Children of Virtue and Vengeance

by Tomi Adeyemi

  A young girl escapes the well, falling to the ground the moment they remove her harness. She scrambles faster than her feet will allow, tripping over herself as tears fill her eyes.

  “Baba!”

  Her shriek makes my ears bleed. She falls onto his shriveled corpse, clawing at his stained robes. I have to turn away as another villager grabs her, pulling the girl away. Her screams are far too familiar.

  Just like mine after the Raid.

  Why? I hide my head in my hands, trying to understand. What happened to our plan? Why would Amari launch this attack?

  Though body after body is lifted from the well, I’m surrounded by those I couldn’t save. The young mother who saved her infant. The divîner who couldn’t run fast enough.

  “No…”

  I turn as Amari walks into the square. Her hand flies to her chest. She crumples to her knees. At first I think it’s the corpses in the street, but then I follow her gaze. My brows knit at the message painted on the mountain overlooking the village lake.

  The red ink is stark against the mountain stone, dripping like blood. Other elders approach from the north, horror dawning as they take in the words.

  WE HAVE YOUR ARMY.

  SURRENDER OR FACE THEIR EXECUTION.

  My heart collapses as I read it, suddenly understanding the monarchy’s true target. These people were sacrificed in vain. We didn’t get them.

  The monarchy outmaneuvered us.

  We’ve lost this war.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

  INAN

  THE STEADY ROCKING reaches through the blackness first. I blink open my eyes, meeting paneled wood. A constant creak rings through my ears, in harmony with the patter of paws. My body feels like it’s been set on fire as the memories trickle back in.

  “Ojore…”

  His hatred sears into my core. It all happened so fast. So fast, it’s like it wasn’t even real.

  One moment he was there, sharpened blades held to my neck. The next …

  I didn’t know Mother could strike that way.

  “Oh, thank the skies.” Mother rises from the front of the caravan. She sets down the parchments in her hand, moving to the side of my bed. She looks strange with the blood splattered across her face.

  She places her palm against my head. “How do you feel?”

  “What happened?” I croak. I attempt to sit up, but the pain is too severe. Mother keeps me on the bed, perusing her collection of glass vials to bring a sedative to my lips.

  “It’s alright, Inan.” She strokes my sweat-soaked hair. “You can rest. We did it.”

  Her words carve a hollow pit in the little that’s left of my heart. “We captured the Iyika?”

  “Your plan worked.” She nods. “The maggots who marched past Lagos put up a fight, but without their leaders they weren’t a match for my tîtáns. We’ve captured every single one.”

  I try to feel the victory, the warmth spreading through my body. It’s over. Done.

  The war is won.

  But tears rise to my eyes as I squeeze my gut. Ojore …

  Skies, he was my oldest friend.

  “Do not grieve him.” Mother squeezes my hand. “Do not let that traitor twist your mind! After everything we did for that boy, you’d think he could show a modicum of restraint—”

  “Restraint?” I yank my hands back, shooting up from the bed despite the agony it sends through my chest. “You killed his family. You killed him!”

  Mother narrows her eyes, coldness sharpening her features. “He attacked the king. That foolish boy killed himself.”

  It’s the last sword in my gut. I’m surprised when I don’t feel blood. Ojore saved me more times than I could count. He needed me today.

  But instead of backing him, I let him down.

  I let Mother sacrifice him for the throne.

  “He was right,” I whisper. “We’re poison.”

  “We are rulers, Inan. We are victors!” She speaks with such conviction. I hate how much I want to believe her words. To purge myself of this guilt. Remove this hollow pit in my chest.

  “You did what was required of you. You stayed strong until the end. You won this war, and now you can rule your kingdom with grace. You can spread the peace you desire!”

  She smiles at me, and in her expression, I finally see my truth.

  I wanted to be the king my father couldn’t be.

  All I did was finish his work.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

  AMARI

  DENIAL IS ALL THAT I HAVE.

  All that I am.

  It carries me from blackened corpse to blackened corpse, to the message written on the mountain.

  It doesn’t take long to find the place Inan and Mother planned their attack. The tunnel she dug beneath the ahéré that they used to escape the village. While they drew our strongest warriors here, those we most needed to protect were left defenseless.

  Behind me, maji crowd around Dakarai, watching the blurry frame that spreads between his hands. Almost a hundred of our maji and divîners sit in chains, bound inside a cell in the palace cellars.

  Strike, Amari.

  Father’s words taunt me as I stare at the bodies on the ground. Their lives were meant to be a sacrifice for Orïsha. Instead their senseless deaths don’t amount to anything.

  Whether or not we concede, Inan has our army. We’re done.

  Because of me, we’ve lost this war.

  “Zél?”

  I look up as Tzain enters the village center, covered in dirt from his fall. He sprints toward her, the only motion in the square filled with dozens of bodies. His relief rips through my heart. If it hadn’t been for Zélie’s bravery, I would’ve killed more people.

  I would’ve killed her.

  “I thought I lost you.” They’re the only words Tzain can muster before he sweeps her into his arms. He shakes as he cries into her shoulder, squeezing her so hard it has to hurt her. Zélie closes her eyes and holds him tight. But when her eyes open, they lock onto mine.

  My heart stops as Zélie pushes Tzain back. My fingers go cold when she limps in my direction.

  “I thought you died.” I take a step back. “When Nâo came back alone, I was sure you were both gone—”

  She opens her hands and dark shadows of death shoot forth. Pain rips through me as they wrap around my body and my throat.

  The moment I hit the ground, Zélie starts to charge. But before she can attack, her eyes roll back. Her shadows dissipate as she collapses in the dirt.

  “Zélie!” Tzain runs forward.

  Her body twitches with violent convulsions. Her lids flutter as the tattoos flicker on her skin.

  “Get her to the ahéré!” A village tîtán steps forward. I back away as Kâmarū lifts her seizing body and carries her to a pyramid hut.

  “Lock her up!” Na’imah shouts as they run.

  Tzain slows at the Tamer’s order. His eyes meet mine when Kenyon drags me to my feet. Instinct makes me want to cry out for help as the Burner binds my arms with a metal restraint, but I know I have lost the right.

  Tzain’s gaze moves from me to his village. To the bodies dropped by my command.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper, but he flinches at my words. In him, I see what I’ve lost. The warmth I shall never feel again.

  Watching him walk away is the final knife in my heart.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  ZÉLIE

  “I DON’T UNDERSTAND—”

  “She’s overexerted—”

  “We need more blood—”

  Every voice sounds like it’s spoken underwater as the world moves in fragments. One moment I’m on the ground. The next the wind grazes my back.

  “What’s happening?” Tzain fills my vision as he and Kâmarū lay me across a stone surface.

  “I don’t know.” Khani puts her hands on my chest. “Her body’s shutting down!”

  “Roën.” I fight to speak his name aloud. He seizes across the ahéré, his body con
vulsing with mine. I used the moonstone to connect our lifeforces. I used our strength to make it through the mountains. But without a blood sacrifice to bind our connection, neither of us can survive.

  “Break it.” Tzain puts the pieces together. “Now, before it’s too late!”

  I lurch as an ache cuts across my sternum. I can’t! I try to wheeze.

  I don’t have enough power to break our connection. And even if I did, what would happen to Roën? I already lost Mâzeli.

  I’m not giving up on him.

  “He’s dying!” Healers carry Roën’s body from across the hut, laying him by my side. We’re running out of time. My heart will die with his.

  But I know what I have to do. Oya showed me in my ìsípayá on that fateful day.

  If the first ribbons of light were Roën and I, then the next lie right here. Connecting to more lifeforces is how we buy ourselves time.

  It is how we survive.

  I latch onto Tzain’s wrist, and his lips press together as he reads my eyes.

  “What’s going on?” Khani’s gaze flicks between us when Tzain puts his hand over my own.

  “She needs to connect another heart,” Tzain says. “It’s the only way to save them both.”

  “No!” Khani shouts. “That strain could kill all three of you!”

  “Then use me, too.” Kâmarū extends his palm. “The four of us can handle it.”

  “Torí ifẹ Babalúayé.” Khani grabs her temples, cursing under her breath. She extends her palm. “Gods, just do it!”

  They gather around me, all placing their hands over mine. Their heartbeats start to bleed into my ears as their lifeforces appear before my eyes. I see the emerald glow of Kâmarū’s ashê. The tangerine light of Khani’s magic. Even Tzain’s lifeforce surges through his blood, powerful in its white glow.

  “Ẹ tọnná agbára yin.” I wheeze the sacred command and my tattoos ignite with purple light. All around me, Tzain’s, Kâmarū’s, and Khani’s pulses thunder between my ears. It’s like five drums beating at once, searching for the same rhythm.

  Tzain grunts as his chest arcs toward the ceiling. His feet lift off the ground. Kâmarū follows next. Khani rises between both of them, screaming as she floats in the air. The three of them hover as the particles of light materialize before their hearts, the very grains of their lifeforce. They stretch forward like ribbons, weaving themselves together as they twist toward my heart.

  “Ẹ tọnná agbára yin!” I fight through the strain, chanting though I can no longer breathe. Tzain wheezes as he grabs at his throat. Khani’s eyes roll as her body shakes. Our connection is killing us all.

  Oya, please. I close my eyes, pushing as the tether of life breaks through my chest. The ribbon of lights digs into my heart. My body burns as if my insides have been set on fire.

  Tzain clenches his teeth. Veins bulge against Kâmarū’s dark skin. I worry I can’t sustain it all without a sacrifice—

  The force that erupts knocks everyone back.

  Tzain grunts as he flies into the far wall. Kâmarū trips over the stone tables and chairs in his path. Khani falls to the floor.

  The world spins around me as I lift myself from the table. A foreign force pulses through my chest. Instead of two hearts, five beat as one.

  “Did it work?” I exhale as Khani rises to her knees and crawls to me. Her hands still shake, but she lays her trembling palms on top of me.

  “Heal.”

  She doesn’t even summon an incantation. With one word, her magic spreads through me like a spiderweb, deep orange light healing me from within. The muscles and tendons crackle as skin regenerates around my injured shin. The heat of her magic erases all of my pain.

  “It’s working.” Khani releases a breathless laugh. She looks at her hands before running over to Roën. With one touch of her hand, his breathing stabilizes.

  “For the love of Ògún…” Kâmarū’s eyes widen as he lifts all the metal tables in the room with a single point of his finger. I haven’t seen him work with metal once, but now he crushes his fist and the iron breaks apart, disintegrating into a cloud of dust that condenses in the air before him.

  Kâmarū looks at his own iron leg before laying both his hands on Roën’s bandaged shoulder. He sculpts the metal as if it were clay. Khani moves to join him.

  My mouth falls open as their magic weaves together, working in perfect tandem. Metal tendons connect to Roën’s raw shoulder as Kâmarū fashions an iron arm with shifting plates. Though Roën stays unconscious, his metal fingers twitch. I can’t believe my eyes.

  I’ve never seen magic like that.

  I lay my fingers across his temples, fighting the knife in my throat. This was it …

  Oya’s vision.

  It all started with him.

  “Let’s go!” Khani grabs my hand, leading me outside the hut. She stops before a corpse: the father whose red cap fell in the dirt. Her intent dawns as she kneels by his side, laying her hands over his heart. As she chants, I join her, weaving our magic together.

  “Ara m’ókun, emí mí—”

  The corpse glows as we summon the magic of healing and the magic of life. The man’s wrinkled skin smooths itself again. His rigid limbs soften.

  Clouds of orange expel from his mouth and blackened skin, floating into the air. His very body seems to vibrate under our touch, glowing with golden light—

  “Ugh!” The man shoots forward, wheezing as he grabs his chest.

  “Baba!” the girl cries out. She tackles him to the ground before he can rise.

  Every gaze falls to us as Khani and I lock eyes.

  With this kind of magic, we can raise the dead.

  We can get our people back.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

  ZÉLIE

  EVERY TIME WE lay our hands on another shriveled chest, I wait for our magic to fail. But one after another, each corpse awakens, rising from the dead. I feel the most sacred gift of Oya beneath my hands, the holy magic of life and death. When the last body breathes again, I stare at the glowing tattoos on my hands.

  No Reaper or Healer in history has ever been able to do that.

  In our magic, I see the answer. What Oya wanted me to understand all along. If we use the moonstone to bind our lifeforces, we can save the maji from the monarchy’s grasp.

  We can still win this war.

  I rise from the ground, marching toward the well.

  “That’s her,” a young boy whispers. “Jagunjagun Ikú.”

  For the first time, the title feels right. When I climb onto the well’s edge, everyone stares as if I were Oya herself. The sun’s rays dance like fire along my skin as I look at the crowd.

  “I’m sorry.” I meet every elder’s eyes. “You all needed me before and I was too broken to show up.”

  “We’re sorry.” Na’imah steps forward, mountain winds blowing her curls. “You told us to leave Orïsha behind. If we had listened, our people would be alright.”

  Mutters of agreement follow in her wake, but I shake my head.

  “We’re the children of the gods.” I lift my chin. “If someone’s running away, it’s not going to be us.”

  I think of all the pain our rulers have caused. The bodies they’ve sacrificed. Magic has never been the kingdom’s problem.

  The monarchy has.

  “Eleven years ago, I stood in this very spot when Saran’s Raid destroyed Ibadan. I lost my mother and my home. We lost our magic!” I lift my hands. “Today, Saran is dead. Our birthright runs through our veins. But in mere moons, the monarchs have brought nothing but death and destruction to our streets again!”

  “Mowà pẹlu olú ọba!” a villager yells, raising his tanned fist. His cry rings through my ears: Down with the monarchy.

  “They’ve taken our magic. Our homes. Those we love most. No more!” I swipe my hand across my chest. “They are Orïsha’s past. We are Orïsha’s future!”

  Cheers spread among the elders, a flame I cradle in my hands.
I don’t want their fire to die. I want to ignite a blaze.

  “Mowà pẹlu olú ọba!” I shout, and this time the chant spreads, echoing through the village crowd.

  “There will be no mercy. No peace. No terms of surrender. We will connect our lifeforces and wield the power of the gods! We will march to Lagos and tear down its walls!” I remove my staff and raise it above my head, extending its blades. “We will rescue our people and make sure no monarch ever touches this land again!”

  “Mowà pẹlu olú ọba!” This time their chant escapes in a deafening cry. It makes me feel alive.

  “Mowà pẹlu olú ọba! Mowà pẹlu olú ọba!”

  My heart swells as the villagers join in, but a cold realization sets in as I stare at the elders. Connecting with Roën almost took me down. Connecting to Tzain, Khani, and Kâmarū almost killed us all. Even as we stand together now, the pressure grows in my chest as our connection eats through us.

  My throat dries as I remember what Mama Agba told us in the council room when she explained the great cost of making our own cênters. If we’re going to join together, we need more than the moonstone’s magic.

  I need to sacrifice someone I love.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

  ZÉLIE

  THE PROMISES OF MY SPEECH swell within me as I walk the mountain paths along the outskirts of Ibadan’s village center. As the rows of pyramid ahérés end behind me, I think of every maji who’s dedicated themselves to this fight. The life we’ll need to sacrifice.

  I can’t give up Tzain and I can’t give up Roën. There’s only one other person I love, despite the way she has betrayed us.

  Dread weighs down my legs, slowing my journey to Amari’s cell. I don’t know what to say to her. How I could ever forgive what she did.

  Even though everyone she killed breathes again, she sacrificed them. She sacrificed me. She didn’t care who she hurt as long as she got to sit on her throne—

  “What do you mean it’s over?”

  My steps falter; I press my back against the side of a mountain before I turn the corner. The deep voice grates against my ears. I didn’t expect to hear it again.