Page 62 of The Merciless Ones

Finally, after some moments, I turn to the others. “I have something to tell you.”

“Is it a new disaster?” Britta asks, flopping beside me. “Everythin’ is a disaster these days.”

“The mothers are lying to us.”

“You already told us that.” Belcalis snorts. When I turn to her, she explains. “Seems like every day now, we find a new lie.” She ticks off the points on her hands. “First, they say they’re the only gods, but turns out there’s another who can communicate with us. And they send us on this errand, only they’re hiding the true nature of it.”

“Wha about how they say they want equality for all, an’ yet all the generals are female – no room for men or yandau or any other people.” When we all turn to Britta, startled by this assessment, she turns bright pink. “Wha? I’ve just been noticin’ is all. An’ I also notice,” she adds, turning to me, “how they say yer their beloved daughter an’ yet they treat ye as barely more than a pet.”

Adwapa jabs a triumphant finger. “That! That’s the exact thing.”

“I’m not their pet.” I glance at the others, startled. “I’m not.”

Belcalis places a gentle hand on my knee. “Then why are we still here? The angoro might not even exist, and Idugu is a god, realms above us. Why are we still here?”

I turn to her, frowning. “We’re here to rescue our friends and then to find out more about Idugu and the angoro before we take any further steps.”

“And then?”

I blink. “And then what?”

“Say, for instance, the angoro exists and you find it. What are you going to do with it?”

“Give it back to the mothers,” I say immediately.

“But wha if it’s not theirs?” This interjection comes from Britta.

“What do you mean?” I ask, perplexed.

Belcalis sighs. “Deka, if the Gilded Ones are gods and they made arcane objects, it stands to reason Idugu can do the same. They could be trying to steal the angoro from him, using you to do so.”

I jolt upright, suddenly unable to remain sitting any more. My body feels unsteady – almost panicked. It’s all I can do to remain breathing. “You shouldn’t say such things,” I snap. “What if the mothers are watching, what if they—”

“They’re not,” Belcalis affirms quietly. “They’re not here.”

I blink. “But—”

“When last did you feel them, Deka?” she asks. As I blink, thinking, she continues: “You don’t feel them because they’re not here. They have no power here. Only Idugu does. We’re in his realm now.”

His realm… I sit down again, my body trembling with a strange nervous energy. Suddenly, I’m thinking of everything I’ve learned in the past few days: the existence of Idugu, male deathshrieks, jatu resurrection, White Hands and Melanis’s memories – even the fact that I can see into others’ memories. I recognize now what happened when I touched Katya’s hand. It was the same thing that happened when I touched Melanis’s tear. I saw into their memories.

And yet the mothers told me I couldn’t. Just as they told me, and everyone else, that almost all of the things we’ve witnessed in the past day weren’t possible.

But why lie to us? Why lie to me? That’s what I still don’t understand. I’m the Nuru, their daughter. Flesh of their flesh, blood of their blood. I understand why they’d hide things from the others – but me? I don’t understand it at all.

“I have a question for ye, Deka,” Britta says. “Just one last question, an’ if ye say yes, I’ll bite my tongue an’ let all this go.”

I turn to her. “What is it?”

She stares at me, her eyes earnest. “If ye failed in findin’ the angoro or stoppin’ Idugu, do ye think ye’d be welcome back to Abeya?”

I frown. “Of course, I’d be—”

The words die in my mouth as I think of the powerful grey storm clouds heralding Hui Li’s rage, the sighing winds of Beda’s disappointment, the sly, creeping mists of Etzli’s condemnation. Of all the mothers, only Anok, I suspect, would pat me on the back for trying. The rest would let me feel the weight of their wrath in different ways.

Britta nods, her eyes sad as she takes in my realization. “An’ that’s exactly wha we’re tryin’ to say. Mothers – good mothers, Deka – they always support ye, even when ye fail. But I suspect that after all that’s happened to ye, yer so used to abuse, ye’ll take anything that looks like motherin’, even when ye know it’s not.”

I slump down, the wind knocked out of me, and I suddenly can’t breathe any more. The ansetha necklace is so tight around my neck, it’s almost like a collar, choking me. I scratch at it. “Get it off,” I whisper. Then I begin to claw frantically at it. “Get it off, get it off!”