Children of Virtue and Vengeance (Legacy of Orïsha, #2)

by Tomi Adeyemi

cup. Zélie rests on the metal floor, half-buried in her lionaire’s golden coat. The massive ryder lies across Zélie’s lap,

How? Nailah is big enough for a saddle and 4 passengers but small enough to be across Zel’s lap without rushing her?

With her support, I can ascend to Orïsha’s throne. I can finally right my Father’s wrongs.

You’re the only heir! What is this nonsense?

Roën shakes the rain from his black hair,

I thought he had silver hair.

Roën looks away. “With you hiding out here, people think the royal line’s dead.”

Exactly. Why the hell hasn’t she went back! Three weeks! And they are just burying Baba. What have they been doing? The trip back took only a day at most. Still don’t know how they got out of the temple and off the island.

I drove my sword into his chest to free Orïsha from his tyranny, but now the kingdom’s in chaos. There’s no time to grieve. No time to wipe my tears. I vowed to be a better queen.

Yet you’ve sat there in Jimeta for three weeks…

“You realize that no contact with your mother means you still owe me my weight in gold?”

So contact with her mother would mean she doesn’t have to pay?

But no matter how many mercenaries appear, I won’t let it out. I can’t. Magic’s the reason Baba’s gone. It’s a betrayal to use it now—

OMFG! This girl has so many damn issues. So many excuses for being a fuck up and a coward.

He shakes his head and gestures for me to follow. “Whatever you have to say, my answer’s still no.”

She’s leaving Nailah with those clowns?

I burrow back into Tzain’s neck, running my fingers against the new stubble along his chin.

Thought her hands were blistered.

She doesn’t hide from my sight. She doesn’t conceal who she is. Why should I?

Exactly! You can’t hide it forever.

“Mother, please,” Amari begs. “Let me explain!”

Why is she even still trying to convince her mother? It clear her mother came with a plan.

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.

The magic killing shit Saran injected into Zelie’s dumb ass. It’s amazing how she doesn’t remember that part.

“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.

Out of the there of you, you’re the only one in danger hun…

“Mother, please!” Amari yells,

Don’t tell me she’s as dumb as Inan was when it came to Saran with her mother! I can’t read another book of that stupidity.

“Tzain, I need you!” I claw at those in my way, heart pounding in my chest.

Bitch you have magic!

My body shakes as Nehanda sucks the ashê from her soldiers’ veins. How is this possible? I try to make sense of the sight.

Just watching and not doing a damn thing…

Then I hear the crack. No. My stomach clenches when I look up.

Why are you just standing there watching?

Get up, I scream at myself as sunlight filters through the widening cracks. But despair freezes my legs in place.

This is the dumbest, weakest girl! Well, Amari is as well so…

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!”

OMG! She is such a damn whiner! Always throwing a pity party for herself!

“When Harun gets here with the rest of my crew, the price of that extraction’s going to cost you double.”

But you didn’t extraction her, Tzain and Nailah did bud. Got you out too.

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

Saran may not be dead. You never recovered his body. And you never said anything about Inan’s body. He wasn’t dead yet when we last saw him begging Saran for his life. Who knows what his magic could do for him.

“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.

You always knew he was a mercenary though. You trying to play him. He has a crew to take care of.

Harun’s words wash over me like an ocean of ice. With Mother’s declaration, there’ll be no shortage of people who will put a price on my head. People with the gold to pay. “We can work something out.” I stomp after Roën, pulse spiking in my chest.

Smdh. She’s so weak!

“She sent a dome crashing down on our heads. How in Oya’s name are we supposed to beat her?”

She is pitiful

We can make her surrender the throne.” “And if she doesn’t?” Tzain asks. When she doesn’t? I dig my nails into my scalp; I don’t want to speak the words.

Yep. This is going to be just like book 1 with Inan and Saran. Him knowing his father needed to die to fix things but in denial about it. Smdh.

“We’ve already lost this fight. The monarchy has magic now and they still hate us. It was never about magic at all!”

Oh shut up.

I can’t look at my own back because of what your father did!

You couldn’t look at your own back to begin with…

“Did you hear me?” she cuts him off. “When my skin was burning and I couldn’t breathe? Did you hear me scream your name, or were you too busy looking after Amari?”

Dammmmmmmnnnnn.

I release it all, allowing the blackness in. But when I open my eyes, I see white. I see dirt. I see reeds.

Inan?

I reach for my back and my fingers graze the MAGGOT etched into my skin.

Why would she reach for her back?

“No!” The shout echoes in my head. Echoes against the sacred temple walls. This time I see its source. Not my brother, but Inan.

She said it was Inan in the first place!

“I’ll make this right,” he says. “I promise. Even if it costs me my life.”

You’re almost dead now! Maybe this is how the mother got her intel. Inan got his father’s body out and they took one of the ships back to the palace.

I squeeze the roots so hard he can’t even gasp. I squeeze so hard his collarbones snap. “Run,” I whisper through my teeth. “Pray.”

How is he supposed to do that when you just broke all his bones?

The last thing I can remember is Amari running to my defense, choosing to face Father herself.

Good that you remember that and see it for what it was, her trying to save your life.

“What’s going on?” I whisper, questions mounting by the second. My eyes start to adjust to the dim candlelight and I take in the crimson walls; the marbled archways and lush upholstery of Father’s royal quarters.

So he’s been out for almost a month now?

Tears well in her amber eyes and she stumbles back, doubling over as if she’s been punched in the stomach. “You’re awake!”

Yep. He’s been out all this time! So who brought him back considering the despise the white strip? That was a long journey that he was unconscious and unprotected for. They saw the king stab him, after all…

It was that attack that made Father get rid of magic. He vowed that the palace would never be attacked again.

And he’s still on that crap…

I don’t recognize the carnage before me. It’s like my city’s been ravaged by war.

It has, not like.

A needle of fire threads through my ribs. My muscles spasm with the sudden surge—

Now THAT’s the type of healer I’ve been waiting for.

How can I tell her that her brother lives after I caused her all that pain?

One has nothing to do with the other, author! Lame ass excuse!

My muscles tense and I take a deep breath; I don’t want to hurt her again. But she has to know the truth. The other member of her family she fights against.

No, hun. Sh saved her brother after everything, including Baba. You’re the one that’s against him.

“If what she says is true … if Inan really lives…”

Why would it not be?

I know she hears the name that I do not speak, but I don’t care what she believes. I know my brother; if he’s alive, there’s no way he would sanction this. He’s been through too much to fight like Father.

And that’s exactly why his cowardly ass will fight. He’s afraid of magic.

With all the maji raids, they’ve got to have more than they can manage. If we can free the maji, we’ll have the start of our own army.”

But if they are in there, they must not be able to use their magic.

“You also weren’t at war.” A voice rings from behind. “This time, the military’s prepared.”

I bet it’s Roën.

Despite his threat, I tighten my grip. Another push and I’ll draw blood.

What is it with this fake air of confidence? Like she’s suddenly the best at fighting.

“With Lagos choked off, the military can’t afford to lose another city to the Iyika,” Roën explains.

How is it choked off when the queen was able to travel back and forth from Lagos to Zaria without any problems?

After our success freeing Zélie from Gombe’s fortress, I was sure this strategy would work.

How? YOU HAVE NO ONE! Back then you had people! And the sunstone. Ridiculous!

Liberating prisoners for our army was the foundation of my attack, the start of my path back to the throne.

And that alone shows why you won’t make a good leader. Dumb ass, u thought out plans.

“I knew it.” I step back. “I’m not going anywhere with you.” “Good. Stay here. Zélie’s the one they’re after.”

Lol