A Princess for the Witch Doctor (Legends of Rahasia Book 3)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Gold clatters on the steps, and it falls, slowly. The coin flips end over end, one side engraved with the rose. The other with my father, the Emperor Elio's bearded likeness.

Rose.

Elio.

Rose.

Elio.

Rose...

And everything slowly fades away.

"Princess!" Zahra screams, reaching for me. But her fingers pass through my skin, like knives through water.

***

When I come to, I'm blinking up at the face of a girl who's my age. One eye like the blood-moon, the other a gleaming gray. Earth-toned skin, and silver hair shaved short to the scalp. I can only focus on her when I look at her full-on. When she moves to the edges of my vision, I can't tell if I'm looking at a toddler or an ancient woman, bent with age.

"Hiya there." She beams, helping me up. We're in a tiny space, carpeting that resembles sheep's wool. A strange device on the ceiling, looming down with thin sheets of wood. There are cords like serpents layered all over the space. A flat box blares light and sound.

I have to refrain from smashing the thin box, or the equally tinny device that's singing out some strange, animalistic song from her palm.

"Oh, sorry." Kaliya shrugs, pulling two cords from her ears. That's where the wailing seems to be coming from. "I've found a fondness for human music from the double-thousands-years. I believe they call it the music of emotions. Emo, for short." She shrugs, and when she grins, I see a thin tattoo of a serpent gracing her inner lip.

She's wearing trousers at least, so that's sensible. But they're cut to her knees, and her tunic is sleeveless. That doesn't look practical. It's one good sword-swipe from being ruined.

She presses a button on yet another tiny box and the other boxes in the room go silent.

"Where am I?" I pause, looking around me. I try to go to the window to see what else has changed in this strange space. "Is this where the gods live?"

"Hardly." She snorts. "Not unless you count the flying spaghetti monster meme."

When I go to the window, people are milling about on a sea of black stone that's paved and cracked in corners. Others travel in strange carts that are propelled without the use of horses, that scream and bellow smoke and fire. There's so much sound and noise. It's a wonder anybody can think. And some people stare at the boxes even as they walk. How can they manage from running into one another?

She pulls me back from the window. Kaliya, goddess of time. She doesn't look like much. But, then again, I suppose one could say the same of me. A few thwacks on the head prove them wrong.

"Call me Kali. And you," she puts a finger to her nose, scratching and holding back a sneeze. "One moment, sorry. I need my flow-neighs during pollen season."

I nod. I have no idea what flow-neighs is.

"You're Princess Arnina. Right. You hate us." She crosses her arms. "Now, that's kind of awkward. Considering you don't even know us enough to hate us."

"I don't know you." I correct her, crossing my arms right back. "But if we're strangers, I don't see why you shackled me with gifts I didn't even want. Would you throw a present at someone if you hadn't even said hello? That's just rude."

"Let me see." She taps something onto her black box. "Ah, there it is. You got to be near-unbeatable. Beautiful as the sunset." She looks up, grins. I blush beneath her searching gaze. "Damn. They got that one right. Hm, and then protector of humankind. Cute." She taps on the box again, frowns. "Never backing down from a challenge. Oh." She nibbles on her lower lip. "Hmm, that's just lazy wording for a blessing, isn't it? I can see how one can use that for nefarious purposes."

She throws the box over her shoulder, and it lands on the cushion set on the short bed with strange, furry pillows behind her dyed in unnatural colors. "Sorry about that."

I inhale. Exhale. Control your temper, Arni. You're here for someone else anyways. "Look, we have a problem back in Rahasia. We have a Dukun, a witch doctor, who's out murdering children for their blood all in the name of Rangda. He told me you had a way to break his curse." I look her up-and-down. When she moves to my side, running a full-circle inspection on me, she flickers into that strange form between being an old-woman and a child again. Existing both inside and out of the time she controls.

"That sounds so dramatic. It's why I decided to travel through time, you know. Didn't want to bother with your little god fights. Too much effort." Kaliya yawns, revealing a bright pink maw. I want to scream.

"You sit here and listen to your godforsaken music all day and play with," I point to the box lying on the cushion, "your cords and your damned boxes! Did you forget where you came from? Rahasia needs your help. It doesn't even really need you to be there. I just need your advice, and then I'll go ahead and fix it myself!"

She leans forwards, until we're touching nose-to-nose. It forces me to stare into her blood-moon-and-gray eyes. It makes me dizzy. Like seeing my death and birth and life flashing before my eyes, some thousand-thousand possibilities all at once. Things that could be. Things that were. Things that are happening.

"If you lived a day inside my mind, princess." She begins, speaking with a voice that I can't quite place, that's old and young all at once. "With all due respect, your mortal mind would explode. I was born with the worst of the godly talents. Time. I see every single outcome, and they never stop. I live in multiple realities, everyone who dies and lives. I see so many people with hope, then so many more without it. What is Rahasia in the grand scheme of it all? It's an Empire. They rise and fall. Nothing I do will stop time from eventually running its course. From forgetting all of us." She leans back, just a young girl, but so much more. "Forgive me for wasting my time. I have too much of it."

She falls back onto the short bed, clutching the thin box to her chest, staring out the window at the too-loud people and their too-silent lives. "Your witch doctor's name the is the name of that which Rangda hates the most."

"You can't just tell me?" I screech as her, as the world starts to shift again.

"Don't you know, darling?" She winks at me. "Cryptic is in the job description."

***

When I wake up, Zahra's carrying my body out the temple.

And the world is hell.

***

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Sophia