CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE
AMARI
FATHER’S FIRST CHILDREN were loved, but they were frail and weak. When Inan and I were born, Father would not allow us to be the same.
For years he forced Inan and me to trade blows and bruises under his watchful eye, never relenting, no matter how hard we cried. Every battle was a chance to correct his mistakes, to bring his first family back to life. If we got strong enough, no sword could take us down, no maji could burn our flesh. We fought for his approval, stuck in a battle for his love neither of us would ever win.
We raised our swords against each other because neither of us had the courage to raise one against him.
Now, as I lift my blade to his rage-fueled eyes, I see Mother and Tzain. I see my dear Binta. I find everyone who ever tried to fight back, every innocent soul cut down by his blade.
“You raised me to fight monsters,” I mutter, stepping forward with my sword. “It took far too long to understand that the real monster was you.”
I lunge forward and catch him by surprise. I cannot hold back with him; if I do, I know how this battle ends.
Though he raises his sword to parry, I overpower him, slicing dangerously close to his neck. He arches, but I rush him again. Strike, Amari. Fight!
I swing my sword in a swift arc, cutting into his thigh. He stumbles back in pain, unprepared for a lethal blow from my sword. I am not the little girl he knows. I am a princess. A queen.
I am the Lionaire.
I push forward, blocking one of Father’s jabs at my heart. His strikes are merciless now that he’s no longer caught off guard by my attacks.
The clinks and clashes of our blades ring above the madness as more guards filter down the stairs. Having slain the men on the ritual ground, Ro?n’s men fend off the new wave. But as they fight, Tzain runs toward me from across the room, only moments away.
“Amari—”
“Go!” I urge him, striking back against Father’s blade. Tzain cannot help me here, not in the fight I have trained for all my life. It is only the king and me now. Only one of us shall live.
Father trips. This is my moment, a chance to end our endless dance.
Do it now!
Blood pounds against my ears as I lunge forward, raising my blade. I can rid Or?sha of its greatest monster. Abolish the source of its pain.
But at the last moment, I hesitate, angling my blade up. Our swords collide head-on.
Curse the skies.
I cannot end it like this. If I do that, I’m no better than him.
Or?sha will not survive by employing his tactics. Father must be taken down, but it is too much to drive my sword through his heart—
Father pulls back his blade. Momentum carries me forward.
Before I can pivot, Father swings his sword around and the blade rips across my back.
“Amari!”
Tzain’s scream sounds distant as I stumble into a sacred pillar. My skin burns red-hot, searing with the same agony Inan inflicted upon me as a child.
Veins bulge from Father’s neck as he charges forward, no hesitation as he angles for a killing blow.
He does not cringe at the thought of slaughtering his own daughter, his own flesh and blood. He’s made his decision.
Now it’s time for mine.
I whip out of harm’s way as his sword strikes the pillar, chipping into the stone. Before he can rally, I plunge my sword forward without hesitation.
Father’s eyes bulge.
Hot blood leaks from his heart onto my hands. He wheezes, crimson spurting from his lips as the rest spills across the stone.
Though my hand shakes, I plunge the blade in deeper. Tears blur my vision.
“Do not worry,” I whisper as he takes his last breath. “I will make a far better queen.”
CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR
ZéLIE
“COME ON.” I channel all my energy into the dust of the destroyed parchment. This can’t be happening. Not when we’re this close.
Baba’s energy surges into my arms, bursting through my fingertips as twisting shadows. But no parchment rises from the ashes. It’s over.…
We lost.
The horror hits so hard I can hardly breathe.
The one thing we need, destroyed by my hand.
“No, no, no, no!” I close my eyes and try to remember the incantation. I read that scroll dozens of times. How did that damn ritual start?
ìya a??n 0run, àwa ?m? képè 3 l3nì—No. I shake my head, combing through fragments of remembered words. It was àwa ?m3 ò re képè 0 l?ni. And then …
Oh gods.
What came next?
A sharp clap rings through the dome, rumbling like thunder. As it pounds, the entire temple shakes. Everyone freezes as stone and dust rain from the ceiling.
Yem?ja’s statue begins to glow, blinding in its shine. The light starts at her bare feet, travels up the curves and folds of her carved robes. When it reaches her eyes, her golden sockets glow bright blue, bathing the dome in its soft color.
ògún’s statue shimmers to life next, eyes glowing in dark greens; Sàngó’s comes in fiery reds; Ochumare’s in bright yellows.
“A chain…,” I breathe, following the path to Sky Mother. “Oh my gods…”
The solstice.
It’s happening now!
I paw at the ashes, looking for anything. Everything. The ancient ritual was painted on this scroll. Shouldn’t the spirits of the sêntaros who painted it be here as well?
But as I wait for the chill of the dead to overcome me, I realize the number of corpses there are strung across the dome. I didn’t feel their deaths pass through me, I didn’t feel anything at all.
All I felt was Baba.
The magic in my blood.
“A connection…” The realization hits me like ice. A connection I share with him because of blood. The scroll’s incantation was supposed to tether us to Sky Mother through magic, but what if there was another way to reach her instead?
My mind spins, trying to calculate the possibilities. Could I draw on the connection with my ancestors through our blood? Could we reach back, forging a new connection to Sky Mother and her gifts through our spirits?
Amari dives past, fending a soldier away from the ritual ground. Though blood drips from her back, her blows are ferocious, almost feral against the coming guards. And even as the entire army pours in, Ro?n and his men don’t relent.
They fight against all odds.
If they haven’t given up, neither can I.
My heart slams against my chest as I scramble to my feet. The next statue illuminates, bathing the dome in blue light. Only a few dark gods stand in Sky Mother’s way. The end of the solstice is near.
I grab the fallen sunstone, and it scalds under my touch. Instead of Sky Mother, I see blood. I see bone.
I see Mama.
It’s that image I hold on to as I drop the sunstone in the single golden column in the center of the dome. If her blood surges through my veins, why not the blood of other ancestors, too?
I whip out the true bone dagger from the waistline of my pants and slice through both my palms. With bleeding hands, I press onto the sunstone, releasing the binding blood for the ultimate sacrifice.