Chapter 21
Azul felt a bead of sweat drip down her brow as the sun blinded her; the hand clasped around Kamsi's wrist cried out for air.
Kamsi chewed her lip, her young mind churning.
"We must ask the chi of our house. If the spirit is touching our family’s fate, the chi will know its name and its purpose.
" She frowned, thinking. "But to invoke the chi properly, to get a true answer, we need a big sacrifice.
Something with a strong life force. A bull, or…
or a leopard. Something that fights back.
The struggle and violence please our chi. "
Azul listened to her chatter away; her eyes flickered to her shaved-down horns. Her youngest sister was one of a kind, and like Borji, she was a Djinn. One who had a niche interest in shamanism.
"You think the spirit is truly haunting our family?" Azul asked, watching her steps on the dirt path. There were no houses for a mile or so, and all around them was the Igbele.
Kamsi hummed, as if contemplating. "I’m not sure; why else would it find us anytime we leave the house?"
Azul looked back over her shoulder before quickly turning away. "Then, what should we sacrifice to be rid of it?"
Azul’s golden eyes opened; the sun had vanished behind storm clouds as rain poured down past her window.
To invoke the name of one's chi, a sacrifice was necessary.
The sacrifice must struggle, futilely, until it had given up on living. It was an uncomfortable thought, as she could still feel Somadina’s hands around her throat. Did she, in her very last moments, give up on living?
Looking down, she saw the open letter on her lap; the letter she fell asleep reading.
She put away the letter from the Ameachi prince, reminding herself she would have to burn it later to be rid of the evidence.
Her eyes moved to her bed, to the space between the wood and the ground below. The little snake had entered a strange sort of sleep since it returned with Chidinma and hadn’t come out from the only dark, cool location in the room.
Perhaps it will shed, she considered as a yawn came over her.
“Akwaugo!” Nkiru peered in, her bright eyes lifting Azul’s mood. “The First Prince is back! Oh! The Great Khan came to visit too!”
The shop was in the merchant quarter, tucked between a spice vendor and a tailor's stall; it was the kind of place you passed a hundred times without noticing. A wooden sign hung above the door, its paint faded, its lettering worn: Obiechina Fine Goods.
Azul stood before it, cloak shielding her from the rain, reading the name. Obiechina. The Iyom's family name.
"What is this place?"
Borji didn't answer. He pushed open the door.
The interior was exactly what the sign promised: shelves of imported fabrics, a counter that ran along one wall, and behind it, a door that led to what she assumed was a storage room.
Her brother took the lead, and Azul watched Ragnar follow suit; she looked around once more before following both of them.
The storage room was larger than she expected, stacked high with crates and barrels.
Another door at the back. Another corridor.
The air changed as they walked, growing cooler and damper as they descended.
Soon a metallic tang assaulted their noses, and Azul felt her stomach churn.
Blood.
So much blood, it made breathing unbearable.
They emerged into a space that stopped her cold.
Steel cages lined the walls, stacked three high, their doors hanging open.
Dung-covered straw covered the floor, mixed with scraps of cloth, broken clay bowls, and things she couldn’t even identify.
The smell was overwhelming—waste and death soaked into the very stones, which remained damp and cold to the touch.
Guards moved through the space, their faces grim, cloth covering their mouths and noses. They carried buckets of water and rough cloths, scrubbing at the walls, the floor, and the cages. When they saw Azul, their eyes dropped immediately, unable to meet her gaze.
“Here,” Borji said, handing her a piece of cloth to tie around her lower face. “It helps.”
Past the cleaning guards, they only entered more corridors that led to more rooms with more cages. "How many?" She asked.
"Five hundred and forty-three," Borji said behind her. "Alive."
"Dead?"
“We’re still searching for the mass grave they used.”
Five hundred and forty-three children were stolen from their families, caged like animals, and sold to the highest bidder. And at the centre of it all, the Iyom's father grew rich on their suffering.
Something touched Azul’s consciousness—a whisper, faint but insistent. She frowned, turning her head, trying to locate it.
"What is it?" Ragnar moved closer, his tone tinged with worry.
"Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?" Borji quipped back.
She shook her head, moving toward the sound. It pulled her past the cages, past the guards' averted eyes, to a wall at the far end of the corridor. Plain stone, like every other wall. But behind it, the whisper grew louder.
Help us.
Please.
Help us.
Murderer.
"There's something here," she said. "Behind this wall."
Borji joined her, frowning. "It's just a wall. Storage on the other side, maybe."
"No." She pressed her palm to the stone. The whisper became a chorus—voices, so many voices, young and old and terrified. "There's a room. Blocked off. I can hear them."
"Hear what?" Borji's frown deepened. "Azul, I don't hear anything."
“Knock down this wall.”
Azul looked up to see Ragnar, his arms crossed. He seemed not to care much for her logic or reasoning; he only wished to follow her lead. His orders were firm, making the guards jump.
“Great Khan—” one began.
“Don’t make me repeat myself.”
The men scrambled to obey.
The first swing of the hammer echoed through the corridor; stone cracked, and dust billowed. The second swing opened a hole, and the smell that poured through made even the hardened guards stagger back.
Azul stepped forwards, peering through the gap as the men widened it. Beyond the wall was a room. It was small, circular and windowless. Its floor was covered in elaborate chalk markings. Symbols she recognised from Kamsi’s scribbles, from the scrolls she looked through briefly in the library.
A ritual circle.
But it was what lay within the circle that seized her breath.
Bodies. Three of them, arranged in a pattern she couldn't immediately parse. They had been tortured—that much was clear from the wounds and lack of skin. Their faces were frozen in expressions of terror, mouths open in screams that would never be heard.
The chalk around them was dark with old blood.
Borji choked and turned away as the hole became large enough to step through, his hand over his mouth. One of the guards retched, stumbling back. Even Ragnar went still, his mask hiding whatever expression might have crossed his face.
Azul walked into the room.
The chalk crunched beneath her feet. The smell was indescribable, but she quickly found herself ignoring it.
Her eyes traced the lines of chalk, the offerings placed at cardinal points, and the direction of the blood flow. Having stepped deep enough into the room, she turned to look at the back wall they had knocked down, and her stomach dropped.
After the end of the world, the mother rose from the ashes of the old gods.
She turned her head to the side only to see more.
It covered everything. Every surface she could see, every inch of stone within reach of the faint phosphorescent glow.
Deep scratches carved into rock so old it had forgotten what light felt like.
Characters upon characters upon characters, spiralling and layering and moving.
Snaking around everything, around her, around her throat.
She who walks between worlds. She who drinks the blood of sacrifice. She who is born from the bowels of existence.
Bile rose in Azul's throat; she felt lightheaded.
Her voice is the scream of the dying. Her touch is the cold of the grave. From her tears comes the great river of the Udamili. From her laughter emerge the Titans that roam the world.
Over and over again, written in deep scribbles, scratched with stone, repetitive, incessant, overwhelming. Was the pounding from within her heart? Or a sound externally?
To invoke her is to invite death. To be chosen is to be marked. To wear her crown is to carry her hunger.
Her eyes shot open as a hand touched the small of her back.
"Khatun, we should leave." Ragnar’s voice grounded her, the ringing in her ears fading as soon as it began.
Azul found her voice hoarse.
"What god did they invoke?"
The question hung in the air.
Borji stared at her. "What?"
"The ritual is an invocation. A sacrifice to call a god's attention." Her eyes moved from Borji to Ragnar. "What god were they trying to reach?"
Ragnar's jaw tightened behind his mask. "You recognise the markings?"
"I've seen them before." Her voice didn't waver.
No, she'd seen that room before; she'd been in that room before.
Borji entered, forcing himself to look at the circle, at the symbols, at the horror of it all.
The words that were written on the wall were enough to form the vague outlines of what seemed to be a viper. One with six legs and six eyes, one with horns and large scales.
The more they looked, the more vivid it seemed.
“Ekesi Akilli,” Borji hissed. "The chant, it's Ani's invocation chant."
Ani, the mother goddess of all.
Azul could only stare, her lips pressing into a thin line.
“This was the answer Ani gave them,” she whispered. “But what question was asked?"
She knew the question that was asked.
But she couldn't bring herself to admit it.
After the lizard, when the ritual was failing, what did she do?
Azul grimaced, trying to remember. This was the room Kamsi carried out the ritual. This was the room where the ritual failed.
If the sacrifice were insufficient and one were calling on a great god, they would die.
Kamsi—her sister—was too precious; Azul was unwilling to see her corpse at her feet.
So she took a blade, and looked for a more satisfactory sacrifice for Ani.