Chapter 5
The prince's chambers smelled of bitter herbs and old blood. Somadina sat on the edge of his bed, his fingers tracing the bandages wrapped around his skull. The pain had dulled to a persistent throb, manageable with the right draughts, but the humiliation festered like an open wound.
Six days since that bitch had split his head open. Six days of his mother's incessant weeping, his grandmother scolding, and the palace servants whispering behind his back. Six days of lying in this room, pretending to be weaker than he was, playing the wounded prince for sympathy.
And for what?
He watched as Azul knelt in the courtyard, as her spine remained straight even as the sun beat down mercilessly. He watched her refuse to apologise and refuse to acknowledge what she'd done to him.
His jaw clenched.
She should have been grovelling by now. Any lesser woman would. If she were any weaker, she would've been on her knees in his chambers, begging his forgiveness and offering whatever he wanted to make amends.
Instead, she'd looked at him with those cold, vile eyes and said no.
A knock came from the door.
"Enter," Somadina called, anger simmering beneath the surface.
A servant boy slipped in, barely twelve, eyes wide with the fear that came from serving someone as emotionally erratic as the Crowned Prince. "Okpalaeze, you summoned me?"
"Yes." Somadina stood, ignoring the swimming sensation in his head. The healers had told him to rest, but he was done resting. "Check on the Akwaugo; see if her punishment is done."
The boy fled, only returning after Somadina had paced his chambers relentlessly for half a stick of incense.
The door opened and the servant boy entered, alone, trembling.
"Well?" Somadina asked, voice deceptively calm.
"The Akwaugo—" The boy swallowed hard. "They said she returned to the Ancestral Shrine."
Somadina stared at the boy, processing the words. In a split second his face warped into a heinous mask of rage. "Get out," he spat coldly.
The boy didn't wait to be told twice.
Somadina stood still in the centre of his chambers. His eyes were staring at the letters scattered in his study in the far corner. Letters they exchanged privately before that night.
A sudden burst of anger overcame him; the bronze vase on his table was knocked across the room and shattered against the wall. Water and flowers exploded across the floor, shards of metal clattering on stone.
"Bitch!" The word tore from his throat, raw and ugly as the emotions in his heart.
Somadina's chest heaved as he stared at the destruction he'd caused, at the water seeping into expensive rugs, at the scattered petals that looked like drops of blood in the lamplight.
She was at the shrine. Alone, except for that child servant. There were no guards stationed there anymore. If someone visited in the night, no one would hear her screams.
The thought slithered through his mind, tempting him.
He could go to her in that moment. While she was too weak to fight, he would see what kind of airs someone like her could put on.
He moved to the door—then stopped.
Why should he save her from her own idiocy? Since she wanted to die so badly, he should let her. Once she was given to that man, he wished to see if she would even last one month before her bones were fed to wolves.
If she begged him to reconsider and take her when she heard the news, then it wouldn't be too late either. Then he would make her pay him back in full for this humiliation.
Fever seized Azul the very next day, creeping into her bones, setting her skin on fire. She drifted in and out of consciousness, the world dissolving into fragments of sound and light that made no sense.
For a moment, she thought she saw her younger sister’s face hovering above her with big teary eyes. Her eyes were the most stunning shade of sapphire. "Ada, please wake up. Ada, I'm scared," she pleaded.
The next she saw herself in Somadina’s room, his eyes looking up at her from his position at her feet, his hands holding onto her waist. She glanced at the ornamental sword on his wall, the one she had yet to dislodge, and then, in a blink, the sword transformed into her own ceiling, and she was back in her bed.
When she was conscious, the pain was overwhelming—her head pounding, her joints aching, her throat so dry she couldn't speak.
When her mind wandered in sleep, she walked through memories that weren't entirely hers, watching a girl named Azul grow up in a compound she'd never seen, trained, groomed and pampered.
She watched as blood spilled from her nose onto pages of books in languages she could now fluently speak.
She watched as a cane landed on her palm; her father’s furious face seared into her mind, why was he so angry?
She watched as she tried again to memorise the scripts given to her, to pronounce her words correctly, and to scrub her voice of her own accent.
As Azul meandered in the loosely connected worlds of her memories, Nkiru did what she could.
The girl was barely fourteen, with thin arms and a heart too big for her small chest. She changed the cloths on Azul's forehead, whispering prayers to Anyanwu and Ala and any god she could name.
She dribbled water between Azul's cracked lips.
She sat in the corner and wept when she thought Azul couldn't hear.
On the third day, with Azul burning and no help in sight, Nkiru made her decision.
She walked to the Ugoeze's residence. The guards at the gate barely looked at her.
"The Akwaugo is ill," Nkiru said, her voice small but desperate. "Please, I need to speak with the Ugoeze. She needs a healer."
The guards exchanged glances. One of them laughed—a short, ugly sound.
"The Ugoeze is resting. Come back tomorrow."
"But she's dying—"
The guard stepped forward, and Nkiru flinched back. "I said come back tomorrow."
So she went to the Dowager's residence next.
The old woman's servants chased her away with brooms, cursing her for disturbing their mistress's peace. Nkiru ran swiftly, the sting of humiliation stifled by her growing fear that Azul would die.
There was only one option left.
The Iyom's compound was smaller than the Ugoeze's but no less imposing. Nkiru stood at the gate, trembling, as a servant led her inside.
The Iyom received her in a small receiving room, seated on cushions, a cup of tea in her hands. She looked at Nkiru the way one might look at a stray dog.
"The Akwaugo's servant." The Iyom’s voice was as sweet as poisoned honey. "What brings you here?"
Nkiru prostrated fully; she knocked her head against the ground until her forehead bruised. "Iyom, please. The Akwaugo is sick. She needs an imperial physician. I beg you—"
"A physician?" The Iyom's eyebrows rose. "For that vixen? How ambitious!"
Nkiru pressed her head harder against the floor. "Please. She'll die."
The Iyom hummed, taking a sip of her tea.
Nkiru felt the mocking gazes of servants around her, some of whom she recognised as servants originally assigned to Azul.
She bit her tongue, forcing herself not to look too long.
If her pride stopped her from getting help, she wouldn’t be able to live with herself.
"I am a merciful woman," the Iyom said. "I cannot give you a physician—that would require the Igwe's permission—but I can give you medicine."
Nkiru looked up, hope warring with caution in her young heart.
The Iyom gestured to a servant, who disappeared and returned moments later with a small clay pot. "This will break the fever. Give it to her tonight."
Nkiru took the pot with trembling hands. "Thank you, Iyom. Thank you."
She ran all the way back to the shrine.
Azul was worse when Nkiru returned. Her breathing had grown shallower, her skin grey beneath the dark brown. Nkiru's hands shook as she unwrapped the pot, revealing a dark liquid within. It smelled bitter, but medicine always did.
She heated it over a small fire, stirring it with a stick, hoping it would help break the fever by dawn. The liquid was warm when she carried it to Azul's bedside. She knelt, sliding an arm behind Azul's head, lifting her with great care.
"Akwaugo," she whispered. "Please drink. This will help."
Azul's eyes fluttered open.
For a moment, she opened her lips to accept whatever was given to her. Then her nostrils flared.
Her hand shot out, knocking the cup from Nkiru's grasp. The liquid splashed across the floor, dark as blood.
"Akwaugo—!" Nkiru cried out.
Azul had used her body to knock the thing out of her maid’s hand, and so she slid from her bed, landing hard on the ground. Nkiru scrambled to catch her, pulling her into her lap, her small arms wrapping around her mistress's burning form.
"You—you can't—" Azul's voice was barely a whisper, raw and cracked. "You can't trust them. Any of them."
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry—" Nkiru rocked her, tears welling in her eyes. "I didn't know what else to do. They all said no. The Iyom—she gave me medicine—I thought—"
A movement in the corner caught Nkiru's eye.
A rat, drawn by the spilled liquid, crept towards the puddle on the floor.
“Get out of here!” she shouted, sending the thing away. Her heart hammered in her chest; if Azul got bitten by a rat now, who knew what sort of disease she would contract?
Azul's hand gripped her arm, her fingers barely finding the strength to clench fully. "Go," she rasped. "Get Borji."
Nkiru nodded; unable to lift her, she placed Azul against her bed, and she ran.
The training grounds were empty at this hour, but Nkiru knew where the unwanted prince spent his evenings. She found him at the archery range behind his quarters, his bow drawn, preparing to release another arrow at a target already filled with them.
"Your Highness!"
Borji released the arrow. It struck the target's centre.
"Your Highness!"
He turned, and whatever he saw in her face made him set down his bow immediately. "What happened?"
The shrine's small chamber was dim when he arrived. Azul lay on the floor where she had collapsed, half-curled, her breathing laboured.
Borji knelt beside her, his hands gentle as he lifted her. She was burning so badly he almost dropped her. Steeling his mind, he laid her down carefully, arranging the thin pillow beneath her head. Then he turned to Nkiru, who stood trembling in the doorway.
"Listen to me carefully. Outside the palace, in the civilian quarter, there's an old woman who sells medicines.
Her name is Mama Ife. Tell her I sent you.
She'll give you the right thing if you describe what has been happening to the Akwaugo.
" He reached into a pouch at his waist and pressed a handful of coins into Nkiru's palm. "Go quickly."
Nkiru nodded before leaving. She rushed out, not daring to move even a second slower. Her eyes glossed over the small corpse against the wall, her heart lurching as the rat from earlier lay dead.
As her footsteps faded, Borji turned back to Azul. Her eyes were closed again, her face slack with exhaustion. He dipped a cloth in water and pressed it to her forehead, watching the way her skin seemed to pull tight over her bones.
"You're supposed to survive out of spite," he said quietly. "Wretched girl, this is a shameful way to die."
She gave no response.
He stayed there, watching her chest rise and fall with each laboured breath. The minutes stretched like hours.
When Azul's eyes opened again, they found his immediately.
"You're still here," she said. Her voice was barely even a whisper.
"Someone has to make sure you don't die before you kill my brother."
A weak laugh escaped her, cut short by a cough. "I haven't forgotten."
"I know." He wet the cloth again.
She took in a deep breath, her face creasing with pain. She clutched her bedding. "When I get through this, I'm going to kill them all."
Borji stilled. "How deep?" he asked.
"What?"
"Your hatred. How deep does it go?"
Azul laughed again, sending a chill down his spine—the unmistakable sound of malice. "I don't hate them, Borji."
He frowned. "You just said—"
"I don't need to hate someone to decide they need to die.
" Her golden eyes caught the lamplight, glowing like embers.
"Hate is a useless, fickle emotion. It can be reasoned with.
It can be soothed." Her grip on her bedding tightened.
"I have simply decided. I am not someone who can stand even a thorn in my flesh.
I cannot stand them. So they will be removed. "
Borji’s hands trembled. In that moment, perhaps he understood something about himself that he had never fully acknowledged.
He had spent his entire life enduring the neglect and the cruelty of a court that saw him as unworthy.
He had told himself he was surviving, that patience was wisdom, that one day things would change.
But he had never decided.
This woman, this stranger who had been in the palace for less than a month, had more resolve in her fever-weakened body than he had cultivated in twenty-two years.
"How terrifying," he whispered, but there was no one conscious enough to hear him.