Page 108 of The Gilded Ones

Adwapa touches me again. “I believe in you,” she says softly. “I always have, from the moment White Hands sent me to you.”

Suddenly I remember the first time I met Adwapa in that wagon, all rolling eyes and defiance. Ever since then, she’s always been there by my side, always ready with a joke, a wry, ironic smile. It doesn’t bother me that she’s White Hands’s spy – she has always been my true friend. I know this as surely as I know my own heart.

She breathes out a ragged breath. “That’s why I could do all those things, kill all those—”

“You never killed more than your quota,” I remind her, squeezing her hand to stop her from saying more.

I can’t imagine how she must have felt, knowing all this time what the deathshrieks were but pretending otherwise, looking on and even joining in as we slaughtered them. Same with White Hands and everyone else who was part of this hidden rebellion. Their guilt is my own, an acid pit in my stomach.

I remind myself that it was all for a purpose. All those deaths, they were all leading up to this.

I won’t let Adwapa down. Won’t let anyone else down.

“I believe in you too,” I return.

She nods, and together we stride into the temple.

The sight that meets my eyes is much worse than I imagined.

Not only is Keita here, bound and gagged, but so is Britta. She’s conscious but pale and tied up on the floor. The emperor sits beside them on an ornate bench, a smug smile on his face. Unlike the jatu, he’s wearing very little armour and even has a crown on his head. There’s a crossbow with golden arrows at his side.

“The Nuru,” he sneers when I walk down the stairs that lead down into the chamber.

My eyes flit to Keita, horror jolting me when I see his face, bruised and bloodied, both of his arms bleeding. I’m sick to my stomach, and I have to clench my hands to keep from running to him. Running to Britta.

When Keita sees my gaze, his eyes send mine a quick message. Run, Deka.

I ignore it, return my attention to the emperor, who smirks at me and gloats: “You finally reveal yourself for what you are.” His face is completely different: cold, hateful. He doesn’t look at all like the man I once knew, almost admired.

“I only just found out what I am,” I say. “But you always knew.”

“I didn’t know it was you.” He shrugs, rising. “I thought you were just another anomaly – like your friend here.” He puts his boot on Britta’s neck, and she gasps, tears coming to her eyes.

Everything inside me stills, and I blurt, “Please—”

“Please, what?” the emperor asks. When he looks down at Britta, his eyes are cold – so very cold. They remind me of my father’s eyes – of Ionas’s. “Do you know she almost got free? Weak as she is, she nearly fought off my soldiers. Thankfully, we had some bonds left over from the ones we used to imprison my grandmother.” When my eyebrows gather in confusion, he explains: “The Lady of the Equus. That is what they call her now, is it not? Once upon a time, she was known as Fatu the Relentless.”

A gasp wrenches from my throat. I remember how White Hands stared so bitterly at the female statue rising from Emeka’s Tears – the statue that I now know was modelled after her.

The emperor continues, an awful smile twitching at his lips. “Do you know that we dismembered her once – my forefathers, that is. Severed her into four parts and impaled her bits in the palace dungeons when she tried to defend her mothers. My father told me all about it – he heard the story from his own father, who heard it from his own father, and so on.

“Anyway, my ancestors couldn’t find her final death, sadly, so they just left her there for a few hundred years until she went mad. The Firstborn don’t succumb to the gilded sleep, you see. How she begged them to free her. For hundreds of years, she pleaded and cried, promised she’d serve us, the traitorous bitch. And she did, for centuries – until now.”

A sob catches in my throat before I realize it. Poor White Hands. I thought I had suffered in Irfut, but what she experienced was a thousand times worse. No wonder she wasn’t fazed by my pain, by that of others. The things she must have experienced over those hellish centuries. My hands tremble at the thought of it, anger churning inside me.

Emperor Gezo doesn’t notice as he nudges Britta’s neck again. I have to clench my teeth when she gasps in pain. “We used these very same bonds to imprison your friend. They’re made of celestial gold, the gold we harvested from the goddesses before we trapped them here. It’s unbreakable, even by your kind. Even by Fatu.”

He tsks down at Britta, disgusted. “Alaki should not be so strong, but that is the nature of the anomalies. Then again, that’s why I herded all of you into the Warthu Bera – the strongest, the fastest, the most cunning of the lot. All the anomalies, I sent you there.”

“You were watching us,” I say, horrified.

He nods. “I was searching for the Nuru. My treacherous grandmother tried to convince me that it would come as a deathshriek, but I knew it would be an alaki. I thought it would be one of the strong ones, at first, or at least the swift. I didn’t realize it was you until much later. Grandmother hid details of your ability from me, you see.”

He takes a step closer, smirking his amusement when the alaki and the deathshrieks gather to protect me. At least his foot is no longer on Britta’s neck. My eyes flicker towards her, making sure she’s all right, then I quickly glance back at the emperor.

“When did you realize?” I ask, trying to keep him talking. I have to keep his attention on me for as long as I can.

Anything to keep him from hurting Britta or Keita again.

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