Page 19 of The Gilded Ones

“Come along now, girls,” she says loudly. “Hemaira awaits, as does your service to our great empire.” The emperor’s seal swings officiously from her belt.

The man’s eyes flicker to it, and then to us. He hisses under his breath about ungodly women as he walks away, disgusted.

“I hate pompous, puffed-up meddlers, don’t you?” White Hands humphs. Not waiting for us to answer, she points upward. “Look. The gates of Hemaira.”

As my eyes follow her hand, my jaw drops when I see the colossal walls rising above the docks, twin warrior statues guarding each of its gates. So these are the walls of Hemaira Father always told me about.

Father…

I stifle the thought by concentrating on the walls. There are only three. Three walls with three gates. Why? I turn to White Hands to ask, but she’s gesturing towards the nearest and largest entrance.

“We’re headed for Gate Emeka,” she says, nodding at the twin statues of the same stern warrior with a crown upon his head.

Emperor Emeka, the first emperor of Otera – I recognize him immediately. Tall and dark, hair closely cropped, except for the beard. His image is engraved in every temple and every hall. Those stern eyes, flaring nostrils, mouth tight and severe, are unmistakable, and so are the statues now soaring above us, their swords casting massive shadows on the crowds gathering below.

I look up at them, fear and unease rushing through me. “Well, here we are,” I whisper, bracing myself with a deep breath.

“Here we are,” Britta agrees, doing the same. Her face is even paler than usual, no trace of a smile on her lips.

Her hand nudges mine, and I squeeze it, nod tightly. She doesn’t have to say what she’s thinking; I already know. She and I will survive this – together.

White Hands leads us directly to Gate Emeka, where a river of people and animals is already streaming into the city. Westerners, Easterners, Southerners, Northerners – they all vie for space with horses, camels, and other, more exotic animals I recognize only from Father’s scrolls. Orrillions – hulking silver-furred apes with strangely humanlike faces – pull nearby chariots, their sharp horns blunted by curved golden sheaths. Mammuts plod at the front of caravans, multiple tusks protruding underneath their long, flexible trunks, ivory spikes all along their gigantic, leathery grey backs, and yet more spikes at the rounded ends of their tails. Caravan masters sit inside little tents atop them, blowing horns to herald their approach.

I wish Mother was here. She was always telling me about the Southern provinces. Even though she never regretted leaving to marry Father, she always missed the lands of her birth. All she ever wanted was for me to see them someday. To see the other side of my bloodline.

She would never have imagined me coming here as a newly recruited soldier.

Britta points to the emperor’s guards manning the gates. “Would ye look at all those jatu, Deka,” she says, gaping. Unlike the ones we saw up North, these jatu are wearing not armour and war masks, but splendid red robes, as they direct the lines of travellers and carefully inspect their documents. They all have the jatu insignia, the golden lion against the rising sun, pinned to their shoulders.

“They look very officious,” I reply, a twinge of unease running through me.

I’m distracted from them by a flash of blue. A carriage rattles past us, led by two large lizardlike creatures with wings. They make strange squawking noises deep in their throats.

“Zerizards!” I gasp, excited.

Another type of creature Mother told me about. They’re found only in the South, where the sun is warm and the forests are endless. I squint, trying to take in their feathery blue tails, the bright red plumage crowning their heads.

“My mother loved riding them when she was young,” I say.

“They’re beautiful,” Britta replies, in awe.

Braima sniffs, tossing his black-striped hair. “They’re not as impressive as us, are they, Masaima?”

“Certainly not,” Masaima agrees.

“You’re both very beautiful too,” I soothe.

The equus twins stomp their annoyance as they lead the wagon away from the main gate towards a small side entrance, where a line of ominous-looking wagons gathers. The drivers are wearing black robes similar to White Hands’s, their faces hidden by heavy cloth hoods. At the sight of all those iron-barred doors and windows, my blood races faster and faster. These must be the wagons carrying the other alaki. Each one looks big enough to hold at least six.

Britta shifts uncomfortably in her seat. “It’s the others, isn’t it?”

“Most likely,” I reply. I can almost feel the despair rising from the wagons.

Britta reaches out her hand, and I take it. We remain silent while White Hands leads the wagon to the front of the line, where two jatu are playing owareh, a Southern board game Mother loved. The moment they glimpse her, they jerk to attention.

“My lady.” They salute, rushing to open the narrow gate.

To my surprise, they’re both speaking Oteran instead of Hemairan. But then, Hemairan is the language of the nobles and the aristocracy, the language used in the Infinite Wisdoms. The only reason I even know how to understand it is because Father’s father forced everyone in the family to memorize the Infinite Wisdoms as penance for our long-ago impurity.

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