Page 70 of The Gilded Ones

“Follow my movements,” she says, cupping her hand near her heart and then extending her fingers.

Her energy streams out, a clear white ribbon she pinches slowly upwards, away from her heart. As she does so, she turns towards the mirror, nodding for me to do the same. Now we’re side by side, watching each other in the mirror as she calls out instructions.

“Pull a strand of energy from your heart to your throat. Use it to power your command. Only this small amount, nothing more,” White Hands directs, her fingers pulling that glowing ribbon all the way to her throat. It glows there, brighter than the rest of the energy swirling around her body.

I wish she could see it, see the energy in her body, flickering as bright as a candle. But humans don’t have the cursed gold, or the ability to reach the combat state. White Hands can’t see anything but herself in that mirror.

I push the thought away as I nod, following her movements. I can feel the power now, see it vibrating in my throat. I focus on it, turn to Rattle, steeling myself against my guilt as I give a command. “Kneel,” I say, my voice layering with power.

When he quickly does as he’s told, sinking to his knees, White Hands claps her hands, pleased. “Wonderful work, Deka.”

I nod, smiling thinly to mirror her expression. Just as she’d promised, I don’t feel any exhaustion – no tiredness at all. “Thank you, Karmo—” The words die on my lips as I catch a glimpse of myself in the bronze mirror.

My eyes are black from rim to rim – like death shining through my face. So this is what others have seen before, what they’ve talked about when they told me my eyes were changing. It must happen only when I use my energy. No wonder I wasn’t able to glimpse it all those times I tried. I walk closer to the mirror, stare closer at them. They fit, somehow, the way they look in my face. They look like they belong.

“You’ve never seen it before, have you – the way your eyes change…” White Hands murmurs, moving closer.

I shake my head, then turn back to the mirror. “Now I know what they keep talking about,” I whisper, almost to myself. Once I’ve examined every inch of them, I turn back to her. “Should I continue?” I ask, glancing at Rattle.

She nods. “Yes.”

Encouraged, I pull another ribbon to my throat, turn towards the deathshriek. “Lift your hands.”

He obeys again, and again I feel no exhaustion, not even the slightest hint of fatigue.

“Lower your hands,” I command, using another ribbon.

When there’s still no exhaustion as he obeys, I pull out the next ribbon, not paying much attention to it as I command, “Turn in a circle.”

Exhilaration races through me when he does so, but then another feeling follows it: exhaustion, pounding me like a hammer. I look in the mirror and quickly see why. My throat is covered in masses of energy. Much, much more than I should have taken.

Why didn’t I pay attention?

As I collapse to the floor, my eyes closing, White Hands humphs, annoyed. “I warned you, only a strand.”

Learning to harness the combat state is a tiresome business. Sometimes, I keep control and use only the energy I need to command Rattle and the other deathshrieks. Other times, I miscalculate and take so much, it’s all I can do to make it through till evening. Every day now, I’m getting better and better at using my ability, and it doesn’t take long before I’m learning how to direct my energy through my veins like little rivers of power, all of them at my command.

It’s a good thing too – the raid where I found Ixa was only the first of many as we do our part to exterminate the deathshrieks crossing Hemaira’s borders. At first, I feel guilty using my ability, guilty rendering deathshrieks defenceless against my comrades’ swords. Then I see pile after pile of human corpses at the nests, and my guilt changes back into anger – rage at what the deathshrieks are doing to the people they kill.

I don’t hesitate to use my ability again.

Our tiny group quickly becomes so effective, the people in the city take up the name Adwapa gifted us, Death Strikers, for our seemingly uncanny ability to obliterate all the deathshriek nests we find. They cheer and throw flowers at us as we pass – a striking reversal from the first time, when they called us whores.

“Welcome, Death Strikers!” they shout, lining the streets whenever they hear we’re coming.

It’s almost like we’re heroes now, and people don’t even seem to mind that some of us are women who may or may not be human. Of course, they have no idea about my particular talent. Not even the other girls at the Warthu Bera know – although they quickly get to know Ixa. Within days, he’s made his feline incarnation a familiar presence in the training ground, stealing fish from the kitchens, chasing the birds, and curling around my neck whenever I’m not training.

Except for Keita, Britta, Gazal, Belcalis, Asha and Adwapa, no one else seems to view him as anything more than a friendly cat, and they laugh whenever my friends attempt to convince them otherwise. I try not to wonder why this is as our raids continue, as does our success.

The months pass, and soon, the cold season – such as it is – begins to creep into Hemaira, making the days a little less balmy and the nights comfortably cool. The deathshrieks seem to be aware of our existence now, because there are ever more sentries waiting for us. They even manage to catch us unawares a few times, grievously wounding all the alaki at least one time or another, but despite our injuries, we’re always triumphant in the end. No deathshriek can resist my power. None of them can resist when I beckon. I only very rarely use my voice now, preferring to motion them to my will instead. Hand movements are all I need now to subdue them.

Everything is going so well, we receive a visitor specifically for the Death Strikers one evening. As we’re filing out of the sandpits after combat practice one day, the grandest carriage we’ve ever witnessed – pulled by a pair of twin equus, striped black and white like zebras and adorned with gold jewellery – rides into the courtyard towards White Hands.

A plump man in official robes steps out, then gives her what looks like a scroll.

She scans it, inclines her head. The man gives her a deep, respectful bow, then gets back into the carriage and rides away.

When she sees Keita and me, she beckons, and we both run over.

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