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Once we’re proven pure, we’ll officially belong here in the village. I’ll finally be a woman—eligible to marry, have a family of my own.
‘Blessed are the meek and subservient, the humble and true daughters of man, for they are unsullied in the face of the Infinite Father.’
Every girl knows it by heart. We recite it whenever we enter a temple—a constant reminder that women were created to be helpmeets to men, subservient to their desires and commands.
No matter how quiet I am, how inoffensive I remain, my brown skin will always mark me as a Southerner, a member of the hated tribes that long ago conquered the North and forced it to join the One Kingdom, now known as Otera.
Girls aren’t allowed to be near sharp things from the moment they turn fifteen until the day after they’re proven by the Ritual of Purity. The Infinite Wisdoms forbid it, ensuring that we do not bleed a drop before the Ritual.
we’re the descendants of the Gilded Ones.”
The Gilded Ones were female, after all, and they were always depicted with gold veins running over their bodies.
White Hands says we change only when we near maturity, which is sixteen for our kind. Once we begin our menses, our blood gradually turns gold, an’ that makes our muscles an’ bones stronger. That’s why we heal so fast an’ are quicker an’ stronger than regular folk.
“For alaki, there are two types of death,” White Hands explains. “Almost-deaths and final ones. Almost-deaths are fleeting, impermanent things. They result in the gilded sleep, which lasts a week or two and heals the body of all wounds and scars—except, of course, those acquired before the blood turns.”
“An alaki can have several almost-deaths, but she has only one final death—one method by which she can truly be killed. For the vast majority of alaki, it’s either burning, drowning, or beheading. If an alaki doesn’t die from one of these, she’s practically immortal.”
Rights? The word circles in my mind, shimmering and unbelievable. Rights are the domain of men and boys—not women, and certainly not alaki. Even so, the word blossoms, like a distant hope I’m afraid to even touch.
Keita is just like all the rest, giving us impossibilities and calling them choices.
“This gold has been formulated specially to mark you as the emperor’s property. It will fade with every year that passes and disappear once you reach your twentieth year of service.
It sounds so strange saying this out loud, silly even, but voicing my thoughts solidifies them.
Women aren’t allowed to run in Otera. Any girl caught walking faster than at a sedate pace is whipped for her insolence.
The Infinite Wisdoms forbid running, as they do most things that don’t prepare girls for marriage and serving their families. Girls can’t shout, drink, ride horses, go to school, learn a trade, learn to fight, move about without a male guardian—we can’t do anything that doesn’t somehow relate to having a husband and family and serving them.
Elder Durkas always told us that’s because they’re trying to show us how to live happy, righteous lives. What if they were meant to cage us instead?
“Our whole lives, we’ve been taught to make ourselves smaller, weaker than men. That’s what the Infinite Wisdoms teach—that being a girl means perpetual submission.”
Trust her to always state my deepest fears out loud.
Very few of the boys are our friends. After what happened during the run, they’re wary of me and the other girls, frightened of our power. Now they know how much greater our strength is than theirs—and that it’s only going to continue growing.
my gift is valuable, which means other people will do awful things to get their hands on it. On me.
“A case of the river condemning the stream for rushing too fast, isn’t it?”
“And how is our ever-cheerful Britta?” she asks. I smile. “Even more cheerful, now that she’s tossing boys across the sandpits.”
“They locked me in a cage, under the lake! They thought I would die, but I didn’t. I just kept drowning. I just kept drowning!” Tears are pouring down her face, and her whole body shudders. “Over and over and over and—”
“Of all the girls here, only you have the ability to command deathshrieks.”
“Deka is an anomaly among your kind,” Karmoko Thandiwe explains, glancing around the room. “She has the power to command deathshrieks.”
“The funny thing about you, Deka, is that your thoughts are always spinning. You think and think and run your mind in fine little circles, and yet you never quite grasp the truth of the matter.
For now, here is what you need to know: There are several types of monsters in this world. You are not one.”
“And that’s the worst part. The physical body—it heals. The scars fade. But the memories are forever. Even when you forget, they remain inside, taunting you, resurfacing when you least expect.”
Never forget: the same gift they praise you for now, they will kill you for later.”
Even though they’re now fully aware of what we alaki are, as is most everyone in Otera, they’re used to seeing women only in the home.
The idea of female soldiers does not sit well with them, and they’ve been treating us accordingly, hurling abusive words at us when the jatu aren’t watching.
“No, Deka, it’s the humans who are tricking you! This is what happens to us when we die our final deaths. No matter the manner of our final death, this is what we become! You have to come with us, hurry!”
“Deathshrieks and alaki!” Katya cries. “We’re one and the same! When an alaki dies her final death, she is reborn as a deathshriek! The emperor knows that. That’s why he’s using you to kill us. He’s using you to destroy your own kind. He wants us all to die, forever this time!”
And then they created the Nuru, the one creature that could exist between the alaki and the deathshrieks. The one daughter who could free them all.”
I was the agent of my own suffering.
His words, his hate, strike deep into my heart. Bitches. A word just as ugly as all the others men throw at us.
“The world is changing now. We’re going to make it change—make it better. We’re going to make sure that what happened to us never happens to anyone else.”
