Deities of Deceit

Chapter Fifty-five

Hareti Jaja | Fifty-five
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DESERT PRISONERS
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My grandparents believed the only resources Westerners sought were those of the earth. Diamond, gold, sapphires, all the rare gems. The slave trade was only whispered about in the palace hallways. Talks of African kings and queens selling their people into slavery for coin.

It was unfathomable to my grandparents, and then to my parents when they ascended the throne. There was reason for caution, but Mama and Papa gave none. It was not their worry, for it was not their kingdom. Until human slavery crossed the borders and infected their own people.

It was too late. A great settlement of Westerners were already thriving in Arjana, and unbeknownst to my parents, they had commandeered a great of number support within their kingdom and palace. My mother's answer to this was to weed Western allies out and behead them in front of a large gathering.

At the time, I still rested blissfully in her womb, protected from the cruelty of mortals. I would come to hear the tale from my grandmother at the age of five as she recounted, in rather gory detail, the events of that day. My seven-month pregnant mother swung her sword over the necks of forty-five treasoners, while colonizers watched. She wanted them to see, to know, to fear what was to come. It marked the beginning of Mama's war and the great purge of Western power across Africa.

"Duty called, and the crown answered," Grandma said, stroking my hair gently as I wept, my hand covered in blisters. Papa had insisted I began learning the way of the sword at such a young age and I was overwhelmed by it. "One day, you will understand, Hareti. This"—she traced a wrinkled shaky finger across my blistered palm—"is not for you. This is for her." She pointed toward the vast city that lay beyond the palace, submerged in harmattan dust in the middle of a dry December noon. "Arjana must always come first." She kissed my forehead, wiped my tears with the ends of her wrapper, and sent me back to the training ground.

A year later, during the mmawu feast, I would watch Grandma choke to death from a poison intended for my mother. She trusted no one else to taste Mama's food but herself, the palace had become a lair for falsehood with the rise of colonial powers.

Seven years later, I lost another half of me for Arjana's sake.

It was the morning of my thirteenth birthday and I had not seen my parents in two weeks. From our neighboring kingdoms Nazimbah and Ghana, an overflow of refugees poured into Arjana, many of whom were escaping the slave trade at the hands of their leaders. For my parents, this initiated an opportunity to create the first African union in pursuit of a United stand against a common enemy deemed too powerful for one kingdom to defeat.

While my parents tended to duty, I remained safely tucked away on the eighty-fifth floor, surrounded at all times by my parents' most trusted royal guards, servants, and educators. That morning, as with every morning, I woke to tens of smiling faces. It was the morning of my coming of age and in my name, two hundred chickens were slain and prepared for a feast of one.

I was washed in a bath of milk and honey, then scented with lavish oils. My hair was plaited and decorated with the finest jewels before they dressed me in gallant clothes befitting of a princess coming age, the kind my friends would have been envious of were I allowed to have friends.

Since Grandma's passing, there was little I was allowed when it came to a social life. Every friend was a potential assassin, every glance a potential plot. It was all Mama saw and I became a prisoner of her fears, locked away on the eighty-fifth floor to train, learn, and wait. Always waiting for my parents. For their smile.

Breakfast was served and I ate alone, surrounded by the tens of smiling faces I had come to loathe, and even more royal guards. There was no music, gifting, dancing, and such, as tradition demanded. Too much exposure to a potential threat. Instead, all I had were those distasteful, pretentious smiles.