Page 56 of The Gilded Ones

Captain Kelechi rides over to welcome us. He’ll be heading our raiding party from now on – a surprising fact, given his rank as head of all the jatu. To my surprise, he rides over to me, then stops and gives me a slow, considering look down his long, aristocratic nose. It feels as if this is the first time he’s actually seeing me, even though I’ve seen him countless times before, his tall, dark silhouette and rigid posture unmistakable anywhere he goes.

“You are Deka of Irfut,” he says coldly, brown eyes assessing me up and down. “The demon among demons.”

I make sure to keep my face expressionless as I reply. “Yes, Captain.”

He moves his horse closer. “It works only on deathshrieks? Your gift, I mean.”

I’m confused by his question for a moment, then I understand. He’s asking whether my gift works on humans. On him.

“Only the deathshrieks,” I confirm.

The captain nods brusquely. “Ensure that you keep it that way,” he says. “Ensure that you keep your unholy ways well to yourself, because if I suspect for any reason that you are doing otherwise, I will give you so many brutal almost-deaths, you’ll marvel at my ingenuity from here to infinity.”

I nod, the blood chilling inside me. “Yes, Captain,” I rasp.

He nods, turning his horse around. “Move out!” he calls.

I urge my horse onward, keeping my eyes steadfastly fixed on the road. Around us, the crowd mutters suspiciously, having noticed the alaki’s smaller stature, not to mention the obvious curves of our armour.

“Whores!” I hear the word shouted more than once as we continue on.

I hurry to catch up with Keita. His forbidding expression is a barrier only the bravest man would dare cross. Concern shades his eyes when he glances at me.

“Is everything all right, Deka?” he asks. “The captain didn’t threaten you, did he?”

“No, why do you think that?” I ask. I don’t want him to know about what just happened.

“I saw him whisper to you,” Keita explains. “What did he say?”

My face heats, and I shrug in what I hope is a casual way. “He just offered me some advice.”

“About your gift?”

I nod. I’ve already told him about White Hands’s revelations, our lessons, and what happened yesterday with Karmoko Thandiwe’s announcement. “He said I—”

“Demons!” The word explodes from the crowd. “They’re all demons!”

A shabby man pushes his way through, wild-eyed fervour blazing through his expression. “Don’t let them fool you! Every week they come out of those gates, clothed in the foul armour of corruption. They want to corrupt us, to rot Otera to its very foundations.”

The crowd has begun to murmur now, many people nodding their heads in agreement. “He’s right!” a man calls out.

“Demons!” another shouts.

“Whores!” This last declaration comes from one of the few women in the crowd, an old grandmother in a grotesquely smiling bright-yellow sun-figure mask, and accompanied by two young boys – her male guardians, no doubt.

It’s not long before the crowd is chanting the word: “Whores! Whores! Whores!”

As the chants grow louder, I instinctively shrink towards Britta, who’s riding to my right. Even though we’re well trained, I know only too well the power a human mob can wield. I remember my village, remember what happened there after the deathshrieks attacked – the way the villagers all gathered around me, watching impassively as Ionas gutted my—

This isn’t my village.

I blink, realization washing over me.

These aren’t the villagers who turned on me, tortured me. I’m not the same girl who cowered and allowed myself to be dismembered. I’m stronger now, faster too. Most important of all, I’m trained for combat.

The shabby man has whipped himself into such a frothing rage, he launches at Britta. “Demon-whores! I’ll kill—”

I pull him up by the front of his robes.

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