Malik glanced upward at the structure towering ahead. Unlike the chipekwe, the old stories had not undersold Ziran’s size. The Outer Wall stretched as far as the eye could see, fading into a shimmering mirage at the edge of the horizon. Seven stories of ancient sandstone and mudbrick loomed over the settlement, with the Western Gate a dark brown horseshoe-shaped deviation in the red stone.
In order to take advantage of the excited crowds, vendors had set up stalls along the path to the city, shouting increasingly hectic promises to any person who passed. Goods of all kinds spilled from their shelves—ebony prayer statues of the Great Mother and the seven patron deities, ivory horns that bellowed louder than an elephant, tinkling charms to ward off spirits and the grim folk.
Though customers swarmed over the stands, most left the latter untouched; supernatural beings, known as the grim folk, were the stuff of stories whispered on dark nights, nothing more. Malik knew from experience that the charms never worked and oftentimes left one’s skin itchy and green.
At the thought of the grim folk, Malik checked over his shoulder again, but there were only people behind him. He had to relax and stop acting like imaginary monsters might grab him at any second. All he had to focus on now was getting into Ziran with the forged passage papers in his satchel. Then he and Leila would find work in one of the thousands of positions that had opened up thanks to Solstasia, and they’d make enough money to buy passage papers for Mama and Nana as well.
But what if they didn’t?
Malik’s breath shortened at the thought, and the shadows in the corners of his vision danced again. As the world began to swim around him, he shut his eyes and repeated the mantra his mother had taught him when his panic attacks had first begun all those years ago.
Breathe. Stay present. Stay here.
As long as they drew no attention to themselves, looked at no one, and spoke to no one, they should be fine. It was just a crowd. Walking through it couldn’t kill him, even if his palms had gone slick with sweat and his heart threatened to beat out of his chest.
“Hey.” Nadia tugged on Malik’s pants leg with her free hand, then pointed to the cloth goat whose head poked out of the front of her faded djellaba. “Gege wants to know if I get to have your bag if the chipekwe steps on you next time.”
Despite the panic roiling in his stomach, Malik gave a small smile. “Gege is a bad influence. You shouldn’t listen to her.”
“Gege said you’d say that,” Nadia muttered with the kind of gravitas only a six-year-old could muster, and Malik laughed, calm flooding through him. No matter what happened, he had his sisters. As long as they were together, everything would be all right.
They took their place in line behind a woman with several baskets of papayas balanced on her head, and only then did Leila let go of Malik.
“And here we are! Now we wait.”
It seemed they would be waiting for quite a while. Though the settlement bustled with energy, the actual lines going into Ziran were painfully slow. A few groups ahead of them had even set up camp for the night, and looked in no hurry to move forward.
Nadia wrinkled her nose. “Can I look at the booths?”
“No,” said Leila as she smoothed a crease out of her blue headscarf.
“But the line’s not even moving!”
“I said no.”
Nadia puffed out her cheeks, and Malik could sense the tantrum brewing. Though Leila meant well, dealing with small children was not her strong suit, so it was Malik who bent down to Nadia’s eye level and pointed to the Outer Wall. “Do you see that?”
Nadia’s head snapped upward. “See what?”
“Up there, at the very top of the highest tower.”
Even the Outer Wall had been decorated in honor of Solstasia, with banners hanging from the towers depicting each of the seven patron deities—from Gyata the Lion, who ruled over the Sun Alignment, to Adanko the Hare, Malik’s patron, who ruled over the Life Alignment.
Each patron deity ruled over a single day of the week, and when a child was born, the midwife would carve the emblem of one of the seven gods into their left palm so every person could know their Alignment. It was said that a person’s Alignment decided every major moment of their life, from what kinds of work they’d be most suited for to who they were destined to spend their life with.
Nadia’s mouth fell open as she regarded the Sun Alignment banner hanging from the wall. “That’s my emblem!”
“It is,” said Malik. “Gyata is watching everyone who’s Sun-Aligned to see who the next Sun Champion should be. But he’s not going to choose you if you cry.”
“I won’t cry!” Nadia picked a stick off the ground and brandished it in the air. “And then, when Gyata chooses me as a Champion, I’m going to live at the palace with the sultana, and I’m going to eat whatever I want, and I’m going to ask Princess Karina to make it illegal for me to stand in a line ever again!”
“I don’t think the princess makes laws.”
Nadia’s cheeks puffed out once again, and not for the first time, Malik was struck by how alike they looked—the same coarse, black hair that fought any brush that tried to go through it, same tawny-brown skin, same wide black eyes that looked surprised no matter their owner’s mood. Moon owl eyes, Papa used to call them, and for half a heartbeat, Malik missed his father so much he couldn’t breathe.
“Well, what would you do if you met the princess?” demanded Nadia.
What would he do if he met Princess Karina? Malik pushed away the painful thoughts of his missing parent to consider the question.
One of the biggest perks of becoming a Solstasia Champion was living at the royal palace for the duration of the festival. Though Malik would never admit it out loud, he had fantasized once or twice about becoming a Champion and representing his Alignment for all the world to see. But it was a useless fantasy, as no Eshran had been chosen as a Champion since the Zirani occupation more than two hundred and fifty years ago.
Besides, rumor had it that Princess Karina Alahari was a volatile, irresponsible girl who was only heiress to the throne because her older sister had died in a fire nearly ten years ago. Princess or not, Malik wanted nothing to do with someone like that.
“I don’t think the princess and I would get along very well,” said Malik.
Nadia huffed. “You’re boring!”
She jabbed Malik in the gut, and he fell over in exaggerated pain.
“Ow! I yield!” he cried. “If I tell you a story, will you stop trying to kill me?”
“I’ve heard all your stories already.”
Malik brushed the curls from Nadia’s eyes. She had always been small for her age; now, after months of malnutrition, she was so tiny that Malik sometimes feared a strong enough breeze might carry her away forever.
“Have you heard the one about the little girl on the moon?”
Nadia’s mouth fell open. “There’s a little girl on the moon?”
Malik nodded, twisting his face into a look of comedic seriousness. “Yes. Her older brother put her there because she wouldn’t stop pouting.”
He punctuated the last word by flicking Nadia’s nose, earning an outraged giggle. Because Papa had left less than a year after Nadia’s birth, it had been Malik who had taken care of her while Mama, Nana, and Leila had worked the fields. He knew her better than anyone, like how she would drop everything to listen to a story, same as him. In the wagon, Malik had entertained her with tale after tale of the trickster heroine, Hyena, and when he’d run out of those, he’d created his own drawn from all the legends he’d absorbed over the years. He’d spun stories until his throat grew raw, anything to keep Nadia from crumbling under the weight of their situation.