Given

  Given

  Nandi Taylor

  CONTENTS

  Map of the Allied Seas

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Dedication

  To anyone who feels like they don’t quite belong—

  may you find your tribe.

  1

  Yenni made her decision as her cousins slithered through the grass like log snakes, hemming the creature in from all sides.

  They would hate her for this.

  She pulled energy through her focus rune—a band of white painted across her eyes—and felt its warm tingle on her skin as it sharpened her vision. Ahead the n’ne shimmered in the sunlight, the black hair of its haunches flashing blue, then green, then gold. It grazed, its graceful neck bent forward and its tall horns curved and gleaming like blackwood. Four long legs, suited to loping sprints, disappeared into the tall grass. Such a gorgeous animal. Small wonder her cousins wanted to skin it, put its head on display, and make a cape of its pelt.

  But n’ne were highly intelligent. It was rare to see more than one or two at a time, and the scholars theorized that they sacrificed themselves to draw predators away from the main herd. In fact, Yenni was certain it knew they were there. At any moment it would draw on ach’e, the divine energy that ran through all things, and put on a magical burst of speed to dart away. She planned to help it escape.

  Yenni heard a bird trill, high and sweet, and recognized it as the signal that one of her cousins, or perhaps her younger brother, was in place. Another bird call, and another. They would not attack with fire—that would singe the creature’s hide. No, they would chase the poor thing this way and that until they could catch it, and then someone would snap its neck with their bare hands. If she let them.

  Yenni moved through the grass clumsily, causing it to shake and shiver around her. The formation was still incomplete.

  Run, she thought desperately.

  As if it had heard her, the creature took off, its legs glowing with ach’e as it galloped through the tall grass. Yenni flared the speed runes on her thighs and calves, relishing the familiar warmth of energy coursing through her, and shot after it. Two of her cousins jumped up out of the grass. “Weh! Weh!” they shouted, waving their arms. The n’ne zipped right, where her younger brother, Jumi, kept pace, his runes blazing blue-white on his dark legs. He dove, arms wide to tackle the n’ne, but it slipped free and left him tumbling. Yenni grinned, until she realized the creature now ran right at her. If she scared it, it would turn tail and head straight for her cousin Ade-Ige. He would no doubt catch it and then . . .

  Yenni sprang out of the path of the runaway n’ne, flattening herself to the grass. The ground vibrated as it thundered past and she heard her cousin let out a frustrated curse.

  “Mothers and Fathers! It’s escaped into the forest, we’ll never find it now!”

  Standing, Yenni brushed herself off while mentally tensing against the tirade to come. She did feel a small stab of guilt for ruining the hunt, but it was her last trip for a long while to come, and she refused to taint the memory—the pale grass of the plain against the soft blue of the sky—with the tang of the beautiful animal’s red blood.

  When Yenni looked up, the others—all eight of them—stood across from her with their eyes glittering in accusation under their white focus runes.

  “Why didn’t you chase it toward us?” Ade-Ige demanded. Yenni stood straighter, raising her chin to meet his gaze, saying nothing. But her cousin was too far gone in his irritation to afford her proper respect.

  “You let it escape on purpose, didn’t you? Probably due to some foolish notion of it being too pretty to kill.” He threw up his hands. “This is why I dislike hunting with women!” He kicked at the grass like a petulant child.

  “Ah! It wasn’t me who let it escape!” cried Ade-Ige’s younger sister. She looked like a feminine version of him, right down to the fire in her eyes. “Don’t lump us together!” A second later she sent Yenni a frightened glance before fixing her gaze on the ground.

  Yenni huffed. It was one thing to bring down a boar for a feast or defend a village from a pack of emboldened hyenas, but rare and intelligent creatures—especially those that could channel ach’e—had always been Yenni’s weakness. Though she loved to encounter such animals in the wild, to stalk and study them, she was loathe to kill them. “Yes, I found it beautiful, as did you, which is why you wanted to capture it.”

  “And now it’s gone!” Ade-Ige shouted. “I don’t know who you think you are!”

  Her temper flared hot in her face. “I am Yenni Aja-Nifemi ka Yirba, and you would do well to remember that!”

  Ade-Ige and the others bowed their heads, all except her brother, and Yenni winced. She’d promised herself she would use her prowess as a tracker, not her title, to win their respect. But pigheaded Ade-Ige always got under her skin.

  “Let’s return,” she said, and before anyone could answer, she turned and pulled ach’e through her speed runes, dashing toward the white houses of the city and the gleaming gold palace perched on the top of the hill.

  Later in the day, Yenni sat in her bedroom on a wide reed mat beside her hammock, mixing runepaint. Once it was the right consistency, and the perfect shade of blue-tinged white, she took up her runebrush, dipped the coarse boar’s-hair tip in, and started the rune for strength on her bicep. As she drew she sang the hymn of strength, and her song infused the paint, making it glow, until she tied the hymn off with a final low note and the rune set, seeping into her skin. It would stay there until she used it up.

  She nodded in satisfaction and went back to mixing. The circle of prongs that made up her new blackwood whisk clacked against the shiny, matching bowl—a going away present from her older sisters. Blackwood was incredibly hard to come by, but it was best for blending the purest runepaint. Typically only the Masters, in their temples along the coast, had access to the sacred wood. How her sisters had come by the set she had no idea, but the two of them were bright eyed, sweet voiced, and charming, and tended to get their way more often than not. Yenni had not inherited their same powers of persuasion, but she had been able to sway her parents on the thing that mattered most: tomorrow she would leave for the Empire of Cresh.

  Three sharp raps sounded on her door. It had to be a servant, or her brother Dayo. He was the only member of her family who waited to be invited in.

  “Enter!” she called, and frowned at the chalky paint on her fingertips.

 
Sure enough, her oldest brother strode into the room, dressed as always in a long, regal kaftan tied around the middle with a thick golden sash, his gold prince’s cape over one shoulder. She couldn’t understand why he insisted on such formal attire at all times, and in this heat. Yenni preferred her hunting clothes: a simple shift tied over one shoulder—or perhaps a half-shirt and skirt—and her hide sandals.

  “How go your preparations, Kebi?” he said, using the informal address for a younger sister.

  She smiled and embraced him. “Well, thank you, N’kun,” said Yenni, returning his greeting with the term for an older brother.

  He frowned at her. “Why aren’t you dressed?” Dayo ran a hand along his beard, as he always did when he was irritated. “Kebi, could you at least try to look like a daughter of the chiefclan? This feast is to celebrate your birth, after all.”

  Yenni sighed. Dayo would make a fine chieftain once their parents stepped down, if for no other reason than his rigorous observance of propriety.

  “I’m sorry, N’kun,” she said, “but I just returned from hunting, and I became so caught up in mixing runepaint—”

  “Yes, the hunt,” her brother said, cutting her off. “I received a complaint from our cousins that you impeded their kill. Again.”

  She had the grace to look sheepish, but said nothing.

  “You are too old to still be hunting, Kebi,” he scolded. “Whoever heard of a woman of seven . . . no, eighteen rains still roaming the hills and plains?”

  Yenni folded her arms. “I am not married.”

  “No, and I suspect you intend to remain so. Forever, if you could, but you cannot.”

  Yenni caught the flicker of concern in her brother’s eyes and knew he was referring to their shaky political position. At present, their tribe was the most powerful on the Sha Islands, but their father’s health was failing, and with each meeting he missed, the wolves within the other tribes sniffed closer. A political marriage would do much to help them regain their footing.

  “You have a duty to strengthen the tribe, Yenni. The same for all of us who bear the name ka Yirba.”

  “Then why aren’t you married?” she grumped.

  He looked at her out of the side of his eye but didn’t answer, and she knew she was approaching disrespect. Yenni didn’t exactly envy her older brother’s position. He was in training to become a general, and besides that, he spent more and more time in political meetings with their mother, acting as a stand-in for their father and resolving their people’s disputes. But he was only five years older than her, and she knew the other leaders did not yet respect Dayo as they did her father. He would likely be forced into a strategic alliance himself soon.

  “Apologies, N’kun,” she said, and bowed her head. “But I know I will find a way to cure N’baba abroad, the Sha will guide me. Once he is well and active again, perhaps I won’t need to—”

  But Dayo was shaking his head. “You are all but engaged to Prince Natahi ka Gunzu. How would we explain to the Gunzu that you don’t want to marry their second son? They already believe we look down on them, Yenni. You know that would cause them grave insult.”

  That was Dayo, ever the strategist, just like their mother. “I see,” Yenni said softly, resigned that she would come home to the shackles of responsibility.

  “Sending you away for a year is bad enough, but it can’t be helped now. Come, I’m going to find our sisters to help you dress. You must look your best tonight.”

  Yenni grimaced. She must look her best not because it was her birthday but because the Gunzu would be there.

  “All right, N’kun,” she said wearily. “Send them along.”

  Dayo hugged her, chuckling against the top of her head, but his laughter soon died away. He pulled back and squeezed her arm affectionately. “I’ll miss you, Kebi. Not a day will go by that I won’t pray for your safe return, and not just for the sake of the tribe.”

  She rested her hand on his. “Thank you, but I’ll be fine. The Sha will protect me while I’m away, and if nothing else, I know which end of the spear is for stabbing.”

  Dayo chuckled again. “That you do. See you tonight.”

  He left and Yenni went back to grinding and mixing ingredients, so focused that the faint creak of the doors to her sitting room barely registered. It wasn’t until her bedroom doors burst open, spilling forth a flock of pretty, chatty women and girls, that Yenni whipped her head up from her work. The group was led by her sisters, twin paragons of Yirba style and grace. They surrounded her in a flurry of color, clacking beads, and the musky-sweet scent of shi-shi root oil, and Yenni smiled despite herself.

  “Time to dress, Kebi dear,” chirped high-cheeked Ifeh.

  “N’kun is looking more harassed than usual,” said doe-eyed Jayeh. “What did you—ah!” She gestured at Yenni, her gold bracelets jangling. “You’re really going to make us work today!” She eyed Yenni’s paint stains as she kissed her back teeth.

  “You call it work? All you do is supervise and dictate,” said Yenni.

  Ifeh fanned her nose. “Draw a bath,” she called to no one in particular. “Oh, don’t you pretend not to like it. You always come out stunning.” She flashed Yenni her charming, gap-toothed smile.

  “Yes,” said Jayeh, and winked. “Almost as pretty as us.”

  Her cousins giggled. Yenni wanted to seem angry, but she couldn’t help but laugh at her sisters’ teasing. Tonight they coordinated in slim, flowing gowns that showed off the flawless, dark skin of their arms. Both dresses had a pattern of bird feathers: one orange and blue, the other pink and yellow. And each sister wore a tall, regal head wrap: Jayeh’s gold, Ifeh’s a shimmering rose. A wave of sadness chased Yenni’s mirth. She would miss them greatly.

  They had her stand on the tile of her sitting room, trying on this and that, as they held up earrings and necklaces, and occasionally having girls run to their wing to get something from their own stock. As the sun made its path across the sky Yenni’s mood soured. No matter how she loved her sisters, nothing would convince her that getting dressed was meant to be such a production. How did they all stand it every day?

  At last the twins settled on a vibrant green gown, the material sheer and layered, the sides accented with yellow beading that emphasized Yenni’s figure, and it did not escape her that green and yellow were Gunzu colors. They sat her down among a pile of printed cushions and had her young cousin Bisini, the maid with the nimblest fingers, oil and rebraid her hair.

  “Why must my hair be perfect if it will just be under a wrap?” Yenni said, wincing as her maid pulled her hair against her scalp.

  “Because that is what’s proper,” said Ifeh.

  Finally Yenni’s hair was done, twisted up in thick braids to a small cone on top of her head that would help hold her head wrap in place.

  “You have such nice, healthy hair, but I wish you would stop cutting it,” said Jayeh. When not wrapped up Jayeh’s hair fell in neat locks down to the middle of her back.

  “It’s better for training,” said Yenni. Her sister frowned, but the other twin gently took Yenni’s chin. “Hmm, I think it suits her.” Ifeh preferred to shave her hair close to her head. It was how most told the two apart. But Yenni found both styles too much upkeep—most of the time, Yenni preferred a row of neat braids that fell just below her jawline.

  They put on the final touches: a sparkling gold chain that draped from a hoop in her ear to her nose, thick gold bands on her arms, and an ostentatious royal head wrap in gold and green, to match her gown. Her sisters beamed at her.

  “You look like, well, like a princess!” cried Ifeh.

  “Is it over?” asked Yenni. “I’m starving.”

  “I suppose this will have to do,” Jayeh teased, then clapped her hands. “All right, everyone! Let’s give them an entrance to talk about!”

  Yenni’s sisters knew how to throw a
party. They had overseen all the preparations, and the celebration started off with a sumptuous feast featuring Yenni’s favorite foods: fragrant chunks of goat in gravy with rice; hot pepper soup; cassava, boiled and sweetened; spot-beans with thick pepper sauce; sweet stewed chicken; breadfruit; coconut; and the juiciest mangoes she’d ever eaten.

  The courtyard was alive with drums and singing and chatter. Stilt walkers lumbered about in colorful costumes while musicians plucked out beautiful, happy melodies. There had been dancers, singers, and an exciting battle between two clacking and towering rune puppets, and now Yenni sat with her parents at the high table while her siblings mingled with the crowd. Once again she glanced at her n’baba. He sat straight backed in his kaftan of Yirba colors: midnight blue with gold accents. He smiled benevolently at the guests who came to greet them, but every once in a while Yenni saw him clench his jaw, and sweat beaded on his forehead. He was in pain, but too proud to leave. He might even need assistance to make it down the steps from the high table and back inside, and she knew the last thing he wanted was for their guests to see him leaving stooped and weak on the arm of his wife or his guard.

  This, this was why she had pestered and pleaded with her parents to make the pact of Orire N’jem and travel abroad. None of their healers knew what to make of her father’s condition. The most celebrated healers among the Yirba, the Shahanta, the Fuboli, and even the Gunzu could not figure out the cause of her father’s waning strength, so at last her mother had sent scholars to Cresh, the empire to the north. They had returned only a few weeks back, with reports of Creshens suffering a condition similar to her father’s. The Creshens had yet to find a cure themselves, but were reportedly working toward one.

  I will find a way to help you, N’baba, Yenni thought as she watched her father smile through his pain. I swear it by all the divine Mothers and Fathers.

  For now, perhaps she could make some kind of diversion so that he could at least slip away and stop tormenting himself.

  “Blessed Birthday, Yenni Aja-Nifemi.”