“FASTER!” LEKAN CALLS as we run through the temple halls. Tzain carries me over his shoulders, grip tight around my waist.
“Who is it?” Amari asks, though the quiver in her voice suggests she already knows. Her brother’s scarred her once. Who’s to say it won’t happen again?
“My staff,” I moan. It takes every ounce of energy to speak. But I need it to fight. I need it to keep us alive.
“You can barely stand.” Tzain catches me before I slide from his back. “Shut up. And for gods’ sakes, try to hold on!”
We come to a dead end in the hall, and Lekan presses his palm to the stone. The inked symbols dance across his skin and travel into the wall. When his right arm is wiped clean of sênbaría, the stone clicks, sliding open to a golden room. We step into the hidden wonder, filled floor to ceiling with shelves of thin, colored scrolls.
“Do we hide here?” Tzain asks.
Lekan disappears behind a large shelf before returning with an armful of black scrolls. “We’re here to retrieve these incantations,” he explains. “Her powers will need maturation if she is to perform the mamaláwo’s role.”
Before Tzain can object, Lekan shoves them into my leather pack with the ritual parchment.
“Alright,” Lekan says. “Follow me!”
With Lekan’s guidance, we twist around the corners of the temple with new speed, descending endless flights of stairs. Another wall slides open and we emerge on the side of the tarnished temple, greeting the jungle heat.
In the dying sunlight, my head throbs. The entire mountain screams with life. Though a buzz of spiritual energy hummed before, now the temple grounds overwhelm me with haunted shrieks and cries. The shadowlike spirits of the slaughtered sêntaros swirl around my body like magnets finding their way home.
Awakening magic is like adding a new sense. Lekan’s words resurface. Your body needs time to adjust.
Only the adjustment doesn’t come. Magic crushes every other sense, making it almost impossible to see. My vision blacks in and out as Tzain scurries through the rubble. Lekan is about to lead us into the jungle brush when it hits me.
“Nailah!”
“Wait,” Tzain whispers after Lekan, skidding to a halt. “Our lionaire’s out front.”
“We cannot risk it—”
“No!” I cry out. Tzain presses his hand against my mouth to stifle the sound. Guards or not, I will not abandon Nailah. I won’t leave my oldest friend behind.
Lekan releases a frustrated sigh, but we creep back to the temple. My vision fades in as he motions us close, pressing against the side of the temple to peer out front.
Across the graveyard of skulls and ruins, I see Inan reach down, aiding his admiral as their remaining soldiers urge their ryders over the final ledge. There’s a crazed drive in his eyes, a desire to find us that runs deeper than before. I look for the prince who trembled in his dreamscape. Instead all I see are the hands that wrapped around my throat.
Ahead of Inan, three guards kick over crumbled stones and broken bones. They’re close.
Too close for us to hide.
“Sùn, 1mí ọkàn, sùn. Sùn, 1mí ọkàn, sùn.” Lekan weaves an incantation under his breath like a needle through thread, moving his staff in circles. The words summon a coil of white smoke that twists and swirls through the air.
Sleep, spirit, sleep, I translate. Sleep, spirit, sleep …
We watch as the coil slithers along the ground like a snake. It wraps itself around the leg of the closest guard, squeezing until it seeps into his skin. The guard lurches forward, stumbling down behind a pile of stones. His eyes flash white with Lekan’s spirit before rolling into unconsciousness.
The white coil slithers out of his body and incapacitates the next soldier by the same means. As he goes down, Inan and the admiral pull the vicious snow leopanaire over the edge.
“Lekan,” Amari hisses, beads of sweat forming on her brow. At this speed we won’t make it.
They’ll find us before we get out.
Lekan chants faster and faster, moving his staff as if stirring tubani in an iron pot. The spirit slithers toward the final guard, seconds away from Nailah. Her yellow eyes glint with a predator’s malice. No, Nailah. Please—
“Agh!” The guard’s ear-shattering cry rings through the air. Flocks of birds soar into the sky. Blood spurts from his thigh as Nailah releases her giant fangs.
Inan whips around, death raging in his eyes. They land on me and narrow; a predator who’s finally caught his prey.
“Nailah!”
My lionaire bounds across the destroyed ruins, reaching us in mere beats. Tzain hoists my body into the saddle before everyone else scrambles on.
Tzain snaps her reins as Inan and the admiral draw their swords. Before they can reach us, Nailah takes off, zipping across the mountainside. Broken stones tumble under her paws as she flees, clattering off the narrow ledge.
“There!” Lekan points to the jungle’s thick underbrush. “There is a bridge a few kilometers ahead. If we get across and cut it, they will not be able to follow!”
Tzain snaps Nailah’s reins and she tears through the jungle at breakneck speed, dodging vines and massive trees. Peering through the underbrush, I spot the bridge in the distance, but a menacing roar reminds me that Inan is right on our tail. I sneak a glance behind me. Thick branches snap against his snow leopanaire’s massive frame as she rips through the underbrush. She bares her ghastly teeth as she nears, hungry like her master.
“Amari!” Inan yells.
Amari tenses and squeezes me tight. “Go faster!”
Nailah already sprints faster than I’ve ever seen her go, but somehow she finds the strength to push. Her bounds lengthen our life, creating needed distance between us and our pursuers.
We break through the underbrush and skid to a halt before the rickety bridge. Withered vines string together the rotted wood; with a gust of wind the entire structure quakes.
“One by one,” Lekan orders. “It will not hold us all. Tzain, guide Zélie—”
“No.” I slide to the ground, almost collapsing when I hit the dirt. My legs feel like water, but I compel myself to be strong. “Nailah first—she’ll take the longest.”
“Zél—”
“Go!” I scream. “We’re running out of time!”
Tzain grits his teeth and grabs Nailah by the reins. He guides her across the creaking bridge, cringing as the wood moans with every step. The second they make it across, I push Amari forward, but she doesn’t let go of my arm.
“You are weak,” she chokes out. “You will not make it alone.”
She pulls me onto the bridge, and my stomach flips when I make the mistake of looking down. Beneath the panels of decaying wood, sharp rocks shoot toward the sky, threatening to impale anyone unlucky enough to fall.
I shut my eyes and grip the jungle vines. They’re already splintered and frayed. Terror grips my chest so tightly I can’t even breathe.
“Look at me!” Amari commands, forcing my eyes open. Though her own body quakes, fierce determination flares in her amber gaze. My vision blacks out and she grabs my hand, forcing me forward plank by moaning plank. We’re halfway across when Inan bursts through the thick underbrush, the admiral following moments later.
It’s too late. We won’t make it—
“Àgbájọ ọw3 àwọn òrìsà!” Lekan slams his staff into the ground. “Yá mi ní agbára à rẹ!”
His body explodes with a powerful white glow that surrounds the ryders’ bodies. He drops his staff and raises his arms. With them, the beasts rise into the sky.
Inan and his admiral cry out as they slide off the backs of their leopanaires, their eyes wide with horror. Lekan throws back his arms, sending each ryder flying off the cliff.
Oh my gods …
Their massive bodies writhe and twist. They claw at the sky. But their roars meet a sharp end as they’re pierced by rocks.
A terrified rage takes hold of the admiral. With a guttural scream, she jumps to her feet and races toward Lekan with her sword.
“You maggot—”
She lunges forward only to be trapped in place by Lekan’s magic. Inan rushes to her aid, but he too is caught in the white light—another fly in Lekan’s web.
“Run!” Lekan shouts, veins bulging against his skin. Amari pulls me forward as fast as she can, though the bridge weakens with our every step.
“Go,” I order her. “It can’t hold us both!”
“You cannot—”
“I’ll make it.” I force my eyes open. “Just run. If you don’t, we’ll both fall!”
Amari’s eyes glisten, but there’s not a moment to waste. She bounds across the bridge and leaps onto the ledge, crashing onto the other side.
Though my legs shake, I push forward, dragging myself along the vine. Come on. Lekan’s life is on the line.
A terrifying creak escapes the bridge, but I keep moving. I’m almost to the other side. I’m going to make it—
The vines snap.
My stomach flies into my throat as the bridge collapses under my feet. My arms flail, desperate to grab on to anything. I latch onto a plank as the bridge smacks against the stone cliff.
“Zélie!”
Tzain’s voice is hoarse as he peeks over the ledge. My body quivers as I cling to the stone panel. Even now I hear it splintering. I know it won’t hold.
“Climb!”
Through my blackening, tear-filled vision, I see how the broken bridge has formed a ladder. Three planks are all I need to reach Tzain’s outstretched hands.
Three planks between life and death.
Climb! I order myself, but my body doesn’t move. Climb! I scream again. Move! Go now!
With a trembling hand, I grip the plank above and pull myself up.
One.
I grab the next plank and pull again, heart in my throat when 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.”