Raybearer

by Jordan Ifueko

  The lamp went out. When Sanjeet spoke again, his voice was chillingly calm.

  “I’ve been planning to kill him,” he said. “All day, I’ve been trying to find a way to escape An-Ileyoba, leave the Children’s Palace, and infiltrate Father’s prison.” He gave a tight-lipped smile. “Then I realized, that’s the kind of stunt that would make him proud of me. I hope you never win the pride of a monster, Tarisai. It’s worse than their contempt.”

  I rejoined him on the divan, and ran a thumb over his tear-stained cheek. “So make him ashamed of you. Stay here. Get anointed and be a protector instead of a killer. Dayo needs you, Jeet. He loves you, and you love him too. You passed his Ray test before any of us. That must mean something, right?”

  Sanjeet grew very still. “Do you know why I was able to connect with Dayo’s Ray?” He gripped the edge of the divan, knuckles growing pale. “It’s because I had a younger brother just like him. I see people as a butcher marks an animal. Strength, weakness. Bones and flesh. But my brother, Sendhil . . . his Hallow was different. He saw weakness too, but in souls instead of bodies. He knew why people were hurting. Like Dayo, he knew just the right thing to say.”

  I nodded, remembering how kindly Dayo had spoken to Zyong’o in court.

  “Father thought my brother was too soft. He put Sendhil in pit fights, like me. Said it would ‘make a man out of him.’ But Sendhil lost every fight. He felt bad for his opponents, understood their pain too well. So Father sold him as a recruit to desert mercenaries. He was nine. Nine, Tarisai. And before the mercenaries came for him, Sendhil asked me to help him run away. But I . . . I refused. Scared of what Father would do if he caught us. And—” His face contorted with guilt. “I wanted Sendhil to enlist. I thought the mercenaries would make him stronger. He was too kind, I thought. Too naive. If he stayed that way, the world would eat him alive. I hated my father . . . But deep down, I was just like him.”

  “You were just a child, Jeet. You did what you thought was best.”

  “I betrayed my brother.” Sanjeet’s expression was hard. “And when Sendhil returned on leave a year later, he was different. He used to cry when Father beat Amah. Now he just watched, like . . . like he respected Father for it. And instead of using his Hallow to comfort, now he used it to destroy. He never lied, Sendhil, not ever. He didn’t need to. He could look at a stranger on the street and know the exact combination of words to reduce him to tears. Even Father was scared of him. So he returned Sendhil to the mercenaries, and soon after, Amah sent me away here. I never saw my brother again.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, placing my hand in his.

  He stared into space, absently crushing my fingers. “Amah’s shade didn’t come,” he murmured. “Not even to give me advice. Maybe that means she’s at peace. That my place is here. You’re right, Tar; I can’t let Dayo turn into Sendhil. I won’t let him lose faith in the people he loves. I won’t let him know betrayal.” A chill chased up my now-numb fingers. He looked at me as though waking from a trance, expression softening. “You’ve helped me see my duty, sunshine girl.” His lips brushed the back of my hand. “Once you’re anointed, I know you’ll keep Dayo safe too.”

  I extracted my hand, smiling at him nervously. “You can be more than the Prince’s Bear. You could use your Hallow to teach people how to heal. Kirah said you have theories on how to start someone’s heart again—pumping their chest with your hands. That’s amazing, Jeet. It could save lives.”

  He nodded, but continued to smile at me with that restless, unsettling warmth. “I never let myself get attached to staying here, you know. While Amah was still alive, I couldn’t commit to any person, any place forever. But now . . .” He leaned toward me unconsciously, and my pulse quickened at his scent, earth and polished leather. His face glowed with an expression I had never seen on him before: joy.

  “Let’s get anointed,” he murmured, breath tickling my face. “Right now. We’ll wake Dayo and connect with his Ray. Then—”

  The door flap to the playroom burst open. “Unscheduled trial,” a crimson-robed testmaker said, brusquely beckoning us to the door. “All candidates are to report to the northern courtyard.”

  “Courtyard?” Sanjeet raised an eyebrow. “But it’s the middle of the night. What test could we have out—”

  “The trial is timed,” the testmaker snapped, herding us out of the playroom. Once we were in the corridor, streams of sleepy, confused children filed past, all headed for stairs leading out of the Children’s Palace. Sanjeet followed them, but to my surprise the testmaker held me back.

  “The prince is being kept in a different location. He has requested your presence specially. You are to come with me.” Her hand closed around my wrist with surprising strength, and we charged in the opposite direction of the mass exodus, marching until we reached the abandoned back halls of the Children’s Palace. We turned the corner—and my heart stopped dead in my chest.

  On the ground crouched a beast I had only ever seen in books. A spotted coat of black and orange shone lividly against the sandstone corridor walls, and heat radiated from its massive body.

  Leopard, my mind’s library murmured.

  Yet how could it be? Leopards were surely no taller than a man. This beast was the size of a horse, with wily yellow eyes that gleamed from yards away.

  I screamed, but the testmaker’s hand clapped around my mouth. She leaned close to my ear, and when she hissed, she no longer sounded like a lady from Oluwan. “That’s enough from you, little demon.”

  A lilting Mewish accent laced every word. I swung around and looked up: The testmaker’s face shimmered and melted away, leaving another one in its place.

  “Kathleen,” I gasped.

  In front of us, a man emerged from the shadows to stroke the beast’s enormous head. Shimmering amethyst birthmarks covered the man’s golden, sinewy frame.

  “I see your years at An-Ileyoba haven’t taught you any manners,” Woo In droned. “Meet my friend, Lady’s Daughter. Hyung is my emi-ehran.” Woo In scratched the crest of the animal’s massive head, and it purred with pleasure, vanishing and reappearing repeatedly. “Am sends spirit-beasts to comfort Redemptors in their last moments of life,” Woo In explained. “But I refused to die in the Underworld, and when I escaped, Hyung came with me.”

  “How did you get in here?” I faltered.

  Kathleen smirked. “Woo In flew through a window. I became that boring Lady Adesanya, and then I made Hyung look like a lapcat.” She scowled at the beast. “It was a pain, throwing a glamor around something that big. But Woo In insisted . . .”

  “You could have made Hyung invisible,” Woo In retorted.

  Kathleen rolled her eyes. “Do you know how hard it would have been to convince thirty Imperial Guard warriors that they were seeing nothing? I’m Hallowed, but I’m not a god. Leave your pet at home next time.”

  I had not seen Woo In and Kathleen in so long, I had half convinced myself that I’d made them up. For a disorienting moment, I wanted to hug them and cry. They were my sole connection to home, to Bhekina House and Swana. But their faces served as chilling reminders of who—of what—I was. Reminders of what The Lady had sent me to do.

  “Have you been here the whole time?” I asked. “In the Children’s Palace—spying on me?”

  “We visit often enough.” Kathleen sniffed and continued. “Enough to know you have neglected your duties.”

  “You left for years,” I sputtered. “And you didn’t tell me anything. Not that Mother used to live here, or that the Emperor’s Council would try to poison me, or that . . .” I swallowed. “Or that the boy in Mother’s portrait was Dayo.”

  Kathleen waved a dismissive hand. “If you had known more, the Emperor’s Council would never have let you near Dayo. Especially not Mbali. Her Hallow is discerning the truth, and so ignorance was your only shield. All in all, I’d say things have actually gone rather well. Barring the obvious.”

  My mouth went dry.

  �
��The Lady wishes to know,” Woo In said, “why the prince has not yet been eliminated.”

  “The Ray doesn’t work on me. I can’t hurt him without it—and I’m glad,” I added sharply.

  Kathleen’s emerald eyes narrowed. “It’s no good resisting, you know. You are half-ehru. You will grant The Lady’s wish no matter how much you love the Kunleo brat, and the longer you wait, the harder it will be.”

  “Why do you hate Dayo so much?” I demanded. “Why can’t you just leave him alone? What’s he ever done to you?”

  “It is not what he has done,” said Woo In, “but what he will do.” His usual sardonic tone had fallen away, leaving a raw hostility I had never heard before. “The Kunleo emperors have the power to change the Redemptor Treaty. They can make it fair, so Redemptors are born everywhere, instead of only in Songland.”

  “That can’t be true,” I said. “Dayo’s never said anything like that.”

  “Perhaps your prince is not as open as you think.”

  I snorted. “Dayo couldn’t keep a secret to save his life. Besides, emperors aren’t gods. How could they decide where Redemptors are born?”

  Woo In’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But The Lady does. And she has promised to save the children of Songland. But first, she must rid the world of Kunleos.” I took an involuntary step back when Woo In’s voice dropped to a snarl. “Her patience is wearing thin, and so is mine. Dayo’s death is the reason you were born.”

  “I don’t care,” I said. “I won’t hurt him. Not ever.”

  Beside Woo In, a growl brewed in Hyung’s throat. “I thought you might say that,” Woo In murmured. “And so you left us with no choice. I have fulfilled your destiny for you, Lady’s Daughter.” He gave a tight smile. “Your prince and his mask should know better than to whisper at windows. You never know who might be listening.”

  From behind me, the smell of burning timber assaulted my nostrils.

  “No,” I breathed. “No!” I tore away from Kathleen and sprinted back down the corridor. Servants were running, shrieking, and barking unintelligible orders as they herded children down the hall. Above the din of screams and footfalls, I heard someone rasp, “Fire“

  Gluttony, contagion, burning.

  “Where’s Dayo?” I demanded of passersby. “Where’s the prince?” My questions were met with wild stares and wagging heads. I shoved against the exodus, heading for the bedroom where I had last left Dayo. Billowing clouds of smoke obscured the hallway, and I choked but pressed on.

  Then a burly arm wrapped around my waist, and a palace manservant hoisted me over his shoulder. “You’re going the wrong way, candidate.” I clawed against his solid grip, but until we burst through the double doors of the Children’s Palace antechamber, he did not put me down.

  A wave of clean air washed over us. The outer hallway teemed with guards and mewling children. We stood by the grand spiral staircase I had climbed my first day at An-Ileyoba. The landing had a marble railing overlooking the vast hall below, where frazzled servants formed a chain to pass up buckets of water.

  Immediately, healers took me aside to examine me beside other candidates, giving us carafes of water and checking our skin for heat blisters.

  “I’m fine,” I said, batting them away and catching the sleeve of a testmaker. “Is Prince Ekundayo with the emperor?” I had spotted Sanjeet, as well as Dayo’s council: Kirah, Mayazatyl, and the rest. But Dayo was nowhere in sight.

  “I don’t know, candidate,” the testmaker replied.

  “The palace is burning, and you don’t know where the crown prince of Aritsar is?”

  The testmaker fidgeted, fraying the embroidered red braid on his kaftan. “Lady Adesanya said he was accounted for. I went to double-check the Hall of Dreams, and his sleeping platform was empty, so—”

  I froze, my stomach turning to lead.

  Dayo had not been sleeping on his platform. And the woman with Lady Adesanya’s face had been Kathleen.

  Suddenly, Dayo’s council siblings began to yell and shriek, shaking with tears. “He’s still in there,” Kirah gasped. “We can hear him through the Ray. He’s still inside“

  I shoved through the press of bodies. Something tugged on my candidate sash; Sanjeet had made a swipe for me. But I wrenched away, letting the rich cloth tear in two as I plunged back through the double doors of the Children’s Palace.

  Black clouds filled the dome of the playroom, obscuring the air and stinging my eyes. I kept moving, staggering around corners as I coughed, lurching through crumbling doorframes. Dayo was immune to suffocating. That bought me time. But it also meant he would be able to breathe as the flames consumed him, denied even the mercy of unconsciousness.

  My lungs screamed. I turned in a circle, hunting in vain for a pocket of fresh air. Charred toys and fallen beams smoldered around my feet, and my head swam with a falling sensation. The sound of crackling flames surged in my ears . . . and then I doubled over, stumbling to my knees. A note too high for hearing penetrated my mind, like a hot poker, or . . .

  Or a ray of sunlight.

  I had felt this before. The power was painful, but the feeling of vulnerability was even worse, my every thought laid bare. Yet something inside me reached for this invader, like a vine creeping toward the sky. I swallowed, and then stopped resisting.

  The pain vanished as quickly as it came. Clear as a copper bell, a voice sounded in my mind: Help me.

  “Dayo,” I croaked.

  Tar. The answering voice sounded frantic. Did the Ray work? Can you hear me?

  I’m coming, I thought fiercely. Where are you?

  In the window, came the weak reply. I was sleeping . . . Then everything was hot . . . Smoke . . . Tried to get out . . . Man stood in front of the door; couldn’t see his face . . .

  You have to jump, I told him. Remember your mask. Remember what the priests said. You won’t die, Dayo.

  It . . . it’s so far. I can’t do it, Tar. I don’t believe the priests. I don’t believe my mask, I don’t believe in my Ray. I can’t do it.

  “I’m coming,” I repeated aloud, using the voice in my head as a compass. Soot covered the looming murals of past council members, sullying their benevolent smiles. As Dayo’s voice grew stronger, so too did the roar of flames. I turned a corner and squinted. Before me rose a viciously bright wall of fire.

  The bedroom doors.

  They crackled and spat, heat searing me from several paces away. My heart beat wildly. Suddenly my heroism seemed ludicrous. I was only a girl. What in Am’s name was I doing?

  A beam tumbled from the doorway, landing in a spray of sparks, and I yelped as embers assaulted my face. I turned, spun on my heel, and ran back down the corridor. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t save Dayo, and I didn’t need to; he had the Ray. He would jump.

  Wouldn’t he?

  My sandals slapped in retreat across the stone and charred carpet . . . and then a voice sounded in my head again. It wasn’t the invading spirit, not this time. It was a memory from the day Dayo and I had first met.

  You’re going to be another one, aren’t you? A person I like.

  My steps faltered, knees weakening as sweat and grit poured down my back. I stopped, exhaled sharply . . . and then my feet were racing back toward the flaming doors. My arms whistled as they pumped.

  “I won’t burn, I won’t burn, I won’t burn,” I chanted. “I—won’t—burn.”

  But I didn’t believe it. I had emerged from the firepit at Bhekina House unscathed, yes, but that didn’t mean I was special. Bhekina House had been enchanted for my protection, and the shield had probably dissipated the moment I had left. Yet still I was running, hurtling toward those flames.

  Scorching, unbearable pain—and then I was through. My clothes were alight with fire. I cried out and dropped to the bedroom floor, rolling on the tiles. Once extinguished, I didn’t stop to check for burns, but crept along the ground where the smoke was thinnest.

  “T
arisai?” The voice was hoarse. Dayo stood backlit by the moon in the window alcove. The curtain had been torn down, snickering beneath him in flames.

  “I’m here.” I scrambled over and reached for him. He coughed, his eyes glassy and listless. “Come on,” I rasped. “You have to jump.”

  “I can’t,” he mumbled. His face and neck were blistered from the heat. “I’m scared. And . . . you’ll be alone. I won’t leave you, Tar.”

  For a long moment, I considered pushing him. But I couldn’t bring my arms to do it, even knowing he wouldn’t die. Even knowing it was for his own good . . . the action too closely resembled murder. What if pushing Dayo awoke that something inside me? The part of me I hated and feared?

  So I helped him down instead. He swooned, legs buckling. “Sorry,” he breathed. “It’s just . . . the smoke—”

  “I’ll carry you.”

  “You can’t. The door’s burning.”

  “I can walk through fire.” I swallowed hard, trying to believe it. “I’m not normal, Dayo. I’m not natural, or safe, or good. But I can protect you.” I held out my hand, shaking. I can choose. I can write my own story. “All you have to do is trust me.”

  Dayo swallowed, nodded, and leaned against me. I pulled him up and onto my back, hiding my face in what was left of my tunic. Then I charged the doors.

  Dayo screamed, but my body took the brunt of the heat, shielding him from the inferno. We collapsed on the other side, rolling, then I seized his hand again and we lurched down the inky corridor. Gasping, coughing, retching, we stumbled at last through the Children’s Palace antechamber, where frenzied courtiers swarmed to claim us.

  “His Imperial Highness—his skin, oh gods—the Storyteller will never forgive us—”

  A low, throbbing voice chanted through the hubbub, and the voices gasped as the disfiguring burns across Dayo’s skin began to smooth and heal. The melodic chanting continued as Kirah and Sanjeet parted the crowd, Kirah’s hand outstretched as she sang, tears streaming down her face. Dayo’s marred skin knit itself together, leaving nothing but a raised pale scar along his jaw and collarbone.