Chapter 27
In the Grand Council chamber, the atmosphere was electric with this new, volatile energy.
The Elder of Justice entered, his robes still beaded with rain that had begun to fall that evening.
"My lords," he announced, his voice cutting through the tense murmurs. "A new matter demands the council’s immediate attention. An anonymous report has been delivered to my office." He paused, letting the silence stretch, ensuring every eye was upon him. "It contains grave allegations."
He turned his head, his gaze sweeping to Somadina’s icy mask before landing on no one and everyone.
"The allegations", he said, the words dropping into the quiet like stones, "are against the Second Wife, the Iyom."
Somadina, try all he might, would never find the man his mother loved. Because someone else had found him first, the evidence he wished to snuff out would always remain to haunt him until his death.
The council ended as expected; the Elder of Justice ordered to investigate such egregious accusations. Throughout, Somadina said nothing. The moment the council was suspended, he rose from his seat, neither walking too fast nor too slow, and left with his head held high.
The Igwe’s mood was terrible; a public investigation would only make his heart cold to his mother. Even if she were innocent, now the world would know there was reason enough to doubt her faithfulness. The Iyom would never again be favoured by the Igwe.
His position had been shaken greatly, and there were still two princes beneath him. Though Borji was a Djinn, at least his existence meant his mother was favoured by a god, meaning he still had a chance to become the Okpalaeze.
In the seas of men that stalked the palace, Somadina had suddenly shrunk to a height he never imagined he would. And he couldn’t understand just who was the one behind all this. It couldn’t be the Ugoeze; he had spies on her side, watching her. Then just who was it?
A man passed him in the corridor.
Somadina came to a stop, turning.
The man was nothing special—medium height, medium build, the kind of face you forgot the moment you looked away. He wore the simple robes of an apothecary, and he was following a young girl—Nkiru, Azul's maid, the one who never left her side.
An apothecary.
Somadina's heart hammered. Pounding against his ribs like a trapped bird trying to escape. He watched the man's retreating back, and something seized in his chest.
Did we look alike?
The thought came from nowhere, intruding on his fragile state. He pushed it away. Of course they didn't look alike. They were strangers. But his feet would not move. His eyes would not look away.
Was he hallucinating?
The question slithered through his mind like a snake. Was he seeing things that weren't there? Was his guilt so great that it painted every stranger with the same brush?
Or did Azul really have him?
The thought was absurd. She was a purchased girl, a slave playing at princess, a vixen who had crawled out of some village and somehow wrapped a barbarian around her finger. She could not possibly have reached this far. Could not possibly have found him. With what resources?
And yet the man walked on, following Nkiru toward the shrine, and Somadina's blood ran cold.
He was scared.
He, Somadina, Okpalaeze of the Borjigin, was afraid of a woman.
Why?
Why was he afraid?
He should be angry; if truly this was her doing, she was destroying his legitimacy, dragging him down to the pits of hell. He should be furious; he should be planning her slow and agonising end.
Instead, he looked down at his pants, and his face was ashen.
He turned and walked quickly, his steps echoed off the stone, a rhythm that matched the pounding of his heart. Through the corridors, past the guards, past the servants who pressed themselves against walls to avoid his path.
He entered his bedroom, breathing laboured, not from exertion.
Suddenly, he was alone in the dark room; the sun hadn’t come out, merely grey clouds.
He crossed to his bed, pulling back the curtains that covered the back walls, and there she was.
It was only a painting, crude and imperfect, commissioned from a palace artist who had seen her once and tried to capture what he could. But it was her face. Her eyes, ones that loathed him with everything in her soul.
Somadina looked at it.
He thought of her hands around his throat. Her weight above him. The vase shattering against his skull. Only once had he managed to anger her enough to hurt him, and since then it seemed she had disregarded him completely.
It felt like he was suffocating; he needed her to curse him, to request his death. He needed her to fight him, to despise him, as long as it was him.
His hand moved.
It was shameful. It was degrading, everything a prince should not be, should not do, should not want.
But he couldn’t stop. No matter how many times he pounded into his wife looking at her portrait, it could never feel like her.
Someone he was so close to having, whom he had tried to punish again and again but to no avail.
Perhaps the gods had abandoned him from the very beginning.
Of all the warlords on the Main Continent, why did this one need to be gentle to her?
Why did he need to like her? Why did he need to favour her?
He asked himself again and again where it had all gone wrong. But he knew, deep down, it was when he underestimated her. He wished to fight, to struggle. But Azul was not someone that would die alone; she would rather drag him down with her.
His eyes stayed on her face as he imagined her looking down at him. As he imagined those golden eyes watching him, judging him, finding him wanting. As he imagined her hands around his throat again, tighter this time, harder, until he couldn't breathe, until the world went dark, until—
He gasped, his body shuddering. His hand was slick, and he could only pant as sweat dripped down his brow. He looked up at her face.
"Vixen," he whispered.
Each flash of lightning illuminated Azul’s room in brief, blinding white, followed by growls of thunder that vibrated through the stone.
The creak of her door opening must’ve been lost in the storm’s roar. Though her visitor was someone unexpected.
If Azul didn’t recognise her eyes, she would’ve considered her another person. She wore a simple, bleak robe, tailored at the sides; her face wasn’t as heavily decorated as Azul was used to seeing. She seemed oddly at peace despite the noose that must be tightening around her neck.
They had never been allies; they were enemies by station and by circumstance. Yet, she didn’t seem here to torment the princess.
The Iyom made herself at home and sat on the chair by the round table. Wordlessly, Azul sat before her.
The two women faced each other in the flickering gloom.
For a time, only the thunder spoke.
"I'm going to die," the Iyom confessed, her right hand grasping her cup. The words were not as crude as Azul expected; in fact, they almost sounded poetic.
Azul nodded slowly, watching the play of shadows on the older woman’s face.
"Somadina will ask it of you. I wouldn’t be surprised if he provides the silk cord himself.
You will hang yourself in your chambers and leave a note proclaiming your innocence in all matters, clearing his path of the stench of your family’s crimes.
It is the only way he can free himself from your sullied reputation. "
The Iyom let out a defeated laugh. "So it was you all along?"
Azul leaned her elbow against the wood and propped her chin on her palm. It was best to eliminate her enemies so she could draw out the one watching her.
"Do you feel I am cruel?"
The Iyom did not reply; in reality, they both knew a ploy like this was accessible to either of them.
The Iyom had already been wed, so her reputation was less flexible; it stained her son and husband if she was accused of any wrongdoing.
But Azul was different. Ragnar did not seem to care for her reputation.
Whether or not the rumours bothered him, no one knew. If they said he pampered her and let her run wild, they wouldn’t be wrong.
The Iyom’s jaw tightened, a flash of the old pride staining her features.
"After everything I did for him. To secure the throne, to make sure he would sit on it uncontested.
" She let out a shuddering breath and clenched her fists so tightly on the table her nails dug into her palms and drew blood.
How many children had she buried in this palace just so he would be called 'Okpalaeze'? "Ungrateful bastard."
Azul offered no platitudes; she simply let the woman vent her bitter lament into the charged air.
When the anger subsided into hollow silence, Azul asked, her voice quiet but clear, "And will you? Will you die for him?"
The Iyom paused, her eyes meeting Azul’s golden gaze. "A mother would do anything for her son."
"A son", Azul countered softly, "would readily abandon his mother to climb a single step higher."
A small rueful smile graced the woman’s lips; she was beautiful, and if she were raised anywhere else, she might have lived a more carefree existence.
"I appreciate your frankness. There is no one left that I can speak with openly."
Azul offered a conspiratorial smile. "Well, there are not many wives here to talk to. The princesses avoid me. At least your co-wife, the Third, had the decency to scheme against me openly. Only the Fourth Wife was ever kind."
The Iyom’s expression shifted from weary amusement to blank confusion. "Oh, you silly child," she sighed, shaking her head. "I suppose you will kill my son?"
Azul took her time nodding, as if she wasn’t paying attention.
"Goodbye then, Akwaugo. I hope you win. This cesspool deserves to be burned down by someone with the stomach for it."
"Akwaugo," a servant called from outside, and Azul’s head snapped up to see the room light up with lightning. There was no woman in front of her.
"Akwaugo?" The voice called out again.