Chapter 33
Gazal, the scarred commander who once, as a novice, oversaw our room at the Warthu Bera, is the first person I spot when the army finally comes to a stop. She’s waiting with the welcome party, which consists of General Bussaba, the moon-faced general the Gilded Ones once assigned to the siege on Hemaira’s walls; Karmokos Huon and Calderis, our former combat and weapons masters; and finally, a few other old alaki, jatu, human, and deathshriek commanders I recognize. How White Hands gathered such a coalition here in so short a time, I don’t understand, but I marvel, nevertheless, at the scale of what she’s built. There’s a reason she and Sayuri were seen as indispensable to the goddesses in the earliest ages of the One Kingdom.
As the army marches to a stop, I glance around the soon-to-be-battlefield, taking in every detail of its bone-dry expanse, which stretches between us and what remains of Hemaira’s primary gate. Before, it would have been filled by caravans of merchants and massive lines of travelers waiting to enter Hemaira to sell or buy their goods. Now the only thing that remains is the army and their tents. There’s no sound, no movement—nothing at all. Not even in nature—not a single bird chirps, and I’d be hard-pressed to find any animal outside of the horses, mammuts, and zerizards that have been brought here by the army.
That means only one thing: the gods have something planned.
But then, so do we.
First to step forward from the welcoming party is Jeneba, once the forever-cheerful novice who oversaw Britta and my common bedroom in the Warthu Bera alongside her sweetheart, Gazal. Unlike the others, who are all wearing armor, she is clothed in simple blue robes. After we rescued her three months ago, she chose to stay at Gazal’s side, not as a warrior but as a handmaiden. Like many of the alaki and jatu we’ve rescued over the past few years, Jeneba chose to give up the warrior’s lifestyle now that she has a choice and to serve in other ways instead.
She kneels solemnly in front of our group, holding out a tray covered in tiny bronze cups. “Angoro Deka, General White Hands, General Prix, all other generals and dignitaries, we the Hemairan contingent welcome you. Please accept these glasses of water to soothe your throats and your weary bodies.”
When White Hands looks pointedly at me, I step forward, take a cup from the tray, and down its contents, wiping my mouth so everyone can see I’ve completely ingested it. Then I nod to Jeneba, winking as I do so.
She winks back, her lips quirking in a smile. I turn to the army. “We are soothed,” I shout ceremoniously.
As the others quickly do the same, I continue onward to the waiting dignitaries, happily embracing my old karmokos and accepting General Bussaba’s firm but slightly tremulous grasp before I finally turn back to Karmoko Huon, the fiercely beautiful but frightening instructor responsible for breaking a multitude of my bones during her many combat practices.
“Why the water?” I whisper to her, glancing back at Jeneba, who is now offering cups to the last few generals.
“Ancient human ritual,” Karmoko Huon whispers from behind the back of her hand. “In the olden times, it wasn’t uncommon for allies to stab each other in the back on the battlefield. So, to prevent that, an ancient king invented the water ceremony. When allies gathered, they drank water together to symbolize their pure intentions. To betray an ally after drinking was from then on considered the highest sacrilege, and all parties who had drunk would be responsible for ensuring that justice was served.” She shrugs. “Since humans make up part of this army, we decided to institute the ceremony again to put their hearts at peace.”
“Their?”I remark pointedly. “You’re human.”
The karmoko flips her long black hair, which she’s left unbound. “Have you seen me on the battlefield? I may not be an alaki, but—”
“You’re a thousand times more frightening than even the best of them.” To that much I can attest.
“Of course I am.” Karmoko Huon smiles at me, humor in her eyes—a strange sight. Just two years ago, I was terrified of this woman. Now she is my friend.
“Tell me the truth, Deka,” she says with a companionable nudge, “how likely are we to survive this?”
“Us or the world?”
“Both.”
I ponder her question. “Half and half,” I finally reply. “Either I become a god and slay the Oteran pantheons, or they slay me and cause such chaos that everything dies, ending the world as we know it.”
“Frightening odds.”
I shrug. “We’ve had worse.”
She nods. “That we have….”
I can tell she’s thinking of our dramatic escape from the Warthu Bera three months ago, after she’d spent nearly an entire year being tortured by jatu soldiers.
I may have survived horrific things, but Karmoko Huon has as well. And she always manages to do so with her grace and flowery manner intact.
“And yet, here we still are.” This humphed statement comes from one-eyed Karmoko Calderis, whose red-haired lover, the former jatu, Rustam, is waiting patiently just beyond the front lines. Like Jeneba, he’s wearing blue.
As I nod to them both, a familiar whirring sound catches my ear. “Come along, Deka,” Lord Kamanda calls grandly, a bevy of servants trailing behind his golden chair. “Battle plans do not finalize themselves.”
I sigh. “Indeed, they do not,” I say, turning to follow him. And then we make our way to the main tent, which has been set up for our arrival.
Like most of the tents in the camp, the ceiling has sheer panels the aviax can brush aside for easy entry and perches at varying intervals so the bird folk can rest, as well as assorted chairs for the more humanlike folk. There are no special concessions for the equus, who are, of course, used to standing. In the center of all this is a heavy wooden table, a map of Hemaira carved into its center. This is where the generals will determine how to move their troops for the coming battle. This is where all the action will be planned.
Except right now, the tent is unoccupied, save for one person.
Gazal. I’m gratified to see that she is already half finished putting on the distinctive blue armor that’s been created to resemble my own, down to the faint golden lines that mark the edge of the ebiki scales. It even has padding to transform Gazal’s much slimmer body into a curvier version that’s nearly identical to mine.
I marvel at this as I walk over to her. “Thank you for doing this,” I say as she reaches for a golden war mask indistinguishable from the one I wore into the camp.
“Putting a target on my back?” Gazal humphs, slapping the mask over her face.
“Pretending to be me.”
As my decoy, Gazal will lead the army into battle while my friends and I sneak into Hemaira to steal my kelai.
“As if it’s so difficult.” Gazal grunts. “All I have to do is fumble around, pretending to be oh so tortured, and everyone will assume I’m you.”
“And there’s that wit I missed so much,” I mutter.
Gazal and I are what you would call reluctant allies. We don’t particularly see eye to eye, but we have both a cause and friends in common, so we coexist. I have no doubt that if we were on opposite sides of a conflict, we would be the bitterest of rivals, as we once were in the Warthu Bera.
At my words, the side of Gazal’s mouth quirks up, an expression so similar to Jeneba’s, I almost laugh. So it is true what they say: lovers do start to resemble each other after a while. I can’t help but wonder how this manifests with Keita and I.
I return my attention to Gazal as she replies, “Funny.”
“What is?” I blink.
“You’ve finally developed a backbone.”
“And you’ve stopped being such a miserable pissfart all the time.”
Gazal blinks. “Pissfart?”
“It’s a word. Britta made it up—I think.” I frown, trying to remember if it was Britta or Adwapa who actually invented our group’s favorite insult.
Gazal condescendingly pats my back. “Never stop being you, Deka,” she says.
“You neither.” When Gazal begins to head for the front of the tent, I stop her. “I mean it,” I say. “Never stop being you.”
Now the scarred novice stiffens, her eyes taking on that flat, emotionless cast I used to be so frightened of. “If this is a goodbye, I don’t want it,” she snaps, stepping closer so I can see the severity of her words. “I only want one thing from you: for you to finish your task and do it well. I don’t care if you’re the Nuru or the Angoro or whatever it is you’re calling yourself these days. All I care is that you comport yourself as you were taught. You are an alaki of the Warthu Bera, and you will proceed accordingly.”
As she speaks, she moves closer and closer until finally, we’re nose to nose. “Conquer or die,” she intones, the motto of the Warthu Bera. Not a dare or a challenge but an invocation—a call.
As close as I am to her now, I don’t dare reject it. Or perhaps I don’t want to. I want to be who she’s asking me to be: the person who conquers. So I give her the expected reply: “We who are dead salute you.”
“You will ride to victory.”
“Or I will come back to present you with my head.”
As I stare up at her, body now tense, Gazal suddenly reaches out and places her hand on the back of my head. Then she presses her forehead against mine. “I have died millions of times,” she whispers in my ear. “Countless years, drowning in that lake, then reviving, only to drown again. The way I passed the time was by counting and hoping. And you know what I hoped for, Deka?”
When I shake my head, she continues: “At first, I hoped for a savior. For someone to rescue me. But no one ever came, so I retreated into the fantasy that I would one day be the one to save others. Every day that I died, I would fantasize about it: rising from the water, becoming someone’s hero. And I hoped that one day that person would look up at me and see not the damaged soul that I was but a person worthy of love. Worthy of being cherished the way my own family refused to cherish me.
“And then I met Jeneba, and I realized I didn’t need to be her savior; I needed to be her lover.” Gazal steps back, her brown eyes burning into mine. “I’ve only just started to love, Deka. Five hundred days, six hours, countless moments. That’s how long I’ve loved her. And if this world ends, I will be grateful that I got the chance to love. That I got the chance, however fleeting, to be by Jeneba’s side.”
Gazal’s hand tightens on the back of my neck. “But I don’t want this world to end, Deka,” she whispers. “I want to love Jeneba for countless more years, countless more hours, countless more moments. And that is my hope. I hope that you succeed. Not just because I want the world to continue, but because I want to continue being by Jeneba’s side, to continue this absolute happiness I have in knowing that I am loved, and that I love in return. So do not fail, Deka, because I do not want my love to end. And I know you don’t either.”
Gazal walks away before I can reply, but not before I see her brusquely wiping away the tears now threatening to spill. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her even close to tears, and the weight of that presses down on me, as do her words.
Do not fail, Deka.
I’ll most certainly do everything I can not to.
I wait until Gazal has left the tent to throw on the plain blue cloak and matching mask I’ve brought for this occasion. Then I make my way toward the small purple tent at the very back of the war camp, where my friends have already stripped off their ostentatious golden armor to reveal the black stealth armor they’ve worn underneath it. Over the black garments, they drape the white robes White Hands has brought. As I can’t remove Ayo’s armor until I get my divinity back, I too don the robes, wrapping them carefully around me until I’m sure the armor is completely covered. The ten of us are meant to be merchants, the only people who still have some sort of free movement in the city. It may be the end of the world, but people still have to buy food, medicines, and other necessities, hence the reason we decided on these disguises.
White Hands glances from one person to the next. “You all know the plan—”
“Get into Hemaira, sneak into the Eye, and liberate Deka’s kelai,” Li says swiftly. “We’ve gone over it several thousand times.”
White Hands’ replying glare is cold enough to freeze lava. “This is not the time for levity, young uruni. The fate of our empire and this realm itself rests in your hands. I hope you understand the weight of it. And if you do not, look to Deka.” White Hands nods at me, and I still. “She’s the one being called upon to sacrifice everything for you. Learn from her example.”
Li looks from me down to the floor, ashamed. “My apologies.”
But White Hands doesn’t reply as she walks over to me. “Deka,” she begins. And then she stops, her expression heavy. After all, what more is there to say? What else can we discuss that we haven’t gone over already again and again to infinity?
As I look at her, tears burning in my eyes, White Hands suddenly does something very unexpected: she embraces me.
“Triumph, Deka,” she whispers. “Triumph for all of us. And even if you don’t—even if you can’t—know that you carry our hearts with you. That you have always been our daughter, that you have always been our love.”
There are multiple layers to White Hands’s voice now, a familiar rumbling of power to them. When she finally releases me from her embrace, her eyes are entirely black—a familiar blackness I’ve seen before.
The Gilded Ones may have Anok imprisoned, but the ancient goddess, it seems, is a master at slipping from their grasp.
I walk forward, embrace her again. Embrace both of them, since I have the feeling I’m talking not just to the goddess but also the ancient alaki who is her first daughter. “I love you both too,” I whisper in their ear. “And don’t worry, Divine Mother,” I say, using the honorific one last time, “I will do as you have asked. I will give you the eternal rest you seek.”
“And you have my gratitude, and my blessings,” White Hands says in a voice so layered, I know Anok has taken over completely now. “But also, my warning: My sisters will do anything to hold on to their power and their lives. Do not trust anything you see. And do not allow yourself to shine too brightly in the dark. If you are frightened or feel you cannot continue, look to the Greater Divinity. Look to the natural order. Always remember, we are all of us gods. And we are all of us unending.”
A brief tremor jolts White Hands, and when I pull back, she’s blinking as if she just woke. Which, of course, she just did. If there’s one thing I know about interfacing with gods, especially in such an intimate manner, it always corrupts your sense of time and being.
“What are we waiting for?” White Hands asks the moment she regains her composure. “Let us ride out. It’s time for the assault on Hemaira to begin.”
But as I nod at her, something niggles at the back of my mind—Anok’s words. Do not allow yourself to shine too brightly in the dark…. What does that mean, precisely? The gods love speaking in riddles. I continue pondering this mystery as I walk out toward the army, which is saddled and ready for battle.
Only I’m not joining the front lines. I’ll be in the back, with my friends.
I wait until Kweku wheels around a large supply cart, our gryphs and Ixa—now in a fine mimicry of gryph form—attached to the reins. As the commanders shout out their instructions, my friends and I slip behind the cavalry and take our place in the line of carts and wagons that bring up the rear.
As long as we remain among the rest, no one will notice us as we follow the cavalry into the city. And then, once there, we’ll separate from the main force and use our gryphs to sneak to Oyomo’s Eye while everyone is focused on the battle.
It’s a good enough plan, well thought out. Which of course means there are sure to be complications.
I only have to look at Hemaira’s walls to know it.
When I first came to Hemaira just over two years ago, I was in awe of those walls. There they were, stretching nearly up to the sky, the tallest things I’d ever seen. Then I freed the Warthu Bera and battled the Idugu the same night. The walls suffered heavily from my actions. Ancient stones tumbled, cracks appeared in their sides. But despite all that, they remained standing.
There’s never been a weapon large enough to break them, never been a force overwhelming enough to tear them down. They are, in many ways, a symbol of Otera itself.
So why are the battlements empty?
I shade my eyes against the glare of the afternoon sun as I peer at them, the tallest points on Hemaira’s walls. No soldiers stroll their lengths today—not even a priest or two to shout imprecations at us. There’s simply no one there. It’s just like this plain, with all its missing animals, and the silence and stillness of it all.
There’s a strange lull in the air, a foreboding. It becomes even more heightened when White Hands, Gazal at her side, calls for the army to stop in front of the walls.
“It’s so quiet,” Adwapa whispers, watching them. “I don’t like it.”
Her sister nods beside her. “Doesn’t feel right. None of this feels right.”
“They’re about to hit us with something big,” Adwapa says, disgruntled.
Her words make my muscles tense. Adwapa and her sister are the oldest in our group—three hundred years or so, while the rest of us range from seventeen to twenty. And they’ve spent much of that time in White Hands’s employ as her spies.
Despite their jokey tendencies, their instincts are generally sharper than most.
“We just have to gird ourselves, then,” I say grimly, watching the scene in front of me.
Both White Hands and Gazal have now dismounted and are walking up to the walls, blades in hand and nothing else—not even shields.
For a moment, I tense, expecting a volley of spears to come hurtling their way. That’s what the jatu have done every other time an enemy has approached Hemaira’s walls.
But the battlements remain completely silent.
“Well, this is beginning to get worrisome,” Adwapa says, swiftly checking her blades.
“I’d venture it’s almost time to go in, then,” Asha says, eyes narrowed as she regards the wall. “It’s live forever, everyone,” she says, another of our battle cries.
“And in victory,” I add with a nod.
“That too, once we get through the wall,” Li says.
I glance up. “Not to worry,” I say, turning back to the primary gate, where White Hands is now taking off her gauntlets to reveal her small, brown hands. “White Hands has this.”
After all, this is the reason I awakened her gift in Abeya during our confrontation with the goddesses; the reason I unlocked an ability so feared, it was considered unspeakable in ancient times.
White Hands kneels in front of the wall, presses her fingers to it. I can’t hear the words she says when her lips move, but I know them. I heard her say them just once before, saw their power when she turned them on the deathshrieks calling out for mercy from under the Chamber of the Goddesses in Abeya.
“To dust,” White Hands commands, pushing the wall.
For a moment, there’s silence.
Then, a gigantic crack.
Just like that, the walls of Hemaira begin tumbling down.