Chapter 12 #4
Yemi saw at once that he’d molded the metal into a set of chrome knuckles, the palm side fitting into the strip of glyphs that activated the core of the spear the way her father’s battle glove once had.
With a yank, he ratcheted it to its active position, and the glowing orange core made itself known in the veins that wrapped the staff from base to tip.
A single slash sliced in two what appeared to be the wrought-iron hollow of an old cannon amid a cluster of dead leaves and other metal scraps.
He ratcheted the spear back to inactive and turned it and the key over to Yemi.
“I—thank you,” she said, trying the key on for herself. It was solid and cool to the touch, as if he hadn’t just molded it a moment ago. Selah was smirking approval in her periphery.
“Don’t worry about it. We’re even. I don’t owe favors.”
“I’ll, uh, try not to go chopping heads off statues.”
“Do what you want, I’m already retired. Ain’t nobody coming after me for it.” He waved them off and headed back to his garage.
“Another thing, Javid,” Selah called after him. “I’m leaving the country in a few days. Soldiers are looking for me. You’re welcome to join.”
“Why am I running if they’re looking for you?” he called back before disappearing around the corner.
“I tried.” Selah shrugged, tapping ash from her cigar. “He’ll be fine.”
“Wait, why are you leaving? I thought you had protection,” said Yemi, twisting the column of her spear to try out the key.
“They’ll be more determined the next time they come for me.
Cannon blasts, house fire, any way to get me out.
If a drop of blood hits my soil in the fight, my trees will cease to grow and I’ll be overrun.
They’ve come for witches before. It always ends the same,” Selah replied, smiling through a cloud of smoke.
“Let’s head back before your guardian thinks I’ve abducted you. ”
“Head back how?” Yemi groaned, already knowing the answer.
“Your legs work, don’t they? The car belongs to him now.”
The sun was high overhead, and the lake shimmered a blinding white as they walked alongside it.
Selah donned a pair of large, blue-tinted sunglasses.
Breezes swept over the marshes in long, fragrant gusts that fluttered Yemi’s shirt against her skin.
It was strange that something so small and simple felt so foreign.
The compulsory subarmor that had no doubt kept her alive all these years had also sheltered her from things as innocent as the wind.
She was more exposed than she’d ever been in her entire life.
Only the smallest part of it felt like freedom.
Curious, because the throne had been a prison mere days ago before she’d lost it.
Her distance from it should have felt like the fulfillment of a dream.
Maybe it would have, if she’d gotten to choose it.
It wasn’t a prison she longed for now; it was just home.
“What did my mother trade for my protection?” Yemi asked for want of conversation. The pitch of Selah’s roof was barely visible over the horizon, and they had a ways to go.
“She kept a secret for me when she didn’t have to,” Selah replied, almost wistfully.
“What was it?”
Selah just looked at her.
“Alright, then.”
Yemi decided she didn’t mind silence. This promised to be a rare—possibly the last—quiet moment she would have until she had her throne back.
“When she sent you to me, the sea witch, what exactly did she say?” Selah asked suddenly. Her tone was casual and curious, but Yemi was sure she’d been thinking about the question awhile.
“ ‘When you need me, come find me. Your witch knows the way,’ ” she replied.
Selah nodded. “And what makes you think you need her?”
Yemi nudged rocks out of her path and considered her response first, knowing it would be near impossible to get information out of Selah if she presented the wrong motivation here.
“I have reason to suspect she was in on the coup. That she aided it for some reason. I want to find out why. If she lent the Drakes her power, removing her from the equation might be the key to weakening them enough that I can take back what belongs to me.”
It wasn’t a lie. Not exactly.
“ ‘Removing her from the equation’?” Selah repeated with a hint of intrigue. Yemi was pleased. “You mean to kill her?”
“If it comes to it. Even gods can be held accountable.”
Selah scoffed. “She’s no god.”
Someone else Ursla has pissed off, then, Yemi thought. She cycled through a series of twirls and lances of her spear as they walked, activating the core and singeing the tops off a long line of reeds.
“You have much need to wield spears in the palace?” Selah asked.
“No,” Yemi replied. “But I trained alongside Nova. I’m… effective with it.”
“Have you ever taken a life by your own hand?”
“Only recently, out of necessity.”
“So you took no joy in it? It didn’t satisfy you in any carnal way?”
Yemi blinked at her. Selah was inspecting her closely, disapprovingly, the way she used to when she entered or left the palace.
“Excuse me?”
“Your mother. She never mentioned the bloodlust to you?”
Yemi paused. “The what?”
“The Requinas, the royals of Mer, are the descendants of—”
“The condemned King Peris and Merrine, the Old God of the Seas. I’ve had that lore oozing from my ears since I was six. What are we talking about?”
“Well, the descendants of Merrine inherit the hunger of her favorite form: the megalodon. Blood in the water, blood in the air—it would be the same. When it’s triggered, it makes you ravenous.
We first saw it in your mother as the Battle Queen.
Killing made her hungry in a very gruesome way.
Your father’s spear, when it’s hot? It leaves no blood for a reason. ”
Yemi said nothing at first. What sort of sane person would admit to something like that?
But she did think of the tales of her mother fighting valiantly alongside their countrymen.
Her legendary prowess, her blood-spattered armor, the heads that rolled literally by her own hand.
For years, her mother had refused to expose her to violence.
Yemi had always thought it was because a personal defect might be awakened, not something so hereditary and so vicious.
Still. There had been that moment back in the border camp. That body of the soldier Nova had killed.
“Doesn’t sound familiar?” Selah cocked an eyebrow. “Well, maybe it’s thinned out by now. There could be enough human in you. Your grandmother didn’t have a violent bone in her body, so we’ll never know if it started out stronger.”
“My mother talked more with you about our Mer blood than she did me,” Yemi admitted. She was shocked to find that it hurt her.
“Most of our visits, she talked about you,” Selah assured her. “She wanted as much time as I could give her to see you grow into whoever you were meant to be. You worried her. When I heard you had chosen the Mer as your animus, I knew why.”
“I chose it so no one could accuse me of running from who I am.”
“You chose it because you’re combative,” Selah said curtly. “I don’t mean that as a curse, but if you’re going to lie, it can’t be to yourself. Not if you’re going to rule anything.”
Yemi rolled her eyes but tried to keep her polite tact. “With respect, you know nothing about me but my mother’s complaints.”
“Well, with respect, your knowing nothing of the Mer hasn’t kept you from claiming them, has it? How many do you know by name? Who rules the sea now? You claim that branch of your lineage because it separates you from something you despise in humanity.”
That was enough.
“This lecture. Is it part of your ‘helping’ me, or are you doing it for free?” Yemi asked.
Selah chuckled and halted their trek. “The seed of my power has its roots in aid. I’m bound to use it for the benefit of others, and sometimes, like right now, it’s a curse.
Channeling my power into myself would work like a poison—it would eat me from the inside out.
So when I pledge to do everything in my power to help Your Royal Insolence, it’s a considerable amount.
But you set the limitations on that by not listening.
By not having the right enemies and putting yourself on the same pedestal as the ancient evil that is the Obé. ”
“I can handle myself,” Yemi replied, turning away. Even if she couldn’t really, all Yemi needed were the tools and she’d figure the rest out.
“Oh, she can handle you, too,” Selah said, starting to walk off.
Yemi selected her words carefully to disguise her impatience as she lengthened her stride to keep up. “Look, I don’t mean to be difficult. This is me at my most receptive, so if you’re going to help, fine, but give me something I can use. Please.”
Selah spun on her, a finger wagging furiously inches from her face. “She sought you out. She has a plan for you. Consider what that is, and when you realize you have no idea what it could possibly be, abandon this ridiculous plot of yours and find another way back to your throne.”
“I’ll consider it. But you will tell me where she is,” Yemi insisted. “That was our deal!” she continued as Selah cursed and threw up her hands. The witch stalked away for a few steps before disappearing in a puff of dust whisked away on the wind.
Yemi waited for her to reappear, turning in circles to scan the area.
There was only the serenity of the lake and the humming of bees.
She was alone and still half a mile from the house.
She groaned at the sky—at least it wasn’t raining—and started moving again at a quicker pace.
It wasn’t the first time someone had fled her company in a fit of annoyance, but it was the first time they’d vanished completely.
She hoped Selah had spirited herself back to the front porch and not someplace she had to be hunted down again.