Redemptor Page 2

  They held each other through the bars, and I realized with frustration that their features were resigned. They were giving up. They were saying goodbye.

  “Laws aren’t everything,” I blurted, stamping my foot like a child. “Even if they keep empires running. Order is not enough.”

  Thaddace turned to me in surprise, raising an eyebrow. “Unwise words from Aritsar’s new High Lady Judge,” he said dryly. “You’re still in charge of court cases, you know—even as Empress Redemptor.”

  I barely heard him. The tritoned voice from the shrine at Sagimsan rang in my ears, warming every limb. I had never told anyone what had happened that day—when a spirit spoke to mine on the hillside, propelling me on Hyung’s back toward what I thought was certain death. I barely understood it myself. Even now, a fearful thrill shot through my veins as I stammered those words—the ones that had carried me across lodestones.

  “ ‘Do not ask how many people you will save,’ ” I said. “‘Ask, To what world will you save them?’ What makes a world worth surviving in?” I nodded at Thaddace’s and Mbali’s hands. “Well . . . what if it’s this, Anointed Honors? What if?”

  Thaddace scanned Mbali’s face, drinking her in. Cracks grew in his suicidal resolve.

  “Thaddace of Mewe,” I said. “I order you to escape this tower.”

  He blinked at me in surprise, but I only smiled. “Obey your empress, Anointed Honor.” I cocked my head. “You wouldn’t want to break the law, would you?”

  CHAPTER 2

  Thaddace of mewe laughed: a desperate, rasping sound that dissolved into coughs.

  “Stand back,” he managed at last, and the iron lock on the grate began to smolder, melting in on itself until the door creaked open. Thaddace gathered Mbali to his chest, gasping beneath her torrent of kisses.

  “I’m sorry,” he mumbled against her neck. “I’ve been a fool.”

  “My fool,” Mbali agreed. Kirah and I looked awkwardly at our sandals, and after several moments, the former Anointed Ones seemed to remember they weren’t alone. Thaddace glanced at me over Mbali’s head. “Well, incorrigible one? What next?”

  “Change into these,” I ordered, pulling an Imperial Guard uniform and dust mask from the bundle on my back. “Then we’ll have to split up. Groups of two are less conspicuous.”

  As he changed, I listened at the landing. My pulse hammered when I heard the squeak of a cart, a muffled thump at the bottom of the stairs, and the pattering away of anxious footsteps.

  “That was the drop,” I ordered, “Sanjeet said he’d leave a decoy body. Kirah, Anointed Honor Mbali—can you handle dragging the corpse up to the landing?” They nodded. “Good. Once you’ve brought it up, dress it in Thaddace’s clothes. Use the torches to set it on fire, so it looks like a dishonor killing. Then get out of here as fast as you can. By then, Thaddace and I should have reached the palace gates.”

  Kirah winced. “What if you get stopped?”

  “We’re leaving the palace, not entering. They won’t have reason to search us thoroughly.”

  “Still”—Kirah gestured at the sinister charms and holy water vials dangling from my belt—“make sure the guards see those. And the marks on your sleeves. It’s bad luck to touch a birinsinku who has just delivered last rites. Or at least, that’s what people believe.” She smiled thinly. “Let’s hope those guards are superstitious.”

  Thaddace planted a last, lingering kiss on Mbali’s full lips, beaming as she murmured against him: “A world worth surviving in.”

  His green gaze darted across her face. “Almost there,” he said. Then my old mentor took my ringed hand in his sunburned one, and we disappeared down the landing stairs.

  An-Ileyoba was waking up, and the halls had grown dangerously crowded. Courtiers shot curious looks at the masked Imperial Guard and veiled birinsinku woman hurrying through the passageways. My heart hammered.

  “We’ll head through the residential wing and cut around to the back gates,” I told Thaddace, keeping my head down. “Fewer witnesses.”

  I guessed correctly: The palace bedrooms were sparsely populated, and we were able to run without drawing attention. Just a few more corridors and we’d be outside. Then Thaddace would be through the gates, and I would have one less horror, one less death on my conscience.

  “It’s almost over,” I breathed, and then we rounded a corner. A single child stood in the center of the hallway . . . and I gasped in pain.

  The Redemptor glyphs on my arms burned, glowing bright blue.

  “Greetings, Anointed Honors,” the boy monotoned.

  At first glance, I would have said the child was a ghost. But he was flesh, not spirit, feet planted firmly on the ground. Ten, perhaps eleven years old, with matted straight hair and pale skin like Thaddace’s. The strength of the boy’s Mewish accent surprised me. The cold, green kingdom of Mewe was thousands of miles north of Oluwan, but most realms weakened their regional dialects in favor of the imperial tongue, for fear of sounding like country bumpkins. This boy sounded like he had never seen an imperial city in his life. Most confusingly . . . Redemptor birthmarks covered his body. Unlike mine, his glistened purple—the mark of Redemptors who had satisfied their debt to the Underworld.

  “Y-you are mistaken,” I stammered. “We are not Anointed Ones. I’m a birinsinku.” The veil hung thickly over my head and shoulders. This boy couldn’t know who we were. Well . . . the marks glowing through my robe might give me away. But Thaddace’s mask was still in place. Either way, we needed to keep moving. I advanced briskly, intending to pass him, but the boy fell to his knees in front of Thaddace, staring up at him with translucent eyes.

  “Bless me,” he whispered. “Please.”

  “You’re being silly,” I snapped at the child, beginning to panic as the boy clutched Thaddace’s tunic. “Let him go.”

  “Please—”

  “Shh!” Thaddace hissed, glancing around the empty hall. When no one came to investigate, Thaddace tried to shake the boy off, but the child began to wail: a high, keening sound.

  “I don’t like this,” I whispered.

  “Can’t be helped.” Thaddace shrugged and sighed. “Transitions of power are always hard on peasants. I’ll just give him what he wants.”

  Hair rose on the back of my neck. The child . . . smelled. Not like an unwashed body, but like earth and decay, or the rotting musk of burial mounds, steaming in wet season.

  Something was very, very wrong.

  Thaddace bent down, holding out his hand to touch the child’s head. “By the power of the Ray, formerly vested in me, I bless—”

  I heard the knife before I saw it. The scrape of metal against leather as the boy slipped it from his boot, and the soft, wet hiss as a line of crimson bloomed across Thaddace’s throat.

  My vision dimmed as blood soaked Thaddace’s collar, and he sputtered and gasped.

  “Run,” he told me, but my feet had lost all feeling.

  “Long live the Empress Redemptor,” Thaddace gurgled, hand locked around the boy’s wrist. With a stagger, Thaddace turned the knife back toward the child. The boy did not resist, eerily calm as his own blade impaled him.

  Then Thaddace collapsed on the tiles, dead before he hit the ground.

  I backed away, shivering from head to toe. No. Thaddace could not be dead. Thaddace was mine, and I was Tarisai Kunleo, and no one I loved would ever . . .

  The thought faded to white noise as the boy stood over Thaddace’s body, removing the knife in his own chest. He did not bleed.

  “You’re not human,” I whispered. “What are you?” He didn’t look like an abiku. No all-pupil eyes, no pointed teeth or ash-gray skin. Besides, the abiku did not kill humans unless the Treaty was breached, and I still had two years to make my sacrifice. So if not an abiku, then . . . what?

  The creature cocked his head. “I am your servant.”

  “You killed Thaddace.” The world was spinning. “Why? For Am’s sake, why?”

  “Thaddace of
Mewe murdered the late Emperor Olugbade,” the creature replied. “The Empress Redemptor was aiding a crown traitor.”

  “But it wasn’t his fault,” I sobbed. “My mother made him. Thaddace wasn’t going to die; I was going to save him—”

  “The empress must not engage in actions that damage her reputation,” the boy continued. “For our purposes, your image must remain unsullied. You must retain the trust of the Arit populace.”

  “Whose purposes?” I shrilled. “Who do you work for?”

  His childish features wrinkled, as though I had asked a question for which he had not been fed the answer. “I am your servant,” he repeated. “The empress must not . . .” He took a step forward. I fumbled for a weapon, but my hand found only the trinkets on my belt. With a cry, I unstoppered a vial of holy water and hurled its contents at the boy.

  The water would have dissolved an evil abiku, turning it to ash. But the boy merely flinched, staring emptily at his splattered clothes.

  “What are you?” I demanded again, seizing his shoulder and attempting to take his memories.

  For seconds, all I saw was a long, yawning void. I blinked—this had never happened before. Even babies had some memories, though fuzzy and disorganized. But after a moment, my Hallow managed to salvage the dimmest echo of a memory, lifting it to the surface.

  The boy stumbled back from my grasp, his gaze growing suddenly childlike. Unfocused . . . as though recalling a distant dream. “I’m,” he mumbled, “I’m called Fergus. I was born in Faye’s Crossing. Far north, in Mewe.”

  “Who do you work for? Who are your people?”

  The boy shook his head slowly. “My parents . . . went away. No. They died in battle. At Gaelinagh.”

  “Gaelinagh?” I echoed the foreign word, and battle records raced through my memories. “But that’s impossible. The Battle of Gaelinagh was a Mewish civil war, and they haven’t had one of those in centuries. Not since—”

  Disbelief stole the words in my throat.

  Peace had been established in Mewe five hundred years ago—during the reign of Emperor Enoba. Back when Redemptors were born all over the continent, and not just in Songland.

  The Mewish child was sinking before my eyes. The ground was—was swallowing him. My fingers grasped at his clammy pale skin, but my Hallow found nothing—only cold emptiness.

  What kind of creature had practically no memories at all?

  “Your map’s still blue,” he said. The monotone had returned, and he nodded absently at the symbols on my forearms. “It’ll go purple once you join us.” Then the ground closed over him. He vanished, leaving me alone with Thaddace’s body as a gaggle of courtiers rounded the corridor.

  CHAPTER 3

  “You can’t hide forever, you know,” said Kirah.

  “I’m not hiding,” I lied, humming with manic cheer as I swept through the gilded Imperial Suite hallways, balancing a sloshing tureen on one hip and a bundle of scrolls on the other. “I’m busy. You haven’t had your coneflower tea yet, have you?”

  “Tar.”

  “Can’t forget your tea. Temple duty tomorrow. The crowds will expect you to sing, and you’ll never heal all those people without drinking your—”

  “We’re going to be late,” Kirah said, in the same dire tone she used on stubborn camels.

  Several flights of stairs away, a festive commotion rumbled from the Imperial Hall. I pretended not to hear, inhaling the chatter of our council siblings instead. Their voices skittered, specter-like across the jewel-toned wall tiles. Griot voices undulated in the dark courtyards far below, and moonlight glowed through the halls of our council’s new home: the private Imperial Suite of An-Ileyoba.

  Five floors comprised our private wing of the palace. A labyrinth of gilded sandstone, the Imperial Suite was a castle in its own right, with a treasury, bathhouse, kitchens, salons, and sleeping chambers, crowned by a sprawling rooftop garden. Lurid green vines crept over the balustrades, hanging down to the open-air windows of our central apartments below. The vines flowered daily, coaxed to life by my council sister Thérèse’s Hallowed green thumb, and covering the suite with their hallucinatory perfume.

  Healers traditionally used kuso-kuso, the blossoms draping the suite walls, as a dreaming aid. But Thérèse altered the plant to heighten our senses. The scent extended the power of our Ray bond, allowing my siblings to move through the suite in a haze of constant intimacy, even when rooms apart. Unfortunately, kuso-kuso also strengthened my Hallow . . . and every stool, vase, and gilded divan hummed with the memories of previous Anointed Ones, including the ones who had wanted me dead. For days, I had wielded my Hallow like a scouring brush, cleansing the suite furniture of memories until my temples burned.

  Gauzy mosquito netting wafted over corridor windows, lifting in the warm night breeze, and grazing my cheek as I passed.

  Usurper, whispered a disembodied memory. Where is she. Where is she, whereisshe . . .

  I shuddered, hurrying past. Dayo’s father used to pace the suite hallways, ranting about my mother. I’d have to cleanse the netting later.

  “Tar.” Kirah trotted to keep up with me. “I know you’re still upset about Thaddace. But you’ve barely left the suite in a week.”

  My council siblings knew what had happened to Thaddace, and we had opted to keep the undead phantom boy a secret. With the court still unsettled by my promise to the abiku, rumors of Underworld creatures haunting An-Ileyoba Palace were the last thing my reputation needed.

  Sanjeet and his best warriors had scoured the grounds day and night. I had rifled through the memories of every potential witness, searching for clues. But the search proved fruitless: The mysterious Mewish boy seemed to have worked entirely alone.

  “We’re doing all we can to find Thaddace’s killer,” Kirah went on. “But the more you hide, the worse people will gossip. Besides . . . what will all the vassal rulers think if you’re late to your own banquet?”

  “Silly me,” I chattered, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Of course you haven’t had your tea. The garden’s out of coneflowers, and Thérèse needs more seeds from Swana. I promised her I’d send for them . . .”

  Kirah planted herself in front of me, tendrils of hair escaping from her prayer scarf. “That banquet,” she puffed, “is happening whether you’re there or not. “How will Dayo convince those royal strangers to be your council siblings, all on his own?”

  “Ai Ling’s going,” I reminded Kirah, swooping around her. “She’s the new High Lady Ambassador. Handling the vassal rulers of each realm is her job.”

  “And your job,” she observed, “is to be empress of Aritsar.”

  Goat’s milk spilled from the tureen on my hip onto the floor. I groaned, mumbling, “I’ll mop that up.”

  “You’ve never mopped a single thing in your life.” Kirah pinched her nose with a delirious laugh. “You know what you have done before? Defied an immortal emperor to his face. You can do this, Tar. So send a servant for this mess, and get dressed for your party.”

  “Servants don’t like it in here,” I said evasively.

  Kirah’s cheeks flushed with frustration, but I was telling the truth. The crackling energy of Dayo’s Ray, heightened by kuso-kuso, sent our voices like ghostly whispers through the halls, setting palace staff on edge. As a result, few servants worked in the suite. But we Anointed Ones liked it that way, craving only one another for company. Still, the more ambitious attendants stuck around: courtiers, beauticians, hair braiders, and clothiers whiled away the hours in the suite’s anterooms, breathlessly waiting for Anointed Ones to make use of them. Whenever I left or entered the suite, servants started in eager attention.

  But I hadn’t left the suite’s inner sanctum in days. No doubt the attendants had noticed, fueling the gossip already ringing from every rafter in the palace.

  The Empress Redemptor is a murderer.

  “Your hair’s not even done.” Kirah trailed me with difficulty, restricted by her formal High Priestess garme
nts. She wore a jade tunic and matching headscarf, trimmed in the silver coins of her home realm, Blessid Valley. In contrast, I wore only a linen undershift and sandals, my cloud of coils wrapped haphazardly in a black silk sleeping scarf.

  “Dayo’s dressed already,” Kirah continued. “He’ll—”

  She broke off as I turned into one of the suite’s spacious bedrooms.

  A cacophony of thoughts had seeped into the hallway, crackling through the Ray before I even parted the door flap. But I still gasped, scrambling for a grip on the milk as six bodies, chests rising and falling in Ray-synced unison, shone from behind an embroidered mosquito canopy. Kameron, Theo, Mayazatyl, Umansa, Zathulu, and Emeronya lay crammed together on a downy bed pallet. Each person rested on someone else’s stomach or cradled another’s face. The dappled tones of their skin glowed in the flickering sconce light.

  I nearly dropped the pile of scrolls. “Ah.” I cleared my throat, voice unnaturally high. “Sorry to interrupt.”

  My council brother Kameron laughed, sliding his pale freckled body from beneath Theo’s. “Don’t apologize,” he said in his thick Mewish brogue. “It was rude of us to have our mental shields down. I’m guessing our thoughts were pretty loud?”

  “Welcome to join in,” crooned my Quetzalan council sister, Mayazatyl, flopping so she grinned at me upside down. Her silky twin braids dangled over the bedside. “You too, Kirah.”

  I rolled my eyes, and Kirah’s face flushed red.

  When we first moved into the suite, the private bedchambers had shocked me. In the past, my siblings and I had slept shoulder to shoulder in the Children’s Palace’s Hall of Dreams, or in a pile on the Yorua Keep floor. All the better to ward off council sickness: the fever and slow madness that plagued Anointed Ones when we separated for more than an hour. It also made us less likely to sneak off for romantic trysts, knowing we’d have to risk waking the others.