Children of Virtue and Vengeance Read online

  This time when the cheers erupt, they’re deafening. I beam as the sound echoes around the dome, the cries to unify powerful and loud.

  “Kí èmí olá ó gùn Ayaba!” Someone shouts, a chant that travels throughout the crowd.

  “Kí èmí olá ó gùn Ayaba,” Zélie translates. “Long live the Queen.”

  My body feels so light I’m sure I could float above the stage. The crowd’s chant reverberates inside me, awakening pieces of me I didn’t know I had. It brings me back to that magical moment in Chândomblé, the wonder of the art Lekan brought to life. Now I see that same peace and prosperity. That same magic is within our grasp—

  “Lies!”

  The voice booms above the masses, its ice quieting the crowd in an instant. Heads turn toward the dome’s archway. I grab my hilt as metal boots crunch through the sand.

  I lock eyes with Zélie, and she nods, ready for the fight. But when the sea of people parts and the challenger comes into view, my blade falls from my hand.

  Even with her hood raised, I recognize the slink in her step. The iron in her veins.

  “Mother?”

  My hands fly to my chest. A laugh escapes my lips.

  I move toward her, unable to believe my eyes. But when she lifts her head, the hatred that burns in her amber gaze freezes me in place.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ZÉLIE

  I DON’T NEED to read Amari’s face to recognize the source of her amber eyes. Queen Nehanda shares her daughter’s beauty, but where Amari is soft curves, this woman is sharp angles and severe lines. Like her daughter, Nehanda wears a suit of armor, but hers shines in gold. The polished plates curve over her chest, accented with serrated shoulder pads and sculpted gauntlets.

  “What do we do?” Tzain whispers, grip tightening on the handle of his axe. Despite what Roën’s intelligence said, Queen Nehanda still lives. The monarch glides across the sand, a deep purple cape flowing behind her with the ocean breeze. Her precision is deathly familiar.

  It makes the scars prickle on my back.

  “You survived!” Amari smiles, but Nehanda doesn’t even spare her daughter a glance. As she takes in the room, she seems acutely aware of how the entire dome hangs on her very breath.

  Aware of how a single word was all she needed to take a cheering rally into her own hands like the crack of a whip.

  “Bold promises,” Queen Nehanda finally speaks. “Elegant lies. But these aren’t the words of a devoted leader. Only the vitriol of a power-hungry tyrant.”

  Her accusation lands like a slap to the face. Amari actually stumbles back. A wave of rumbles starts among the crowd, dissent trickling through like water from a broken dam.

  “Mother, what is this?” Amari steps forward. “I thought you were dead—”

  “You wished it upon me!” The queen cuts her off. “You sent maji and mercenaries for my head!”

  “I didn’t—”

  “You tell these people their king has fallen, but you fail to mention the crime of regicide by your hand? You speak of your late brother without admitting it was you and the maji who killed the rightful heir to the throne?”

  Horrified gasps pulse around us, echoing through the dome. Air that once held hope and promise withers under a new cloud of suspicion and disgust.

  “That’s not true!” Amari cries.

  “You deny killing your own father?”

  “No, I—” Amari’s cheeks flush and she takes a deep breath. “The king died by my hand, yes, but I didn’t kill Ina—”

  She doesn’t get a chance to finish. Whatever hold Amari had on her people evaporates.

  “Traitor!” someone shouts.

  “Liar!” another joins in. Their fury builds and crests like a wave intent on bringing Amari down. My hands shake as their rage spreads, spilling onto the maji sprinkled throughout the dome.

  Amari holds up her hands, a feeble attempt to hold their fury back. The stance makes her look like a helpless cub in front of a den of snow leopanaires.

  “Before you stands a traitor.” Nehanda glides forward. “A rebel who allies with liars and thieves. An insolent child who has endangered us all with magic just so she can be queen!”

  “Mother, please,” Amari begs. “Let me explain!” But her voice cuts like wood where her mother’s strikes like iron.

  Amari’s cries shrivel even further when the queen’s guards enter the dome, distinguished by their golden armor and razor-edged swords. In the glare of their gilded seals, I see Mama’s corpse.

  I feel the heat of the flames that engulfed Baba’s casket.

  “I will not allow you and your maji insurgents to run this kingdom into the ground,” Nehanda shouts. “You are under arrest for your crimes against the crown! Anyone who aids you shall be taken down!”

  Panic ignites as her guards stomp forward, arming themselves with glass orbs filled with night-black liquid.

  “What are they holding?” I shout at Tzain.

  “I don’t know, but we have to get Amari out of here!”

  Tzain runs toward the stage, but he’s not fast enough.

  Nehanda fixes a golden mask over her face as her soldiers smash their orbs into the sand.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ZÉLIE

  WHAT IN THE GODS’ NAMES?

  I step back, pressing into the wooden stage. The black liquid spreads across the sand like the tide, foaming and frothing until it takes to the air as a gas.

  The dark clouds overtake the crowd, but nothing happens to the kosidán it hits. The tîtáns caught in its path merely cough.

  It’s the maji who scream like their nails are being ripped off.

  “Help!”

  A young maji scratches at his throat. His light brown skin sizzles and burns. He struggles to scream as he chokes on the black smoke.

  In that instant it dawns on me, the true nature of this attack. The poison of majacite, but not in chains or swords.

  In the air.

  As a gas.

  “Go!” I scream at Tzain and Amari, clawing myself onto the wooden platform. Fear strikes my core like a battering ram. My feet go numb as I climb.

  The majacite cloud moves through the dome, its thick mass expanding like a storm. Shouts and panic fill the air as maji scatter, trampling over one another in their dash for the far exits.

  “Don’t let one rebel escape!” Nehanda thunders above the masses. “Orïsha must be protected from their madness!”

  “Mother, please!” Amari yells, but Tzain yanks her off the stage. He grabs my arm as he charges through the people in our way, pulling us through the hysteria.

  The queen’s personal guard closes in from all sides, golden armor flashing as they run. Like Nehanda, their forearms gleam with matching gauntlets. Golden masks sit over their noses.

  “Attack!” Nehanda orders, and I wait to see more majacite blades or glass orbs. But when the guards’ hands glow green with ashê, I realize the reason behind their special rank.

  They aren’t just her personal guard.

  They’re her own legion of tîtáns.

  Horror consumes me as the tîtáns’ powers break free and they target a group of fleeing maji. Circles of sand harden around maji’s feet like cement. Sand pillars shoot from the ground, striking my people in the back.

  I scream with rage as Nehanda’s tîtáns desecrate the magic of Grounders before my eyes. How dare they wield our own gifts against us? But when one tîtán soldier bares his teeth in pain, I realize that they don’t understand the fragile magic they now have.

  “Help me!” he cries.

  People flee the space as the tîtán screams. The sand around him quakes with incredible force. His skin corrodes as the magic surges beyond his control.

  In a flash, the green light explodes in his chest. The life fades from his brown eyes.

  The tîtán falls into the sand, his corpse trampled in the fray.

  “Zél, come on!” Tzain pulls me along, but I struggle to stay upright. The way that t�
�tán screamed, the way he lost control—I’ve felt that strain myself.

  It’s the power maji are forbidden to use. A power so great it consumes all who wield it.

  It’s the power of blood magic.

  And somehow the tîtáns have it.

  “Murderer!”

  Amari screams as a noble grabs her braid and drags her back. Tzain dives after them, smashing his fist into the noble’s chin.

  “Tzain!” I try to stay close, but within moments they’re lost in the crowd. Without my brother, the bodies in front of me become an unbreakable wall.

  “Tzain, I need you!” I claw at those in my way, heart pounding in my chest. Tîtán soldiers charge from the front. The black cloud approaches from the back.

  I try to forge ahead, but when the first tendril of majacite hits my neck, I can only scream.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ZÉLIE

  FOR THE LOVE of Oya.

  The airborne majacite attacks from all sides. My eyes sting inside the cloud of toxic gas. Smoke burns my skin like a branding iron.

  The poison sears the skin of my calf. Another cloud hits the scars on my back. As the majacite burns my lungs, I can almost feel Saran’s knife carving through my flesh.

  “Don’t let the traitor escape!”

  Nehanda’s shouts continue to fill the dome. My vision blurs in and out of focus as she marches forward, shaking the curls loose from her golden helmet. I don’t believe my eyes when a single streak of white falls along Nehanda’s cheek. It can’t be.…

  The Queen of Orïsha is a tîtán.

  The air shifts as Nehanda summons her newly awakened magic. The green light of her ashê spreads around her hands, but it doesn’t stop there. Her magic glows inside her chest, so bright it casts her ribs in black silhouettes.

  Emerald light crackles around the queen’s body like lightning as she calls on a power I don’t understand. She stretches out her hands and her legion of tîtáns freezes in place. My body shakes as Nehanda sucks the ashê from her soldiers’ veins.

  How is this possible? I try to make sense of the sight. Green wisps of ashê break through the tîtáns’ skin like smoke, traveling into Nehanda’s palms. The feat brings Nehanda’s men to their knees. She sucks the very life from their trembling bodies. One soldier seizes in the sand before going completely still.

  “You will pay for your crimes!” Nehanda marches forward despite the pain she causes her own people. She lifts her palms and her eyes glow with emerald light. With another shout, Nehanda punches her fists into the ground.

  The earth splits open at her touch.

  “Get back!”

  Screams fill the dome as Nehanda’s fracture cuts across the sand. People fall to their knees, unable to stand on top of the quaking earth.

  Nehanda’s attack slows the fleeing maji down, but her eyes widen as she loses control. The shaking builds with incredible force.

  Then I hear the crack.

  No.

  My stomach clenches when I look up. The crack cuts through the dome’s walls, spreading through the sandstone like a spiderweb.

  Get up, I scream at myself as sunlight filters through the widening cracks. But despair freezes my legs in place. I can’t believe it’s come to this.

  Everything we did. Everything we lost.

  It didn’t change a thing.

  There will be no victory in Baba’s death. I’ll never be free of this guilt—

  “Zélie, move!”

  Roën dives from the side, ramming his body into mine. We roll across the sand, and he curses when a broken piece of the dome’s wall lands on his hand.

  “Roën!” I scramble forward on my hands and knees, choking in the majacite cloud. When I find him, he presses bloodied metal to my nose. I wheeze as a burst of clean air passes through the golden mask.

  “Hold on!” Roën yanks me close as we barricade ourselves under a fallen slab. The dome rains down like hail. I flinch with each piece of debris that crashes against our defense.

  Someone shouts my name and I stick my head out; Tzain and Amari gallop toward us on Nailah’s bare back. When she spots us, Amari stretches out her hands.

  “Grab on!” she shouts.

  Roën and I latch onto her arms as they ride past. Amari grits her teeth, bracing herself against Tzain as we clamber onto Nailah’s back.

  Nailah releases a vicious roar, dodging the giant slabs that crash into the tides.

  The dome crumbles in our wake as we ride away from the beach.

  CHAPTER TEN

  AMARI

  A THOUSAND QUESTIONS race through my mind as we ride through the rocky mountainside on Nailah’s back. Behind us, Zaria fades into the night, a dwindling speck on the far horizon. Fires burn in the distance, flickering scars from Mother’s hatred. By now, her guards will have searched the entire town. It won’t be long before her forces scramble after our path.

  How did this happen?

  I bury my head in my hands, struggling to process the facts. My mother is still alive. Just last night, that would’ve been my greatest desire come to life.

  We should be in each other’s arms. We should be mourning Inan. Mother should be backing my claim to the throne.

  Instead, she calls for my head.

  Think, Amari.

  My lips quiver as I wrap my arms around myself. If I close my eyes, I can see the rally in my mind. I feel the vibrations of the cheering crowd in my skin.

  In that moment I had everything I wanted for this land. I saw peace and unification. Orïsha’s sun was finally rising.

  And in seconds, Mother set it.

  “Over here.”

  My eyes snap open as Tzain takes a sharp turn, guiding Nailah off the rocky path. With Roën’s instructions, we pull into a clearing in the forest, a safe zone I thought we’d never have to see. Moss-covered trees wrap around us, their thick branches shielding us from the world. Heavy footsteps and thundering paws echo past as more maji flee the rally, racing away from Mother’s soldiers.

  “Dammit,” Roën curses under his breath when we come to a stop. He jumps off Nailah’s back, muttering in Sutōrīan as he rummages through his pockets. He pulls out a cigarette and holds it between his teeth, but when he catches me staring, I look away. Without the royal treasuries, I still don’t have a gold piece to my name.

  How will I pay him for this?

  “Zél, what happened?” Tzain moves me aside, sliding across Nailah’s back to get to his sister. He tilts Zélie’s chin, inspecting the harsh burns along her dark skin.

  “It was the majacite.” She stares at the golden mask in her hands. “The monarchy turned it into a gas.”

  Majacite?

  I touch my face, peppered with cuts and bruises yet free of any burns. If the majacite did that to her, why didn’t it do the same to me?

  Tzain starts to ask more, but stops when Zélie presses a shaking hand to her mouth. I’ve never seen her look this defeated. This empty. This sad.

  “I’m so sorry.” I reach out to help her, but Zélie recoils from my touch. My hand falls limp as she trembles, fighting to hold back her sobs.

  “Give her some space,” Tzain whispers. A lump rises in my throat when he turns back to her. I slide off Nailah’s back, leaving them alone.

  My body feels like it might shatter as I break for the stump across the clearing.

  Just when I get the chance to atone for my family’s sins, they go and hurt the people I love all over again.

  “That’ll be six hundred gold pieces.”

  I glance back: Roën struggles to light a flint with one hand. His other hand remains wrapped in a ripped swatch of cloth, bloody bandages barely containing the mangled mess.

  “Excuse me?”

  “That’s what you owed before your little coronation was interrupted,” he says. “When Harun gets here with the rest of my crew, the price of that extraction’s going to cost you double.”

  Twelve hundred gold pieces? I try to keep the shock from my face. �
�Do you honestly think now is the right time to quibble for your payment?”

  “This isn’t a charity, Princess.” I grit my teeth as Roën mocks me with a bow. “Oh, where are my manners? Queen.”

  He blows smoke in my face and I turn away before I strike back. I cannot play Roën’s games when Mother is out there calculating her next move. I picture the cold expression on her face, the golden mask that amplified her cruel beauty and grace. I still can’t tell if she really thinks I killed Inan or if she just wants to paint me as the villain.

  There has to be more; something beyond her blinding rage. Spectacle for spectacle’s sake is simply not in her nature.

  She wouldn’t have made such a bold move if it weren’t part of a larger plan.

  “I’ll get your coin.” I turn back to Roën. “I just require time.”

  The mercenary shakes his head and exhales a long trail of smoke. “Time is the one thing you no longer have.”

  “Listen—”

  “No, you listen.” He bares his teeth and I flinch, stumbling back. In a mere second, he’s a different person. It’s never been this easy to see the killer hiding beneath his skin.

  “Your mother will be the least of your problems if you don’t pay me and my men. I have restraint,” he growls. “They don’t.”

  “Is that a threat?” I step forward, and Roën’s gaze flicks down to my hand. Blue wisps of magic fall from my fingers like rain. The ashê burns my skin as it sparks.

  I’ve never called on my magic before; it stings to wield it now. But a strange thrill runs through me when Roën backs down.

  “It’s not a threat.” He shakes his head. “It’s a promise.”

  The patter of approaching paws breaks the standoff between us. We look over, and I expect to see more fleeing maji, but instead Harun and the other mercenaries ride in on stolen cheetanaires. Roën turns back to me, pointing two fingers at my chest.

  “Whatever happens next is on you. Remember that.”

  Before I can respond, he gives a sharp whistle that makes his men perk up like meerkats.

  “We’re moving out.”