and anger. “This is not the time.”
Not Thank the gods you’re alive or I prayed for this moment. No move to embrace or welcome his son. Only the queen looks ready to break apart, her hands cupping her nose and mouth, tears smearing her makeup.
“Yes, it is,” Kasta says, his hands curling. “For you are about to crown the wrong king.”
Gasps from the crowd. Jet still hasn’t moved. The guards start uncertainly toward Kasta, but the Mestrah shakes his head, and they halt.
“The wrong king is the one who stands before me now.” Pity creases the Mestrah’s brow. “I am sorry, my son. But without the blood of the sacrifice spilled—”
“It was spilled,” Kasta snaps, and anger flares in my chest at the bluntness of those words. “And then spared. But not before the gods marked their victor.”
He pulls down the collar of his tunic—and lightning flashes through my veins. On his chest, blood-red and prominent, is a swirling circle of Numet that looks terribly familiar. Hen turns to me, eyes wide, but I shake my head fiercely and mouth, He’s lying. He has to be. Just like when he tricked the priests into believing I was the Crossing’s sacrifice
; just like when he tricked an entire country into believing he had magic he didn’t.
Obviously that last part is not the greatest of Hen’s concerns, as I imagine she’s also noticed his mark looks dreadfully familiar. But I ignore her urgent poke to my knee. The Mestrah frowns and motions to the closest High Priest—the smiling woman—who dips her head and hurries to his side.
“Test him,” the Mestrah says.
The audience begins to stand, and we stand with them, though everyone is far too enraptured to speak. The High Priest moves quietly before Kasta. She measures the mark with her fingertips, and I can tell it’s the same size as mine. My blood buzzes in my head. This confirmation that my own mark is far more than I want it to be is overwhelming, but that’s still not the biggest of my problems. My mark could mean death. His would mean Mestrah.
It’s fake, I assure myself. He’s orchestrated this, but it will fail. This is too important for it not to—
“Zahru!” Hen whispers, jerking her chin toward the back of the crowd.
I shake my head and move closer to Fara. I’m fine, for now, but I’m not moving. Kasta will see me if I move. Hen exhales and starts pantomiming, but I can’t focus on her for what’s happening on the dais. The High Priest has drawn a small jar from her belt. With her thumb, she applies a white paste to Kasta’s chest. The priests standing behind her inhale as the mark flashes gold in response.
Then all of them bow low, fingers touching their foreheads.
The High Priest looks to the Mestrah in disbelief.
“No,” I breathe, my chest squeezing.
“You told me there shouldn’t be a mark,” the Mestrah mutters. He glances at Jet, who stands with a hand pressed over his mouth.
“The sacrifice lived,” the High Priest says. “We assumed her death was required.”
The Mestrah sighs and dismisses her, his closed eyes turned to the ceiling as though trying to hear the gods. Or cursing them, maybe. When his gaze returns to the crowd, the ice in it is enough to render even the smallest murmurs silent.
I grip Fara’s hand. Say it’s too late, I think. Kasta can’t possibly come back after everything he did, after what he did to me, and win. There’s no justice in the world if he can. And gods, Jet just found peace with his new responsibilities. After all his fears and doubts during the Crossing, after believing himself not worthy of the decisions he’ll have to make, he finally sees himself as his supporters do. He will be a fair king. He will be a good king, and surely the gods must see that.
