Chapter 36
I slide into the chamber just as the gods emerge, but Britta is ready and slams the door behind me. Its wooden edges rattle as a deafening force throws itself against it: the Idugu attempting to get inside.
“Let us in,” the gods’ voices roar. “LET US IN!”
But the door holds fast.
It’s as Okot said: there’s an arcane object in here that repels the gods and prevents them, or anyone else, from creating doors. I whirl around, trying to find it, until I feel a slow and subtle thrumming. It’s coming from what appears to be a small blue stone embedded in the wall. That must be it, the arcane object Okot spoke of. The door rattles and bangs, a veritable typhoon, but the object’s power keeps it standing. Then finally, after what feels like minutes of this, there’s silence. The gods have spent their power. Sacrifice sustains them for only so long, and there were only a few jatu and deathshrieks in that hallway. More to the point, there are so many other things they have to attend to right now. Which means I have to move fast. The Idugu will be back, of this there’s no doubt. And when they return, they’ll bring reinforcements.
“Er, Deka,” Acalan calls, attracting my attention. “You seeing this?”
As I swiftly turn to him, I see what he’s pointing at: the blood. It not only slicks the chamber’s stone floor but also colors the water inside the shallow pool circling the room. It’s seeping from the three jatu lying lifeless on the floor, no doubt victims of Okot’s sword. A gurgling sound leads me to a fourth, who has a sword protruding from his chest as he staggers about.
When he slides down, mortally wounded, I discover his assailant.
“Mother!” I gasp, shocked.
She’s standing at the top of the stairs leading to her throne, a bewildered look in her eyes. Her hair is a living thing that trails all the way down the stairs, obscuring everything in its path. “Mother, you’re alive!” Then I frown. “How can you be alive?”
“That’s wha I want to know,” Britta says, placing a staying hand on me while Keita does the same. “Last ye told me, yer mother was a wraith bound to the Hall of the Gods in Maiwuri.”
“So the question then becomes—who is that?” Keita asks, his eyes glowing in warning.
He and Britta move to stand in front of me, a wall of protection. Ixa paces in front of them, snarling, his ears flattened in fear and challenge.
But Mother turns to me, her eyes filled with bewilderment. “Deka, is this real?” she asks, seeming stunned. “Am I truly here, in Otera?”
I’m so disoriented now, so thoroughly shaken, I don’t know what to say. This can’t be Mother—Mother is dead, a spirit bound to a temple on another continent. And yet, when I glide into the combat state, staring at the soul that’s inside her body, the soul is hers.
There’s no question of it. It truly is Mother. She’s truly here.
And yet she can’t be.
No matter how much I want it to be, no matter how many hopeful scenarios I imagine, there’s no way that that’s Mother. Even though she smells so familiar, that wonderful musk of flowers and cakes I know so well…. I take a trembling step toward her, stopping only when Keita and Britta stiffen even more, Ixa growling beside them.
“Mother?” I ask warily.
She nods, eyes filling with tears. “It’s me, Deka. I know it seems strange, but it is.”
Britta brandishes her war hammer. “I don’t know who or wha ye are,” she says threateningly, “but ye will leave that body right now. Ye will leave this place or we will hurt ye. Don’t make us hurt ye.”
Mother turns hastily to me. “Deka, I don’t know why I’m here, but I do know this. I have your kelai. Here.” As my friends and I tense, confused, she carefully bends toward the portion of her hair curled around her feet. Then she pulls out a very familiar black box from under it.
The moment she holds it up, an ocean of power washes over me.
If the remnants of my kelai I felt in Gar Fatu were a few rays of sunshine, this box is the sun itself, its warmth washing over me, filling me from the inside out. How I didn’t feel this before, I don’t know. It’s so all-encompassing now, it’s like a physical weight. It takes everything I have not to stagger under the sheer power of it.
“My kelai…,” I whisper, a thousand emotions running through me.
All my feelings are suddenly so intertwined, I don’t know how to separate one from the other. The only thing that’s clear is relief. After everything I’ve endured—all the battles I’ve fought—I’m finally within reach of the source of my power. All I have to do is take a few steps, and then I will have it—the thing that turns me into a god. That allows me to smite all the gods and finally bring peace to Otera. The thing that will keep me and my friends safe for infinity.
Except my feet won’t move.
“Deka,” Mother beckons hurriedly again, offering me the box. “This belongs to you. It’s everything you’ve been searching for.”
But my heart is now pounding so swiftly, I can scarcely breathe. A cold sweat mists over me, adding to my confusion. Why aren’t I taking the box out of her hand?
“Deka, are ye all right?” Britta whispers as she glances back at me.
I force myself to nod. To calm my whirling thoughts. I exhale again, slowly this time, forcing myself to breathe out every thought, every worry. Once my mind is completely clear again, I turn to Mother. Or rather, the person my body does not think is her.
“Explain,” I say swiftly. “If you truly are my mother, you will explain how you came to be here.”
“It was the Idugu,” Mother replies without hesitation. “They stole through the shadow vale into the Hall of the Gods after you left, and took my spirit. I woke up here and all those jatu were waiting around me.” She shudders as she points at the corpses. “They were saying such awful things, how they were going to serve as vessels for the Idugu, how the Idugu planned to use me to bargain away your life.
“My life for yours, that was the deal those gods meant to strike with you.”
Mother shakes her head grimly, her expression so familiar now, my heart twinges. “They forgot that I was a Shadow before. That I was once a mistress of the sword. How foolish they were. But that is a mistake they’ll never make again.” She offers the box to me once more. “Take this, hurry now! There’s no time to waste, pet, else the Idugu will return with reinforcements.”
At her words, every muscle in my body stiffens. “Pet?” I ask quietly, all my suspicions now confirmed.
“What?” The woman standing in front of me frowns in confusion.
“You called me pet.” I unsheathe my atikas as I walk forward, a quiet coldness sweeping over me. She’d been doing so well, this impostor…oh so well mimicking Mother. But that last slip, it was too egregious to overlook. “Mother—my real mother—would never call me that. But you’re not her, are you?” When she just blinks, I point my atikas. “You must be very desperate, Etzli, to use my mother’s body as your vessel.”
To her credit, the goddess doesn’t even bother denying it.
The moment I say the words, a change comes over her, Mother’s skin taking on that golden gleam I’ve become so intimately familiar with, her eyes becoming that consuming, overwhelming white. When she speaks now, her hair writhes around her, the same way Etzli’s vines used to move whenever I entered the Chamber of the Goddesses back in Abeya.
“But you can’t open the box by yourself, can you? I have to do it. At least, if I’m alive, I have to.”
“Clever, clever Deka,” Etzli says, her voice returned to the divine resonance I remember well. “You always were too clever for your own good.”
“And you were always too greedy for yours,” I return, keeping a wary eye on the hair slithering around my feet like vines. “How did you get in here? Slip into Mother’s body while the other gods were at war?” I remember now, noticing how there were only two Gilded Ones, but three Idugu standing in the city.
I nod, understanding. “You came before Okot could place the arcane jewel. That’s how you were able to emerge here while the other gods cannot.”
“A stroke of luck on my part,” Etzli admits. “Or perhaps even foresight.” There’s a gloating tone to her words. Etzli always did like hearing herself speak.
“So what was the plan? I open the box and you take my kelai at the moment of absorption?”
“Indeed.” The goddess inclines her head.
“And the others are just all right with you doing so?” As I speak, I sneak a glance at my companions. They’re all slowly and surely backing away from me, headed to different corners of the room—even Ixa, who I’m now mentally sending very specific instructions.
All of them are preparing.
If we can’t use doors in here, we have to make a different plan. Have to improvise. After all, it will take time for the Idugu to return with their troops—time Etzli will use to enforce her will. I slip one hand behind my back, using battle language to signal my intentions to my friends.
We incapacitate her, take the box, and then run,I say, all the while keeping my eyes on Etzli, who’s still speaking.
“They are occupied imbuing me with enough power for this task,” she says haughtily.
“You mean they’re opening up vales and eating everyone in them so they can feed you.” Foreboding trickles up my spine. No wonder Etzli seems so confident. Hui Li and Beda are using this battle to feed her. Which means she’s likely the most powerful god in Otera at the moment. She might not even be affected by the arcane jewel’s power.
The goddess shrugs. “My sisters understand the importance of my task.”
As she speaks, something flits past her, so swift, it’s barely noticeable. A small blue bird. A nightflyer. Ixa.
I keep talking so Etzli remains engaged. “And what about Anok?”
The word causes the goddess to bristle, her hair spiking and jolting all around her. At this point, she’s taken over Mother’s body so completely, I barely even recognize it anymore. The sight has my fury rising even higher. After everything she’s already done to me, Etzli has the nerve, the gall, to use Mother’s body as her puppet.
The very first thing I will do when I become a god is destroy Etzli. Everything turns cold inside me as I make this decision. I will burn her to a crisp before her sisters’ eyes, watch them despair the way I have despaired. But I have to wait for the perfect opportunity. Ixa is still flitting carefully closer to the box clutched in Etzli’s hands. To act too rashly now will cost not only me but everyone else in Otera our lives.
“Do not dare speak the name of that traitor to me!” Etzli hisses, forcing my attention back to her.
“Traitor?” I tap my lips. “I thought she was your sister. If you’re going to be feeding the others my kelai, it stands to reason she’ll be eating as well. She’ll become just as powerful as the rest of you.”
“All the good it’ll do her,” Etzli humphs. “She’ll remain caged as she is for eternity, imprisoned in her own darkness.” Now Etzli turns to me, a cruel smile twisting her lips. “Imagine what that means for a god. We are the Eternal Ones. We are unending, undying.”
“Such cruelty I could never imagine,” I say softly.
“Is it cruelty or fairness?” Etzli returns. “She intended the same for us.”
“She intended to end you. Return you to the cosmos before you end the world.”
“Foolish girl,” Etzli sniffs. “Once we have your power, we will build a new world. One of complete worship, complete devotion. Never again will our worshippers question our existence. They will know from the moment they’re born until the moment they die that we are their mothers. And you will give us the power to do so. Come here, Deka!”
A strand of hair hurtles at me.
As I dodge, a bright blue body darts past Etzli, snatching the box. “Ixa, this way!” I shout, racing for the door as he flies in my direction.
But before I can reach, a mass of hair slams it shut with a resounding boom, its tips turning gold, as do all the other portions of the strands. They all change so completely, I can’t even call them hair anymore. They are living vines, golden vines, all connected to Etzli.
And they’re all instruments of her will.
“You will not escape from this room, Deka,” Etzli roars. “Not using this door or any other.” As I watch, horrified, the goddess covers the blue jewel beside the door with another mass of vines, protecting it from any interference as she rises into the air, her body pushed up by yet another grouping of vines.
The lengthy strands all work in concert, slithering together until they’re indistinguishable from the vines of blood-eaters she used to the same effect in Abeya.
“Did you think it would be so easy?” Etzli asks, absently backhanding Kweku when he rushes her, sword in hand. She does the same with Belcalis, who valiantly tries to ambush her from the back. “Did you think I did not prepare for you and all your little tricks?”
Keita blasts a column of flame at her, but it dies the moment it nears her body.
The goddess smirks. “You can’t burn what’s been blessed by the celestial.”
“At a high enough temperature, I can,” Keita replies grimly, the fire burning in his eyes again.
I cheer him on as I again try to rush for the door. “Burn her to a crisp, Keita!” I shout. “Let this place be her pyr—”
A belt of vines snaps around my waist, yet more golden strands threading up my feet and hands. They’re impenetrable, refusing to bend no matter how much I pull. “Oh, Deka…,” Etzli tuts as if amused. “Ever so sentimental, planning a funeral for your mother’s body. But not while I’m inhabiting it.”
“Then we just have to get you out, don’t we,” I shout back, ripping at the golden vines, which slither and lash around the room like snakes, seeking out my friends.
Britta screams as she’s lifted into the air, and so do the twins and Li beside her. Only Katya, Rian, Belcalis, and Acalan remain unencumbered—Katya because she’s too fast as she runs across the walls, dodging the vines, and Rian because he just stands there, frozen in fear. Belcalis, on the other hand, tries to continue running but is swiftly caught, as is Acalan, who’s tossed halfway across the room when he tries to help her.
All the while, the vines continue growing over my friends. Coiling tighter and tighter.
“Deka,” Britta shouts, pulling at them. “Wha do we do?” For every vine she rips out, another replaces it.
“Anything you can!” I shout to her. “Don’t hold back!”
“GOT IT!” Britta says, both she and Li inhaling at the same time.
I immediately feel the power gathering. The ground suddenly erupts with a boom, gigantic metal spires ramming toward Etzli. Except, the goddess is no longer there. She’s up in the air, her vines slithering so seamlessly underneath her, it’s as if she’s floating. When another metal spire thrusts her way, she pivots to face Britta and Li.
“Sleep now,” she says, snapping her vines at them. They immediately slither up Britta’s and Li’s mouths and nostrils. And as I watch, terror rising inside me, yet more vines thread out through their eye sockets.
Then their bodies start turning gold.