Children of Blood and Bone - Tomi Adeyemi Page 0,110

he breaks straight through them, unwavering as they splinter into burning rubble.

Zélie tries to rise from the ground and fight, but her wounds are too severe. As she falls back, the Burner raises his palm.

“No!”

I lunge, throwing myself between his hand and Zélie’s body. A surge of terror and adrenaline races through me as I face the Burner’s flames.

A comet of fire twists in his hand. Its heat bends the air.

My magic builds in my chest. Thrashing into my fingers. The image of my powers restraining Kaea’s mind returns. I raise my hands to fight—

“Stop!”

The Burner freezes.

Confusion rocks me as he turns to the voice’s source. A young girl makes her way across the camp, thin brows knit in concern.

The moonlight illuminates her face, glowing against the puff of white on top of her head. When she reaches us, she stares at the streak of white in my own hair.

“They’re one of us.”

The comet of fire in the Burner’s hands goes out.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

ZÉLIE

HE TRIED TO PROTECT ME.

In all the questions and confusion, this surprise rises above the rest. It surges when Inan retrieves the sunstone and places it in my hands. It swells when he lifts me in his arms and holds me tight against his chest.

Following the young girl with a crown of white hair, Inan carries me past the gate. As we pass, the fighters remove their masks and reveal their white locks. Almost every person behind the gate is a divîner, too.

What is this?

I try to make sense of everything through the haze of pain: the Burner, the countless divîners, the child who appears to lead them. But any notion of what this could all mean vanishes when we finally lay eyes on their camp.

In the center of the mammoth trees lies a convergence of several valleys. The dip creates a depression in the earth, forming a wide plain filled with bright tents, wagons, and carts. From afar the sweet scent of fried plantain and jollof rice hits me, somehow rising above the copper tang of my own blood. I catch murmurs of Yoruba in the crowd filled with the most divîners I’ve seen since I was a child.

We pass a group of divîners laying flowers around a tall lavender vase. A shrine. A tribute to Sky Mother.

“Who’re all these people?” Inan asks the young girl they call Zu. “What is it you’re doing?”

“Give me a moment. Please. I promise, I’ll return your friends and answer your questions, but I need some time.”

Zu whispers to a divîner beside her, a girl with a green patterned skirt and matching wrap tied around her white hair.

“They weren’t in the tent,” the divîner whispers back.

“Then find them.” The girl’s voice is strained. “They didn’t make it past the gate, so they can’t have gotten far. Tell them we have their friends. We know they were telling the truth.”

I strain my neck to hear more, but an ache ripples through my core. When I writhe, Inan holds me closer. The sound of his beating heart pulses through my ears, steady and strong, like the crest of the tides. I find myself leaning into the sound. Again, my greatest confusion rises.

“That Burner would’ve killed you,” I whisper. Just lying in the maji’s presence seared my skin. It still itches, raw and red, a patch on my arm burnt and blistering.

As it prickles, it brings me back to the scorching breaths I thought would be my last. For the first time, magic wasn’t my ally.

It was almost my end.

“What were you thinking?” I ask.

“You were in danger,” he answers. “I wasn’t.”

He reaches down and grazes a cut on my chin. A strange flutter travels through me at his touch. Any possible response jumbles in my throat. I don’t know what to say to that.

Inan still bathes in the glow of the sunstone’s touch. With his magic still at the surface, his copper complexion is rich with health. In the lantern’s light, his bones are elegantly pronounced instead of harsh and protruding against his skin.

“This’ll do.” Zu brings us into a tent where a few makeshift cots have been set up.

“Set her down here.” Zu points to a cot, and Inan lays me down with care. As my head hits the rough cotton, I fight a wave of nausea.

“We need liquor and bandages for the wounds,” Inan says.

Zu shakes her head. “I’ll take care of it.”

She presses her palms to the gash in my side, and I cringe. A searing stabs at my insides