A servant boy slipped in, barely twelve, eyes wide with the fear that came from serving someone as emotionally erratic as the Crowned Prince."Okpalaeze, you summoned me?"
"Yes."Somadina stood, ignoring the swimming sensation in his head.The healers had told him to rest, but he was done resting."Check on the Akwaugo; see if her punishment is done."
The boy fled, only returning after Somadina had paced his chambers relentlessly for half a stick of incense.
The door opened and the servant boy entered, alone, trembling.
"Well?"Somadina asked, voice deceptively calm.
"The Akwaugo—" The boy swallowed hard."They said she returned to the Ancestral Shrine."
Somadina stared at the boy, processing the words.In a split second his face warped into a heinous mask of rage."Get out," he spat coldly.
The boy didn't wait to be told twice.
Somadina stood still in the centre of his chambers.His eyes were staring at the letters scattered in his study in the far corner.Letters they exchanged privately before that night.
A sudden burst of anger overcame him; the bronze vase on his table was knocked across the room and shattered against the wall.Water and flowers exploded across the floor, shards of metal clattering on stone.
"Bitch!"The word tore from his throat, raw and ugly as the emotions in his heart.
Somadina's chest heaved as he stared at the destruction he'd caused, at the water seeping into expensive rugs, at the scattered petals that looked like drops of blood in the lamplight.
She was at the shrine.Alone, except for that child servant.There were no guards stationed there anymore.If someone visited in the night, no one would hear her screams.
The thought slithered through his mind, tempting him.
He could go to her in that moment.While she was too weak to fight, he would see what kind of airs someone like her could put on.
He moved to the door—then stopped.
Why should he save her from her own idiocy?Since she wanted to die so badly, he should let her.Once she was given to that man, he wished to see if she would even last one month before her bones were fed to wolves.
If she begged him to reconsider and take her when she heard the news, then it wouldn't be too late either.Then he would make her pay him back in full for this humiliation.
Fever seized Azul the very next day, creeping into her bones, setting her skin on fire.She drifted in and out of consciousness, the world dissolving into fragments of sound and light that made no sense.
For a moment, she thought she saw her younger sister’s face hovering above her with big teary eyes.Her eyes were the most stunning shade of sapphire."Ada, please wake up.Ada, I'm scared," she pleaded.
The next she saw herself in Somadina’s room, his eyes looking up at her from his position at her feet, his hands holding onto her waist.She glanced at the ornamental sword on his wall, the one she had yet to dislodge, and then, in a blink, the sword transformed into her own ceiling, and she was back in her bed.
When she was conscious, the pain was overwhelming—her head pounding, her joints aching, her throat so dry she couldn't speak.When her mind wandered in sleep, she walked through memories that weren't entirely hers, watching a girl named Azul grow up in a compound she'd never seen, trained, groomed and pampered.
She watched as blood spilled from her nose onto pages of books in languages she could now fluently speak.She watched as a cane landed on her palm; her father’s furious face seared into her mind, why was he so angry?She watched as she tried again to memorise the scripts given to her, to pronounce her words correctly, and to scrub her voice of her own accent.
As Azul meandered in the loosely connected worlds of her memories, Nkiru did what she could.
The girl was barely fourteen, with thin arms and a heart too big for her small chest.She changed the cloths on Azul's forehead, whispering prayers to Anyanwu and Ala and any god she could name.She dribbled water between Azul's cracked lips.She sat in the corner and wept when she thought Azul couldn't hear.
On the third day, with Azul burning and no help in sight, Nkiru made her decision.
She walked to the Ugoeze's residence.The guards at the gate barely looked at her.
"The Akwaugo is ill," Nkiru said, her voice small but desperate."Please, I need to speak with the Ugoeze.She needs a healer."
The guards exchanged glances.One of them laughed—a short, ugly sound.
"The Ugoeze is resting.Come back tomorrow."
