She thought about the day her mother and father handed her over to the future queen, recalling the burns on her skin left from struggling against the men who dragged her from her home. She turned cold the moment they threw her in the cage with the other girls, refusing to show any weakness while they cried. Eventually, the girls talked amongst each other, but she kept to herself. She knew the true reason they were there. Queen Hangbe worshiped the old gods, and her cult hunted for a girl strong enough to bear the spirit of the Great Egyptian Goddess. Most would not survive the process, and those who did would either inherit the goddess’s power or be deemed strong enough to become one of the queen’s personal guards. Her mother had warned her the moment she woke up to her first blood. She knew that Sandrine—Ekhorose, as she was known then—was exactly the sort of girl Hangbe was looking for.
“I don’t need borrowed power. I am strong enough on my own,” young Sandrine informed the queen when she visited her cell after the process. She didn’t care that her body now shook with power; she was still incensed by the way they tied her to the floor, holding her down as the soul of Isis entered her body and found a resting place beside her own soul. Although she could hear the small whisper of the ancient goddess, learning she was far from overbearing or cruel, Sandrine knew she didn’t belong there.
Queen Hangbe was undeterred, beaming down at her as she dabbed her sweaty skin with a moistened cloth. “You will be my first in command and preside over my army. You will have power over the others, whether you approve or not. I think you will decide to use the Goddess’s Gifts. She chose to give them to you.” Then the queen stood, offering Sandrine one last smile before she withdrew, her bright robes sweeping the dusty floor behind her.
I will prove otherwise, Sandrine thought as she drifted off to sleep. Throughout the training that immediately followed, Sandrine never once needed her extra power, and this current time was no different. She would pass this trial like the others before it.
She allowed herself a few more moments to rest under the poor shade of the dust storm, trying to gather enough saliva in her mouth to swallow. The act split her parched lips, but the sharp pain was nothing compared to the ache of her dehydrated muscles, which screamed as she climbed to her feet. She paused to adjust before moving forward, keeping her movements slight and her breathing steady, lest she faint like the girls behind her.
It was not the physical suffering that bothered her—she’d long learned life was nothing but suffering—it was the sounds the others made, and the haunting knowledge that she was physically unable to help them, lest she fall victim to the sun’s hellacious rays herself. She ignored their weeping and focused on her feet, ripped and raw from the harsh desert floor. One step at a time. Step, step, step. Step into the dust, lift your foot, watch the wind take it away. Step, step, step, the steps won’t let you faint.
She couldn’t recall how many steps she took, her vision nothing more than black fluttering patches. But miraculously, she reached the bushes that bordered the village and promptly collapsed. When she awoke, she was inside the compound, aloe vera salve applied to her peeling, sunburnt skin and her blistered feet wrapped in gauze. She shivered with pain, unable to clearly see the woman who squeezed drops of water into her mouth. It was after several days of convalescence that she realized it was once again the queen.
Hangbe was dressed in billowing robes of white, her head wrapped in a matching scarf, pulling at her temples. “Some may think my methods are cruel,” she offered. “But I know what lies outside our village. I not only want to see who can withstand suffering, but how quickly you can heal. I am surprised you have not once used the powers gifted to you.”
Sandrine panicked, wondering if she’d failed.
The queen seemed to read her mind. “You and three other girls have withstood the trials. The rest have died. You will finish your healing and join the other warriors. Though you have not used your gifted powers, I still want you as commander. You are undoubtedly strong without them.”
Sandrine let the memory fade. She sighed, her eyes sweeping the empty shell that was once their training center. Roofless, with only three dilapidated walls remaining upright in the dirt, it was merely a ghost, but she could still hear the grunts and groans of women fighting. She could even smell the sweat and spilled blood, and taste the fresh stew slopped into their bowls. The queen always served the leanest cuts of meat, insisting it was better to grow the muscles and strengthen the bones. It was a great pleasure for many of the women, but Sandrine’s great pleasure had always been the fight.
Was it that long ago that she had transformed her body into a perfect warrior, standing at the head of a ruthless army with the hope of a new world booming in her chest? Her gaze moved across the plain to the capital. Abomey dozed to the sound of buzzing insects and the distant chattering of hyenas, a false sense of security behind the tall mud wall and five foot ditches filled with prickly Acacia branches. It was how the kings maintained their rule—terrifying their subjects into blind obedience, preying on their desire to be protected from the outside terrors. But no one was safe from sacrifice; the kings cared nothing of human life beyond their own.
I have killed too many kings, Anubis had written to her. They tell me he is different, that the kingdom will transform from one drenched in blood money to one that survives off her natural bounty. He created farms to harvest the oil, but he has filled them with slaves. He signed the treaties, but he makes secret pacts with other kings. He promises to stop the sacrifices, but has a harem of ahosi that includes your warriors, and his throne is made of human skulls.
He knows I lurk in the shadows, protected by things he cannot see. He fears me so much that his militia exceeds far beyond any other king before me. No military has ever worried me. I kill the kings just the same. Yet he keeps his ahosi on the front line, sending them into all of his battles. Many of the women do not want to join his army, but they are forced—girls as young as thirteen. They all must disavow men, for in his eyes, they are married to him. When the white men come, he has the ahosi put on theatrical fights to entertain them, scaling giant walls barbed with Acacia, miming hand to hand combat while the crowd cheers them and judges their performances. It is unclear if the winners or the losers are sent to the bedrooms of the guests, but if one of these unions happen to be fruitful, they are swiftly sentenced to death.
It is for this reason that I think his death should be yours.
Most of his letters she’d burned, but this one she’d kept, folded neatly into a small pocket in her boot. It had long since disintegrated, but it became a symbol of her mission. She never questioned how the letters found her, no matter where she ended up, instead relying on the last surviving piece of her human life, given to her by the poor young man she once forced into becoming a creature like her.
She remembered his eyes, bulging out of a narrow face as he searched hers frantically, struggling to scoop air into laboring lungs. His ebony skin had been riddled by pustulous sores, his organs struggling to function, his teeth chattering although he was hot to the touch. “Are you my real mother?” he whispered, delirious, trying to reach out to touch her face.
“Not exactly,” she told him, cradling his head in her lap. “But you are dying, Anubis. You have been kept half-alive by the blood of an immortal creature who wants to steal your power. But I can turn you into a being like me to take away your fever.”
The young man moaned. “My wife…”
Sandrine recalled the emaciated Frenchwoman she’d found, barely alive in his arms. “It is too late for her.”
“Thomas...he is a god,” he gasped.
She had assumed then that he’d reached the point of delirium. “You can save him yourself if you let me save you now. I have to get you off this ship before he returns.”
He had closed his eyes then, his hand resting on her arm. “Please.”
She’d sunken her teeth into his neck, but it was unlike any human she’d ever fed from. His blood was fresh but ancient, like an aged wine, bursting with secrets that threatened to overwhelm her own mind. She saw his life in Egypt, the mother who looked like the soul who lived inside her, the spirits, the dark realms. She heard the angry echoes of the vodun gods she knew from childhood, drawing in to stop her. She let him go, forcing him to pull blood from her neck as she carried him out of the ship and into a nearby cave. She had no time to watch him turn, worried that he’d have no guidance, but an old woman spirit with rich eyes put a hand on her shoulder. “Kill the one who caused this. I will take care of my son,” she promised.
After that moment, it seemed Anubis and Sandrine were tied together forever, two gods who had reincarnated into a larger purpose—to walk the fine line between the wars waged in the spiritual realms and the atrocities created by humanity.
Over time, she observed many reincarnated gods abandoning their human lives completely, remembering their godly ones the strongest, but even decades after Angelique turned her, Sandrine felt tied to her humanity. She wondered if it was because her life as Medusa was fleeting, or that her soul was tied to an older one she had no memory of. Or perhaps, it was what she told Cahira years ago—she came back exactly how and when she needed to, so she could help the humans who depended on her.
In any case, she found the blood of treacherous men to taste the sweetest, and she had been on Lucius’s ship without indulgence for much too long.
She scaled the wall with little effort, slipping around the guards that patrolled the gates. A few torches burned along its borders, but the village was dark, the royal palace not far ahead. Soldiers moved listlessly between the fields and huts, armed with their long knives, some men, some women, all dressed in the colors of the king. She avoided them all as she reached the thick mud bricks of his palace walls, and heard the low rumbling laughter of night guards as they waited for their shift to end. A single woman soldier stood staring out into the distance as if she could sense something.
Sandrine slipped up behind her, silencing her with her hand before she could scream. “I am looking for Iziegbe,” she whispered in her ear. “My name is Ekhorose, and I once served Queen Hangbe.” She ignored the shiver down her back that saying her original name caused.
The woman nodded, and Sandrine gradually released her grip.
The soldier motioned to follow her, taking Sandrine down a long corridor into a room illuminated by dozens of candles. A group of women wrapped in silk lounged amongst pillows, apprehending them with frightened eyes. Being in close proximity with so many humans brought saliva to Sandrine’s mouth, but she pushed aside her hunger.
A petite woman sat in the middle, noticeably older than the rest. Her face was locked in awe as she rose, her skirts a vivid pink, and her hair cropped tightly around lined but soft features. “Are you her?” she whispered.
Sandrine nodded.
Iziegbe took her immediately by the hand, guiding her into another room with hundreds of brightly colored fabrics hanging on the walls. It reeked of scented oils, lavish pieces of jewelry spread out on display.
Sandrine scowled with recognition. “No,” she said. “I will meet him as I am.”
“They will kill you unless they think you are one of his wives,” Iziegbe insisted.
Sandrine grabbed her by the back of her neck, letting the candlelight hit her face so she could clearly see her radiant eyes and glinting, pointed teeth. “Child, I am not afraid of men.”
Iziegbe nodded quickly, her frantic eyes wide. “Follow the smaller hall through the doorway,” she stammered. “He is sleeping, but the warriors surround him.”
Sandrine released her, and she ran back to the others.
Sandrine pulled out the thin knife she kept in her boot near Anubis’s letter. There were only two male guards who lunged for her as she pried open the door, but she snapped both of their necks easily. Their bodies crumpled to the ground as the women guards rose to their feet. They did not lunge, however, backing away from the king’s bed instead.
