Page 63 of The Merciless Ones
“All right, all right!” Britta hurries over, helps me wrench the necklace from my neck, and I fling it across the floor.
The moment it’s gone, I can breathe again. My chest has lightened as if a weight has been lifted from it.
As I breathe, trying to regain my equilibrium, Britta picks up the necklace, frowns down at it. “That’s odd,” she says, testing its weight. “Does it always feel this…heavy?”
I nod. I’d gotten used to its heaviness. “It’s the ichor. Anok told me the necklace contains blood from each of them. Wait…” Blood from each of them… The words spur something inside me – memories. The blood drop I touched in Melanis’s tear. The streaks of blood that transferred from Katya’s hand to mine when I held it. Anok and I inside that lake, her gazing intently into my eyes.
“Where is the answer, Deka?” she asks.
“It’s in the blood.”
More memories surface: the way Anok was so careful to have our conversation where no one else would overhear. The urgency with which she cautioned me to remember everything she said. The way her eyes sucked me in and the oblivion after… Anok interfered with my memories, that much is clear, but the more I remember, the more I’m certain: she didn’t do it to be malicious. It’s strange, but it almost seemed like she was trying to protect me.
I glance at the others. “Anok tampered with my memories,” I say, my thoughts still distant as I try to piece everything together.
“Wha? When?” Britta gasps, concerned.
“Right before we left. She was trying to warn me, I think. She told me that the answer was in the blood, and just now, I saw Katya’s memories when I touched her blood.”
“But the mothers said that was because of the ansetha,” Belcalis muses. “Why wouldn’t they want you to know that you could do that?”
“’Cause they’re liars,” Britta quips.
“Liars who’ve been slithering around in your brain,” Adwapa adds, the image causing me to shudder.
I already have so many problems with my mind, my memories. And now the idea that the Gilded Ones may have manipulated my very thoughts…
My stomach lurches.
“Are you sure that’s the only time they’ve done that?” Belcalis asks.
I look down. “I think so. But I can’t be sure, can I?” What if the goddesses have been interfering with my memories all this time? What if all the things I think are true aren’t? Was I truly born in Irfut? Did I experience all the things I think I did?
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I say.
“Well, before you go all vomiting again,” Asha says hurriedly, “I have a question. Why would they be certain you’d never discover the truth about it – the thing with the memories, that is? I mean, you’re around blood all the time. How could they be certain you’d never do it again?”
I stare down at the ansetha necklace, thinking. Then it dawns on me. “I’m always wearing that,” I gasp, “but the moment I took it off…” I glance up at the others, horrified. “You don’t think—”
“That they’ve been using this necklace to control you?” Belcalis takes the necklace and regards it with the same hostility she would a venomous snake. “It’s quite possible. I mean, the moment Idugu came around, you started changing the doors and such.”
“Ye mean the kaduth,” Britta corrects. When we all glance at her, she says, “Yer abilities started growin’ when ye were first exposed to the kaduth in the Oyomosin. An’ come to think of it, that symbol was all across the Grand Temple.” She jolts up: “What if the kaduth not only weakens yer powers; it weakens the mothers’ as well? What if it weakens their hold on ye?”
I stare at the necklace, thinking. “There’s only one way to find out. We have to get our hands on a kaduth.”
“Then isn’t it fortunate that we’re going exactly where they’re being made,” Asha quips.
“What?” I frown.
“The Warthu Bera,” Britta explains. “Karmoko Thandiwe told us that’s what the bloodsisters are being forced to make there – infernal armour with kaduths on it.”
“We have to hurry there as soon as we can,” I say, rising again, but Britta puts a hand on my shoulder.
“Why don’t ye rest a bit, let yer emotions settle, Deka?” she says gently.
When I turn to her, she explains: “Ye’ve been through a lot lately, an’ not to doubt ye, but if ye have a meetin’ right now, whatever decisions ye make won’t be made from your logical mind.”
I sigh. “I know I haven’t been making the best decisions lately, but—”