Kingdom of Souls

by Rena Barron

  A man dressed in simple blue linen thrusts a vial under my nose filled with a fume so strong it stings. When I jerk away, I end up face-to-face with the Vizier. It’s the middle of the night, and he’s dressed in his white-and-gold elara with a lion-head emblem pinned to his collar. He’s wearing a craven-bone wristlet and pendant too, as though he has something to fear from me. Does he think that my mother sent me to do harm? He knows I have no magic—or at least I didn’t before the ritual to trade my years.

  I still don’t possess magic of my own, but now I can coax it to answer my call. After the worst part of the ritual was over, the magic did come. It filled me with hope and possibilities. It showed me that there were so many tapestries to unravel in the world, so many layers to peel away. My mother ruined that; she’s ruined everything. Thinking about her, I reel with shame and disgust.

  Arti’s magic still tingles in my chest. What has she done, binding my body and ka to hers? When I was little, Oshhe told me stories of powerful witchdoctors who could command the living or the recently departed to do their bidding. Would I become like those poor souls—the ndzumbi? I won’t let myself become a monster like her. I’ll fight, even if it means giving up more of my years to break her curse.

  Staring at the lion-head emblem, I remember Rudjek saying that the craven bone only reacts when someone directs magic at him. That means that it won’t register my mother’s curse on me. I try to speak again, but my throat is too parched and I cough.

  Rudjek launches forward and his mother grabs his arm. “Can’t you see she needs water?”

  “You are trying my patience tonight, boy,” the Vizier barks. “Get out!”

  I wince at the venom in his voice and give Rudjek a nod to let him know I’m okay. I can’t help but feel guilty for not telling him the whole truth about the ritual. He’s my best friend—I’ve never hidden anything like this from him. I should’ve trusted that he’d support me, even if he didn’t approve of my decision. Serre glances between the two of us, her diaphanous face revealing nothing.

  He relents and storms from the room with his mother on his heels.

  More shuffling of feet, whispers, and then silence.

  The physician presses two fingers against my wrist. “Pulse is steady.”

  “Release my arms,” I groan.

  “I bound your hands to keep you from scratching yourself to death,” says the physician.

  I don’t remember scratching, but my skin itches all over. “What . . .”

  “Do as the girl asks,” the Vizier commands through gritted teeth.

  The physician does as he’s told, then the Vizier dismisses him.

  After the man leaves, the Vizier pours me a cup of water from the pitcher beside the bed. I take a few sips and sort out where to start. First I have to tell him about the children. That’s more important than what Arti’s done to me. But when my mouth opens, my throat burns and my voice seizes. I cannot utter a single word. Arti’s magic flares in my chest and heat spreads through me.

  The Vizier’s face is one of practiced indifference as he asks, “Is there something wrong with your tongue, girl?”

  My heart races out of control. “I . . . I don’t know.”

  “Why have you come to see me?” His voice thunders in my ears. “What is so important that you’ve come in torrential rain, no less?”

  “I was coming to tell you . . .” My words cut off as if sliced by the serrated edge of a tobachi knife. I squeeze my hands into fists. My mother said that I would not be able to speak or move against her. I understand now what she meant. Her magic has bought my silence. In all my years reading through the scrolls in my father’s shop, I’ve never come across one that could do such a thing. “My mother . . .” I grit my teeth when all I want to do is scream at the top of my lungs. There must be some way to fight this curse, some way to break it. My mother is powerful, yes, but no magic is infallible.

  The Vizier sits in the chair next to my bed, his face blank of emotion. He adjusts his elara, ever the perfect dignitary. Silence stretches like a taut rope between us as he threads his fingers together. “I’m not in the business of wasting my time.” He’s dropped pretenses, any sign of kindness vanishing from his voice. “Nor wasting words.”

  “Nor am I.” The magic tightens in my throat, preparing to stop me from speaking ill of Arti. My fists shake as tears slide down my cheeks. There has to be a way around her curse.

  “Should your news strengthen my position, I could offer you my protection.” The Vizier leans closer, his dark eyes gleaming with hunger. “Don’t be afraid to talk, child.”

  I hate the thought that he could gain some small advantage over my mother. Their rivalry is a sick game, and he lusts for the next strike as much as she does.

  “I’m not afraid.” I test the words on my tongue. “I can’t.”

  His face curls into a look of pure disdain. “What has she done now?”

  My tongue stiffens and turns stone. The Vizier watches me open and close my mouth like it’s a sheet flapping in the wind, until I give up, sighing in frustration. “I can’t say.”

  “You can’t say?” The Vizier cocks an eyebrow. “Not that you won’t, but you can’t.”

  I nod. “Yes . . .” My voice fades again and I dig my nails into my palms.

  “One would almost think that your mother knew that you’d come straight to Rudjek and, by extension, me,” he says. “She wanted such a thing to happen. You show up at my home in a panic, feverish, covered in mud. Such an event may worry a lesser rival.”

  The Vizier’s head snaps around at a soft tap on the door. One of his attendants brings news. The man bows, keeping his eyes on the floor. “The Ka-Priestess has sent her servants across Tamar looking for her ill daughter. Should we send word, sir?”

  “No.” The Vizier rubs his chin. “Send news tomorrow afternoon.”

  “As you wish, sir.” The attendant bows again before leaving.

  I catch sight of Rudjek in the corridor, peering into the room. His face is half smile, half question in the moment before the attendant pulls the door closed. I slump against the pillows in defeat. The Vizier should worry, but I have little faith in him. I’m the only one who knows the truth, and I’m the one who must stop my mother.

  Rudjek sneaks into my room an hour after the Vizier leaves.

  “Sorry it took so long,” he whispers, gently shutting the door behind him. “I had to bribe a lot of people.”

  “I’m not impressed that you bribed people to see me,” I retort as I sit up in bed.

  “What happened with the ritual and the child snatcher?” Rudjek opens the curtains at the window to let in the moonlight, then he drops into the chair beside the bed. “Did you see anything?”

  The magic swells again and chokes off my words. I sigh and shake my head. “I didn’t see anything worth mentioning.” The lie is bitter on my tongue.

  “So the ritual didn’t work?” Rudjek lets out a shaky breath. “I was worried when you didn’t come to the market the next day. I sent word, but you never answered my letters. I stopped by, too. So did Essnai and Sukar. Nezi said that you’d come down with a fever and your mother had given strict instructions that you were not to be disturbed.” He bites his lip. “I thought the ritual had hurt you.”

  As much as I’m tired and drained from fighting against Arti’s magic, I’m also annoyed that he assumes I failed again. “I said I didn’t see anything worth mentioning.”

  Rudjek grimaces, and his voice is accusatory. “So it did work.”

  “Yes, you could say that,” I mumble under my breath.

  “You think I don’t know what you did?” Rudjek crosses his arms and looks away. “I asked around . . . talked to some of the other charlatans, since the one who gave you the scroll wouldn’t tell me.”

  Seeing the look of betrayal on his face, I bite the inside of my cheek. I don’t need to explain what I did to him or anyone else. It was my choice.

  “You traded your years for magic
.” Rudjek’s words teem with pain. When he finally meets my eye again, he adds, “Arrah, how could you do something so reckless? What if . . .”

  I don’t want to argue with him about this. What’s done is done, and there’s no point. Instead, I ask, “Did you know about what happened to my mother?”

  Rudjek’s face blanches, making the veins in his forehead stand out.

  “You’ve known all this time.” My voice crackles with rage that I can’t—no—that I won’t contain. “Haven’t you?”

  He threads his fingers together the same as the Vizier did earlier, which only irks me more. “My father told me a few months ago. I suppose even then he was preparing me to become his heir, but I didn’t understand at the time. Before the Almighty One, Jerek, rose to the throne, he and my father were best friends. They met Arti when she came to Tamar with the trade council that represents the tribes. Jerek was immediately infatuated with Arti, to the point that my father suspected that she had bewitched him.”

  Bewitching a man would be the least of my mother’s crimes now.

  “They spent every waking moment together for months,” Rudjek continues. “Jerek asked Arti to marry him during a public ceremony and started a flurry of gossip. My father told the Almighty One of his suspicions. The Almighty One took the accusation seriously and bid my father to deal with it. He called for the Ka-Priest at the time to interrogate Arti, and Ren Eké . . . he did horrible things to her.”

  People in the market always spoke well of Ka-Priest Ren Eké, said that he’d been kind and amenable, a peacekeeper. All lies.

  I never understood how horrible my father’s story had been until now—what it had truly meant. Dread sinks in my belly as I remember years of countless snide remarks and slights from my mother. The looks of disappointment, but also the vacant expressions, the weariness. The times she’d lose herself in thoughts. The quiet moments she sat in the salon drinking tea. The endless wishing, when I was younger, that things would get better between us. They never did. And now they never will.

  It’s hard to stomach my father’s story and these missing pieces from Rudjek—that his father had been the one to give the order. What unspeakable things had the Ka-Priest done to Arti? What turned her from the sweet, innocent girl that my father loved in his youth to the monster in the alley? Whatever the answer, it won’t excuse the awful thing she’s done. . . .

  At the Blood Moon Festival an aunt said that Arti could’ve married the Almighty One had she been clever enough. I didn’t think much of it then. Everyone could see the way he leered at her at the assembly. The way he leered at many of the women in attendance. But what does her history with the Almighty One, the Vizier, and Ka-Priest Ren Eké have to do with taking the children? It doesn’t make sense. There’s something else at play here . . . something more.

  I have no doubt that my mother is capable of revenge, but the Ka-Priest is dead. Could taking the children be a ploy at revenge against the Vizier and the Almighty One? With their anti-magic and guards, she wouldn’t be able to strike at them directly. The disappearances have already caused outrage across the city, and this is only the beginning of whatever my mother is planning.

  “I can’t believe you knew about this and never told me.” I can’t meet his eye. It isn’t only his secret I can’t bear to face. I have one of my own. I’ve never told him that my mother has spies working in the Vizier’s household. I can’t stomach any more secrets, lies, and deceit. I’m drowning in them. Even if I want to be honest with him, I can’t now because of this gods-awful curse.

  “Arrah, I’m sorry,” Rudjek says, his timbre low. “I thought that . . .”

  “You thought what?” I snap, cutting my eyes at him.

  “I thought you would hate me,” he confesses.

  Heat festers in my chest and stretches across my limbs like tendrils, but his words knock the fight out of me. Our parents’ rivalry has always stood between us. We just try not to talk about it. “I don’t hate you, but I am annoyed to no end that you didn’t tell me before now.”

  After silence lingers between us a beat too long, Rudjek blurts out, “Your mother was innocent. The Ka-Priest said it himself after torturing her for weeks. And by having her questioned, my father put trade with the tribal lands at risk. The Mulani threatened to cut ties with the Kingdom. To preserve the alliance, the Almighty One named Arti the Ka-Priest’s apprentice.”

  My breath catches in my throat. I can’t wrap my head around this news. Whether in her right mind or not, Arti agreed to work for the man who tortured her. I dig my nails into my forearms and draw my knees to my chest to keep from trembling. I hate the Vizier for what he’s done. He destroyed my mother, and now she’s worse than him. “People say a fisherman found the Ka-Priest on a hook in the bay.”

  Rudjek swallows hard. “From what I’ve heard, Ka-Priest Ren Eké made many enemies doing the Kingdom’s dirty work.”

  None more dangerous than Arti.

  Fifteen

  After I spend a full day at the Vizier’s estate, one of his attendants takes me home. It’s near sunset when Nezi hobbles to the gate and lets me inside. She shakes her head and returns to her station without a word. Where were they last night? Between Nezi, Ty, and Terra, one of them should’ve been home. Didn’t they hear my cries? Was it one of them who gathered me from beneath the sacred Gaer tree after the ritual?

  I stare at the villa, my teeth clenched. The tan brick walls, the earth-toned shutters, the white curtains drawn at the windows. The archway that leads into the inner courtyard where my father grows his medicinals. Every detail gives the impression of tranquility, but it’s only more lies.

  I round the villa on my way to the kitchen entrance and cross paths with Terra carrying a bucket of vegetables. She runs up to me, the sun shining against her loose golden curls. “We’ve been turning Tamar belly-up looking for you.” She frowns. “Where—”

  “Is my mother home?” I ask, interrupting her.

  “Yes.” Terra hugs the bucket to her chest. “She’s in a mood and rightfully so.”

  I draw in a deep breath. I want to take the first ferry headed away from here, but I’m no fool. The curse wouldn’t let me go far before it tore me apart. My mother would’ve made sure of that. “I’d best be getting inside.”

  I start to walk away when Terra whispers, “What happened to you?”

  Her eyes dart across the flowers that have thrived in the downpour. The water lilies glisten with fat, bright leaves and the roses shimmer with raindrops. The irises that I crushed in my haste to cross the garden last night stand unscathed. My mouth pinches into a tight line to hold back my disbelief. Arti left no detail spared in tidying up her mess. “The Ka-Priestess gave us last night off and a few copper coins, but I saved mine. I went down to the cellar to read . . . I like to read when I have free time.” Terra pales. “I was there when I heard your screams, but when I came up, your room was empty. I went to fetch your mother, but she was gone too.”

  I wish I could tell her the truth and not be so alone with this horrible secret. Unlike Ty and Nezi, who are close with my mother, Terra and I always confide in each other. She’s been a good friend and never told anyone about me skipping lessons with my scribes. But I don’t bother trying to explain; the magic will stop me anyway. “I had a bad dream.”

  “Was that all?” Terra raises one eyebrow. She doesn’t believe me, but she doesn’t pry.

  When I nod, she spins on her heels, heading into the kitchen. Hoping to avoid my mother, I enter that way too, wearing the too-large silver slippers given to me by an attendant at the Omari estate. Arti is nowhere in sight as I creep to my room, and the dancers on the wall creep alongside me. Terra’s brought in fresh water for my bath, but it’s grown cold, likely having been there since daybreak. An ivory sheath lies on my bed.

  Arti knew that I would return. She needn’t worry with this curse in my blood. I grimace in the mirror at where the scar should be if not for my mother’s magic. I want to throw something
through the glass so it’ll shatter into a thousand pieces, the way my mother shattered me. The way the Ka-Priest shattered her.

  As the eye of Re’Mec settles over the Almighty Palace, I take my time getting dressed after washing. I trace the invisible serpent carved into my chest again. It doesn’t glow at my touch this time, and even though my skin is smooth and unmarked, I remember the exact curve of it. I can’t pretend the terrible things my mother’s done never happened. She refused to answer my questions about Kofi, and that has me more worried than this wretched snake.

  I dread going to the salon and eating with Arti, but her magic yanks me by an invisible leash. As soon as I walk into the room, I stop cold. My father sits on a cushion at the head of the table. He’s drinking from a porcelain bowl, having his usual fill of beer before the evening meal. He’ll know what to do. He’ll be able to stop Arti. She sits to his right, nibbling on roasted figs and walnuts. Her magic brought me here, but she doesn’t spare me a glance.

  “You’re back!” I exclaim.

  My father flashes me a smile, his face opening up like the first rays of sunlight. Clearly, he hasn’t gotten wind of my mysterious disappearance in the middle of the night. He sets his bowl aside and holds out his arms to welcome me. I almost collapse into him as he pulls me into a tight hug. I sink into the warmth of his embrace, knowing that he’ll make things right again.

  “I’ve missed you, daughter.” He kisses the top of my head. “I have much to tell you.”

  Arti’s mask is one of feigned disinterest as she lifts a cup of wine to her lips, but it doesn’t hide the animosity in her eyes. Nor does it hide the way she shifts on the pillow as if unable to find comfort. She focuses her attention on a wall behind me instead of meeting my gaze. I should be glaring at her, cursing her in my mind, but despite myself I pity her. The news about the Ka-Priest is still fresh, seething and festering like bad blood.