Children of Blood and Bone - Tomi Adeyemi Page 0,32

serious,” Amari stammers. For once I agree with her.

“What’s there to argue?” Mama asks. “You three were on the journey. You were traveling to bring magic back!”

“Is it not already here?” Amari asks. “What you just did—”

“A fraction of what I could do before. This scroll sparks the magic, but to bring it back to its full power, you must do more.”

“There has to be someone better.” I shake my head. “Someone with more experience. You can’t be the only maji to escape the Raid. We can use your power to find someone for the scroll.”

“Girls—”

“We can’t!” I cut in. “I can’t! Baba—”

“I’ll take care of your father.”

“But the guards!”

“Don’t forget who taught you how to fight.”

“We don’t even know what it says,” Amari interrupts. “We cannot even read it!”

Mama Agba’s eyes grow distant like an idea’s taken hold in her head. She scurries over to a collection of her belongings, returning with a faded map. “Here.” She gestures to a spot in the Funmilayo Jungle, a few days east of Ilorin’s coast. “In my vision you were traveling here. It must be where Chândomblé is.”

“Chândomblé?” Amari asks.

“A legendary temple,” Mama Agba answers. “Rumored to be the home of the sacred sêntaros, the protectors of magic and spiritual order. Before the Raid, only the newly elected leaders of the ten maji clans made the pilgrimage, but if my vision showed you traveling there, it must be your time. You must go. Chândomblé may hold the answers you seek.”

The more Mama Agba speaks, the more I lose feeling in my hands and feet. Why don’t you understand? I want to scream.

I’m not strong enough.

I look at Amari; for a moment, I almost forget she’s a princess. In the glow of Mama Agba’s candles she looks small, unsure of what to do next.

Mama Agba places a wrinkled hand on my face and grabs Amari’s wrist with the other. “I know you’re scared, girls, but I also know that you can do this. Of all the days to trade in Lagos, you went today. Of all the people you could’ve approached in that market, you chose her. The gods are at work. They are blessing us with our gifts after all this time. You have to trust that they wouldn’t gamble with the fate of the maji. Trust in yourselves.”

I release a deep breath and stare at the woven floor. The gods that once seemed so far away are closer now than I ever imagined they could be. I just wanted to graduate today.

I only needed to sell a fish.

“Mama—”

“Help!”

A scream breaks through the calm of the night. In an instant we’re all on our feet. I grab my rod as Mama runs to her window. When she rips open the curtains, my legs go weak.

Fire rages in the merchant quarter, every ahéré engulfed in the roaring blaze. Plumes of black smoke tower into the sky with villagers’ yells, cries for help as our world goes up in flames.

A line of burning arrows cuts through the darkness; each explodes as it makes contact with the reeds and wooden beams of the ahéré.

Blastpowder …

A powerful mix only the king’s guards could obtain.

You, the voice in my head whispers in disgust. You brought them here.

And now the guards won’t just kill everyone I love.

They’ll burn the whole village to the ground.

I’m out the door before another second passes, undeterred when Mama Agba shouts my name. I have to find my family. I have to make sure they’re okay.

With each step on the crumbling walkway, my home blazes into a living hell. The stench of burning flesh stings my throat. The fire’s only raged a few minutes, yet all of Ilorin fries in the flames.

“Help!”

I recognize the cries now. Little Bisi. Her screams cut through the darkness, desperate in their shrieks. My chest heaves as I sprint past Bisi’s ahéré. Will she even make it out of the blaze alive?

As I race home, villagers desperate to escape the flames jump into the ocean, their screams piercing the night sky. Coughing, they cling onto charred driftwood, fighting to stay afloat.

A strange sensation rushes through me, surging through my veins, trapping the breath in my chest. With it, warmth buzzes under my skin. A death …

A spirit.

Magic. I put the pieces together. My magic.

A magic I still don’t understand. A magic that’s brought us to this hell.

But even as embers burn my skin, I picture Tiders summoning streams of water to fight the flames. Burners keeping the blaze