Chapter Twenty

I step on the heels of my boots to remove them and D’ziko has enough sense to know that he can't take his shoes off. The last thing I want to do, on top of everything else, is to answer to my family about a mysterious pair of male boots.
As soon as D'ziko and I open the door, I hear mama crying. I hover uncertainly over her door, and she quiets down. I'm torn. I want to comfort her, to take her in my arms and tell her everything will be fine. Recite the words she told me everyday when I was growing up: Don't cry. I'm here. Everything will be okay.
But nothing will be okay. I can't lie to her. She'll know I'm lying. I don't know how to make things okay for her and it doesn't seem as though Papa is the medicine she needs. I touch her door, my forehead pressed against it.
"I'm sorry, Mama," I say to myself and then peel away from her door and down the hall. D'ziko follows behind me in silence.
The sound of her distress haunts me all the way down the hall.
At Kaseke's door, music blasts so loud the walls vibrate. He does this each night to drawn Mama's crying. My brother is sluggishly singing along to the lazy drool on the speakers. A song that came out years ago. A song he plays every night.
We make it to my room and D'ziko takes it all in while slipping off his boots. He looks surprised at the poster of various African Gods on my walls. Leza's eyes follow us around the room. Suddenly, it feels so much worse having a picture of her in here, since her son is my lifemate. It's not like she walked in on us in the most compromising positions but she's still his mother and for the rest of all eternity, she'll have a front row view of everything her son and I get up to (Gods forbid).
He turns to me and the frown he wears seems to burn past the mask.
"I didn't think ya were the type."
Now it's my turn to frown. "What type?"
He turns away from studying my face to scanning the posters again. D'ziko points lazily at them. "The celebrity posters on walls type."
"What do I look like then?"
"Oh, I don't know." He bites the side of his lip, and starts a shrug, his eyes appraising me. It's a long second. "Ya're just too serious."
I give him an eye roll and a smile. "Code for boring."
He finishes the shrug. “Not what I meant at all.”
I frown. This guy is so confusing. “What did ya mean then?”
He says nothing.
"I'll be back." My stomach grumbles, probably giving me away. "Lock the door behind me. I don't want to take any chances."
He looks at me with those glowing moons. I cock my head to the side to study them. Like the Gods in the posters, D'ziko's pupils are round, like a Saboni's and not like ours whose pupils resemble that of a cat's; an oblong shape with peaked ends, like a slit in the center of the eye.
He turns back to the posters, giving each one his undivided attention. I study him, and don't peel my gaze off him even when he catches me staring. He looks away first.
"What is it?" he asks, squirming.
I have been staring for too long. My face grows warm. I'm so thankful I was born with a natural tan. "Nothing."
I direct him to the only chair to sit.
“Ya can sit, I’ll warm ya some goat milk,” I say and head out the door. “And dinner,” I add, peeping through from the door.
He doesn't respond but I think I see approval light up his eyes when he leans back on his seat, arms crossed behind his neck, legs on the dresser. I wait in the hallway until I hear the lock in the door. Mama would be so disappointed if she ever found out about a boy being in my bedroom. It wouldn't even matter to her that he's my lifemate.
A glass of warm goat milk sits on the counter, and I gulp it down in seconds and then warm another for D'ziko.
I pour warm water in one of the bigger bowls, get a dishcloth and hurry back to my bedroom, and knock once. There's no answer. I knock again. Nothing. I whisper his name and finally the lock clicks.
He locks it again behind me. Once he's seated, I crouch next to him, hold the basin in front of him. D'ziko shakes his head in disbelief before washing his hands. When he's done I take the tablecloth and wipe his hands dry.
" I'll be back with your food.” I tell him.
He doesn't answer me. He keeps looking at me like I'm an alien.
When I come back with our food, he takes the plate of food as I step inside. With the door locked behind him, he joins me on the floor.
"You need to do something," he says.
I fork a piece of chicken and nod. "The only thing I'm willing to do is kill the thief. I don't intend to get involved in other issues. I don't want to anger the Gods more."
He sips milk slowly. "The second you announced yourself as the ruler is the day these people's faith got restored. You're the chosen one, at least in their eyes."
"I'm not a hero. I wasn't born one. You are."
He keeps flinging glances at my face. The heat of his stare warms my cheeks. I keep my eyes on the fork going in and out of my mouth to avoid looking at him.
"You know Imani, heros are made. Not born. You forged the most powerful sword in the universe knowing it's magic could reduce you to ashes but you did it anyway because you want to end the source of mysery in Noddon. To save Noddon."
I shake my head. "I'm doing this for Commodore."
He takes my hand. "You've been lying to yourself for so long now that I actually think you truly believe this. Imani, there's nothing more you can do for Commodore. Killing the essence thief won't bring him back. It won't give you closure. But killing him will save more lives and that's what makes a hero. Doing something good for others when you expect nothing in return. You're doing what I should've done ages ago. You're my hero."
He's right.
He sips his milk. "Thank ya," he says. And I know he doesn't just mean the milk.
I set my fork down and look him straight in the eye. "Don't mention it."
He nods. I pick up my fork and pick through my food. We don't talk again even though I have a million questions I'd like to fire at him. The silence is nice. His presence is calming in a weird electric sort of way. The way the electricity hums in my room reminds me of Sword Universe. The motes of electricity in the air, like there are invisible wires everywhere.
I take slow sips from the same glass he was drinking from. "So...uh, what were ya doing at Sword Universe that day?"
He looks at me for a long moment. "Making sure everything goes according to plan?"
I sit up straight. "Everything?"
D'ziko looks at the poster and he and his mother exchange looks. Back and forth, back and forth. If I didn't know any better, I'd think they are having a silent conversation.
"Ja. Yer plan to switch the Bakantwa sword with yer Blacksteel one."
I stare at him. "Y-ya knew."
He purses his lips and looks at his mother again, as though asking for permission to answer. Leza moves her eyes to me and then back to him.
"I know everything." He gives me a bit of a smile. "Everything that has to do with the sword, that is."
He sticks out his hand into the air.
I watch him, unable to comprehend and I think, what an odd guy but then the air swirls my hair and the sheets are uprooted from the bed, and the whole house shakes. The real bakantwa flies straight to his waiting hand.
"The power that comes with controlling the sword is befitting only to a God," he explains. "The Gods aren't stupid. It wouldn't be bestowed among a mortal. Leza wouldn't make one of you so powerful when one of your own betrayed her."
"Of course."
She might love us because that's what a mother does, gives unconditional love but she doesn't trust us. We must fight for her trust. Earn it back.
The Bakantwa sword's light flickers and my whole room glows a royal blue. Like a cobweb, millions of wires line the walls. The electricity is so strong now that Kaseke is banging at my door. There's even a few neighbours screaming their lungs out outside speaking of this magnificent light, the magic they feel in the air.
"Imy...?" Mama asks, voice shaking. She tries the door and screams. "Ya okay in there, sweetheart?"
"Yes, Mama," I call through the door. "Ya can go back to sleep."
I don't know how I expect her to just go to sleep. I wouldn't be able to sleep too if I felt something of this magnitude.
She makes a throaty sound like she is about to protest but then just says, "Ya sure?"
I feel D'ziko and Leza's eyes on me. I can't look at them.
"Yes, Mama."