Ben hardly knew what he was doing anymore. The days were tied together with a long thread of anxiety that hummed in his brain. He felt as if he were sleepwalking, and he sang constantly, trying to keep the outer music at a distance. But everywhere, always, in and underneath everything, he could hear the Desert King’s music coming closer, growing louder as it approached the city. It was horrifying, doom-filled music full of wrong notes and ominous drumbeats.
The city was in a state of preparation, the Maweel fortifying their city and looking for wisdom. Everyone had their roles, and he and Isika came and went from their house to the palace, back and forth throughout the day. Isika had ceased to go to the pottery workshop at all, spending all her time fortifying the dome.
Ben walked to the uppermost tower of the palace, where the flat roof was hot under his feet. In times of need, the singers sang together to strengthen the rangers, their music forming a net of magic that they could send over to the fire, where the rangers defended the city. In their songs, they asked the Shaper for help. There were fewer singers than usual, as many of the singers were rangers, out fighting fire, singing as they worked. At first, Ibba had come to the singing tower with Ben, but when she started having nightmares, weeping in her sleep, Auntie put her foot down and said, “No more.”
Benayeem sang as though he was in a dream. Singing kept him alive and in his right mind, but it was difficult for him, because he could hear the other music. One moment he was truly in his body, aware of the singers who stood to his left and right, the next, he was lost in a far-off city, a time long ago, small and afraid.
More memories came to him over the days that they waited and sang. Ben was thrust into them suddenly, as though a hand were plucking him away from himself and setting him in the past. He didn’t seem to have control.
One moment, walking up the stone road, arm in arm with Isika, she on her way to fortify the barrier, he to sing with the others. The next moment, catching sight of his mother and older sister in a long hallway. He called to his mother, trying to run to her. She turned, halfway, and he caught sight of a baby in her arms. Who was the baby? How long had he been away? Screaming for her. Being pulled away by merciless arms, while she cried and called that she loved him, loved him.
He came to himself crumpled on the ground, Isika beside him, holding the music off so he could come back to himself. It felt painful to speak about it, to tell Isika about the memories he had pushed away all these years, but she wouldn’t let him go until he told her. He didn’t want to lie to her, so he told her of seeing her with their mother, of how he was kept away from her, of how she must have had Aria in her arms, but he hadn’t known she had a baby.
He looked up to see tears running down her face. She wiped at them with the back of one hand. Behind her he could see a few concerned people, and the tall silverwood trees that lined the stone road.
“I can’t remember it!” she said, shaking her head, distressed.
“I have barely remembered it all myself,” he said. “When we left, I was with Mama, and I was happy, so I pushed those memories far away.”
“Why are they coming back now?”
“Because of the evil that is coming. Because the Desert King grows nearer,” he said. “His fire scorches everything before him.” He sighed. “And he is tied to that time. His music brings it back to me.”
One moment singing, another moment trying to balance a glass on a platter, holding it as still as four-year-old hands can. Fear in his heart and his mouth. The slap of a hard hand on his cheek, dropping the glass, sweeping up broken shards.
One moment singing, another sitting at the base of the king’s chair, trembling. Holding a cloth in his hand that was used to wipe up any spills as soon as they happened. Too close to the king’s feet, which he had seen kicking many slaves. Too close.
And then one day, he was there, at the plains on the edge of the city. Ben knew as soon as he woke up that he was there. He crept through the day half-cringing, cursing himself for his overwhelming fear. He sang with the others, drifting in and out of the present. The elders walked around conferring with rangers who ran in and out. Ben caught sight of Karah huddled with Jerutha in one of the palace hallways. To his shock and horror, he saw that Karah was crying, her beautiful face streaked with tears.
And then night came.
Ben could feel that the Desert King stood at the very entrance to the city, at the place where the plains met the horse meadow. The horses had already been led away, and the people evacuated from their farmhouses. Everything nearby was on fire and the city glowed orange with it in the darkness.
Ben, Isika, and Jabari stood on the palace rooftop, searching the dome, their barrier, with their eyes.
“Do you think it will hold?” Isika asked. Her voice sounded strange, as though she were choking. Her music was brave, sad, and scared, all at once, so poignant Ben could barely listen to it.
“We’re not old ladies weaving a blanket,” Jabari said. “Of course it will hold.”
“Don’t let Auntie hear you say that,” Isika said. “I’m pretty sure her blankets are very, very strong.”
Ben smiled, thinking of Jabari and Isika weaving away on giant magical looms, but the smile couldn’t stay. It slid off his face as he heard the undercurrents of their music, the terror under their brave voices. They had been through scary things before; the poisoned bay water that killed a man, the priests in the desert sucking the moisture out of their bodies. But there had been a chance, then, that they would get away and get back to Azariyah, which beckoned like a kind and lovely light. Now they were fighting for Azariyah itself, and Ben felt that if Azariyah was gone, there would be nothing good or lovely left in the world.
They heard it then, a long, low hiss.
“What’s that?” Isika asked, and Jabari started to speak, worry furrowing his brow, but he froze as he saw a brilliant orange flame on the horizon, brighter than any other, dancing with green light in its center. Ben shuddered with pain from the music that came from that fire. The flames came closer and closer until they lit up Isika, only Isika, in a circle of light that caught her. Jabari tried, but couldn’t break into the light, and Ben either, though he pounded on the strange shield that kept his sister from him. Isika, inside, seemed stunned, her eyes narrowed and searching, near tears.
“There you are,” came a voice, and the silence that fell over the three of them was so deep that nothing was able to penetrate it. Dully, Ben saw Jabari shouting, lifting his hands to beat on the light around Isika, but he couldn’t hear him.
There was a wild roaring and a thousand arrows of flame shot from the green smudge on the horizon, flying toward the three of them on the rooftop, flying toward their beautiful city, and Ben knew with dread in his heart that they would be burned. But far away, the arrows hit their barrier, Isika and Jabari’s beautiful, singing barrier, and fizzled out. Jabari stopped beating on the light around Isika and looked up, his mouth open.
Suddenly Ben could hear again, though the world seemed very quiet. Not a voice, not the call of a bird. But he heard Jabari whistle beside him.
“It worked,” Jabari said, “it worked!” He sounded stupefied.
How could Jabari still be happy about the dome when all hope was lost? Ben thought.
He shook his head. When had he decided all hope was lost? Was it when he was wandering back and forth from the palace to the house, buried under the weight of his memories? Was it being thrust back into such strong fear, something he had thought behind him?
He searched then, did something he rarely did. He listened for the sound of his own song, and somewhere deep inside he found the tiniest note of hopeful singing. He caught the note and held onto it with all his might. He began to feed it, carefully, even as the Desert King spoke again.
The sound of his voice was horrible. That was the first thing Ben realized. The second was that Isika was still trapped in the light of his searching fire and though Jabari stood as close as he could humanly get, he couldn’t break through. The third thing Ben realized, with a mind that didn’t seem to be working very well, was that the Desert King was talking to his sister.
“There you are,” he said again. “Ah, Isika. I’ve found you. Well, Maween, I’m afraid I must take your World Whisperer from you, and she will whisper and protect no more. She is not yours. She is mine.”
Ben couldn’t take the words in. What was he saying?
The voice went on. “With her beside me, you will not be able to stop me. All of Maween will bow to the power of the goddesses, will be possessed by the grand one, the mighty force, Mugunta. You will belong to him. You will belong to me.”
There was not a sound in a deep, sluggish silence. Please let it be a nightmare, Ben thought, trembling. Flashbacks hit him so fast that it was all he could do to stay where he was, to remain beside Isika, while she stared, caught in the bright, searching light, her face lit with orange and green.
He was tiny, crouching before a sharp boot as it kicked him for leaving dust on the floor.
His sister was across the courtyard. He saw the bad man walking toward her. He tried to warn her but he was pulled away again.
“It has been a plan going on for a long time,” the voice said.
On the other side of Isika, Jabari picked up his bow, stringing an arrow and holding the bow in front of him, loosely. He gestured, and Ben did the same with his own bow, feeling foolish, for the fire of the king was so far away, too far to reach. But wait, was it growing closer?
“It began, you might say, when my father stole your queen. Did you ever stop your blubbering long enough to wonder why he did it? Or did you simply begin writing songs?”
His mother was in the throne room. In the throne room! The king, the bad man, put a hand under her chin. Ben saw her flinch away. He sat down and covered his ears, closing his eyes.
Where were the others? Where were Andar and Ivram? Could everyone hear this? Why would nobody stop him? Ben desperately didn’t want to hear what the man would say next.
“That theft was part of a plan. A majestic plan, I should say, involving lineage, offspring, and the blood of warriors.”
Next to Isika, Jabari put a hand over his eyes, momentarily letting his bow go slack, then raised it again. Ben saw tears on his face. Why? he thought. Jabari, why are you crying?
Isika was crying too. Ben wanted to reach her, wanted to put the light out, wanted the fire to leave her alone. She’s been through too much, he tried to scream, but somehow nothing came out. And underneath everything, the steady, horror-filled drumming went on and on. But Ben wasn’t curled up on the ground. He glanced up, put another thread of hopeful music into his tiny bundle. The fire was definitely coming closer, beating at the edges of the barrier. He tightened his grip on the bow.
“You see, your beloved queen had a daughter. You remember the daughter, don’t you? I know you do, Isika, because she was your mother. And in the daughter’s veins ran the blood of the most powerful sorcerers in the world. The whisperers. But the whisperers had given themselves over to the weakest power. Nenyi. The Shaper.”
Ben could feel his stomach turning over as another flashback tried to break in on him. “No” he whispered fiercely, and this time, the sound broke a little of the fear in the wind.
“Ah, weakness. The blood of the whisperers practically begged to be joined with the blood of the warriors, the desert lineage that comes from the destroyers, the ones who sprint down battlefields, leaping over the bodies of their enemies. True power, outshining the weak light of the Shaper. Power to control, to destroy. To burn.”
It was there, then. The memory. Dropping his hands and running toward his mother. The bad man was touching her face—he must never touch Ben’s lovely mother. Then the man, hissing. Strong hands grabbing him. Hatred in the king’s words.
His mother’s broken voice. “How can you treat him this way? Give him back to me, if you don’t want him.” Ben’s heart lifting with hope.
“I will keep him near me,” the man said. “As you well know, Amani. Even if he is useless to me, he is my son, bound to serve me.” Misery.
Ben opened his mouth to scream a long, resounding no, but Jabari shouted instead, and his voice was mighty, as though he wasn’t fighting back the winds of fear. Ben could hear the whole city taking a long breath as Jabari’s voice echoed from the palace rooftop, strengthening the barrier with its sound.
“You will never be as powerful as Nenyi! She is the first and the last, the Shaper, the Uncreated One!”
The fire in the distance flickered and blazed higher. Jabari bent in half suddenly, as though he had been forced, his face tight with pain. Ben could do nothing, say nothing as the Desert King kept speaking.
“Yes, I have come to claim you, Isika, daughter of Amani, daughter of the Desert King. Dear one, you are now the most powerful person to walk the earth, whisperer and warrior. Come to me. Join me.”
It was as though all the world broke open with sorrow. Keerza music roared out in anger. Othra mourned with long cries. The trees wailed. The earth itself called out. And then the earth cracked open inside the barrier, and a nightmare oozed out.