Redemptor Read online

  Adukeh stiffened beneath my touch, clearly struggling not to recoil. I sighed and released her, and she backed away, shaking her head.

  “Ap-pologies, Lady Empress. I d-don’t mean to b-be ungrateful. B-But—but—” She scowled at her feet. “D-Don’t take my m-memories. P-Please. N-Not ever.”

  “It wouldn’t be all of them, Adukeh. Just the bad ones.”

  “N-No!” She pressed her lips together. “B-Begging your pardon, Lady Empress.”

  I leaned back, frowning. “But you could have your voice back.”

  She clutched her grandmother’s drum. “B-But . . . what good is a v-voice with no st-story to tell?”

  Her words gave me pause. I blinked, considering, but before I could internalize what she’d said, the double doors of the bedchamber burst open.

  Alive? Tell us!

  Aheh, alive and well!

  I’m sick of Risings, I Ray-spoke to Dayo as we were primped and serenaded. Colorful geles bobbed around the room as courtiers bickered over the right to tie a sash or polish a slipper. I’m sick of everything. I’m still no closer to anointing my own council, and—I bit my lip. I never should have let those rulers into my head.

  Tar . . . are you all right? Dayo’s large dark eyes locked on my face, narrowing with concern. How could you think that? You’ve already accomplished more than anyone could have dreamed. Chief Uriyah has grown to like you, and that’s saying something. Back in Blessid Valley, I hear he’s called Uri the Droner. Not even his own grandchildren make him smile as often as you.

  “But it’s not enough!” I said aloud, ignoring the confused glances of courtiers. My head was pounding—the light streaming through my bedroom windows sent daggers of pain behind my eyes. “Those rulers have to love me, or this is all pointless. I’m running out of things to show them, Dayo. I’ve inhaled so much kuso-kuso that my urine is turning green, and I’m fed up, and it doesn’t help that I can’t get a moment of peace and quiet in this place—”

  The entire bedchamber fell silent, and only then did I realize I was yelling. The flock of courtiers, attendants, and children froze in place, exchanging looks.

  I winced. “Apologies.” I flashed a terse smile. “Too much pepper stew at breakfast.”

  Nervous laughter rippled through the room. Slowly, the courtiers resumed their chants and bickering. But Dayo chewed his lip with concern.

  You aren’t well, he Ray-spoke. Tar . . . what’s going on? Is it the ojiji again? We should take you to a priest. A shaman healer.

  A sea of small, dirt-smeared faces swam in the air above him.

  Don’t tell him. He doesn’t understand. And he’s busy; you’re enough of a burden already. Don’t tell him. Don’ttellDon’ttellDon’ttell . . .

  I swallowed hard. If I told Dayo how often I now saw the ojiji, he would beg me to rest. To stop my sessions with the vassal rulers, my preparations for the Pinnacle. And if I slowed down, I wouldn’t anoint a council in time for the abiku. More children would die.

  To rest was to fail.

  “I’m fine.” I flashed a smile at Dayo, then turned to accept my slippers from a courtier, thus ending the tiresome Rising ceremony. But when I saw who attended me, I recoiled in surprise.

  Lady Adebimpe of House Oyega knelt before my dais, holding out my slippers, eyes fixed mutely on the floor. Her once lustrous dark skin had paled, as though she hadn’t oiled it in days. The fat had vanished from her face and arms, leaving her sickly, and most alarmingly . . . her head was bare.

  “Thank Am you are alive and well, Imperial Majesty,” she mumbled, without a trace of her trademark irony.

  Weeks after the attempt on my life, the number of courtiers attending my Rising had strangely doubled. Despite mocking me in the hallways less than a month ago, now ladies from the highest-ranking houses in Oluwan stumbled over one another to fetch my clothing, glaring at whoever reached me first. Until now, I had ignored this mysterious new attentiveness, chalking it up to some new noble game, a trend that would pass with the reason. But Adebimpe’s presence gave me pause.

  What, in Am’s name, would possess the most fashionable blueblood in An-Ileyoba to attend my Rising without a gele?

  “You’re in mourning,” I observed after a speechless few seconds. Red leather bands adorned Adebimpe’s arms. She touched them, nodding woodenly.

  “Yes, Lady Empress. You may—have heard. My betrothed died yesterday. An accident. Unexpected.”

  “Oh. I’m . . . so sorry. What a terrible loss.”

  She continued to hold out the slippers. I nodded awkwardly, and pity knotted my stomach as she bent over my feet, humbly securing each shoe.

  “Um . . . you don’t have to be here, you know,” I said. “During mourning, it’s customary to leave court. Why don’t you take a break? Get some rest?”

  Adebimpe’s pupils dilated. For the first time, she fixed them on mine, and I saw that shadows pooled beneath her eyes. “Are you sending me away, Lady Empress?” she whispered.

  “What? No. I just . . .” I noticed then that she was trembling from head to foot, a subtle, constant shiver.

  Is she ill? Dayo Ray-spoke with alarm.

  I’m not sure, I replied. It’s almost like she’s seen a ghost.

  Adebimpe rose quickly to her feet and cleared her throat. “My father sent me here,” she stammered. “Not just for the Rising. To serve you, Lady Empress. Lord Oyega would be honored for you to accept me as one of your personal attendants.”

  My eyebrows shot up to my hairline. The Oyegas had been one of the largest noble families to gain their wealth from the mine at Olojari. Why would they want to gift me anything, let alone a high-ranking lady?

  “He makes this offer as an apology,” Adebimpe explained, twisting the bangles on her tapered dark arms. “For all of the . . . inconveniences you’ve faced as empress.”

  I blinked, speechless.

  “By inconvenience,” I said presently, “do you mean the attempt on my life?”

  Adebimpe’s mouth opened, then closed, like a fish above water. “I only want to serve,” she rasped. “Please, Lady Empress. Consider my request.”

  She could be trying to get closer to me. To snuff out my life in private, after the failed attempt at the Watching Wall.

  But I wasn’t so sure. Because when I looked into Adebimpe’s eyes, all I saw was cold, primal fear.

  “I don’t really need more attendants,” I told her, after a dazed pause. “And Adebimpe . . . you don’t look well.”

  “I’m fine,” she snapped, shrill with desperation. “Truly. I may be thin, but I’m strong enough to serve you, Lady Empress. My family has connections in the garment district. I can fetch you new wrappers. Fold your geles in the latest fashions . . . the other court ladies will despair of your beauty; look—” She seized a starched square of gele cloth from one of my wardrobe baskets. But before she could begin to fold, another blueblood girl snatched the cloth, cradling it to her chest and dancing out of Adebimpe’s reach.

  “I can do it better, Your Imperial Majesty,” she gasped. “Adebimpe’s too slow. If you pick me for your retinue, House Ibadan will supply you with jewels from all over the empire—”

  “No, me,” snarled a girl, wrestling the gele away. “My family’s richer. House Olabisi will serve the empress better than Ibadan ever could—”

  “Give it back!” Adebimpe screeched at them both, diving for the cloth . . . and too late, I heard the hiss of ripping fabric.

  The girls froze, each clutching a piece of bright green gele.

  I groaned internally. Whatever unusual game these courtiers were playing, I didn’t have time to referee. Not with rulers to anoint, and alagbatos to appease, and a mob of ojiji to satisfy. A new headache began to blossom. Instinctively, my hand flew up to my temple.

  And at that small gesture, Adebimpe collapsed to the floor, hyperventilating with sobs.

  “Am’s Story,” I swore, alarmed. “I wasn’t about to strike you.”

  But the lady di
dn’t seem to hear me. She cowered at my feet, holding a woven grass fan in front of her face as if for protection. “Don’t look at me,” she whimpered. “Please, Lady Empress. Don’t curse me with your evil eye. My family begs for forgiveness—”

  “What in the Twelve Realms are you talking about?” Dayo asked with a nervous laugh. “Evil eye? Is that the newest silly rumor they’re spreading about Tar?”

  Adebimpe ignored him, continuing to wail. “We’ll never plot against you again, Lady Empress. I swear. House Tunji was foolish to hire the Jujoka. My family severed my engagement to Banjoko Tunji as soon we knew. We were barely involved, truly. I . . . I know we should have warned you, but it’s over now. No more plots. We swear—”

  My blood ran cold. Jujoka. Adebimpe had named that secret guild of assassins—the one Captain Bunmi had held responsible for the attempt on my life.

  Adebimpe reached out a shaking, bony hand, attempting to touch the hem of my wrapper, but recoiled when one of my Guard warriors reached for his weapon.

  “You don’t have to keep hurting us, Lady Empress,” she whispered. “We’ve learned our lesson. Banjoko’s death was punishment enough . . . But when the others started disappearing—Lord Oyelana of House Ibadan, Lady Doyin of House Silva—all three heirs of House Ayodeji . . . we knew we had to make amends. That you h-hear everything. That whatever we say, even in secret . . . your s-servants are in the ground. Listening.”

  My servants. Instantly I was back at the Watching Wall, frozen as that pack of dirt-caked creatures scaled the high-rise walls. The ojiji appeared to me often, as ghosts, but had only assumed corporeal form twice—during the Emperor’s Walk and at Thaddace’s murder. Slowly, I remembered flashes of Sanjeet’s warning in the dream.

  Ojiji—noble families—danger.

  I had thought the danger was for me. But I had not been the ojiji’s target.

  “The creatures ripped my fiancé limb from limb,” Adebimpe said, staring in the distance at something only she could see. “My strong Banjoko. He—he was training in spearwork in the garden when those . . . things . . . came up from the ground. Children. Clawing through the dirt like beasts. They were gone as quickly as they came. And within days, any other courtier who had dared plot against you—even casually, or as a passing joke . . . they were gone too.”

  Slowly, every other blueblood in the chamber sank to their knees, babbling as they pressed their brows to the floor.

  Forgive us, Lady Empress . . . my family had nothing to do with it . . . we’ll make amends. More riches than you could ever . . . promise, just let us . . . don’t take my brothers. They’re all I have—

  I pressed my fists to my pounding forehead, leaning against a wall for support. “You’re dismissed,” I rasped. “All of you.”

  If they heard me, they did not react, continuing to beg and wail.

  “Please be quiet,” I groaned, and when that didn’t work, anger surged through me. “I said be quiet!”

  My mask thrummed with heat, and the room fell deathly still. Breathing hard, I regained my balance, staring down at the crown of dumbstruck ladies.

  “Adebimpe,” I said, my voice still resonant with power, “if you are to attend me, you must change your reputation at court. No more tricks. No more coalitions with other bullies. Instead . . .” I sighed, gazing at the trembling girls behind her. “Find the weakest players at court. The ones that are poor, or plain, or unpopular. Lift them up, just because you can. For Am’s sake—it shouldn’t be so hard to be kind now and then. Can you handle, that Adebimpe?”

  She nodded woodenly, as if in a trance. The mask on my chest cooled.

  “Then you may attend me,” I said. “But for now . . . you all are dismissed. I need to rest.”

  Reluctantly, the courtiers wobbled to their feet, backing out of the room in a hushed exodus. But Adebimpe paused at the door, meeting my eyes with a deep, terrible emotion I’d never seen on her before.

  Reverence.

  “Thank you for letting us cleanse our names, Lady Empress,” she said. She sounded almost childlike. “For letting us please the gods. If we ever doubted that you had the Ray before . . .” She swallowed hard. “Well. We don’t doubt it now.”

  CHAPTER 19

  “Too tight, your imperial majesty?” Adebimpe asked A week later.

  We sat side by side on my sleeping dais, as the moon cast silvery light into the bedchamber. For the past hour, her fingers had danced across my scalp, sectioning the hair in neat rows and saturating each tuft with soothing aloe water. Now she applied a fragrant pomade, twisting strands together with blurring speed.

  “It’s fine,” I mumbled. “Thank you.”

  “Your curl pattern will be exquisite when we take these out,” she sighed. Then, to my surprise, she picked up a wooden brush to tidy my edges . . . and snapped the brush, one-handed, in two. She tsked, tossing away the pieces. “Silly me. Sometimes I don’t know my own strength.”

  I turned to stare at her. “Does that happen . . . often?”

  She shrugged serenely. “All nobles are strong, Lady Empress. It’s in our blood.”

  She held up an ivory hand mirror. Dozens of damp, shoulder-length twists bounced around my shoulders, glistening with perfumed oil. “You can wear the twists down tomorrow. We’ll hang the ends with ornaments. I found these at the old city market. Much better than those trashy imports I’ve been seeing around court, if you don’t mind my saying, Lady Empress.” She opened a wooden box. It was inlaid with ivory, and filled to the brim with colorful wooden beads and cowrie shells.

  Didn’t she used to hate you? Dayo’s voice sounded in my mind. The whole time, he had been hovering nearby on a divan, pretending to read a scroll. There had been no more attempts on my life since the night of the Watching Wall. But Dayo still felt nervous about leaving me alone with bluebloods.

  She did, I Ray-spoke back. But not anymore.

  I examined Adebimpe curiously. Since her nervous collapse on my bedroom floor, she appeared to have transformed completely—no longer the haughty, sneering beauty from the palace corridors, snickering behind her woven grass fan. Instead, I’d caught her floating through the crowd at court gatherings, welcoming shyer noble girls into gossip and conversation. I’d even seen her defend a servant once.

  Adebimpe wrapped my hair in a silk scarf and bid me good night. But before she left, I called out, “Adebimpe . . .” I chewed my lip, eyeing her eager face. “You don’t have to work so hard to please me, you know. You just lost your fiancé.” I thought briefly of how it felt when my mother died—how exhaustion had clouded every day. “I know how it feels to grieve.”

  She cocked her head. “Lady Empress . . . I didn’t love my fiancé, you know.”

  I blinked, taken aback. “Oh. But you seemed so aggrieved. I mean, earlier—”

  “Oh, I used to think I loved Banjoko,” she said, waving a hand. “The blueblood power was strong in his veins. He used to slay hyenas with his bare hands. But the longer I’ve had to think about it . . . I don’t actually think I wanted to marry him.” Her eyes rose to mine. “I had wanted to be him. Powerful. Untouchable. Like a warrior, or a god. Like . . . you, Lady Empress.”

  I realized then, watching her shining gaze, that Adebimpe’s new devotion was genuine. She respected me—thought I was some sort of goddess, not a seventeen-year-old girl who barely knew what she was doing. But I knew I wasn’t worthy—the ojiji had made that clear. I had so much more to do. I wasn’t enough.

  Stop it, I wanted to tell Adebimpe. Stop looking at me like that.

  But she didn’t, continuing to smile at me beatifically as she took her leave, backing out of the room.

  “It just feels wrong,” I told Dayo. “I mean, obviously I’m glad the nobles aren’t trying to kill me anymore. But now they’re all terrified. This isn’t how I wanted to win.”

  Dayo joined me on the bed, slinging an arm around me. “Maybe it’s like Ai Ling said: Some people only love who they fear.” He frowned at the floor.
“I didn’t agree with most of what my father told me when he was alive. But one thing he said made sense: You don’t get to choose why people love you. But what you do with the love you receive . . . that’s a choice you make every day.”

  My head against his, we lay together as the moon sank in the arched windows. In the citrus-scented night breeze, my oil lamps sputtered, sending dancing shadows up the walls.

  “I wish Adebimpe could be like me,” I said suddenly. “I wish I could share my Ray. Or at least a piece of it.”

  Dayo’s brows shot into his hairline. “It’s a nice thought,” he said slowly. “But would that be wise? Adebimpe and her family tried to kill you.”

  “My mother tried to kill you,” I pointed out, propping myself up on one arm. “So did your father. But the Ray chose them anyway. And the more I learn, the more I think the only decent way to use power is to share it with others. Maybe there shouldn’t be rulers—at least, not in the way we think. Maybe emperors—and kings, and queens, and Raybearers—should just be people who make sure power flows to everyone.”

  “Sounds nice,” Dayo said, yawning. “But Ai Ling always says that for an empire to run, someone has to be in charge.”

  I shot him a measured look. “You quote Ai Ling a lot these days.”

  He blinked sleepily. “Do I?”

  “No matter what we talk about,” I said, poking his ribs. “It’s always, ‘Ai Ling said this,’ and ‘Ai Ling thinks that . . . ’ ” I cocked my head. “Something you want to tell me, Dayo?”

  He chewed on his lip. “Ai Ling gives good advice.”

  “She’s pretty too,” I coaxed. “And smart. And more selfless than people give her credit for.”

  “So what? You’re smart and pretty too.”

  “I saw you at the Peace Banquet,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You’ve never danced with me the way you did with Ai Ling.”