Page 26 of The Gilded Ones

The scent of fear grows stronger the closer we get to the wagons, girls clutching each other desperately and whispering to each other – rumours, suppositions, anything they’ve heard over the course of their journey. But Britta’s mind is still on our new uruni.

“Wonder why they don’t want us to start training with them now…” she murmurs. There’s a strange note in her voice.

I glance over to find she’s tentatively pressing the gold on her hands. She hisses softly, tears flooding her eyes, and I move closer to her. “The skin under it will heal soon,” I whisper. “Everything’ll be all right, you’ll see.”

Britta inhales shakily, nods.

“Did you hear?” the red-haired girl I saw gilded whispers, drawing our attention to her. “The training grounds are going to be overseen by Shadows, the emperor’s personal spies.”

“I heard that they were all female,” another replies, this one short and dark.

The memory of the smaller commander immediately flits through my mind.

“Female?” says another girl. “That can’t be possible. Whoever heard of female teachers?”

I certainly never have.

The Infinite Wisdoms forbids women from working outside the house except in service to their husbands and families. And yet there might be female teachers at the Warthu Bera – female spies.

I’ve heard of the emperor’s Shadows – everyone has. They’re the ones sent whenever the emperor needs something swiftly and silently done. It’s said that they have powers above those of normal people, that they can blend into the shadows that are their namesakes and strike down enemies from enormous distances. They might be our teachers? I can’t even fathom it.

Beside me, the red-haired girl shakes her head. “I heard they had no choice but to use women. Too many incidents happened with the male transporters. You saw some of the girls—”

“Britta, Asha, Adwapa, Belcalis, Deka,” the short jatu barks, reading our names from a scroll. “Move yer arses!”

I hurry along, struggling to ignore the subtle tremors still wracking my body as I rush towards the wagons. The gilding wasn’t that painful, but that smell, that awful burning smell, still lingers in my nostrils, wafting up memories I would prefer stay firmly buried. As the jatu and his partner open the door to deposit us inside, I glance at Britta. She seems a little better now, some of the colour returned to her face.

“Any better?” I ask.

She nods as the short jatu locks the door securely behind us. “Loaded!” the tall one shouts, banging the roof.

“Proceed!” the short one shouts.

“Proceed!” the tall one echoes, banging again.

The wagon lurches into action, rattling onto the street. As we head away from Jor Hall, I glance around the wagon’s interior. There are three other girls here with us. Two of them are twins – both so midnight dark I know immediately that they must be Nibari, a fiercely independent tribe that lives in the mountains of the remotest Southern provinces. It must be a very unfortunate series of events that brought them here. The Nibari are fiercely loyal to each other, and Mother once told me that they don’t really worship Oyomo, only some secret god they have kept from the time before the many tribes became the One Kingdom.

Even more alarming is our last passenger, the proud girl. She huddles as far away from the rest of us as she possibly can, black hair wild around her face as she fixes that determined gaze upon the grated door separating us from the outside world. Perhaps she’s already regretting her decision to stay.

There’s no escape, I want to tell her. Even if metal grating wasn’t barring the door, there would also be the jatu to deal with. There’s a contingent of them assigned to each caravan of wagons, and all of them are the ones specially trained to deal with alaki. I wouldn’t even be surprised if there were some recruits among their number, riding along to accompany their new “sisters”. I have to swallow back the bitterness that rises at the thought.

The wagon rattles on, its wheels loud against the cobblestones. Despite this, the silence is deafening – as is the tension that swirls around us, as smothering as smoke. Britta squirms beside me. She’s one of those people who hate awkward silences – or any silence, for that matter.

“Well, here we are,” she says, summoning her most cheerful smile. When everyone’s eyes turn to her, she shifts uncomfortably but gamely soldiers on. “Anyone have any idea wha’s waitin’ for us when we get there? Other than the recruits, that is.” She laughs nervously at this painful attempt at a joke.

“Do you think this is a game?” the proud girl snaps, aquiline features whipping, hawklike, towards Britta. “Do you think that we’re off to court, to learn how to be proper maidens and do needlework?” The girl leans closer, a sneer on her face. “We’re monsters, and they’re going to treat us like monsters. They’re going to use us, bleed us, and when they’re done, they’re going to find whatever our final deaths are and execute us one by one.”

She leans back against her seat, scoffing. “Uruni – can you believe the lies? More like spies, here to ensure we don’t step one foot out of line or run off during the raids.” She turns hardened eyes to Britta. “The sooner you understand that, the better off you are.”

Britta reddens, tears springing to her eyes, and anger abruptly swells inside me. Who is this girl to speak so harshly to Britta? And today of all days, after everything we’ve just endured, after all the humiliations. Why add to the pain, the suffering? Why attack the one person trying to make things better?

I turn to the proud girl. “You don’t have to do that – you don’t have to scare her,” I say.

Eyes the colour of midnight glance at me. “I don’t? You may be under illusions of what this is, being partnered with Recruit Keita and all,” she sneers mockingly, “but I’m not, and I would prefer to prepare myself in silence.”

Heat blazes over me before I even notice it. “Who I’m partnered with has nothing to do with my feelings,” I snap. “And, to be clear, you chose this, same as us. You had a choice, and you decided to remain here.”

“No,” the proud girl says. “I chose to escape the Death Mandate, if only for a few more days. I chose to survive, rather than being executed the moment I walked out that door. Don’t mistake my decision for anything more.”

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