by Tomi Adeyemi
“Inan!” Kaea wrinkles her nose as I cough, a hint of concern eclipsed by her disgust. She probably thinks me weak. But better that than her discovering the truth.
I clench my fist, almost positive I can feel the magic attacking my blood. If maji can infect us now, they’ll defeat us before we have a chance to take them out.
“She was here.” I wipe my mouth on the back of my hand. “The divîner with the scroll. We need to locate her before she hurts anyone else.”
“What?” Kaea’s thin brows crease. “How do you know?”
I open my mouth to explain when the sickening sting erupts under my scalp again. I turn. The prickle grows—it’s strongest when I face the southern forest.
Though the air stinks of charred flesh and black smoke, I catch the fleeting scent of the sea again. It’s her. It has to be. Hiding among the trees …
“Inan,” Kaea snaps. “What do you mean? How do you know she was here?”
Magic.
My grip tightens around the tarnished pawn. My palm itches at the touch. The word feels dirtier than maggot. If I can hardly stomach the idea, how will Kaea react?
“A villager,” I lie. “He told me they went south.”
“Where is the villager now?”
I point blindly at a corpse, but my finger lands on the scorched body of a child. Another turquoise cloud shoots toward me. All rosemary and ash.
Before I can run away, the cloud passes through my hand with sickening heat. The world fades out in a wall of flames. Screams bleed into my ears.
“Help—”
“Inan!”
I snap back to reality. A cold tide rushes over my boots.
The beach. I squeeze the pawn. You’re still on the beach.
“What happened?” Kaea asks. “You were moaning.…”
I whip around, looking for the girl. She has to be behind this. She’s using her wretched magic to fill my head with sounds.
“Inan—”
“We should interrogate them.” I ignore the concern in Kaea’s eyes. “If one of the villagers knew where they were headed, another might have information, too.”
Kaea hesitates and purses her lips. She probably wants to pry. But her duty as admiral comes first. It always will.
We walk over to the surviving villagers. I focus on the tide to ignore their shrieks, but the screaming only grows louder as we draw near.
Seven…, I count in my head. Eight … nine …
I am the son of Orïsha’s greatest ruler.
I am their future king.
“Silence!”
My voice booms into the night with a power that doesn’t feel like my own. Even Kaea gives me a surprised glance as the cries quiet into nothingness.
“We’re looking for Zélie Adebola. She has stolen something valuable from the crown. We were told she’s heading south, and now we need to know why.”
I scan the dark faces of those who refuse to meet my eyes, searching for any sign of the truth. Their fear soaks into the air like humidity. It seeps into my own skin.
“—gods, please—”
“—if he kills me—”
“—in the gods’ names did she steal—”
My heart slams against my chest as their voices attack in flickers, broken thoughts that threaten to overwhelm me. More turquoise clouds rise into the air. Like wasps, they dart toward me. I start to fall back into the blackness of my mind—
“Answer him!”
Thank the skies. Kaea’s bark pulls me back.
I blink and grip the pommel of my sword. The smooth metal grounds me in reality. With time, their fear fades. But the unnerving sensation remains.…
“I said, answer him!” Kaea growls. “Do not make me repeat myself.”
The villagers keep their gazes to the ground.
In their silence, Kaea lunges.
Screams erupt as she grabs an elderly woman by her gray hair. Kaea drags the moaning woman through the sand.
“Admiral—” My voice chokes when Kaea unsheathes her sword. She places the blade against the woman’s wrinkled neck. A single drop of blood falls onto the ground.
“You want to stay silent?” Kaea hisses. “Stay silent and you die!”
“We don’t know anything!” a young girl cries out. Everyone on the beach freezes.
The girl’s hands are trembling. She shoves them into the sand.
“We can tell you about her brother and father. We can tell you of her skill with a staff. But not a soul in Ilorin knows where she’s gone or why.”
I give Kaea a stern look; she drops the woman like a rag doll. I trudge through the wet sand until I reach the girl.
Her shaking intensifies as I approach, but I can’t tell if it’s her fear or the cold of the night tides licking her knees. All she wears is a soaked nightgown, ripped and frayed around her being.
“What’s your name?”
Standing this close to her, I see how her oak-brown skin stands out against the darker chestnut and mahogany hues of the villagers. Perhaps there’s some nobility in her blood. A father who played in the mud.
When she doesn’t answer, I bend down, keeping my voice low. “The faster you answer, the faster we leave.”
“Yemi,” she chokes out. Her hands grip the sand as she speaks. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know, but only if you leave us alone.”
I nod. A simple concession. Duty or not, I don’t want to see more bodies.
I can’t bear to hear more screams.
I reach down and untie the rope binding her wrists. She flinches at my touch. “Give us the information we need and I promise your people will be safe.”
“Safe?”
Yemi meets my eyes with a hatred that impales me like a sword. Though her mouth never opens, her voice rings in my skull.
“Safe ended a long time ago.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
ZÉLIE
MY EYES ACHE from hours of silent tears by the time we halt Nailah to rest. It takes all of five seconds for her and Tzain to pass out on the moss-covered ground, escaping our fractured reality for the safety of sleep.
Amari inspects the ground, shivering in the forest cold. She eventually lays her cloak down and sleeps on top of it, too regal to grace the earth with her bare head. I stare at her, remembering how close I dragged her to the flames.
The memory feels distant now, like someone else held all that hate.
Now only cool anger simmers, anger I shouldn’t bother feeling. I’d bet five hundred silver pieces she won’t last another day.
I wrap myself in my cloak and nestle into Nailah, relishing the sensation of the soft fur against my skin. Through the shadowed leaves, the star-filled sky reignites the magic of Mama Agba’s vision in my mind.
“It’s back,” I whisper to myself. With the insanity of the day, that fact is still hardest to believe. We can reclaim our magic.
We can thrive again.
“Oya…”
I whisper the name of the Goddess of Life and Death, my sister deity who has granted me magic’s gift. As a child, I called to her so often you’d think she slept in my cot, but now that I search for the words of a prayer, I don’t know what to say.
“Bá mi s0r0,” I attempt, but it lacks all the conviction and power Mama Agba’s chant had. She believed in her connection to Orúnmila so much she could conjure a premonition. Right now, I just want to believe that someone is up there.
“Ràn mí l3w3,” I pray instead. Help me. Those words feel so much realer, so much more like my own. “Mama Agba says you’ve chosen me. Baba agrees, but I … I’m scared. This is too important. I don’t want to screw it up.”
Saying it out loud makes the fear tangible, a new weight hanging in the air. I couldn’t even protect Baba. How am I supposed to save the maji?
But as the fear breathes, I get the smallest sense of comfort. The idea that Oya could be here, right by my side. Gods only know there’s no way I can get through this without her.
; “Just help me,” I repeat once more. “Ràn mí l3w3. Please. And keep Baba safe. No matter what happens, just let him and Mama Agba be okay.”
Not knowing what else to say, I bow my head. Though stiff, I almost feel like I can see my prayers drifting to the sky. I hold on to the brief moment of contentment it grants me, forcing it above the pain, the fear, the grief. I hold it until it cradles me in its arms, rocking me to sleep.
* * *
WHEN I WAKE, something feels off. Unnatural. Not quite right.
I rise, expecting to find Nailah’s sleeping mass, but she’s nowhere to be seen. The forest is gone, no trees, no moss. Instead, I sit in a field of towering reeds whistling with the burst of wind in the air.
“What is this?” I whisper, confused by the fresh sensation and light. I look down at my hands and jerk my head back. No scars or burns stain my skin. It’s as clear as the day I was born.
I rise in the endless field of reeds stretching far and wide. Even when I’m on my feet, the stems and leaves grow far above my head.
In the distance the plants are obscured, blurring into white at the horizon. It’s as if I wander in an unfinished painting, trapped inside its canvased reeds. I’m not asleep, yet I’m not awake.
I float in a magical world between.
Dirt shifts under my feet as I move through the heavenly plants. Minutes seem to stretch into hours, yet I don’t mind the time in this haze. The air is cool and crisp, like the mountains of Ibadan where I grew up. Maybe it’s a sanctuary, I think to myself. A gift of rest from the gods.
I’m ready to embrace the thought when I sense the presence of another. My heart skips a beat as I turn. All breath seems to cease when realization dawns.
I recognize the smolder in his amber eyes first, a look I could never forget after today. But now that he’s standing still, without a sword or surrounded by flames, I take in the curve of his muscles, the bright hue of his copper skin, the strange white streak in his hair. When he’s this still, the features he shares with Amari are stark, impossible to miss. He’s not just the captain.…
He’s the prince.
He stares at me for a long moment, as if I’m a corpse risen from the dead. But then he clenches his fists. “Release me from this prison at once!”
“Release you?” I arch my brow in confusion. “I didn’t do this!”
“You expect me to believe that? When I’ve seen your wretched face in my head all day?” He reaches for his sword, but there’s nothing there. For the first time, I notice we both wear simple white clothes, vulnerable without our weapons.
“My face?” I ask slowly.
“Don’t feign ignorance,” the prince snaps. “I felt what you did to me in Lagos. And those—those voices. End these attacks at once. End them or you’ll pay!”
His rage stirs with a lethal heat, but the threat is lost as I ponder his words. He thinks I brought him here.
He thinks this meeting is by my hand.
Impossible. Though I was too young for Mama to teach me the magic of death, I saw it unfold. It came in cold spirits and sharp arrows and twisting shadows, but never in dreams. I didn’t even touch the scroll until after we escaped Lagos, after our eyes locked and electric energy tickled my skin. If magic brought us here, it can’t be my own. It has to be—
“You.”
I breathe in amazement. How is this possible? The royal family lost magic generations ago. A maji hasn’t touched the throne in years.
“Me what?”
My eyes return to the streak of white in his hair, running from his temple to the nape of his neck.
“You did this. You brought me here.”
Every muscle in the prince’s body goes rigid; the anger in his eyes transforms to terror. A cold breeze whips between us. The reeds dance in our silence.
“Liar,” he decides. “You’re just trying to get into my head.”
“No, little prince. It’s you who’s gotten into mine.”
Mama’s old stories prickle through my memories, tales of the ten clans and the different magic each could wield. As a child, all I wanted to learn about were the Reapers like Mama, but she insisted I know just as much about every other clan. She always warned me about the Connectors, maji who wielded power over mind, spirit, and dreams. Those are the ones you must watch out for, little Zél. They use magic to break into your head.
The memory chills my blood, but the prince is so distraught it’s difficult to fear his abilities. With the way he stares at his shaking hands, he looks like he would sooner take his own life than use magic to go after mine.
But how is this even happening? Divîners are selected by the gods at birth. The prince wasn’t born a divîner and kosidán can’t develop magic. How has he suddenly become a maji now?
I look at our surroundings, inspecting the work of his Connector abilities. The magical reeds twist in the wind, ignorant of the impossibilities blowing all around us.
The power required for a feat like this is inconceivable. Even a well-seasoned Connector would need an incantation to pull it off. How could he harness the ashê in his blood to create this when he didn’t even realize he was a maji? What in the gods’ names is going on?
My eyes go back to the jagged white streak running through the prince’s hair, the only true marker of a maji. Our hair is always as stark and white as the snow that covers the mountaintops of Ibadan, a marker so dominant, even the blackest dye couldn’t hide maji hair for more than a few hours.
Though I’ve never seen a streak like his among maji or divîners, I can’t deny its existence. It mirrors the whiteness of my hair all the same.
But what does it mean? I look to the skies. What game are the gods playing? What if the prince isn’t the only one? If the royals are regaining their magic—
No.
I can’t let fear make me spiral out of control.
If royals were getting their magic back, we would already know.
I suck in a deep breath, slowing my mind before it can wander further. Amari had the scroll in Lagos. She crashed into her brother when we ran past. Though I don’t understand why, it must’ve happened then. Inan awakened his powers the same way I awakened mine—by touching that damn scroll.
And the king has touched the scroll, I remind myself. Amari, probably the admiral, too. They didn’t awaken any abilities. This magic only resides in him.
“Does your father know?”
The prince’s eyes flash, giving me the answer I need.
“Of course not.” I smirk. “If the king knew, you’d already be dead.”
Color drains from his face. It’s so perfect I almost laugh. How many divîners have fallen by his hands—been slaughtered, abused, used? How many lives has he taken to destroy the same magic now running through his veins?
“I’ll make you a deal.” I walk toward the prince. “Leave me alone and I’ll keep your little secret. No one has to know you’re a dirty little ma—”
The prince lunges.
One moment his grip is around my throat, and the next—
* * *
MY EYES FLY OPEN. I’m greeted by the familiar sound of crickets and dancing leaves. Tzain’s snores ring steady and true as Nailah adjusts her body against my side.
I jolt forward and grab my staff to fight an enemy that isn’t here. Though I scan the trees, it takes me a few moments to convince myself the prince won’t appear.
I breathe the damp air in and out, trying to calm my nerves. I lie back down and close my eyes, but sleep doesn’t return easily. I’m not sure it ever will. Now I know the prince’s secret.
Now he won’t stop until I’m dead.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ZÉLIE
WHEN I WAKE the next morning, I’m more exhausted than when I went to sleep.
It leaves me feeling robbed, like a thief made off with my dreams. Slumber usually brings an escape, a break from the misery I face when I wake. But when every one of my dreams ended with the prince’s hands wrapped aroun
d my throat, the nightmares hurt just as much as reality.
“Dammit,” I mutter. They’re just dreams. What do I have to fear? Even if his magic is powerful, gods know he’s far too terrified to use it.
Tzain grunts across the small clearing as he does crunch after crunch with unwavering concentration, training as if this was his regular morning practice. Except there won’t be another practice for him this year. Because of me, he may never play agbön again.
Guilt adds to my exhaustion, dragging me back to the ground. I could apologize for the rest of my days and it still wouldn’t be enough. But before I can sink further into my guilt, a flurry of movement catches my eye. Amari stirs underneath a large brown cloak, waking from her royal slumber. The sight puts a bitter taste in my mouth, reigniting the image of Inan.
Knowing her family, I’m surprised she didn’t slit our throats in our sleep.
I search her dark hair for a streak to match her brother’s, muscles relaxing when I find none. Gods only know how much worse this would be if she could trap me inside her head, too. I’m still glaring at Amari when I recognize the cloak she’s using as a blanket. I rise and crouch by Tzain’s side.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
He ignores me and keeps exercising. The bags under his eyes warn me to leave him alone, but I’m too angry to stop now.
“Your cloak,” I hiss. “Why’d you give it to her?”
Tzain fits in two more crunches before muttering, “She was shivering.”
“And?”
“And?” he shoots back. “We have no idea how long this trip will take. The last thing we need is her getting sick.”
“You know she’s used to that, right? People who look like you making sure she gets her way?”
“Zél, she was cold and I wasn’t using my cloak. That’s all there is to it.”
I turn back toward Amari and try to let it go. But in her eyes, I see her brother’s. I feel his hands around my throat.
“I want to trust her—”
“No, you don’t.”
“Well, even if I did, I can’t. Her father ordered the Raid. Her brother burned down our village. What makes you think she’s any different?”
“Zél…” Tzain’s voice trails off as Amari approaches, always delicate and demure. I have no way of knowing if she’s heard us or not. Either way, I can’t pretend I care.