Page 95 of The Gilded Ones

I shake my head. “No, not the clicking.”

“So you understand them?” This question comes from Adwapa. For some reason, she doesn’t seem shocked.

I nod.

“For how long?” she asks.

“Ever since that last temple. The one where I went into a daze.”

She nods, thinking.

“What are they saying?” Belcalis asks. When I don’t reply, she sighs. “It must be very worrisome if you’re having difficulty saying it.”

“Betrayer,” I whisper. “They’re calling me a betrayer.”

“Are you?” Adwapa asks quietly. “Are you some sort of deathshriek, Deka?”

The question strikes deep to the core of me, tears of fear and confusion blistering my eyes. When I shake my head, unable – unwilling – to answer, Belcalis sighs beside her. “Well, you need to find out, Deka, and quickly, before the jatu do so first and end your life.”

What am I?

The question circles my mind, as it has for the past ten months.

Am I truly a deathshriek half-breed, or am I something more? No matter which way I look at it, the power I used on Britta defies all logic, moves well beyond everything I ever thought I knew. The only thing I know now is that White Hands has the answers – if only she would give them to me.

Thankfully, she’s not the only person I can ask.

In the distance, mist swirls around frightening black monoliths with glittering white peaks. The N’Oyo Mountains – Otera’s largest salt mines until Keita’s family were massacred there. The deathshrieks’ primal nesting grounds are hidden somewhere in those peaks, and they have the answers I seek. I just have to get it from them before anyone else notices. Before the jatu do first and end your life…

“Are you prepared, Deka?” This question comes from the emperor, who’s riding on the mammut above me.

It’s been completely outfitted with infernal armour, and even the tent atop it is protected by a roof of solid cursed gold. I always suspected that Karmoko Calderis took lots more gold than she actually needed for our infernal armour. Now I know why.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” I say, glancing at the platform carrying a gigantic toros horn the troops have built overnight. “I’m prepared.”

“Good,” he says. “Onward.”

As the army complies, I feel the heat of another’s gaze on my shoulders. When I turn, White Hands is watching me, her brow furrowed into a frown. I wonder what she’s thinking, if she suspects what happened.

“You all right, Deka?” Keita asks, his eyes worried. We haven’t had time to talk in private since yesterday, so I haven’t had the chance to tell him I spoke to deathshrieks again, haven’t even been sure I should tell him. I remember how insistent he was the last time we spoke that I should never do it again.

I nod. “All recovered,” I say, trying not to worry him further.

“You certain about that?” He seems doubtful.

I turn to him. “Why do you ask?”

“You haven’t been the same since yesterday,” he says. “What happened out there?”

“Nothing,” I say, looking down. When he gives me a doubtful look, I add, “Well, not nothing… It’s Britta, I’m worried about her.”

He reaches over, squeezes my hand. “She’ll be fine. If humans can heal from near-fatal wounds, surely alaki can as well.”

I nod, smile wanly. “Thanks for that, Keita. I just have to keep that in—”

A fireball explodes into the toros horn platform. As the horses pulling it gallop away, neighing, I jerk up to find yet more fireballs blazing towards us – flaming arrows, lighting up the sky.

“Deathshrieks!” Captain Kelechi shouts somewhere in the distance, having been anticipating such an attack. “Shields!”

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