The Gilded Ones

Seven women wearing golden armor on gryphs (cats with wings) fly into the mine. They appear to be over 40, which marks them as ancient because alaki age incredibly slowly. They are followed by deathshrieks. The reader learns that White Hands is named Fatu, the figure pictured in the statue by the waterfall, and that she helped inseminate Deka’s mom by putting “seed into the waters” (369) of Warthu Bera’s lake after Umu started bleeding gold at 15. White Hands also reveals that Deka’s mom faked her death but was caught by jatu.

White Hands explains Deka’s heritage: The Gilded Ones were goddesses (and White Hands’s mom), and their history was rewritten after they were imprisoned by jatu who wanted to rule Otera. When the jatu killed White Hands’s sisters, the Gilded Ones gave alaki the power to transform into deathshrieks to become truly “deathless” (371). Deka is the Nuru, “the deliverer” (371): a creature between alaki and deathshriek who is destined to free them both.

Keita tries to talk, and deathshrieks gather around him. White Hands defends Keita and keeps him safe but tells him he has to leave. Deka and Keita kiss, and he says he hopes to see her again. After he leaves. Deka falls asleep in the salt lake.

In the morning, Deka sees that White Hands and some deathshrieks have gathered around to help her heal. As her body reassembles, Deka worries about Britta and her other friends. White Hands says Deka’s mission is to free the goddesses at the sacred site at the top of the mountain, and everything will change when goddesses come: Women will be free. Deka’s knowledge of her friends’ traumas inspires her to undertake the mission.

Two days later, Deka’s body is healed, and the emperor’s army has reached the mountain. The gilding from Jor Hall on Deka’s arms is gone, and the healing waters have made her feel strong. While she was healing, White Hands answered all of Deka’s questions. Deka ended up with her adoptive father because Umu’s pregnancy was discovered by superiors before White Hands could properly make arrangements; they had to make a quick escape that included Deka’s dad (a retired soldier) being a male escort for Umu.

Umu and White Hands had to cut off all contact until Deka was 15 because the emperor was suspicious of White Hands. On the day of the Ritual of Purity (the beginning of the novel), the deathshrieks tried to rescue Deka, but she commanded them to leave Irfut and was imprisoned in the cellar. Deathshrieks have been saving girls from the Death Mandate by smelling the gold blood of their menses and hiding them in the temples to the Gilded Ones.

White Hands gives Deka white armor and tells her Ixa was a gift from the goddesses, like this armor. Deka decides to change her (non-magic-using) eye color to black from gray to look less like her dad. After putting on her war mask, she mounts up on a winged form of Ixa with Katya and White Hands by her sides, and flies out of the mountain to battle.

Overwhelmed by the smells of battle, Deka is upset by bloodsisters killing deathshrieks (which she now knows are one in the same). Deka, White Hands, and the other women in infernal armor stand on their mounts’ backs. Feeling the power to wake the goddesses rising, Deka speaks to her alaki sisters, revealing what she knows, rather than using the power to control them. After being reunited with Belcalis, Deka cuts her palm (like she did back at the training grounds) and calls them to fight with her as divine rather than demonic beings with the same blood.

Deka also asks the alaki to shelter the uruni but not the elder jatu. Before Deka flies to the mountain, she thanks White Hands (who is staying behind to fight in this field). White Hands apologizes for her harsh training in the past few months, and Deka forgives her. As Deka leaves, she sees White Hands command hordes of equus into battle from behind the human army.

Katya comes with Deka to the top of the N’Oyo Mountains. They talk about how the eggs (golden boulders) in temple ponds, like the one where she found Ixa, are where deathshrieks are born—where the alaki souls are transmigrated to after they die. Katya speculates there’s an Afterlands for deathshrieks when they die. Deka remembers that Katya just wanted to get married and have kids. As they fly over the steps of the Temple of Gilded Ones, they see zerizards with the emperor’s army and bloodsisters at the entrance.

Inside the temple adorned with columns containing detailed images of the Gilded Ones, Deka and Katya are reunited with Asha and Adwapa, who are leading a contingent of deathshrieks and alaki. Deka learns the Nibari—Asha and Adwapa’s people—never stopped worshipping the Gilded Ones and have been waiting for this day. The sisters also reveal that they are 300 years old.

Deka discovers the emperor has Keita and Britta as his prisoners, bound and gagged. The emperor physically threatens Britta and explains how her binds made of celestial gold were once used for imprisoning White Hands, the emperor’s grandmother. Deka tries to keep him talking, and he discusses how the statues of the Gilded Ones contain the goddesses, entombed alive in the blood of their children. Then the emperor taunts Deka about how many deathshrieks—members of her own kind—she has killed. Deka thinks of Belcalis, takes out her sword, and declares she will free the goddesses. The emperor orders his personal jatu to attack her.

Adwapa says the alaki will take care of the jatu while Deka goes to the goddesses. Deka tells Adwapa to protect Keita and Britta, and Adwapa quickly scoops them up. The emperor fights Deka but is interrupted by Ixa and vanishes. When the emperor reappears, he pins down Ixa with arrows of celestial gold. Deka allows the emperor to slam her into the walls, feigning weakness, to learn that the emperor is a male descendant of the Gilded Ones who claims he and his kind are faster and stronger than the alaki but die the first time they are killed. He claims that all of these magical jatu are in the temple.

Eventually, Deka stabs the emperor, crediting Huon for teaching her how to feign weakness. Then, Deka slams him against the wall and smashes him into the ground, citing Thandiwe’s lessons about learning to anticipate enemies’ moves while pretending to lose. Deka says Calderis taught her how to recognize her own infernal armor (his crown), which she knocks off. With her sword on the emperor’s neck, Deka tells the jatu to stop fighting and they obey. Deka makes the emperor command the jatu to put down their weapons and kneel, so deathshrieks and alaki can take their weapons.

White Hands appears with Belcalis, and the equus twins secure the emperor. Deka frees Ixa from the arrows and gives him her blood to help with healing. White Hands gives her a golden ritual dagger, and Deka stabs her palm with it, then rubs her blood on the statues of the goddesses: Anok, Beda, Hui Li, and Etzli. This act, reminiscent of the other times she’s used the blood of her palm to unite women, revives the goddesses. After they are free, the goddesses thank Deka, who cries and kneels. The goddesses say they are proud of Deka. She asks what’s next, and they say they will help those in pain and rebuild the world.

Later, the goddesses see their children, including White Hands, who is very happy. The Nibari have also arrived during the battle. Belcalis is stunned, and Deka hugs Britta. When Deka goes to Keita and the other uruni, they thank Deka for protecting them. Keita kisses her and assures her that he blames the emperor—not deathshrieks—for the death of his family. Then Keita asks if she wants him to remain by her side, and she says yes, while smiling.

Over the next few days, the women corral the emperor’s army and tell them the true history of the Gilded Ones. The men who don’t want to fight are sent home, and many men leave, but the alaki and uruni stay.

Keita helps Deka guard the goddesses, and Deka feels loved by both Keita and Britta. They discover there are more “true” jatu (men with magical powers) than the emperor claimed, and they are forming a resistance. Also, the male priests and elders are gathering against the mostly female army, and the women strategize, saying: “Otera may be vast, but we intend to take back every last inch. It’s time to reclaim the One Kingdom and make it ours again” (415).