Redemptor Page 6

  The faces around the table grew still, stunned and thoughtful. My heart surged with hope—and then a cold, breathy voice asked:

  “What if we can’t love you?”

  Blue eyes framed in crow’s-feet peered at me from beneath a fringe of straw-colored curls. Queen Beatrix of Nontes fluttered two lace fans, an affectation of distress. “I mean no offense,” she mewled. “But in order to accept the Ray, we have to love you, yes? The trouble is—I find it much easier to have respect for men. I do not get along with girls. Women together, we are . . . ” Queen Beatrix gestured airily around the table, though her fan stopped on me. “Irrational. Emotional. I can’t imagine ruling an empire with a woman. Let alone having one in my thoughts.”

  I took several deep breaths, blinking at her. “I . . . don’t understand, Your Majesty. You are a queen. And I’ve had girls in my head for years. Frankly, I couldn’t imagine ruling without them.”

  Beatrix looked doubtful. Ai Ling and Kirah made faces when the queen wasn’t looking, wiggling their eyebrows at me from across the table. I forgot to tell you, Ai Ling Ray-spoke gayly. Beatrix is one of those ladies. You know—the ones who think it’s sexy to have an inferiority complex. I stifled a snort, and my sisters’ laughter rang in my mind.

  I wished suddenly that Mayazatyl, Emeronya, and Thérèse could be here too. No—I wished that we were back at Yorua Keep, giggling on a sun-soaked beach, with no worries but our scrolls and riddle games, as we fed one another figs and cornrowed each other’s hair. I had the best sisters I could ever ask for.

  So how could I ever anoint someone like Beatrix?

  I sighed, praying to the Storyteller for patience, and forced a smile. “Love is complicated,” I told the Nontish queen. “All I ask, Your Majesty, is that you’re willing to try.”

  “But what if it’s impossible?” Beatrix pressed. “Impossible to love you?”

  My jaw ticked. But before I could say something I’d regret, Dayo made an announcement.

  “I have a theory,” he said grandly, while Ray-speaking privately: I have a surprise.

  My arm hair stood immediately on edge. Dayo had notoriously poor instincts for surprises. For my seventeenth birthday just last week, he had presented me with a pearl-pink albino baby elephant—an attempt to make up for all the years he had tried to make me forget about Swana.

  “It’s to remind you of the grasslands,” he had said eagerly. “Elephants have amazing memories, and you have your Hallow. You two are going to be best friends.”

  The calf had proceeded to escape its pen near the Imperial Suite, get high grazing on kuso-kuso, and break into the bathhouses, where it splashed muddily into a pool of screaming noblewomen. Last I’d heard, my new best friend had been penned in the northern palace orchards, giving the poor imperial orange-pickers gray hairs.

  But before I could interrogate Dayo further, he was addressing the entire Imperial Hall. “I’ve given a lot of thought to why Anointed Ones are so faithful,” he said. “So intimate with each other. It doesn’t make sense, when you think about it, right? Anointed Ones are strangers as children. They swear fealty to the Raybearer, not to each other. Yet in five hundred years of councils, Anointed Ones have never betrayed each other. Why?”

  After a pause, King Nadrej of Biraslov ventured in his guttural accent, “Fear of council sickness, of course.” The mustachioed king wrapped his fur-lined garments closer about him, which he had insisted on wearing even in the Oluwan heat.

  King Uxmal of Quetzala agreed, stroking jade crystal gages that hung low in each of his ears. Embedded crystals of turquoise and pyrite flashed in his teeth. “Any rivals would endure each other’s company, if the alternative was going mad.”

  “I don’t think that’s the answer,” Kirah said. “Forced companionship makes people hate each other as often as not.”

  “Then it’s because Anointed Ones share a common goal: to protect the Raybearer,” suggested Chief Uriyah, ruler of the Blessid Valley clans. “Just as we Blessids are many tribes, but we unite to preserve our way of life.”

  “But the Blessid nomads have more in common than just one goal,” Dayo replied. “You have customs. Religion, histories. Anointed Ones hail from different realms, often with conflicting cultures and values. So why do they love each other?”

  Silence spread across the table, and Dayo bounced on his heels with excitement.

  “It’s the Ray bond,” he announced. “Ray-speaking. Having someone else’s thoughts and desires feel like your own. If one person understands another completely—from their deepest pain to their most passing thought—I think they can’t help but love each other. I think . . .” Dayo gave me a small smile and shrugged, crinkling his burn scar. “When you take someone’s story as your own, it’s no different than loving yourself. Tarisai can’t Ray-speak with you yet. But she can share her memories. All of them.”

  Every bone in my body turned to ice.

  “It shouldn’t take more than a few weeks per person, I think,” Dayo went on brightly. “Her memories work like dreams, hours compressed down into seconds, and”—

  Are you out, I screeched at him through the Ray, of your yam-loving mind?

  —“though it might feel strange, once you get to know Tar . . .” He grinned. “You can’t help but love her.”

  Dayo, you’re going to get me killed. How can I show these people my memories? They hate me enough already!

  He blinked, confused at my distress. But it’s the only way. They can’t bond with you if you don’t open up a little.

  Open up? I was hyperventilating. Open up? Dayo, this won’t be like sharing a few secrets after a night of honeywine. This is my life. My whole life. I tried to murder you, for Am’s sake.

  They’ll know why you did it, though, Dayo protested. They’ll feel your love for your mother. Your love for me. Tar . . . your memories tell your story better than you ever could.

  My throat closed with fear. I won’t survive this, I thought numbly, and Ai Ling took my hand.

  Dayo, she Ray-spoke, you should have asked Tar first. Announcing it like this wasn’t fair. If she does this, there’s no going back.

  Dayo deflated with guilt, fumbling with the mask on his chest. You’re right. I’m sorry, Tar. I was just trying to help. He paused. But they don’t have to like you to love you, you know. They only have to understand.

  As I processed this, Ai Ling said aloud, “A good time to go around the table, I think.”

  She signaled to the attendants, who passed kola nuts to every ruler, and then held up the empty vessel. “If you accept the invitation of the emperor and empress to stay at An-Ileyoba and secure the future of Aritsar,” Ai Ling said, “then place your token in this bowl. Or, if you would rather risk a future of eternal child sacrifice, permanently interrupted trade, and another War of Twelve Armies against the Underworld . . . keep the token to yourself.”

  The air in the room chilled. But as I watched with both relief and terror, one by one, kola nuts dropped into the bowl.

  “Accept—accept—accept.”

  Reluctant words of assent from Min Ja, Uriyah, Helius, Sadhika, Ji Huan, Nadrej, Edwynn of Mewe, Danai, Kwasi of Nyamba, and Uxmal. Zuri threw in his kola nut with a flourish and a wink. Even Beatrix tossed hers in, with a haughty shrug.

  My banquet had been a success. But still my hands sweated, numb with fear. I may have promised to enter the Underworld . . . but nothing scared me more than the promise to which Dayo had bound me: exposing my ugliest memories to twelve complete strangers.

  CHAPTER 7

  Were it up to me, the night would have ended then, letting me escape this den of strangers to be with my council siblings, who would ply me with sweets and kisses, stories and honeywine. Instead, Ai Ling rose and dismissed the tables, gesturing for the court musicians to play . . . and the reveling portion of my Peace Banquet to begin.

  You realize those are dance accessories, right? Dayo Ray-spoke, nodding at my grass leg tassels with a mischievous smile. They�
��ll expect us to lead the first set.

  I will dance in front of these people, I replied testily, when it snows in the Blessid Desert.

  Everyone at court knew that I didn’t dance. Most girls from the center realms—Oluwan, Djbanti, Nyamba, and Swana—had been raised on festival drums and rhythm games, learning to bounce and wind while still babes tied to their mothers’ backs. But my world had been Bhekina House: dusty scrolls, plaster walls, and windows boarded up so tightly, no music bled through.

  Come on, Tar, Kirah chided, already on the arm of a Songlander dignitary. You made history tonight. Loosen up a little.

  Ai Ling sidled to my rescue, taking my place at Dayo’s side. “The Empress is recovering from an injury,” she announced to the court, tinting the words with a hint of her Hallow’s persuasive power. “She will not be joining the dancing tonight, and conveys her regrets.”

  I bowed serenely to the guests, tossed a grateful smile at Ai Ling, and retreated to watch the banquet from my throne, which stood on a dais overlooking the Imperial Hall.

  Traditional Oluwani dances were performed by groups or individuals—never in pairs, as was custom in the distant northern realms. As the empire had grown, however, Oluwan courtiers had adopted the ijo agbaye, a dance with elements from all over the empire, including individual partners.

  I winced as revelers took the floor. To this day, my council siblings teased me about the ijo agbaye. It was, famously, the only test I had ever failed as a Children’s Palace candidate.

  “Just give me a logic puzzle,” I had sputtered at age twelve in the Hall of Dreams, hot with humiliation after colliding with my partner for the fifth time. “I’ll behead sparring dummies. I’ll memorize every law in the Imperial Library. Just don’t—make me dance—again.”

  Still, as I watched revelers gyrate and twist from my throne on the Imperial Hall dais, longing pricked at my feet.

  Ai Ling and Dayo darted like revolving fireflies as they led the ijo agbaye, first dancing without touching, in the Oluwan style of outstretched arms and rolling hips. Then they danced together, Ai Ling’s hands on Dayo’s shoulders as he lifted her from the waist and spun. She threw back her head and laughed, hanfu sleeves streaming in pale peach ribbons as Dayo’s purple agbada swept the floor. Her hair hung loose to her waist. The front looped in a bun, glinting with pearl flowers and bead ornaments that jingled as she twirled in Dayo’s arms.

  My hips twitched absently, infected by the beat. For just a moment, I considered recovering miraculously from my illness and joining the dancers below, melting into the din of color and sound.

  But how can you celebrate?

  I jumped, pulse racing as my eyes searched the dais. The glyphs on my arms stung like acid. The lisping treble voice spoke at my ear . . . but no one was there. Then I saw it—barely visible in the bright light of the hall, a child stood. A Redemptor, like the one who had killed Thaddace—though this one hovered, an apparition whose features were so decayed, I could not guess its gender.

  “Are you all right, Your Imperial Majesty?” asked a fidgeting cupbearer, pausing on the steps to my dais. The servant had clearly approached out of concern, offering me a chalice of wine, though she knew decorum forbade me from drinking it. I rose from my seat and snatched it anyway, tense as a cornered hare.

  “Don’t you see it?” I hissed.

  The cupbearer opened her mouth, then closed it. “I . . .” She followed my gaze to the apparition, then said, her tone warily neutral, “What would you like me to see, Lady Empress?”

  The revelries continued around us. And with slow, cold dread, I realized that no one could see the child except me.

  I sat back down.

  You are not real, I thought at the child, trying not to hyperventilate. The boy who killed Thaddace was real, but you aren’t. I’m sick. After the banquet, I’ll have Kirah sing to me, and I’ll be healed, and you will go away.

  The apparition cocked its head as if I’d spoken aloud.

  It is true that I am not here, it said in a patient monotone. I am with the others. But I am real. You did not answer my question. How can you celebrate?

  Stop it, I thought, shaking my head over and over. Stop it. You’re not real.

  How can you celebrate? The creature repeated, hovering closer. How can you sip wine and throw parties, when so many of us have died? The child Redemptors that your empire murdered will never dance or sing again. Don’t you care?

  All of a sudden, the joyous banquet display, the whirlwind of light and color dimmed in my eyes. A wave of guilt crashed into me, overwhelming.

  “I’m sorry,” I breathed. “I—I know Aritsar has done wrong. I’m trying to fix it. That’s why I’m anointing Min Ja. That’s what this banquet is for.”

  The creature cocked its head, and for a moment, its icy aura crossed the dais, goose bumps traveled up my arms and neck. Then its voice roared in my ears.

  DO MORE, it said. Do more.

  And once again I was alone, as though the child had never been. I lifted the chalice to my lips, hands trembling as I gulped down its contents.

  “Er—more wine, Lady Empress?” the cupbearer squeaked, and I jumped.

  I had forgotten she was there. The color had drained from her face, and I realized with chagrin that she’d seen me talking to myself. I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. Well, half the court already thought me a witch. I supposed it was no different if they thought me a loon as well.

  “No,” I said at last. “I . . . think I’d better pace myself tonight.”

  I vowed to see Kirah the moment the banquet was over. She would sing the madness out of me, and everything would go back to normal.

  Until then, I just had to survive the night.

  In between sets of the ijo agbaye, the realm rulers and their retinues performed regional dances in my honor, with some instruments and costumes that I had never seen before. Nadrej and his Biraslovian attendants spun in colorful dervishes; Ji Huan’s courtiers pantomimed with Moreyaoese masks and ribbon streamers—even stuffy Beatrix performed, stepping with her ladies in a Nontish procession of poses called a pavane. With every display of silk, gold, and precious jewel adornments, I thought of what Mayazatyl had told me before the banquet. How many of those treasures came from mines and mills that Dayo and I owned?

  Exactly how rich was I?

  The moon sank in the hall’s arched windows. Sweat shone on the brows of winded dignitaries as they collapsed on cushions, fanning flushed cheeks and nursing chalices of mango water. But before the night drew to a close, King Zuri of Djbanti stepped onto the dance floor.

  At his back stood a throng of Djbanti warriors, bare chests painted intricately in red, yellow, and white. Each wore a leg rattle of seed pods, and they pounded rhythms into the ground with colorful staves. The warriors chanted in harmony as Zuri mounted the steps to my throne. He bowed, locs falling over his chiseled dark shoulders, and grazing the folds of his draping red tunic.

  “My empress,” he announced, “this dance requires a partner.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” I gave a crisp smile. “Because your empress doesn’t dance.”

  Zuri blinked in innocent confusion. “But your part won’t require dancing, Imperial Majesty. Warrior’s honor. All I ask for,” he said in that measured tenor, “is your full attention.”

  Then he held out his hand. A gold cuff glinted on his upper arm, pressing ever so slightly into his skin. It was a popular accessory for wealthy young men, and so I didn’t know why it made me shudder. Why I thought suddenly of Melu in his grassland, bound by a will not his own.

  Still, beneath the weight of a hundred curious eyes . . . I reached out and took Zuri’s hand.

  As his fingers closed around mine, I felt the gentle scrape of calluses. Strange, for a man who spent all his time gambling on mancala.

  “Think of this as a game,” he told me as we descended to the dance floor. The warriors continued to pound their staves, the beat rising in tempo. “Keep your
eyes on me, and you win. Lose track for more than seven beats, and you lose. Your prize is to ask me a question. Anything you like.” He backed away from me, and I realized too late that the warriors were forming a circle around us. Before he disappeared outside the circle, enclosing me inside, he winked. “My prize, of course, is the same.”

  I retorted, “But what if I don’t want to answer your—”

  The warriors drowned out my question. They had begun to sing in brassy voices, grinning at me facetiously.

  Can you see him, girl?

  (Is she clever?)

  Can you hear him, girl?

  (Is she pretty?)

  The bird that will lead you to honey?

  If you find him-o

  (Are her lips full?)

  If you catch him-o

  (Are her hips wide?)

  Pretty maiden, you had better come hungry!

  Giggling whispers peppered the Imperial Hall. My face heated.

  A courting game. Zuri—this cheeky, empty-headed fop of a king—had dragged me into a courting game.

  I narrowed my eyes at him, determined now to win the game, if only to demand what made him so presumptuous. I could just make out the top of his locs as he danced, a lithe shadow behind the circle of warriors. The warriors stepped in the opposite direction, as though to confuse me further. Zuri danced back and forth, shifting directions sharply, causing me to do the same. I realized then he had timed the shifts, forcing me to move in time to the song. My scant top of cowrie shells chafed against my skin. I swabbed my damp brow, cracking a smile.