The Lioness of Shadi

19 - Abandoning the Evil Eye

As her blood cooled, Ilati looked down at the scorched remnants of the arrow she held in her hand. The obsidian head had split in half and the wood splintered from the power that had coursed through it. The throbbing pain in her arm became more and more real as she stared at the last remnant of her weapon, even though the demon had stopped the bleeding. She would likely bear the scars of Ezezu's claws for the rest of her life, much as she carried the ones K'adau had ripped into her face.

She leaned against Youtab's side more heavily as the exhaustion set in. A fight with a demon after a long ride to reach Sa Dul drained more energy from her than she expected. The mare responded with a gentle nicker, turning her head to look at the wounded priestess.

The divine-blooded horse's eyes shone with intelligence. Only a fool would consider any horse simple, Ilati had learned, but her savior was above the rest of her kind, standing only beside Babak and Araxa, her siblings. Ilati leaned forward, pressing her forehead to Youtab's nose and wrapping her arms around the mare's neck. "Thank you for saving me," she whispered.

Youtab needed no words to respond, not with the connection that crackled between them like lightning between clouds in a storm. She understood, and so did Ilati.

"Ilati!" The next thing she knew, Menes swept her off her feet, the warmth of the sun emanating from his chuckles. "That was a battle to be remembered!"

"Yet it lives." Shammu, the youngest son of Hedis, had stepped out of his mother's house, his family following close behind him. The young man's brow furrowed deeper than a vineyard's soil. "Why did you not slay it?"

Menes set Ilati down, steadying her when he realized she was swaying. "Is it not enough that it is driven from this place, man of Sa Dul?" the charioteer said.

Ilati gripped the arrow's shaft more tightly. "It will return," she said with grim certainty. She could not share in Menes's elation at her victory, not with an evil deed unaddressed.

Shammu's words came untempered by reason, even when his older brother seized his shoulder. "Then what was the point of your battle? We are no better now than before you arrived! Perhaps now its anger even grows! Your mercy to such an evil thing was a mistake!"

Ilati leveled the remnants of the arrow at him like an executioner would point a sword. "Your plague was of your own making, Shammu, son of Hedis," she said in a low, even tone. "Who drove off the old man with sticks and insults? Who hacked apart the home of the one who has tormented you? You were warned."

Shammu went red in the face. "It was the evil eye!"

Ilati's voice sharpened like a dagger. "Your own!"

Now that they were certain the demon was gone, the townspeople and their Sut Resi defenders clustered around to hear the words spoken. Ilati knew she was now watched by many eyes, listened to by many ears. She had a chance to persuade the people of Sa Dul away from their own destruction.

"That is a lie," Shammu spat.

Menes stepped forward, seizing Shammu by the front of his shirt. "You will not call her words falsehood in my presence, boy." The gentleness of the charioteer vanished in a snarl of anger, worthy of the leopard whose skin he wore as armor.

"He speaks so because he is guilty," Shammu's brother said, releasing his shoulder and leaving him to Menes. Hardness settled in Kaspum's face as he looked at his sibling. "I heard what the demon said, Shammu. Your envy doomed us all."

The simmering tension in the air would boil over, Ilati knew. Neighbors looked to neighbors, trying to seek the shame of those who had acted so thoughtlessly, to punish them for their misdeed. "You cannot return to the demon his tree," Ilati said, raising her voice to be heard. "That does not mean you cannot restore your lives and your crops to better than what they once were."