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Zélie grabs Tzain’s arm before he can react and fixes the announcer with a murderous glare. Her fingers slide along her metal staff.
She stops Tzain but then reaches for her own staff? What was the point?
“You can’t fool us with bread.” A woman with a grisly scar running across her eye speaks up. “Even if we win, you’ll kill us and keep the gold.”
Do they not see Zelie?
I lock eyes with Tzain and he nudges me forward.
He would he nudge her? Doesn’t make sense in this situation, to reach over and nudge her while she’s standing in front, trying to assert confidence and strength.
The crew looks around the cellar before turning to the strongest among them—a divîner almost as tall as Tzain.
Ooh! They be an have them too the scroll. Speaking of which, is it going with them out there on the boat in the water?
I can fight. Be brave, Amari.
Thinking about it, if she was little when Inan cut her and then she never went back, how does she know how to fight? Did she start getting separate lessons?
Zélie laces her fingers and cracks her knuckles, walking to the bow of the ship. She mouths the incantation, steeling herself against the distractions before we begin.
If she lights up like he did last night, won’t everyone see it?
The horn sounds and I jump overboard, crashing into the warm sea with rushing speed.
Oh, she’ll be down there doing it.
For the briefest moment, triumph overpowers the exhaustion running through my muscles. I’ve done it. I’m a Reaper. A true sister of Oya.
OMG. Can we get on with it. What is it supposed to be doing right now?
You trained for this. I grip my sword as the boat nears.
When?
It takes a moment too long to realize that one of the blades is coming for me. Strike, Amari. Yet my limbs do not move.
Omg. Next POV.
“Stay back,” he yells, grabbing his bleeding bicep. “I’m sorry!” “Just get out of the way!”
Exactly
He jumps overboard, leaving the boat without its captain.
I thought the announcer said Zelie was the captain.
If she can summon her animations again, we can all live through this.
Is she serious right now? Amari is now trash to me.
Skies, this won’t work. We have to bring Tzain back up.
So they just left Tzain in the damn water?
The arena falls quiet. Smoke begins to clear.
What smoke?
When we near our rented ahéré, Tzain finally breaks us free. With his guidance, we make it into our clay hut and take turns out back washing the blood away.
Now everyone knows where you’re staying.
With twelve days left until the centennial solstice, we can make it to the sacred island with time to spare. Zélie can perform the ritual. Magic will actually return.
And that sounds a lot like foreshadowing, especially if you don’t leave this place ASAP because everyone has seen that stone do something and they paraded you right to where you live…
“I heard they’re out of business. Without the coin from the pot, they can’t afford to bribe the stockers for more laborers.”
Yeah, they definitely need to leave tonight and those laborers are in danger too.
His only battle wound, sustained because I got in his way.
No. Sustained because you couldn’t defend yourself.
“Amari, I’ve been thinking.…” He picks at the roll of bandages, unraveling it only to wrap it up again. “When we pass through Gombe, you should go to the guard post. Tell them you’ve been kidnapped, blame everything on us.”
You clearly have not been thinking. He knows she took it.
Father might believe I’d been kidnapped by the evil maji.
Why would he believe that? There were no other diviners in the palace. Which is why he used Binta in the first place. And how did you even get caught?
I grab the canteen hooked to the saddle of my stolen panthenaire and squeeze the last droplets out. If Orí is really watching me from above, he must be laughing now.
So he didn’t even take any men? 🤣🤣🤣 Well, guess I know how this turns out. Oh snap! What if the last mamalowa was Saran’s first wife! What if that’s the way it normally falls! The mate of the royal son is the mamalowa. It was said that they, the maji, were kings and queens.
Maji attack. Kaea killed. Pursuing the scroll. —I The message I sent home with the soldiers should arrive soon.
That’s what I was thinking he would do. Blame it on others.
Little does he know the monster he hunts is me.
Both of his kids, actually.
“Good point.” Tzain snatches the scroll out of her hand and places it on Nailah’s saddle.
He places paper ON TOP of the saddle, not underneath to keep it from blowing away?
Shock slows my steps as we scramble out of the river.
How can shock slow your steps when only moments ago the same thing that’s shocking you now urged you to hurry and leave this place?
But how did Inan get over the broken bridge at Chândomblé? How did he know where to go? Even if he somehow tracked us to Ibeji, we left that hell six nights ago.
Because you’re a big mouthed idiot. Cocky and arrogant.
I race over to Nailah and mount first, gripping her reins tight.
The scroll was also on Nailah’s saddle.
After surviving a sêntaro’s attack, surely Inan wouldn’t strike without backup.
But you know that he’s also a maji so…
And I can take him in a fight.
See. Cocky and arrogant.
“Wait!” Amari’s voice quivers. Though Tzain tries to hold her back, she slides off Nailah’s saddle.
Really? Tzain can’t hold her back? When he was just pretending she could take him in the river?
Amari pauses for a second, illuminated by the moonlight reflecting off Inan’s blade.
It’s night time now? They were playing in the river in the dark?
For the first time I notice how different she and her brother truly look, the contrast in her round face, the angles of Inan’s square jawline. Though they share the same amber gaze and copper complexion, that seems to be where their similarities end.
Called it! Different mothers! Inan’s mom was a maji!
Inan pushes her aside and lunges forward, sword raised to my chest. I jump in front of Tzain with my staff brandished. Amari tried.
If the sword is raised to your chest, why would you need to jump in front of Tzain?
“Doesn’t matter.” Inan jumps back, freeing himself for another blow. “If you die, magic dies, too.”
How does he know she’s the mamalowa?
Tzain tumbles to the ground like a boulder with bolas binding his wrists and ankles.
How in the hell could they trap his wrists when one was likely higher than the other since he was running?
The hunting knife skids against the forest floor as a net is launched, trapping him like a jungle cat.
Those can’t be soldiers. That might be the dude from the arena. These guy are too good and precise with those bolas to be soldiers.
In brief flashes I catch their beady eyes. Not soldiers … But if not more of Inan’s guards, who are these fighters? Why do they attack us? What are they after?
And why doesn’t Inan and Zel see or hear this?
The masked man grabs my weapon and disarms me.
Well, that was a nice weapon you just lost.
“Amari!” Inan takes off after her, and I move to follow. But the forest is empty. I can’t find Nailah.
What does that have to do with saving Amari? You can’t run and look around to assess the situation at the same time?
I push the memories down as I go, screaming Tzain’s name into the night.
Yes, yell and alert the unseen assailants that could take Tzain’s in ass down to your location. Smart.
It’s useless. I’ve lost—
She kills me how easily she accepts defeat before the author has her rally her courage again.
As Inan approaches, the seal of Orïsha catches the moonlight, carrying every pain endured under its leopanaire’s watch. The guards’ boots. The blood in the dirt. The black chain around Mama’s neck. The way they kicked Tzain down. The way they threw me to the ground.
Why is he not seeing this?
This is how it ends— Inan’s blade flashes from above. —exactly how it began.
That makes no sense. It didn’t begin with her trapped under Inan…
With this one kill, I’ll fulfill my duty. Protect all of Orïsha from her madness. Every sin committed in this hunt disappears. The only living being who knows of my curse goes with them.
Forgot all about your kidnapped and unconscious sister there, bud.
But then her head snaps to the masked figure in the dirt. Her eyes go wide with the realization. “Tzain!”
And look at you, not even thinking about your own sister.
He’s fighting it.… The realization sets in as the air around me chills. He’s pushing down his magic. He’s making himself weak again. But why? I stare at him, confusion gathering by the second.
Um, hello. Focus stupid.
The darkest part of my rage breaks free as I slash him again and again, drowning out all my pain.
OMG, She has lost it.
“Answer me!” I shriek, pulling the blade up once more. “Where’d they take him? Where’s my brother?” “Hey!”
Let Inan do it. Did she forget his power. They have his sister.
“Zélie, don’t!”
Oh. He said her name.
