I’m sobbing on my knees in the cemetery when I return to life. I want to curl up on top of the grave and die, just to be back in death with Illyas.
You could be with them both. You won’t have to pass Illyas. And Layala, maybe, maybe she could become Death, and be able to leave the realm. Have a semblance of a life.”
No!
No! That is no kind of life. That is a shadow of a life, and not one lived.
I push aside my grief, swallow the pain building in my heart. And I walk back to my home, walk back to my child, dead under my roof.
Kamuna is still there, watching Sayil in Layala’s body as she eats and drinks and shivers, even though she is sitting beside the roaring fire.
“Hakawati,” Death says when I shut the door behind me. “Did you do what it was you had to?”
I nod and move to the shelf with Illyas’s jar.
“Hakawati?” Kamuna says, uncertain, eyeing me.
I meet her gaze. “I will sacrifice Illyas and raise Layala with his soul.”
She doesn’t say anything, but I notice she pulls Sayil in closer to her side. Sayil, who looks like my Layl but has none of her soul.
You are doing the right thing as her mother. You are giving her a life, the one she should live. That is your duty as her mother and your right as Hakawati.
“Nadine,” Kamuna says, pulling me from my thoughts. “I know what he means to you.”
“Do you?” I snap, my voice sounding far too bitter, even to me.
“Yes. And I wish it could be different.”
“And there is no other way, Death? No sacrifice you can conjure?”
“No. And truly, I am sorry for your loss. I know how painful it must be.”
I swallow the bile rising in my throat. “There is none who owe you a favor, who could be a sacrifice?”
Kamuna shakes her head. “If there were, I would have called in that debt many moons ago to raise my Sayil. I am sorry, Hakawati. I cannot help you.”
I bow my head and hold Illyas’s jar. His soul is so red, so purely red, it looks more like the color of blood than anything else. The color of life.
A soft hand settles on my shoulder. “I will be here, Hakawati, if you need me.” She glances at Rami’s body, still lying there on the ground.
I glance up at Death, her face so mournful, her eyes shining bright with tears.
“Bury him,” I say.
I leave the cottage and gather more clay, more water, and everything else I need for Layl’s raising. I prepare her body as I did before, and I kneel beside her. Kamuna and Sayil’s eyes burn against my back, but I ignore them. Illyas’s jar and Layala’s seed are beside me.
“I am sorry, hiyati,” I murmur.
Then I open the jar, and I eat Illyas’s soul seed.