Kingdom of Souls

by Rena Barron

  “When the boy did not see his love at the next Blood Moon Festival, he sought her out in a city far from the tribal lands. He found her broken and changed, but he held on to the memory of the sweet, kindhearted girl she used to be. He hoped that one day she could love him too, so when he became a man, he asked her to marry him. She agreed.”

  “For a brief time, they were happy together. They had a beautiful daughter. She looked so very much like her mother and had her courage and her spirit. The man vowed to love and protect his daughter so that she would always feel wanted and would never have to endure the suffering that befell her mother. He had finally found the love of his life. You see, Little Priestess, this isn’t a love story between a boy and girl. This is a story about a father’s love for his daughter.”

  My father has always kept me safe, and I desperately need him now.

  My body is brittle and broken and pain. Black tendrils flow over me like cool water over a burn, lulling me deep into sleep. I’m walled away in some corner of my mind that’s impenetrable—a place of solitude, secrets, and deceit. The echo of laughter and song pulls me back to the world of the living, but I’m met by only darkness.

  I ache, but the pain is only a shadow now. Days have gone by. How many I can’t say. My mouth is dry and my lips crack. The memory of Arti stalking the girl suffocates me. It bleeds into my every thought, twisting with the remembered story of the Aatiri boy and the Mulani girl.

  Despite my wariness, the black tendrils drag me into sleep again. A flash of lightning wakes me—this time in the heart of night. My room is dark. Familiars flicker in and out of my line of sight, slinking around the floor and the walls like greedy pests. But it isn’t the Familiars that draw my eye. My mother stands shrouded in shadows at the foot of my bed. I try to sit up, scramble away, but she moves with the grace of a cheetah. I croak out a scream that’s nothing more than a soft cry. Arti settles at my side. Her hair hangs loose in soft, dark curls that promise kindness, but they’re lullabies that end in nightmares.

  Her amber eyes are brilliant in the moonlight, but so empty. Pain streaks through my belly. I ache for the girl whose innocence was snatched away, the one who won my father’s heart at first sight. I ache for the mother I’ll never know, and the husk of a person before me now.

  “What have you done, foolish girl?” she hisses, her voice broken.

  “Why?” The word scratches my dry throat and cuts off. For the briefest moment I’m lost in the anguish in her voice and feel ashamed, but no, I haven’t done anything wrong. Foolish, yes, but not wrong. “I don’t understand . . . why?” I manage to spit out.

  “You’re no better than a charlatan—giving up your years.” She glares at the altar beside my bed, at the shrine of tribal trinkets, refusing to look at me. “It cannot be undone.”

  My mother has always kept me at a distance, never showered me with a tender embrace. She’s never told me a story on a lazy afternoon in the garden. If I didn’t look so much like her, I could be an orphan she plucked from the street out of pity and later regretted. Now her unshed tears and the pain threading her words cleave my heart in two. A part of me still clings to the hope that my mother cares for me. That she isn’t a monster who snatches children in the night.

  “Where’s Kofi?” I demand, my voice hoarse. I fear the answer.

  “The ritual took ten years of your life,” Arti says, ignoring my questions.

  “Answer me!” I scream, unable to hide my desperation. “Where are the children?”

  “Do you think I wanted to take them?” Arti spits, seething. “I made a deal. One I could not break even if I wanted to.” When our eyes meet again, hers are sharp edges, the tears gone, her emotions buried again. “Had I known the extent of the bargain, I would’ve refused, but it’s too late for that now. It will be over soon.”

  Arti slips a dagger from her kaftan so fast that it’s a flash of silver in the dark. My lips tremble, but only a soft moan comes from my throat. When I try to sit up again, her magic holds me in place. She presses the blade against my cheek. I expect it to be cold, but it’s warm. It hums with magic. In my father’s story, the evil witchdoctor had broken the Mulani girl beyond repair. Now she is the evil witchdoctor.

  I can’t pretend she’ll go away. She means to do harm. “You foolish, foolish girl.” She leans in close to me—so close that her saccharine smell of coconut and honey turns my stomach sour. “This wasn’t a part of the deal. We are very upset, but this is your fault. I warned you.”

  I don’t dare speak, and the pent-up breath in my chest aches.

  “I can’t let you ruin our plans.” Arti digs the knife into the sheet. “Everything is in place. The time is near. The exact day and hour as he foretold.”

  She isn’t looking at me when she speaks. She’s staring at the altar again.

  “Oshhe will know,” she whispers, her face blank. “I’ll have to deal with him too.”

  Magic floats in the room, but it doesn’t come to me, no matter how hard I try to impose my will upon it.

  Arti’s gaze rakes over me, pity in her expression. “This is for the best.”

  Heka, please help me.

  My only answer is the soft drumming of rain against the roof.

  “Please don’t,” I beg.

  “It will be quick.” She grabs the neckline of my gown and rips the cloth. “I promise.”

  My mother’s going to kill me. She’s going to plunge the knife into my heart and get rid of my body before my father returns. What lie will she tell? Will she say I had an accident?

  I struggle against the force of her magic holding me in place. Her dagger burns hot and the markings on the blade shimmer in the moonlight. The magic smells sharp and feral, nothing like the sparks of magic dancing in the air. There’s something very wrong with it, something very different. It crawls across my skin, searching for all the ways it can invade my body. I push harder and harder, my pulse thudding in my ears, my heart beating too fast. But it’s no use. Her magic keeps me in an iron grip. For all the resistance that’s happening in my mind, my body hasn’t moved the slightest.

  Familiars stretch into long tendrils as they slink closer to me, but even they keep their distance from my mother. I scream when the knife tears into my chest. Pain winds through my belly and my limbs. My mother’s voice breaks again as she chants a spell in a language that reminds me of birdsong. Her anguish is too much to bear, and I squeeze my eyes shut as tears streak down my cheeks. I can’t trust anything she’s said, and seeing her remorse makes it that much worse. All these years, she’s been so cold, so distant, and now she pretends that she cares about me?

  Arti carves symbols into my chest in long, slow strokes. After the first cut, the pain dulls with a touch of her magic. She’s shown me some small grace, but I don’t know why. She takes care with the knife, like an artist sculpting something beautiful. By the time she finishes, the magic in her blade has left a trail of heat in my body. It consumes me from the inside. So many regrets and missed opportunities race through my mind. I never told Rudjek how I want nothing more than to kiss him, if only once. I didn’t spend enough time with Essnai and Sukar, or Grandmother. My father, oh Heka.

  “Look at me, Arrah,” Arti commands.

  My eyelids tingle and snap open—forced by her magic.

  “You are bound to me, your body and ka,” she says. “You will never speak or act against me.”

  A dull ache settles in my chest. “What have you done?”

  “I’ve made it so you can’t ruin our plans”—Arti cracks a rare smile—“and I’ve given you a gift.”

  Before I can say more, my mother backs into the shadows and disappears. Soon after that the Familiars sweep from the room, too. I crawl out of bed once my legs stop shaking. Sweat soaks my gown and I hold on to the altar to keep from falling. The rain against the roof echoes in my head as I stumble to the mirror. I must see the damage.

  Cool night air prickles against my chest, and the moonlight falls on smo
oth, brown skin. This can’t be possible. No cuts. No welts. No burns. No scars at all. I stare into the mirror, and the tiniest spark of hope punctuates my shock. If I’d left it up to sight alone, I could brush tonight off as a bad dream, but my fingers tell another story. And so does the lingering heat pulsing beneath my skin.

  I trace the invisible circles carved into my chest—circles that my mother made sure no one will ever see. In magic, circles unite, they bind, but these aren’t quite circles. I drag my finger along the scars again, slower this time, winding my way from the thicker coils at the bottom to the crest. As I do, light glows in the wake of my touch—tracing a clear pattern. My initial shock turns into horror at what I find.

  A serpent—Arti carved a serpent into my chest. The Zu are the most skilled scriveners, masters of written magic, but my mother has studied it too. I don’t doubt that she’s mastered the techniques of all five tribes. Now she’s twisted that magic into something vile. The serpent she cut into my chest must have something to do with the child in my future—the demon. I’m sure of it. Arti said that the hour was near, as he foretold, which meant there was still time to stop their plans.

  Sweat trickles down my back as I change into a tunic and trousers and slip into sandals. I open the shutters on my window, letting in the smell of fresh rain. A few droplets blow into my face.

  My mind is a slippery mess as I escape into the night. The rain is cool, but my skin still simmers with heat. One of my sandals falls into the puddle of mud beneath my window. I don’t bother searching for it in the half light, knowing that if I bend over, sleep will drag me back into the abyss. How I wish it could wash away my memories too—that it could rewrite history, erase my mother’s sins. But not even magic can undo her crimes and the pain of knowing. The hollowness, the raw grief. In a haze, I let my instincts guide me. I cross the garden, crushing irises underfoot. Behind me, our house is pitch-black and shrouded in an unnatural mist. Just like Arti, the mist is everywhere, all around me. Nothing happens without her knowing. If she wants to stop me, she will. I wrap my arms around my shoulders as I slip past Nezi’s porter station. It’s dark and empty.

  I’m lost in the murkiness of my thoughts as I stumble across the cobbles, rain and tears clouding my vision. For every step forward, the wind howls back at me. Drunkards stagger on the streets; some pass out in alleys. My balance is off, and I fall so many times that my palms and knees are raw and bloody. A knot twists in my belly. The ritual took my years, but it’s taken something else too, something more. I press forward as a new determination and purpose wakes inside me. I’m going to stop my mother.

  There’s still a chance. Arti said that the exact day and hour is approaching as he foretold. I don’t know who he is, but I know who he is not. My father would never partake in something so despicable. Even if she hadn’t been nervous about Oshhe finding out, I’d still know it wasn’t him. Arti spends most of her time at the Temple. Does she mean one of the seers? Sukar’s uncle, Barasa, had been the one to suggest that the child snatcher was wearing craven bone at the assembly. But my mother could have planted that seed in his mind as easily as she can calm Ty during one of her episodes. It would’ve been the perfect ruse, especially since she hates the Vizier.

  What do she and her accomplice want with the children? I have to believe they’re still alive. They must be. Arti is cunning and patient. If there’s a foretold day and hour that’s yet to come, then they must be waiting to act. Performing a ritual during a solar eclipse or a new moon strengthens magic. Could that be it? My mouth fills with bile. She’s planning a ritual involving children . . . I can’t wrap my mind around the idea. At best my mother is unstable and at worst she’s a dangerous beast prowling in the shadows.

  The Almighty One’s palace is a beacon in the night. Even in the storm, it looms in the sky, watching over the city. A great white mammoth with torches encased in glass, protected against the elements. Behind its walls is the man my mother once loved—when she was still capable of such things. I’m exhausted, but where I’m going, I won’t have to climb so high.

  When I reach the tan stone wall, I collapse against the iron bars and call for the porter. The wind swallows my voice, but he emerges bundled up against the downpour. It’s the regular porter at the Vizier’s estate, and he recognizes me.

  “Twenty-gods, Arrah,” he barks. “What are you doing about this time of night?”

  My mother’s magic boils in my belly. “I’m here to see the Vizier.”

  “The Vizier?” The porter frowns. “What business would you have with him?”

  Blinking against a flash of lightning, I squint up at his narrow face. The Vizier is not a kind man, my father said. That’s true, but he isn’t a child snatcher, and he didn’t carve a curse into his child’s chest. The porter’s eyebrows furrow as streaks of rain drop from his beard. I must look like a mess with my braids tangled and my clothes drenched, one shoe missing. When did I lose that? “We better get you to an attendant first. You can’t see the Vizier in the middle of the night looking like a runt from the streets. He’ll be right cranky that you’ve awakened him.”

  As we cross the courtyard, a hint of blood and vomit covered by hibiscus and lilac oils taints the air. It’s coming from the arena nearby where Rudjek and his friends train. I trip over a loose cobble and the porter catches my arm, taking on some of my weight.

  “The Ka-Priestess is going to skin your hide for coming to the Vizier,” he grumbles.

  “Skin my hide?” I laugh, my voice hoarse. “How quaint that sounds.”

  The porter side-eyes me and works his jaw. “We knew she’d be up to something with your father gone.”

  It doesn’t surprise me that the Vizier keeps tabs on my family. Arti challenges him at every opportune moment. She questions his decrees, and rallies Temple loyalists against him.

  “I swear your father’s the only one keeping that woman in check,” mutters the porter.

  His words are hazy as my mother’s magic drains the surge of energy from my body. It must know what I’ve come to do and is trying to stop me. I fight to keep my eyes open, but my legs give out.

  “What’s the matter with you, girl?” the porter demands, his voice distant and muffled.

  Colors blur around the edges of the rain, and my vision fades as I’m lifted from the ground. I catch a glimpse of Rudjek soaked to the bone before the magic drags me back into darkness.

  Fourteen

  I awake to bright lights blinding me and an infuriating itch under my skin. When I try to sit up, the room spins so fast that bile burns my throat. Voices close in from all around me and nowhere at all. Ties on my wrists keep my arms pinned at my sides. Has Arti come back to do more harm? No, she wouldn’t need restraints. Her magic locked me against the bed without her lifting a finger. Someone stands close and a wisp of lilac and wood smoke dances in the air—the scent familiar and comforting.

  I blink until Rudjek comes into focus. His face is stark, his eyebrows drawn in a deep frown. He bites his lip and fidgets with his hands, not knowing what to do with himself. He is so disheveled. There’s something endearing about seeing him this way. He’s not the son of the mighty Vizier, second to the Almighty One. He’s the boy who stayed out all night to guard the orphanage because he wanted to help.

  I remember the little boy by the Serpent River fussing with his flustered attendants, men with shotels bigger than he was tall. He already had an air of authority about him. How could he not, raised in an estate that sat above the city like an ancient god? The place where I lie safe from my mother for the moment.

  The boy standing before me now towers over his father, his frame no longer lanky. No more fishing pole jokes. When was the last time I’d teased him like that? Once, only his attendants had been cut from stone, but somewhere he had made that transition too. The drastic change hasn’t gone unnoticed. Not by the girls in the market who smile and fan themselves when he passes them, nor by me. If he weren’t an Omari, they would make bolder advan
ces at him even with me around.

  “Rudjek,” I say, my throat raw.

  It will be quick, Arti said. I promise. All the memories flood back and tears slip down my cheeks. It was quick, and although not painless, it could’ve been worse.

  “Arrah, are you okay?” he asks, stepping closer.

  “Twenty-gods, Rudjek.” The Vizier grabs his arm. “Get out of the physician’s way.”

  “I’m not in his way,” Rudjek snaps at his father.

  The Vizier’s caterpillar eyebrows knit together as he gives his son a murderous glare. It’s the same look that stopped me from going to see Rudjek compete in the arena. No matter where I sat in the crowd, the Vizier always made it a point to cast his disapproving frown my way. If only he knew how much time Rudjek and I spend together in the East Market. Or how often we meet in our private spot by the Serpent River to fish or lie in the grass and talk for hours. It dawns on me that he must know. He’s the Vizier. Rudjek’s his heir. The only one of his three sons who could take his place one day. There must be nothing Rudjek does that the Vizier doesn’t know about. Did I not see a larger number of gendars in the market in my ka form on the night of the ritual? Some must have been there to keep watch on Rudjek.

  “Either get out of the physician’s way,” the Vizier orders in a voice like ice, “or leave.”

  “Son,” comes the soft purr of his mother, Serre. “Let the physician do his job.”

  Rudjek groans in protest but doesn’t argue as he steps back.

  I’ve never seen his mother without the gossamer veil that protects her skin from the sun. She’s a daughter of the North—a land of snow, ice, and white mist as thick as porridge. The North is not a kingdom, but a cluster of countries allied through a council much like the tribes. They don’t worship the sun orisha Re’Mec, and he doesn’t shine his glory upon them. They don’t worship any god. The scribes say it’s why they’re cursed with skin as thin as paper and sensitive to sunlight. The veins stand out against the tawny skin along Serre’s temples and beneath her flush of pale violet eyes. She isn’t pretty in the traditional sense, yet no one could deny that she’s striking.