HER AUNT WAS reading through a paper on her desk.
Her glasses were sitting on the bridge of her nose, defying gravity with ever second they chose not to fall off. Khethiwe could swear they were held there by sheer force of will.
Auntie was livid. Frustrated, annoyed, disappointed. Auntie was all the things she shouldn't be.
Khethiwe could tell. Not because her aunt hadn't said a word since she'd said 'Come in'. Not because her aunt had not so much as glanced at her after she had seen who it was. Not even because of the shortly worded missive Khethiwe had found in her hut: 'Come see me'.
Khethiwe could tell because of the twitch in her auntie's nose. A slight wrinkle which promulgated her emotional state. Her nose had twitched when she looked up and saw Khethiwe. And in the time while Khethiwe was sitting at her desk, her nose had twitched twice more. Auntie was thinking. Thinking hard thoughts, painful thoughts. Devising the worst possible torture to threaten Khethiwe with.
It was unnecessary. Her aunt probably already had her best threats prepared before she had called for Khethiwe. Unnecessary threats, because nothing scared Khethiwe quite like that twitch.
She recalled her time cowering in Eli's room.
Sharta! You losvet idiot. Idiot! Idiot. Sharta.
She should have just jumped up and taken a running strike at his neck. It hadn't been that scary. She hadn't been that scared. She hadn't been half as scared as she was now.
Her body thrummed in anticipation.
What horrors did the near future hold for her?
"Khethiwe." She was about to find out. "It has been almost a black moon since I gave you your orders. Have you encountered challenges?"
Her auntie sounded every bit the concerned and congenial boss. Her posture was as relaxed as it ever was, her hands folded in front of her. She raised one hand to take her glasses from her face and set them on the table.
"Yes, Wise Sister. It seems that the Black Sun is impervious to poison. I have tried various concoctions on him with little to no effect. I have decided a more direct approach is necessary."
Her aunt made a soft noise of disapproval. "You have always been too reliant on your little poisons. You have other tools at your disposal. I'm sure you know well enough to make use of them."
"Yes, Wise Sister," Khethiwe said.
"But you have had many sunsets to come to this decision. Why haven't you executed your target yet? I communicated the urgency of this matter to you."
"I had been giving the poisons time to work. I realize the error of my ways. I will take care to fulfill my duties as soon as possible."
"See to it you do," there was a threat beneath those words. "You have been serving the Black Sun often since we last spoke?"
"Yes, Wise Sister."
"Yes. And you haven't had the opportunity, never once, to accomplish your goals."
"I chose not to use that time for the sake of discretion, Wise Sister. I wouldn't want to compromise my position in the Seat."
"Ah," her aunt said. Irritation was quickly becoming visible through the tension in her shoulders. "Your position in the Seat. Consider it expendable. You are in the unique position to access the Black Sun every day. That is what matters. Once you have completed this mission, you will be reassigned. It is too risky for you to stay there any longer."
"Reassigned, Wise Sister?"
"Where to depends entirely on your performance on this mission. Remember, Khethiwe, you are from a long line of mensh who have set their own lives on the line to perform their sacred duty to the people of Kolini. You are of the Order. Your life is to serve."
"Yes, Wise Sister."
The tension ebbed away from her auntie's posture. It made fear coil like a snake around Khethiwe's midsection.
"I am concerned that you don't understand that. That you are entertaining some delusion about him," she leaned forward and looked Khethiwe in the eyes, "Elijah. I am concerned that your visits to serve him his evening meal are taking longer and longer. Running well into the night sometimes. These things concern me, Khethiwe. I wouldn't want to see you hurt. I wouldn't want to see you unable to perform your duties — expendable to the Order. You cannot be successful only sometimes, Khethiwe. You must be consistent in you results."
"Forgive me if I overstep, Wise Sister, but I have been consistent in my results. I have given you ten sunturns of consistent results. I have found this particular target difficult to resolve, but I will not fail. It's just taking a bit longer than usual." It was not the right thing to say. Not at all. But she said it because the burning flame of fear and anger in her chest would not let her be silent. She had given her life to the Order. For her capabilities to be questioned was insulting and scary and disheartening. She had thought they might have started to see her value. And now this.
Her aunt looked at her impassively. "What do you talk about with him?"
"He says he knew my mother," Khethiwe said.
"I see. And you are so eager to know any morsel of information about a dead, treasonous sharta that you would throw away your good standing with the Order to hear any of his lies about her?"
"You will not speak about my mother like that!" Khethiwe stood. Her breathing was ragged and her eyes were hot. Her hands balled into fists at her sides. "Out of all people, you, her sister, my aunt, refuse to talk about her. Where else will I go to find out who she was? Who I am? Where I came from?"
"Is that why you keep making a mess of your mission?"
"I have made a mess of nothing."
"You have made a mess of everything. If you are so desperate to know who you are, then I will tell you: You are who I have chosen you to be. Sit," her aunt said flicking one hand towards the chair.
Khethiwe took a deep breath, and then another. She had said too much, done too much, not said the right things.
She sat back down.
"I am confident you can still pull off this mission, Khethiwe," her aunt said. There was a cloying edge to her voice that Khethiwe had never heard before. It made her wary. "I am very confident. You have always been one of our most trusted operatives. As you said, you have given us consistent results for ten sunturns. However, this task is far more important than any other you have completed before. There are members of the Order who think you need some incentives to complete your assigned task in a timely manner. I agree," she smiled then. It was a genuine smile, by Khethiwe's measure. "So: reassignment. As I mentioned before, your reassignment depends on your performance on this mission. You have already dragged it out for much too long. But there is still hope, as long as you complete it within the next four sunsets. There is still hope, Khethiwe."
"Where am I being reassigned to?" Khethiwe asked knowing deep within her she would want to rage at the answer.
Her aunt sighed. "You are getting older now, Khethiwe. If your mother was here, she would be encouraging you to secure a suitable match. Unfortunately, my sister is not here - I am."
Khethiwe felt like she was being choked. The air stopped from reaching her lungs by a lump in her throat. "It is not all women who marry, Wise Sister."
"That is right, dear. But unmarried women are often a topic of discussion in neighborhood gossip. Especially if they are as pretty as you. An operative of the Order can be discreet only as far they can harmonize with society.
"Now, there is a man you know who works for the Order," she paused to purse her lips. "Baba Lusenga."
Khethiwe was sure she was choking. She heard a sound from her lips but not one she had made intentionally.
The Wise Sister disapproved. "Come now. This is all just possibility, nothing is set in stone yet. There is another opening available. An opening that is very important to us as the Order. It requires someone who is able to produce consistent and timely results.
"Our envoy in Puth. You would be a visiting researcher at their Magi Library. A difficult task, but one I'll be sure you are up to should I hear positive news within four sunsets. You would be the liaison point for all of our activities in Puth. You understand that this is a deep responsibility, Khethiwe?"
She was dangling it in front of her. The prospect of greater freedom and power; against the alternative.
It was all too much for Khethiwe. Her body was hot and cold all over. She could feel her face, her hands, the seat beneath her, all with a heightened sense of awareness. Worse, she could feel a prickling sensation in her eyes. Tears of shame, waiting to fall. She felt like a kid again. A ten year old girl called in to her auntie's study — to endure. Oh the things these walls had seen.
"Yes, Wise Sister."
"Good. I won't keep you long..." She carried on about this detail and that detail. She spoke about a war in Gretoza and the Katarian dignitaries the Quasar had been seen meeting with. She spoke about the balance of power in Kolini and the importance that they navigate the situation carefully.
Khethiwe could hardly hear her. She waited for her to finish then took her leave with a stiff bow.
Outside the sun was only a shadow on the horizon. Sunset had come.
Three sunsets left.
Khethiwe walked into town and took up board at a local inn. She felt like she was walking on autopilot.
She vaguely realized that this was the first time she had ever heard her aunt say something positive about her. Most trusted operatives, was it?
The thought tied a weighted rope around her foot and cast her out to sea.
What did it mean that her aunt was complementing her? Would Khethiwe find glass in her food? Or could it mean she had finally earned some morsel of respect?
Khethiwe squeezed her eyes shut and laid down on the bed.
She wanted respect. She wanted respect for herself, and for the woman she had never known. The one she tried not to think of. She tried not to wonder how her life would have turned out had that woman been here.
Khethiwe could only assume from her vague memories of her mother that she had loved her. She had loved her until she couldn't any longer.
More than anything, she wanted respect for that woman who had loved her like no one else had.
Part of her couldn't believe she had spoken back to her aunt and gotten away with it. She supposed, that the Wise Sister had let it pass because she knew the ultimatum she had for Khethiwe was far worse than any physical torment she could inflict on her. Or perhaps, she wasn't interested in punishing Khethiwe now that she was old. Old enough to marry.
A fresh wave of despair ran through Khethiwe. She would rather fall in love with the fisherman from Dondolo with a slant house than to marry that old, notoriously misanthropic man. He was very traditional, not quite with the times. He would expect her to stay at home and cook him two meals a day, clean his house, have a baby every second year...
Khethiwe shuddered.
She couldn't run away. The Order had eyes and ears all across Kolini. She would run, for a time, but she would be found.
From time to time, during her leave from the Seat, Khethiwe had been assigned to tracking down and disposing of rogue agents.
One time she had been sent to a small farm on the outskirts of Navervi, near the border to Gretoza. The man there had run from the Order eight years past. Khethiwe had been instructed to kill the wife first, then the kids, aged two, five, and seven. Then she was to tie the man to the farm house and burn them all.
She had come across two farmhands in the process. Unfortunate.
She had just been doing her job.
It was that year, at sixteen, she had learnt to dread leave from the Seat.
Ah, but the winds do turn. Here she was considering the very same action. It was foolish. Whether it took ten years or a week, they would come for her.
It was then when it occurred to her that she was ignoring the obvious solution. He had to die. Eli — Elijah — the Black Sun. He had to die. He was her ticket to freedom.
It settled like a dull pounding at the base of her skull.
She would kill him. But first...