Raybearer

by Jordan Ifueko

  Arm darting out like a snake, I clasped the warrior’s neck, releasing him just as quickly. He stumbled back, brandishing his spear.

  “Anointed Honor. Why did you—”

  “What were your orders?”

  He blinked and frowned, rubbing his head. “I . . . I’m sorry, Anointed Honors. I don’t remember.”

  “Then let us pass,” I snapped, and the three of us pushed past him and launched up the stairs. There were more guards on the landing; I took the memory of one while Sanjeet and Kirah restrained three more. “We’ll hold them,” Sanjeet told me. “Go.” Then I charged through the iron door into the brow-beating sunshine of Heaven.

  Olugbade and his Eleven stood in a semicircle around The Lady, who stood as tall and impassive as the tower itself. All except the emperor held bows, cocking arrows at The Lady’s heart. A warrior beat a mallet drum, counting down.

  “No,” I screamed. Only the drummer flinched. Olugbade’s Eleven remained perfectly still, letting the emperor’s Ray unite them in focus. Hundreds of feet below, spectators filled the courtyards, squinting up to view the execution.

  “You should have stayed away.” When Olugbade turned to face me, his tone was maddeningly gentle. “A child should not oversee the death of her parent. I see that now. The stress of such a decision caused your misbehavior in the Imperial Hall. So tomorrow, you will revoke your ruling and express your apologies. Then I think you must be sent away for a while.” He smiled in a manner so benevolent, it made my bones shiver. “A young girl must be given space to grieve.”

  The only space you want for me, I thought, is the bottom of a crypt. “You can’t kill her,” I shot back. “She hasn’t had a trial.”

  “Ah.” Olugbade tutted, shaking his head. “I never needed a trial to kill her, Tarisai. But I needed to test you. To unmask the monster that I raised beside my own son.” The emperor sighed. “I was kind, Tarisai. Any natural child would have given me their loyalty. But I see now that an egg laid by a python, no matter how small, will always sprout fangs in the end.” He turned back to his council. “Release.”

  I screamed again, and arrows flew through the sky. The crowds below grew still . . . and then began to rumble, agitated with wonder.

  Eleven arrows hovered in the air around The Lady, inches from her skin, before falling harmlessly to the floor. The roof fell silent except for the drummer, who fainted as one who had seen a god.

  His instrument fell with a resounding thud, rolled over the edge of the tower, and splintered on the ground far below.

  The Lady asked, “Am I still a fake, brother?”

  “It’s an illusion,” Olugbade said firmly. “Enchantment. Sorcery. We’ll try another way.”

  “We can’t, Olu,” Thaddace said without taking his eyes off The Lady. “I don’t know what happened. But what we saw . . . Everyone saw.” He gestured at the teeming crowds below. “You can’t kill her now, not like this. People will have . . . questions.”

  My chest tightened with hope. Olugbade’s pride had trapped him. He should have murdered The Lady in private, trying every form of mortal death until he found one that worked. No one would have seen his failed attempts. No one would have guessed at The Lady’s power.

  But my First Ruling had made Olugbade rash. Like a snake gripping a branch in flood season, he clung to his belief in The Lady’s illegitimacy. By insisting on this public execution, he had trapped himself.

  “Poison,” Olugbade said, reaching beneath his agbada to produce a vial of noxious liquid. The emperor’s pupils were dilated as he produced a knife from his robes, shaking the contents of his vial over the blade. The smell stung my nostrils, and Olugbade smiled. “Enchant this away, witch.”

  The Lady was immune to poison too. I had seen the empress mask, and remembered the glow of a vibrant green stripe. But to my surprise, The Lady agreed.

  “Fine. I submit to you, brother.” She paused. “But an honorable emperor would allow me my last rites. Before you kill me, let the High Priestess read me the Ending.”

  After terse whispers from his council, Olugbade set his jaw and nodded for Mbali to step forward.

  The High Priestess was shaking as she made the sign of the pelican on The Lady’s chin. “I’m sorry,” Mbali whispered as the mirrors from her prayer shawl scattered gold orbs across The Lady’s face. “You know I didn’t want this.”

  To my surprise, a tear dropped silently to The Lady’s cheek. “I know, Mbali.”

  “Do you know the words?”

  The Lady nodded. The Ending was a prayer most Arits learned as children: Tonight I may join Egungun’s Parade; tonight I may be purified. Am, who wrote my birth and death: Guide me to Core, the world without end. The women swayed as they held each other, speaking in unison. “Tonight I may join Egungun’s Parade . . .” Again, Mbali made a sign on The Lady’s brow. “Tonight I may be purified. Am, who wrote my birth and death: Guide me to—”

  The Lady seized Mbali under the arms, toppling them both to the ground. Still gripping Mbali with her lean, muscular arms, she swung the High Priestess to dangle over the edge of the tower.

  The crowd below shrieked.

  “Decision time, brother,” The Lady panted. “If only—if only you had let us be a family.”

  The Emperor’s Council surged forward, but halted in fear when The Lady’s grip loosened. Olugbade placed his knife on the ground with calculating calm. “It’s me you want dead,” he said, “yet you cannot kill a Ray bearer. This is futile, Lady. If you hurt Mbali, you will only die a villain. Come. Give her to us and end this with dignity.”

  “Someone is going over the edge of this tower,” she replied. “Someone dropped, or someone pushed. I don’t want to hurt her, but the choice is yours.”

  “It is not for you to give choices,” Olugbade retorted.

  But The Lady wasn’t looking at the emperor. Her eyes were locked on Thaddace . . . who stood right by the emperor, and the edge of the tower. The High Lord Judge turned ashen.

  No. She couldn’t mean . . . It wasn’t possible. How did The Lady even know that Thaddace . . .

  Then my heart turned to lead.

  She knew, because I had told her. I had wanted to make her laugh. I had betrayed Thaddace and Mbali’s secret: the only leverage that could turn a council member against his emperor. I had sold Thaddace’s soul for a smile.

  “Don’t do it,” Mbali rasped at Thaddace. “Remember what you believe. There is no justice. Only order.”

  “You don’t believe that,” Thaddace whispered. “You never have.”

  Mbali gave a faint smile. “Some lies we believe to survive.” Then she dug her nails into The Lady’s arm, and The Lady yelped with surprise. Her grip on Mbali loosened.

  “No” Thaddace bellowed. The whites of his eyes flashed, and the air crackled as his heat-precision Hallow spiraled out of control. The energy was so strong, I could see his memories without touching him. A childhood of poverty and crime blossomed in my mind’s eye, along with a freckle-covered Mewish boy who longed for stability. I floated through the day he arrived at the Children’s Palace, gaping at the first clean clothes he had ever worn. I hurled forward years. Thaddace’s heart swelled with disbelief: Olugbade, the young prince he had grown to worship, had just named him High Judge of all Aritsar. Him—a thief from the rat-ridden slums of Clough-on-Derry!

  I flew forward again. The boy was a man now, enforcing law with the penitent severity of a former criminal. He fell for a priestess girl from Swana, for her eyes that saw the truth, and her kiss that tasted of mercy. With a single nudge from her smooth dark fingers, his idols of stability crumbled.

  Years passed. He grew fond of a child who reminded him of himself. A feared child, born into dishonor: the daughter of a criminal. He watched her grow in the Children’s Palace, smiling at her tenacity. He put his faith in her, and when the time came to pick his successor, he offered her the same chance at redemption that had been given to himself.

  More years. Gray crept
into the man’s red hair as he struggled to live in the tension. He loved the law. He worshipped Mbali. He revered Olugbade, his lord and brother.

  How could Thaddace know that the girl he had chosen—the child he had given a chance—would cause that tension to snap? That she would betray his secret? That she would topple everything he held dear?

  I’m sorry, I gasped. “I’m so sorry.”

  Then Thaddace, High Judge of Aritsar and beggar boy from Clough-on-Derry, sobbed, swiveled, and pushed the Emperor of Aritsar over the edge.

  The Lady fumbled at the same time. With a cry of horror, she dropped Mbali.

  It was quieter than I would have expected, the crack of a body meeting stone. Louder was the sound that followed, a continuous shrill that cut to my eardrums like needles. The crowds were stampeding, fleeing as cohorts of Imperial Guard warriors filled the courtyard. Thaddace was being dragged away by his council, limp as a rag doll, his green eyes deadened with grief.

  A single crack.

  Which body? My pulse roared in my ears. Which body?

  Then a figure rose in the sky, blocking the sun’s merciless rays. His jet hair floated, a corona in the wind. The symbols on his body glowed, curving down his sinewy arms, which held a shivering burden: Mbali.

  Alive.

  The man set the High Priestess down, and she scurried, gasping down the stairs leading back into the palace.

  “You came back to me,” breathed The Lady.

  “I came back to you,” Woo In agreed. Then he grabbed Olugbade’s knife from the ground and swiped at The Lady.

  “That’s for lying to my people,” Woo In cried as a long, thin line of crimson blossomed on The Lady’s cheek. “Now you’re marked, like I am—like the thousands of Redemptors you would send to their graves. You can forget about Songland’s help. When you’re empress, I’ll make sure they want nothing to do with you.”

  The Lady lifted her hand to her face, then stared with interest at the blood on her fingers. “You monstrous boy,” she murmured. “I’m not going to be empress now. You’ve killed me.”

  Woo In’s face screwed up with confusion. Someone lunged at him, screaming, wailing, beating his chest. The person was me, I knew, but the world had gone numb, and my vision had shrunk to tunnels.

  “That was Olugbade’s knife,” I sobbed. “He poisoned it. You poisoned her.”

  The green stripe on Aiyetoro’s mask didn’t matter. The Lady had anointed Woo In, and so he could kill her—just as Thaddace had killed Olugbade. Against Woo In’s hand, she was immune to nothing.

  Woo In’s face drained of color. Then a gaggle of warriors burst from the stairwell onto the rooftop, surrounding us. Woo In’s arms connected like a vise around my torso. In a flash we were airborne, rising higher, higher, above the palace, leaving The Lady behind.

  “Murderer.” I sobbed against him, wanting to claw his chest but unable to move my pinned arms. “Monster. Murderer.”

  “I didn’t know,” he gasped. “I didn’t know.”

  The warriors were shooting at us. An arrow grazed my arm with a searing sting, and another landed with a thump in Woo In’s side. Still we ascended, away, far from An-Ileyoba. Before I drifted from consciousness, the last thing I registered was the wind whipping my ears, and a sea of warriors, surrounding a splayed body in the courtyard far below. Drums echoed on sandstone, as cries rung from parapet to parapet:

  “The emperor has gone to the village. He will not be back soon. Long live His Imperial Majesty: Ekundayo, King of Oluwan, and Oba of Aritsar.”

  CHAPTER 31

  When I came to, It was snowing.

  I had seen snow only once before: on my council’s goodwill tour, when we had traveled by lodestone to the mountains of Biraslov. I remembered thinking how surprisingly soft they felt—the flakes peppering my face, kisses that made me laugh and shiver.

  There were no kisses now. Only icy slaps from the wind as we passed over a valley of ghostly white. Woo In still carried me, though his grip was loose, and I stayed afloat via a pulsing force I could not see. I still wore nothing but my First Ruling gown, barely shielded from the cold by Woo In’s thin cape.

  “Your arm won’t bleed until we land,” Woo In said. His voice was rough and weak. “Neither will my wound. The airstream stabilizes them, but I won’t be able to keep us in the air for much longer.”

  “How long was I asleep? Where are you taking me?” I thrashed, and my arm brushed the arrow in Woo In’s side. He howled in pain and we plunged toward the ground. I shrieked and Woo In cursed, then we stabilized, hovering precariously in the air.

  “Trust me,” he rasped. “You don’t want me to drop you.”

  “You left her.” Moment by moment, the scene at An-Ileyoba returned to me. My arm ached where the arrow had grazed it. “You poisoned The Lady and left her there.”

  “My airstream can’t carry that many people. I had to pick.”

  “Why me?” I demanded. “I’m not the one who’s dying, you idiot. She is. Because of you.”

  He was silent for several moments, letting the wind scream in our ears.

  “She isn’t dying,” I whispered. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

  He sagged against me. So I snuffed out every nerve in my body, muted every thought, and grew a shell of adamant against what he was about to say.

  “She was dead within minutes of us leaving the capital,” he said. “I knew it when the Ray left my body.”

  My ears refused to accept the words. So they washed over me instead, falling harmlessly to the earth beneath us. I would deal with them later—one impossibility at a time. “How long have we been flying?” I asked.

  “You’ve been asleep for hours,” he said. “Nine, maybe ten. We’re almost to Songland; though, thanks to your storm, we might need to stop for the night.”

  “My storm?”

  He gestured to the valley below, which was hedged by frosted blue mountains. At the mouth of the valley, chiseled into the rock face, stood massive twin statues of a Songland king, hand raised in foreboding. Each sculpture was the size of several towers, and must have taken centuries to complete. “That’s the Jinhwa Pass,” Woo In explained. “It’s the only way into Songland from the Arit mainland. Have you never wondered why Songland isn’t part of the Arit empire?”

  “They refused,” I said, teeth chattering. “Enoba the Perfect accepted their choice, but cut them off from trade, since they wouldn’t be governed by our regulations.”

  Woo In barked a laugh. “Accepted? Do you really think Enoba united this continent without shedding blood? Enoba convinced many realms to join him, yes. But the lands that refused, he conquered. All except Songland, thanks to my thrice-great-grandfather, King Jinhwa. His shamans enchanted the mountain pass so that only people of Songlander blood, or those personally invited by the reigning monarch, may enter. Every time Enoba tried to bring an army, the land rejected him, sending ice and snow. You haven’t been invited by my mother,” he explained. “Hence the storm.”

  “Why are you taking me to Songland?”

  “I’m only taking you to the border,” he said after a pause. “There’s something you need to see.”

  Before I could ask more questions, the pulsing airstream sputtered, and we dipped violently. Woo In cursed again.

  “I’ve grown too weak,” he said through gritted teeth. “We’ll have to find shelter. Hold on . . . and I’m sorry about the pain.”

  “Pain?”

  “Once we’re out of the airstream, your wound will start bleeding. So will mine.”

  We spiraled down into the valley, my stomach doing backflips until we landed in a bracing puff of snow. Immediately my arm burned. Blood began to trickle down my forearm, and I tore my skirt for a bandage. Beneath Woo In, however, the snow had turned completely crimson. He moaned, but when I reached to pull out the arrow, he shook his head.

  “Not yet. I’ll bleed too much,” he gasped. “We—we need . . .” He murmured something under his breath. Then hi
s head fell limp in the snow, and his eyes fluttered closed.

  “Don’t you dare,” I said, shaking his shoulders and slapping his face. “Don’t you dare fall asleep and leave me here.”

  Woo In was still. I struggled to my knees and looked around wildly. Nothing but white, white, encasing us like a vast tomb, the sky melting into the ground. Woo In twitched, murmuring again.

  Several yards away, a smudge of black and gold appeared.

  I swallowed hard as it grew nearer, its glowing eyes fixed on me, a familiar lurid yellow. Snow melted beneath its wide, spotted paws, leaving a ribbon of green grass.

  “Hyung,” I whispered.

  The emi-ehran stopped, inches from my face. Heat radiated from its pelt, making the ground beneath us soggy as ice turned to water. Feeling seeped back into my limbs, and the leopard-beast’s meaty breath dissolved the frost from my lashes. Hyung cocked its head to examine me, tail twitching. Then it roused Woo In with an affectionately rough tongue to the face.

  “I know, I know,” Woo In groaned, as though the beast had spoken aloud. “No need to say I told you so.”

  Hyung made a sound halfway between a purr and a growl, and Woo In smiled.

  “Admit it. If I wasn’t so much trouble, you’d be bored.”

  The beast expelled an odorous huff similar to an exasperated sigh. Then it bent to its haunches. I helped Woo In onto Hyung’s steaming back, then removed the arrow, bunching his cloak to slow the blood. Afterward, I pulled myself up, nervously clutching the beast’s neck as Woo In slumped against me, and we climbed between hill and mountain.

  The Jinhwa Pass ended abruptly on a steep ridge overlooking the valley below. Rooftops sprawled in a vast red patchwork, and roads spiderwebbed over the land in gray veins, pulsing with carts and horses. A river swept through the valley like dark blue ribbon, and long white boats shimmered on its surface.