Page 109 of The Gilded Ones

“The moment I saw your face in the throne room,” he says. “You could have disguised all you wanted with that human appearance, but I could smell them on you.”

“Smell who?”

“The divine bitches!” he hisses, pointing towards the end of the room where what look like four gigantic golden statues of the goddesses sit on colossal black thrones.

The Gilded Ones.

Even without walking over, I know it’s them. I’ve known ever since I walked into the room and felt their power crashing over me like a silent earthquake. My body trembles as I take in their expressions: sadness, resignation, rage. They were entombed alive, trapped as they sat there on their thrones.

“They thought they could command us,” the emperor seethes, “that because we couldn’t kill them, we’d let them terrorize us for ever. We showed them, those demons. We showed them…”

He turns to me, his eyes gleaming with hate. “Do you know what we did to them – my ancestors, that is.”

I shake my head.

“We buried them in the blood of their own children,” he says with a gleeful, sinister laugh. “We melted down scores of infernal armour – told the alaki we were creating a tribute to our mothers. Then we lured them here and poured the molten gold all over them. We imprisoned them.”

“Why?” I ask, stunned. “Why would you do such a thing?”

“Because they were a plague on this land!” he hisses. “Demons in the flesh, despite their celestial appearances! From time immemorial, we the jatu have vowed to protect Otera, so we imprisoned them and made sure they would never rise again. Never again would women rule Otera – this was the task of every emperor of the house of Gezo.”

He looks me directly in the eye. “Never will I allow one of you filthy bitches to sit on the throne again.”

His words, his hate, strike deep into my heart. Bitches. A word just as ugly as all the others men throw at us. It’s all I can do not to unsheathe my swords, but I ask one last question. “Why didn’t you kill me the moment you knew what I was?”

The emperor smiles cruelly. “Because you were useful,” he says. “How beautiful it was to use you against the deathshrieks – you, the very instrument the Gilded Ones created to destroy my kind. Instead, I used you to slaughter theirs.”

Revulsion and guilt flood over me as I think about all the deathshrieks I commanded to their deaths, all the deathshrieks I personally killed, despite all my instincts screaming against it.

“How many deathshrieks did you help kill, Deka? Five hundred? Six? A thousand?” the emperor titters. “Entire nests of deathshrieks fell to your voice, the divine ability your mothers gifted you to free them.”

Adwapa moves beside me. “Deka, do not listen to him. Let’s end this now.”

I shake my head, listening as he continues his rant. “Did you ever feel disgust at what you were doing? Guilt? Remorse? You must have! You must have felt it in your blood! A recognition of all the blood that you spilled. Murderer of your own kind. The great betrayer!”

His words cut me at the knees, but I take a deep breath, calming myself. I will not allow Emperor Gezo to worm his way into my mind. I will not allow him to send me into a killing daze. I will end this on my terms – not just for me but for every other woman he and his kind have ever brutalized and abused. No matter what he says, I will never forget what he did – what all of them did.

The memory of Belcalis’s scarred back flashes across my mind.

Never forget, I promised her.

I look at Emperor Gezo as I slowly unsheathe my swords. “All that may well be, but I’m here now, same as you.” I point an atika at him. “You know I will free the goddesses. You know I will complete my task. That is what the karmokos trained me to do – what you made them train me to do.”

“Then we’re at an impasse.” He shrugs.

“I suppose we are.”

He nods at the jatu. When they raise their swords, he says one word.

“Attack.”

And the battle begins.

“Deka, go to the goddesses!” Adwapa roars as she and the others smash into the jatu. “We’ll keep them away from you.”

I nod, turn to Katya. “Protect Britta and Keita!” I shout, waving her over to them.

Her massive form leaps into the melee, and within seconds, she’s grabbing Britta with one hand and Keita with the other and scurrying up the walls, just as fast now as she was when she was an alaki. The breath I didn’t know I was holding in whooshes out of me.

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