MY EYES ACHE from hours of silent tears by the time we halt Nailah to rest. It takes all of five seconds for her and Tzain to pass out on the moss-covered ground, escaping our fractured reality for the safety of sleep.
Amari inspects the ground, shivering in the forest cold. She eventually lays her cloak down and sleeps on top of it, too regal to grace the earth with her bare head. I stare at her, remembering how close I dragged her to the flames.
The memory feels distant now, like someone else held all that hate.
Now only cool anger simmers, anger I shouldn’t bother feeling. I’d bet five hundred silver pieces she won’t last another day.
I wrap myself in my cloak and nestle into Nailah, relishing the sensation of the soft fur against my skin. Through the shadowed leaves, the star-filled sky reignites the magic of Mama Agba’s vision in my mind.
“It’s back,” I whisper to myself. With the insanity of the day, that fact is still hardest to believe. We can reclaim our magic.
We can thrive again.
“Oya…”
I whisper the name of the Goddess of Life and Death, my sister deity who has granted me magic’s gift. As a child, I called to her so often you’d think she slept in my cot, but now that I search for the words of a prayer, I don’t know what to say.
“Bá mi s0r0,” I attempt, but it lacks all the conviction and power Mama Agba’s chant had. She believed in her connection to Orúnmila so much she could conjure a premonition. Right now, I just want to believe that someone is up there.
“Ràn mí l3w3,” I pray instead. Help me. Those words feel so much realer, so much more like my own. “Mama Agba says you’ve chosen me. Baba agrees, but I … I’m scared. This is too important. I don’t want to screw it up.”
Saying it out loud makes the fear tangible, a new weight hanging in the air. I couldn’t even protect Baba. How am I supposed to save the maji?
But as the fear breathes, I get the smallest sense of comfort. The idea that Oya could be here, right by my side. Gods only know there’s no way I can get through this without her.
“Just help me,” I repeat once more. “Ràn mí l3w3. Please. And keep Baba safe. No matter what happens, just let him and Mama Agba be okay.”
Not knowing what else to say, I bow my head. Though stiff, I almost feel like I can see my prayers drifting to the sky. I hold on to the brief moment of contentment it grants me, forcing it above the pain, the fear, the grief. I hold it until it cradles me in its arms, rocking me to sleep.
* * *
WHEN I WAKE, something feels off. Unnatural. Not quite right.
I rise, expecting to find Nailah’s sleeping mass, but she’s nowhere to be seen. The forest is gone, no trees, no moss. Instead, I sit in a field of towering reeds whistling with the burst of wind in the air.
“What is this?” I whisper, confused by the fresh sensation and light. I look down at my hands and jerk my head back. No scars or burns stain my skin. It’s as clear as the day I was born.
I rise in the endless field of reeds stretching far and wide. Even when I’m on my feet, the stems and leaves grow far above my head.
In the distance the plants are obscured, blurring into white at the horizon. It’s as if I wander in an unfinished painting, trapped inside its canvased reeds. I’m not asleep, yet I’m not awake.
I float in a magical world between.
Dirt shifts under my feet as I move through the heavenly plants. Minutes seem to stretch into hours, yet I don’t mind the time in this haze. The air is cool and crisp, like the mountains of Ibadan where I grew up. Maybe it’s a sanctuary, I think to myself. A gift of rest from the gods.
I’m ready to embrace the thought when I sense the presence of another. My heart skips a beat as I turn. All breath seems to cease when realization dawns.
I recognize the smolder in his amber eyes first, a look I could never forget after today. But now that he’s standing still, without a sword or surrounded by flames, I take in the curve of his muscles, the bright hue of his copper skin, the strange white streak in his hair. When he’s this still, the features he shares with Amari are stark, impossible to miss. He’s not just the captain.…
He’s the prince.
He stares at me for a long moment, as if I’m a corpse risen from the dead. But then he clenches his fists. “Release me from this prison at once!”
“Release you?” I arch my brow in confusion. “I didn’t do this!”
“You expect me to believe that? When I’ve seen your wretched face in my head all day?” He reaches for his sword, but there’s nothing there. For the first time, I notice we both wear simple white clothes, vulnerable without our weapons.
“My face?” I ask slowly.
“Don’t feign ignorance,” the prince snaps. “I felt what you did to me in Lagos. And those—those voices. End these attacks at once. End them or you’ll pay!”
His rage stirs with a lethal heat, but the threat is lost as I ponder his words. He thinks I brought him here.
He thinks this meeting is by my hand.
Impossible. Though I was too young for Mama to teach me the magic of death, I saw it unfold. It came in cold spirits and sharp arrows and twisting shadows, but never in dreams. I didn’t even touch the scroll until after we escaped Lagos, after our eyes locked and electric energy tickled my skin. If magic brought us here, it can’t be my own. It has to be—
“You.”
I breathe in amazement. How is this possible? The royal family lost magic generations ago. A maji hasn’t touched the throne in years.
“Me what?”
My eyes return to the streak of white in his hair, running from his temple to the nape of his neck.
“You did this. You brought me here.”
Every muscle in the prince’s body goes rigid; the anger in his eyes transforms to terror. A cold breeze whips between us. The reeds dance in our silence.
“Liar,” he decides. “You’re just trying to get into my head.”
“No, little prince. It’s you who’s gotten into mine.”
Mama’s old stories prickle through my memories, tales of the ten clans and the different magic each could wield. As a child, all I wanted to learn about were the Reapers like Mama, but she insisted I know just as much about every other clan. She always warned me about the Connectors, maji who wielded power over mind, spirit, and dreams. Those are the ones you must watch out for, little Zél. They use magic to break into your head.
The memory chills my blood, but the prince is so distraught it’s difficult to fear his abilities. With the way he stares at his shaking hands, he looks like he would sooner take his own life than use magic to go after mine.
But how is this even happening? Divîners are selected by the gods at birth. The prince wasn’t born a divîner and kosidán can’t develop magic. How has he suddenly become a maji now?
I look at our surroundings, inspecting the work of his Connector abilities. The magical reeds twist in the wind, ignorant of the impossibilities blowing all around us.
The power required for a feat like this is inconceivable. Even a well-seasoned Connector would need an incantation to pull it off. How could he harness the ashê in his blood to create this when he didn’t even realize he was a maji? What in the gods’ names is going on?
My eyes go back to the jagged white streak running through the prince’s hair, the only true marker of a maji. Our hair is always as stark and white as the snow that covers the mountaintops of Ibadan, a marker so dominant, even the blackest dye couldn’t hide maji hair for more than a few hours.
Though I’ve never seen a streak like his among maji or divîners, I can’t deny its existence. It mirrors the whiteness of my hair all the same.
But what does it mean? I look to the skies. What game are the gods playing? What if the prince isn’t the only one? If the royals are regaining their magic—
No.
I can’t let fear make me spiral out of control.
If royals were getting their magic back, we would already know.
I suck in a deep breath, slowing my mind before it can wander further. Amari had the scroll in Lagos. She crashed into her brother when we ran past. Though I don’t understand why, it must’ve happened then. Inan awakened his powers the same way I awakened mine—by touching that damn scroll.
And the king has touched the scroll, I remind myself. Amari, probably the admiral, too. They didn’t awaken any abilities. This magic only resides in him.
“Does your father know?”
The prince’s eyes flash, giving me the answer I need.
“Of course not.” I smirk. “If the king knew, you’d already be dead.”
Color drains from his face. It’s so perfect I almost laugh. How many divîners have fallen by his hands—been slaughtered, abused, used? How many lives has he taken to destroy the same magic now running through his veins?
“I’ll make you a deal.” I walk toward the prince. “Leave me alone and I’ll keep your little secret. No one has to know you’re a dirty little ma—”
The prince lunges.
One moment his grip is around my throat, and the next—
* * *
MY EYES FLY OPEN. I’m greeted by the familiar sound of crickets and dancing leaves. Tzain’s snores ring steady and true as Nailah adjusts her body against my side.
I jolt forward and grab my staff to fight an enemy that isn’t here. Though I scan the trees, it takes me a few moments to convince myself the prince won’t appear.
I breathe the damp air in and out, trying to calm my nerves. I lie back down and close my eyes, but sleep doesn’t return easily. I’m not sure it ever will. Now I know the prince’s secret.
Now he won’t stop until I’m dead.