Azul's hand gripped her arm, her fingers barely finding the strength to clench fully."Go," she rasped."Get Borji."
Nkiru nodded; unable to lift her, she placed Azul against her bed, and she ran.
The training grounds were empty at this hour, but Nkiru knew where the unwanted prince spent his evenings.She found him at the archery range behind his quarters, his bow drawn, preparing to release another arrow at a target already filled with them.
"Your Highness!"
Borji released the arrow.It struck the target's centre.
"Your Highness!"
He turned, and whatever he saw in her face made him set down his bow immediately."What happened?"
The shrine's small chamber was dim when he arrived.Azul lay on the floor where she had collapsed, half-curled, her breathing laboured.
Borji knelt beside her, his hands gentle as he lifted her.She was burning so badly he almost dropped her.Steeling his mind, he laid her down carefully, arranging the thin pillow beneath her head.Then he turned to Nkiru, who stood trembling in the doorway.
"Listen to me carefully.Outside the palace, in the civilian quarter, there's an old woman who sells medicines.Her name is Mama Ife.Tell her I sent you.She'll give you the right thing if you describe what has been happening to the Akwaugo."He reached into a pouch at his waist and pressed a handful of coins into Nkiru's palm."Go quickly."
Nkiru nodded before leaving.She rushed out, not daring to move even a second slower.Her eyes glossed over the small corpse against the wall, her heart lurching as the rat from earlier lay dead.
As her footsteps faded, Borji turned back to Azul.Her eyes were closed again, her face slack with exhaustion.He dipped a cloth in water and pressed it to her forehead, watching the way her skin seemed to pull tight over her bones.
"You're supposed to survive out of spite," he said quietly."Wretched girl, this is a shameful way to die."
She gave no response.
He stayed there, watching her chest rise and fall with each laboured breath.The minutes stretched like hours.
When Azul's eyes opened again, they found his immediately.
"You're still here," she said.Her voice was barely even a whisper.
"Someone has to make sure you don't die before you kill my brother."
A weak laugh escaped her, cut short by a cough."I haven't forgotten."
"I know."He wet the cloth again.
She took in a deep breath, her face creasing with pain.She clutched her bedding."When I get through this, I'm going to kill them all."
Borji stilled."How deep?"he asked.
"What?"
"Your hatred.How deep does it go?"
Azul laughed again, sending a chill down his spine—the unmistakable sound of malice."I don't hate them, Borji."
He frowned."You just said—"
"I don't need to hate someone to decide they need to die."Her golden eyes caught the lamplight, glowing like embers."Hate is a useless, fickle emotion.It can be reasoned with.It can be soothed."Her grip on her bedding tightened."I have simply decided.I am not someone who can stand even a thorn in my flesh.I cannot stand them.So they will be removed."
Borji’s hands trembled.In that moment, perhaps he understood something about himself that he had never fully acknowledged.He had spent his entire life enduring the neglect and the cruelty of a court that saw him as unworthy.He had told himself he was surviving, that patience was wisdom, that one day things would change.
But he had never decided.
This woman, this stranger who had been in the palace for less than a month, had more resolve in her fever-weakened body than he had cultivated in twenty-two years.
