Children of Blood and Bone - Tomi Adeyemi Page 0,62
another vine snaps.
Two.
Just one plank to go. You can do it. You didn’t come this far to die. I reach for the final panel.
“No!”
The plank snaps beneath my grip.
Time passes in an instant and an eternity. Wind whips at my back with fury, twisting me toward my grave. I close my eyes to greet death.
“Ugh!”
A thundering force crushes my body, knocking the air from my chest. White light wraps around my skin—Lekan’s magic.
Like the hand of a god, the strength of his spirit lifts me, propelling me into Tzain’s arms. I turn to face him just as the admiral breaks from his hold.
“Lekan—”
The admiral’s sword plunges through Lekan’s heart.
His eyes bulge and his mouth falls open. His staff drops from his hand.
Lekan’s blood splatters as it hits the ground.
“No!” I scream.
The admiral yanks out her sword. Lekan collapses, ripped from our world in an instant. As his spirit leaves his body, it surges into mine. For a moment, I see the world through his eyes.
—running through the temple grounds with the sêntaro children, a glee like no other alight in his golden gaze—his body steadies as the mamaláwo inks every part of his skin, painting the beautiful symbols in white—his soul rips, again and again, traveling through the massacred ruins of his people—his spirit soars like never before as he performs his first and only awakening—
As the vision ends, one whisper endures, a word teetering through the blackness of my mind.
“Live,” his spirit breathes. “Whatever you do, survive.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
INAN
BEFORE TODAY, magic didn’t have a face.
Not beyond beggars’ tales and the hushed undertones of servants’ stories. It died eleven years ago. It only lived in the fear in Father’s eyes.
Magic didn’t breathe. It didn’t strike or attack.
Magic didn’t kill my ryders and trap me inside its grasp.
I peer over the ledge of the cliff; Lula’s body slumps, impaled on a jagged rock. Her eyes hang open in an empty stare. Blood stains her spotted coat. As a child I watched Lula rip through a savage gorillion twice her size.
In the face of magic, she couldn’t even fight.
“One…,” I whisper to myself, leaning away from the ghastly sight. “Two … three … four … five…”
I will the numbers to slow my pulse, but my heart only beats harder in my chest. There are no moves. No counterattacks.
In the face of magic we become ants.
I watch a line of the six-legged creatures until I feel something sticky under the metal heel of my boot. I scoot back and follow the crimson droplets to the maji’s corpse; blood still leaks from his chest.
I study him, really seeing the maji for the first time. Alive, he looked three times his actual size, a beast shrouded in white. The symbols that covered his dark skin glowed as he threw our ryders through the air. With his death, the symbols have vanished. Without them, he looks strangely human. Strangely empty.
But even dead, his corpse wraps a chill around my throat. He held my life in his hands.
He had every chance to throw it away.
My thumb grazes over Father’s tarnished pawn, my skin prickling as I back away from his body. I understand now, Father.
With magic we die.
But without it …
My gaze drifts back to the dead man, to the hands gifted by the heavens, stronger than the earth. Orïsha cannot survive that kind of power. But if I used it to get the job done …
A bitter tang crawls onto my tongue as the new strategy takes hold. Their magic is a weapon; mine could be one, too. If there are maji who can fling me from a cliff with a wave of their hand, magic is my only chance of getting the scroll back.
But the very thought makes my throat close up. If Father were here …
I look down at the pawn. I can almost hear his voice in my head.
Duty before self.
No matter the cost or collateral.
Even if it’s a betrayal of everything I know, my duty to protect Orïsha comes first. I release my hold on the pawn.
For the first time, I let go.
It starts slowly. Broken. Crawling limb by limb. The pressure in my chest is released. The magic I force down starts to stir underneath my skin. At the pulsing sensation, my stomach lurches, churning through every ounce of my disgust. But our enemies will use this magic against us.
If I’m to fulfill my duty and save my kingdom, I must do the same.