Chapter 76 Kidan
KIDAN
Yusef’s body was recovered by the Sicions and restricted from the public for twelve hours, to avoid any kind of illegal death transformation from taking place.
Slen and Kidan were put in questioning rooms, suspected of contributing to the attack. Yet Kidan barely heard the chief detective’s questions. All she could focus on was his hairy arm, his golden watch, counting down the hours Yusef could be revived and wasn’t.
Twelve hours.
Eleven hours.
Ten.
For a death transformation to occur, the heart organ had to remain intact, but with each hour she was trapped here, his heart would descend from its position until it couldn’t be healed.
Kidan’s eyes were red, and her voice hoarse from her continuous begging to see him. To talk to Dean Faris. To Sacro. To Adjoa Piran.
They refused.
And when she got violent, clawing half of the detective’s face off, they gave her a needle. One that made everything blurry and warm, like melted candy. They dragged her back to her seat when her lids became heavy. Yusef came to her in her dreams, shrouded in sun, smiling and brown skinned.
“No more debilitating creative rants. I think I’m done.”
She was crying. “Not like this. You can’t leave us like this.”
Yusef stared into the blinding sun, face a little dejected. “I wanted to be a hero. I should have listened to Slen. They always die, don’t they? Look at GK.” His form started fading, brown pants and mustard sweater melting away. “Don’t be a hero, Kidan. Just… survive.”
Kidan knew Yusef had truly died when the door clicked, and she was free to go.
Umil House wrapped itself in black drapes when the funeral took place the next morning.
Everywhere one looked, the sigil of the beautiful woman dancing in blue flames was painted red in grief.
The drugs were still in Kidan’s system, so June had helped her dress in a black skirt and sweater and numbly guided her to Ahnd Cemetery.
The weather was cold and punishing. No trace of sun like at Ramyn’s funeral.
Yusef’s family was small. His great-aunt Yusra was head of the house again, and she sobbed louder than anyone else.
Kidan was out of tears. Out of words too.
She and Slen grieved Yusef the same as they did Ramyn Ajtaf, close together, without speaking.
When a bowl of mot paste was passed around by an elderly Mot Zebeya, both Kidan and Slen dipped their fingers into the grainy red paint and smeared it on their silver pins too.
A show of respect and grief to Umil House.
It was a visible mark that said Death is here, and I have failed to guard against it.
Kidan didn’t know who to blame. Herself ? The Dirt Diggers?
Each time she faced death, she thought she grew stronger. But nothing left her less of herself than this. Whom could she point to, to relieve this crushing weight on her chest?
June stood next to Qara Umil, holding her hand as she sobbed quietly.
Kidan stared at the fresh mound of dirt, her hand tight around her mother’s finger bones.
Yusef couldn’t be inside there.
He’d be waiting for them in their study, sketching distractedly, fingers blackened with charcoal.
Smiling, and fixing his hair repeatedly.
She had the horrible urge to dig him up, to get him some air because Yusef couldn’t be inside the ground.
All of this was a mistake. They were rushing to bury him when he wasn’t dead.
When Kidan stepped forward, a hand caught her elbow. Slen.
Kidan’s head snapped up, taking in the stony expression, no tears, not in public. Maybe not ever.
“He’s gone,” Slen said, her tone cold as the weather.
Kidan wrenched her arm free, giving Slen her back. Anger was the only thing that kept her upright and she held closely to it.
The Dirt Diggers lingered on the outskirts of the procession, dressed in long coats and with solemn faces. Kidan’s blood boiled as she counted down the minutes.
When the ceremony ended, she marched to Adjoa Piran.
“You did this,” she hissed, the ice in her voice slicing past a crowd of people.
Adjoa glanced around at the startled mourners and grabbed Kidan’s arm, pulling her farther away.
Kidan barely felt herself being dragged, she was empty, becoming more weightless with each second.
She wanted to collapse and never get up.
But there would be none of that. Sacro, as always, followed.
They didn’t stop walking until the coffin was a distant blur.
“Now is not the time—” Adjoa began, and the voice snapped Kidan’s bones in place.
“He’s dead!” Kidan wrenched back, swaying a little. “Yusef is dead.”
Saying the words aloud made the ground soft.
“Did you do this?” Kidan demanded, stepping close enough to grab the woman’s collar. “Did you have him killed?”
Adjoa’s face rippled with anger but like the dean, she restrained it quickly. “I told you he was an uncertain vote. We needed him to leave Uxlay. And we knew he wanted his father free. Yusef offered to cause a destruction within Uxlay so we could get Omar Umil out.”
“As well as your sister and the others,” Kidan spat.
Adjoa didn’t deny it.
“You knew it was dangerous!”
“Yes, but we didn’t plan to kill him, only discredit him,” Adjoa insisted, her jaw moving. “Yusef would have been exposed as the person who caused the collapse and stripped of his title. Yusra would return as the master of Umil House.”
Kidan’s head spun, a tornado building inside her. She wanted to scream and rage.
“He died!” She pointed in the direction of his grave, her voice breaking. “None of this matters because he’s dead!”
Adjoa glanced toward the distant mound. Her grief showed in her hesitating voice.
“We would never kill him. Yusef was meant to get out. It’s the 13th. They must have discovered our plans and locked him inside.”
Kidan couldn’t stand any more of this. She dragged her fingers through her braids, everything spinning. “You were supposed to help me. You were supposed to be on my side.”
“I have helped you.” Adjoa’s tone tightened, a slash of fury in her black eyes. “More than you know. I helped you discover the very key to house ownership.”
“Key…” A strained scoff came out of her. “When…”
“Aseracti,” Adjoa said fiercely.
Kidan took a step back from the woman, disoriented. “You?”
Adjoa sighed as if this wasn’t how she wanted this to go. “You would have wasted months if not years without it.”
The world was still spinning off its axis. “Why would you give it to me knowing who wrote it?”
Adjoa’s mouth hardened. “Because we cannot change Uxlay doing the same things we’ve been doing. Your mother understood that. And because I want the truth.”
“Truth?”
“My Daric didn’t kill your parents. He would never.” Decades of pain swam in her eyes. “I wanted you to use Resurption and learn the truth.”
Kidan did a double take. “But my mother’s bones were all destroyed.”
“I thought so too. Until Silia wrote me, a few days before she died, and told me three pieces of Mahlet’s bones weren’t destroyed.
Silia scoured all of Uxlay trying to find them but when her illness progressed, she left the task to me.
” Her jaw hardened. “But I’ve failed too. I hoped you would succeed.”
“Why not tell me all this instead of leaving that book?” Kidan face was hot despite the stinging wind.
“Because I’m a stranger to you. Because Daric was my companion, my closest friend, and Uxlay claims he murdered your parents.
Why would you trust me?” Adjoa’s voice wavered, and she resembled the young girl in the photograph, smiling in the courtyard.
“I know what a friend’s death does to you.
The questions it leaves inside you. I’m still trying to understand. ”
Adjoa’s eyes drifted to a few gravestones, more distant than others. An angel stone wrapped long feathered wings over one gravestone.
Mahlet Adane.
Kidan froze. And next to it was her father’s name, Aman Yisak. Their epitaphs were the same:
Find us where the abyss meets the light.
A cold blade pierced Kidan’s heart. This was the first time she’d seen their graves.
Up until now, she’d almost deluded herself into thinking they were out in the world, alive and well, not interested in June or her.
Careless, useless parents. Even the polished bones inside her pocket hadn’t convinced her of her mother’s death.
But this… seeing the gravestones drove the truth home with a gut punch.
She shut her eyes, wondering how many times she could handle mourning them.
Her birthdays always called up memories of them, but now she was thinking of silly things, like her wedding.
How she wouldn’t see their smiles on her happiest day. Tiny fractured moments all around her.
Kidan didn’t know how long she stayed there, playing with her mother’s bones in her pocket. Someone approached from her left—Slen. Her eyes locked on Adjoa. The rich shade of her dark skin had faded, and so had all the light from Slen’s pupils.
Slen spoke with her hands in her pockets. “It was the 13th. They made sure Yusef was trapped inside.”
Kidan staggered back, wounded yet again. She cried out. “Why?”
Slen’s gaze dropped for a moment. “He was an uncertain vote. They couldn’t risk him voting for you.”
Horror settled in her ribs. The Dirt Diggers had set up the dominoes and the 13th had pushed them over. This was their own doing. Kidan’s and Slen’s.
It was no different than what had happened to GK.
They had killed their friend.
“God,” Kidan whispered. “We did this.”
Slen’s eyes took on a different shade, warmer, like Yusef’s, as they stared at each other for a long time.
They knew who was powerful now. The question that started all of this.
Yusef. His death would be the catalyst for everything else to come, he was their influence and compass and Slen must know it too, because they’d never be the same after this.
It was Adjoa who broke the silence. “The 13th may have tried to kill Yusef, but that doesn’t explain why the two of you were in there.”
Of course.
The texts they received.
Someone else wanted them both dead.
Slen’s expression solidified when it flicked to Adjoa. “I intend to find that out.”
When Kidan touched her mother’s finger bone this time, it felt like she’d claimed a piece of her soul. She would no longer flinch away from the truth. She’d find out how her mother had lived and… died.
Today.
Maybe it would tell her who wanted Slen and Kidan dead.