Page 39 of The Gilded Ones

“It’s agony, greater than you’ve ever felt, and if it’s not your true death, you wake up dreading that it’ll happen again. Then, after it happens multiple times, you begin wishing for a true death – a final death, just so you never have to—” I break off, shaking from the force of my emotions. Tears are blurring my eyes, and a few drop down before I can stop them.

I have to take a breath, calm myself, so I can look back at my friends – at the other neophytes now gathering behind them, their eyes wide with horror. The majority of them haven’t faced death yet. They came from towns and villages near the capital and were taken to Jor Hall immediately after their Rituals. Whenever we have discussions about how we came to the Warthu Bera, they always say the transporters were already waiting in the temples.

They’ve never experienced the icy coldness of a sword as it slices into the flesh, never had to endure those long and terrifying moments before merciful oblivion.

It was only the ones like Belcalis and I – the alaki so far from the capital, it took transporters months to reach us – who were unlucky enough to experience the Death Mandate and the terror that came with it. But we both survived somehow. Unlike all the girls who didn’t make it past their first two or three deaths, we both lived.

And we have to honour that.

I breathe back the memories as I turn to the other girls. “Our whole lives, we’ve been taught to make ourselves smaller, weaker than men. That’s what the Infinite Wisdoms teaches – that being a girl means perpetual submission.”

That’s how it was back in Irfut, me always accepting everything because I thought it was Oyomo’s will. Was it Oyomo’s will, the village turning its back on me, the elders dismembering me so they could sell my blood? Was it His will for them to cut out my tongue so I couldn’t scream? What about all the things in the Infinite Wisdoms, the rules against running, laughing too loudly, dressing in certain ways – all of it His will?

“The truth is, girls have to wear smiling masks, contort themselves into all kinds of knots to please others, and then, when the deathshrieks come, girls die. They die.” I glance from one bloodsister to the other. “The way I see it, we all have a choice right now. Are we girls, or are we demons? Are we going to die, or are we going to survive?”

I’ve been trying so desperately to keep myself from thinking such thoughts; what does it matter if I’m here anyway, about to face death once more? What does it matter if we’re all here, risking our bodies and lives in service to Otera?

The other girls stare back at me, eyes wide with fear, horror, but I remain silent, letting them decide for themselves.

I already know my answer.

I will not die here in this horrible place. I will not die before I discover the truth about myself. I’ll survive, and I’ll do so long enough to leave this place, long enough to find someone to love me who cherishes me the way Katya’s betrothed did her. I just have to be brave for once. All I have to do is be brave for once.

I remove one of the pins from the side of my robe, stab it into my palm.

It stings, a sharp, searing pain, but I don’t even wince. My weeks here have already made me tougher, deadened my skin. Gold begins dripping, and I wipe it across my chest, marking the same place they would have cut me during the Ritual of Purity. The blood gleams there, the cursed gold that I am now bleeding for my own cause – not anybody else’s.

“What’re you doing—” a girl begins, but I ignore her.

“I’m a demon,” I declare, “and I will survive this to win my absolution and a life for myself.”

“Me too.” Belcalis’s voice comes from behind me, and when I turn, she’s there, holding up her bleeding palm as well, an expression in her eyes that tells me that she understands, that she feels the way I do. “I’m a demon.”

“I’m a demon,” the twins echo, chests glistening as they wipe bloodied golden palms across them. And now other girls are doing so as well.

Even Britta and Katya, who were so horrified at first, walk up to me with bleeding palms. “I’m a demon,” Britta says, wiping her hand across her chest.

The recruits whisper to each other, confused, alarmed by this sudden and bloody display, but it’s too late to stem the tide. “Demon. I am a demon,” each girl declares, bleeding herself to display her golden blood. The blood we have so long been told is cursed. The blood that binds us to each other.

Before long, all the girls are standing together.

Bleeding.

And this time, when we run again, we don’t hold back.

As I walk over for breakfast, an unwelcome presence falls in step beside me. Keita. “That was an interesting speech,” he says, by way of conversation. “Human girls or demons. Clever way to motivate the others…”

I stop mid-step, trying to ignore the familiar high-pitched shrieks echoing in the distance as I look up at him. We’re standing next to the entrance of the caverns where the deathshrieks are kept, and they’re agitated, as always.

“A word of warning, however,” he says. “The commanders may not look too fondly on any of you embracing your heritage too keenly, Deka.”

Fear shivers over me, but I exhale it away. I’m done being afraid. “Is that a threat?” I ask.

“No, a warning.”

“Then I’ll take it under advisement.”

Something almost like a smile darts over his lips, and he steps closer. “You know, I’m relieved.”

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