The Gilded Ones: Chapters 1–4

The Infinite Wisdoms caution, “Only the impure, blaspheming, and unchaste woman remains revealed under the eyes of Oyomo,” but this warning refers to the top half of the face: forehead to the tip of the nose.

Blessed are the meek and subservient, the humble and true daughters of man, for they are unsullied in the face of the Infinite Father.

We recite it whenever we enter a temple—a constant reminder that women were created to be helpmeets to men, subservient to their desires and commands.

I take my seat before Norla, that worry still niggling at me.

They’re from all across Otera: haughty Southerners with dark brown skin and tightly curled hair; easygoing Westerners, long black hair in topknots, tattoos all over golden skin; brash Northerners, pink-skinned, blond hair gleaming in the cold; and quiet Easterners in every shade from deep brown to eggshell, silky straight black hair flowing in glistening rivers down their backs.

A few have even survived the training to become jatu, the emperor’s elite guard. I spot a contingent of them lingering at the edges of the square, watchful in their gleaming red armor.

Elfriede doesn’t notice my introspection; she’s too busy grinning at the jatu.

I pull my cloak tighter, wishing I could disappear into the ground, but lonas steps even closer to the man, a belligerent look in his eyes.

Girls as pretty as you...
The words are so heady, it takes me a few moments to realize he’s speaking again.

No matter what I wear, I’ll never be as pretty as the other girls in the village, with their willowy figures, silken blond hair, and pink cheeks.

A cold sweat washes over me as I think of what would happen then: a life of enforced piety and backbreaking labor as a temple maiden...

“What? What was it, Elfriede?” a mincing sweet voice interrupts, titters following in its wake.

It’s all I can do to keep my face docile as I walk toward the door, but I somehow manage. “Thank you for your kind words, Mistress Norlim,” I force myself to grit out before I exit.

Doubts surge, reminding me that I have the same uncanny differences Mother did.

Girls who injure themselves before their fifteenth year are taken to the temple for cleansing, their families ostracized, their marriage prospects destroyed.

“Mother’s favorite necklace…,” I whisper, a happy sob bursting from my throat when I take in the thin, finely crafted gold chain and the delicate gold sphere hanging from it, that old, familiar symbol emblazoned across it.

Father takes his place beside me just as the drums sound, and we watch as the jatu march solemnly toward the steps in preparation for Elder Durkas’s arrival, their red armor a gleaming counterpoint to the sea of deep-blue dresses, their gnarled war masks glowering in the dull afternoon light.

Religious fervor leaves little room for eating or anything else.

Woman is the Infinite Father’s greatest gift to mankind. Solace for his darkest hour.

Father must have noticed my distracted expression, because he sighs ruefully, eyes squinting against the sun.

I train my eyes on the door. The sight of it—large, red, and imposing—frays my nerves, causing my stomach to clench and my palms to moisten.

A hulking beast of a creature, it’s rawboned to the point of gauntness, its clawed hands dragging almost to its knees, spikes erupting all the way down its bony spine.

Blood spatters the ground, startling crimson across the white of the snow; corpses lie in a tangle of viscera and dried leaves.

The callousness of his answer is terrifying, but I can’t dwell on that now.

Even stranger, her hands are covered by white, bonelike armored gloves—gauntlets.

Her wooden half mask gleams under her hood, a gnarled, frightening demon caught midroar.

“No, no, you will not ignore me, alaki,” White Hands says in a lilting, heavily accented voice.

“You are awake. Good,” she murmurs. "Are you lucid?”

There’s no reprieve for me, no freedom.

Oyomo, forgive me my sins. Oyomo, please absolve me.

“You can decide your fate, alaki, an option that was not given to your predecessors.”

Foreboding shivers through me, mixing with a twinge of disappointment.

“Freedom from this farce.”

I am an emissary of Emperor Gezo himself. A living embodiment of his will.

I realize that’s what they are now, because other than his larger size and the black stripe in his hair, he and his brother are identical, both beautiful in that ethereal, otherworldly way despite their powerful physiques.

“You should be nicer, Braima,” she chides.

I’m so taken aback to find someone else sitting here, I barely notice the clinking until I glance up to see Elder Durkas approaching the front of the wagon, a pair of manacles in hand.

White Hands is already seated at the reins, and she watches impassively as he nods at me, disgusted.

The Gilded Ones were female, after all, and they were always depicted with gold veins running over their bodies.

It’s because I’m no better than an animal—a fiend skulking at the edges of humanity.