“IS IT CLEAR?”
Amari peeks through the stone halls leading away from the arena floor. Crumbling arches curve over our heads, cracked stones under our feet. After footsteps pass, Amari nods and we dash. We weave in and out of the weathered pillars, rushing to make it through before we’re seen.
Hours after the last man died and the spectators had left their seats, the guards drained the arena’s red sea. I thought the horrors of the games would end there, but now the cracks of canes echo through the empty stands. Guards command a new batch of laborers to clean up the blood and gore that weren’t washed away when they drained the stadium. I can’t fathom their torture. Cleaning up tonight’s mess only to become tomorrow’s carnage.
I’ll come back, I decide. I’ll save them. After I perform the ritual and bring magic back, after Baba is safe and sound. I’ll rally a group of Grounders to sink this monstrosity into the sand. That announcer will pay for every wasted divîner life. Every noble will answer for their crimes.
I let thoughts of vengeance soothe me as we press against a jagged wall. I close my eyes, concentrating as hard as I can. The sunstone stirs the ashê in my blood. When I open my eyes, its glow is faint, like a firefly fading into the night. But with time it grows until the sunstone’s aura heats the bottom of my feet.
“Below us,” I whisper. We move through empty halls and descend the stairs. The closer we get to the arena’s rot-stained floor, the more men we have to dodge. By the time we reach the bottom, we’re practically a finger’s breadth from the crooked guards and broken laborers. Their canes crack over our footsteps. We slip beneath a stone archway.
“It’s here,” I hiss, pointing to a large iron door. Bright light shines through the slits, filling the archway with the heat of the sunstone. I run my fingers over the metal door’s handle, a rusted turnwheel caught by a giant padlock.
I whip out the dagger Tzain had given me and jam it into the lock’s narrow keyhole. Though I try to push forward, I’m blocked by an intricate pattern of teeth.
“Can you pick it?” he whispers.
“I’m trying.” It’s more complex than the typical lock. To get through, I need something sharper, something with a hook.
I grab a thin rusted nail on the ground and press it into the wall, curving its point. When it’s bent, I close my eyes and concentrate on the delicate touch of the lock’s teeth. Be patient. Mama Agba’s old lesson echoes through my mind. Let feeling become your eyes.
My heartbeat spikes as I listen for the sound of any footsteps approaching, but when I push my knife, the teeth yield. One more shimmy to the left and …
A small click sounds. The padlock breaks free, and I’m so relieved I almost cry. I grab the wheel and pull to the left, but the metal won’t give.
“It’s stuck!”
Amari keeps watch as Tzain yanks at the rusted wheel with all his might. The metal groans and screeches loud enough to drown out the shouts of the guards, but the wheel doesn’t budge.
“Be careful!” I hiss.
“I’m trying!”
“Try harder—”
The wheel rips off with a strained crank. We stare at the broken metal in Tzain’s hand. What in gods’ names are we supposed to do now?
Tzain rams his body into the door. Though it shudders with the impact, it refuses to give.
“You’ll alert the guards!” Amari whispers.
“We need the stone!” Tzain whispers back. “How else are we going to get it?”
I cringe with each thrust of Tzain’s body, but he’s right. The stone is so close the heat of its glow warms me like a freshly lit fire.
A string of curses runs through my mind. Gods, if only we had another maji’s help. A Welder would be able to warp the metal door. A Burner could melt the handle right off.
Half a moon, I remind myself. Half a moon to do this right.
If we’re going to recover the sunstone in time for the solstice, we need to get it tonight.
The door budges a millimeter and I gasp. We’re close. I can feel it. A few more knocks and it’ll fly open. A few more pushes and the stone is ours.
“Hey!”
A guard’s voice booms through the air. We freeze in response. Footsteps pound against the stone floors, thundering toward us with frightening speed.
“Over here!” Amari gestures to a section just past the sunstone’s door, lined with cannonballs and crates of blastpowder. As we crouch behind the crates, a young divîner dashes into the room, white hair glowing in the dim light. In seconds he’s cornered by the announcer and another guard. They skid to a halt when they see the half-open door to the sunstone.
“You maggot.” The announcer’s lips peel back in a snarl. “Who’re you working with? Who did this?”
Before the young boy can speak, the crack of the announcer’s cane cuts him down. He collapses to the stone floor. As he screams, another guard joins in the beating.
I flinch behind the crate, tears stinging my eyes. The boy’s back is already ripped raw from former beatings, but neither monster lets up. He’ll die under their blows.
He’ll die because of me.
“Zélie, no!”
Tzain’s hiss stalls me for a second, but it’s not enough to stop me. I burst free from our hiding spot, fighting my nausea when I see the child.
Angry tears cut through his skin. Blood streams down his back. He clings to life by a thread, one that frays before my eyes.
“Who the hell are you?” the announcer seethes, withdrawing a dagger. My skin prickles as he nears me with its black majacite blade. Three more guards run to his side.
“Thank gods!” I force a laugh, searching for the words to fix this. “I’ve been looking all over for you!”
The announcer narrows his eyes in disbelief. His grip tightens on his cane. “Looking for me?” he repeats. “In this cellar? By the stone?”
The boy moans, and I flinch as a guard kicks him in the head. His body lies motionless in a pool of his own blood. It looks like a killing blow. But why can’t I feel his spirit? Where’s his last memory? His final pain? If he went straight to alâfia I might not feel it, but how can anyone pass in peace after a death like this?
I force my gaze back on the snarling announcer. There’s nothing I can do now. The boy’s dead. And unless I think of something quick, I’m dead, too.
“I knew I’d find you here.” I swallow hard. Only one excuse will do. “I want to enter your games. Let me compete tomorrow night.”
* * *
“YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS!” Amari exclaims when we finally enter the safety of the sands. “You saw that bloodbath. You felt it. Now you want to be in it?”
“I want the stone,” I yell back. “I want to stay alive!” Despite my fire, the image of the beaten boy crawls back into my head.
Better that. Better whipped to death than blown apart on a ship. But no matter how hard I try to convince myself, I know the words aren’t true. There’s no dignity in a death like that, whipped to his last breath for something he didn’t even do. And I couldn’t even help his spirit pass on. I couldn’t be the Reaper he needed if I wanted to.
“The arena’s crawling with guards,” I mumble. “If we couldn’t grab it tonight, there’s no way we can steal it tomorrow.”
“There’s gotta be something,” Tzain jumps in. Grains of sand stick to his blood-covered feet. “He won’t keep the sunstone here tonight after all this. If we figure out where he stores the stone next—”
“We have thirteen days before the solstice. Thirteen days to cross Orïsha and sail to the sacred island. We don’t have time to search. We need to get the stone and go!”
“The sunstone won’t be of any use to us when our corpses line the arena floor,” Amari says. “How will we survive? The competition leaves everyone dead!”
“We won’t be playing like everyone else.”
I reach into my pack and pull out one of Lekan’s black scrolls. The white ink glistens on its label, translating into Reanimation of the Dead. The incantation was a common practice for Reapers, often the first technique new maji mastered. The magic grants its caster the aid of a spirit trapped in the hell of apâdi in exchange for helping that spirit pass on to the afterlife.
Of all the incantations in Lekan’s scrolls, this was the only one I already knew. Every moon, Mama would lead a group of Reapers to the isolated mountaintops of Ibadan and use this incantation to cleanse our village of trapped souls.
“I’ve been studying this scroll,” I rush out. “It has an incantation my mother casted often. If I can master it, I’ll be able to transform dead spirits in the arena into actual soldiers.”
“Are you deranged?” Amari cries. “You could barely breathe in the stands with all those spirits. It took you hours to regain your strength and walk out. If you could not handle it up there, what makes you think you can cast magic below?”
“The dead overwhelmed me because I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t in control. If I learn this incantation and harness them, we could have a hidden army. There are thousands of angry spirits in that arena!”
Amari turns to Tzain. “Tell her this is deranged. Please.”
Tzain crosses his arms and shifts his stance, weighing the risk as he looks between Amari and me.
“See if you can figure it out. After that, we’ll decide.”
* * *
THE CLEAR NIGHT BRINGS a freeze to the desert almost as harsh as its beating sun. Though the chilling wind blows sand off the dunes surrounding Ibeji, sweat pours down my skin. For hours, I try to perform the incantation, but each attempt is worse than the last. After a while I have to send Tzain and Amari back to the hut we rented. At least now I can fail alone.
I hold Lekan’s scroll up to the moonlight, trying to make sense of the Yoruba translation scribbled under the sênbaría. Since the awakening, my memory of the old tongue is precise, as clear as it was when I was young. But no matter how many times I recite the words, my ashê doesn’t flow. No magic occurs. And the more my frustration builds, the more I remember I shouldn’t have to do this by myself.
“Come on.” I grit my teeth. “Oya, bá mi s0r0!”
If I’m risking everything to do the work of the gods, why aren’t they here when I need them the most?
I release a shuddering breath and sink to my knees, running my hand through the new waves in my hair. Had I been a maji before the Raid, our clan scholar would’ve taught me incantations when I was young. She would’ve known exactly what to do to coax my ashê out now.
“Oya, please.” I look back at the scroll, trying to discover what I’ve missed. The incantation is supposed to create an animation, a spirit of the dead reincarnated into the physical materials around me. If all goes well, an animation should form out of the dunes. But it’s been hours and I haven’t even managed to move one grain of sand.
As I run my hands over the script, the new scar across my palm makes me pause. I hold it up to the moonlight, inspecting where Lekan sliced me with the bone dagger. The memory of my blood glowing with white light still fills my mind. The surge of ashê was exhilarating, a blinding rush only blood magic can bring.
If I used that now …
My heartbeat quickens with the thought. The incantation would flow with ease. I’d have no problem getting a legion of animations to rise from the ground.
But before the thought can tempt me further, Mama’s raspy voice comes to mind. Her sunken skin. Her shallow breaths. The trio of Healers who toiled endlessly at her side.
Promise me, she whispered, squeezing my hand after she used blood magic to bring Tzain back to life. Swear it now. No matter what, you can never do it. If you do, you won’t survive.
I promised her. Swore it on the ashê that would one day run through my veins. I can’t break my vow because I’m not strong enough to perform an incantation.
But if this doesn’t work, what choice will I have? This shouldn’t be so hard. Just hours ago ashê vibrated in my blood. Now I can’t feel a damn thing.
Wait a minute.
I stare at my hands, recalling the young divîner who bled to death before my eyes. It wasn’t just his spirit I couldn’t feel. I haven’t sensed the pull of the dead in hours.
I turn to the scroll again, searching for a hidden meaning behind its words. It’s like my magic bled dry in the arena. I haven’t felt anything since—
Minoli.
The girl in white. Those large, empty eyes.
So much happened at once, I didn’t realize the girl’s spirit had passed on her name.
In death, the other spirits of the arena passed on their pain. Their hate. In their memories I felt the sting of the guards’ whips. I tasted the salt of fallen tears on my tongue. But Minoli brought me to the dirt fields of Minna, where she and her sharp-nosed siblings worked the land for autumn’s corn crop. Though the sun shone brutal and the work was hard, each moment passed with a smile, with song.
“Ìwọ ni ìgb3kànlé mi òrìshà, ìwọ ni mó gbójú lé.”
I sing the words aloud, my voice carrying in the wind. As I repeat the lyrics a soulful voice sings in my head.
It’s there that Minoli spent her final moments, forgoing the brutal arena for the peaceful farm in her mind. It’s there she chose to live.
There she chose to die.
“Minoli,” I whisper the incantation into the depths of my mind. “4mí àwọn tí ó ti sùn, mo ké pè yín ní òní. Ẹ padà jáde nínú 1yà mím0 yín. Súre fún mi p1lú 1bùn iyebíye rẹ.”
All of a sudden sand swirls before me. I flinch backward as the mist-like vortex rises and twirls in waves before settling back to the ground.
“Minoli?” I breathe the question aloud, though deep down I know the answer. When I close my eyes, the scent of earth fills my nose. Smooth corn seeds slip through my fingers. Her memory shines: vivid, vibrant, alive. If it resides in me with such force, I have to believe she does, too.
I repeat the incantation with conviction, stretching my hands out toward the sand. “Minoli, I call on you today. Come forth in this new element, bless me with your precious li—”
White sênbaría leap from the parchment and rush up my skin. The symbols dance along my arms, infusing my body with new power. It hits my lungs like the first breath of air after diving underwater. As sand swirls around me with the force of a storm, a grainy figure emerges from the whirlwind, animated with the rough carvings of life.
“Oh my gods.” I hold my breath as Minoli’s spirit reaches forward with a hand of sand. Her grainy fingers brush against my cheek before the whole world fades to black.