I DON’T KNOW if it’s possible to feel more drained than I do now.
My body drags like lead.
Every step pushes past death.
Roën still lies unconscious, his remaining arm draped around my neck. My own is hooked tight around his waist as I drag him forward.
“Almost there,” I whisper to him and myself. I don’t know how long we lay by that mountain lake, but when I opened my eyes, the moon still shone above. After hiking across the cold rocky trails, I see my old village glinting like a single star in the night. The pyramid ahérés rise a full kilometer away, creating their own mountain range around the lakes where Tzain and I used to play.
I thought coming home after all this time would only fill me with more pain. That I would only see the horrible night of the Raid. But in the mountains, I see the nights Baba and I laid outside our ahéré, counting the stars. I remember watching Mama and the Reapers chant on the highest peaks, cleansing the village of spirits under the full moon.
I feel everything I thought I lost. I feel my parent’s love.
Despite everything that hurts, it’s another reminder to carry on.
I push myself, moving despite how my legs shake. Ripped fabric bandages my shin, the only way to put pressure on my own wounds. I can barely support my weight, let alone Roën’s. His breathing remains shallow, but his heart still beats with mine. I pull strength from our connection even as it drains me to keep him alive.
I don’t know how long we have before the connection eats through us both, but the command to live still breathes within me; a fire burning brighter than it ever has.
I don’t want to run. I don’t just want to survive. I want to fight.
I want to thrive—
Wa-ooooooooo!
My heart skips a beat as a horn rings through the air. I wait for Nehanda’s tîtáns to descend. But the horn doesn’t sound like any they’ve used before. In fact, it’s strangely familiar.
It sounds like one of ours …
I lay Roën down as the winds change direction. The flutter of flapping wings fills the air. Black-feathered hawks fly overhead, invading the sky like a storm as the horn blares again.
I grab the nearest ledge, dragging myself up through their piercing shrieks and squawks. The hawks don’t fly toward us. They run from something else.
I don’t know what awaits me as I pull myself over the cliff, but when I see it, my hands fall limp. Above, the winds move in a violent circle. They pick up speed as they come together, a sphere of air creating a dome.
“What in gods’ names?”
The enclosure touches down to the ground—a gate closing around Ibadan’s borders. No, not a gate.
A barrier keeping everyone in the village locked inside …
Amari, what is this? I squint, searching for the glimmer of our colored armor. But all questions fade when I realize the true nature of this attack. Rust-colored clouds build in the distance.
The Cancer’s gas climbs into the sky, rising a full kilometer into the air. It creates a wall within the dome of wind, just waiting to be unleashed on my helpless village.
“Amari, don’t do this,” I whisper, pleading from afar. There’s a breath as the cloud hangs at Ibadan’s borders, growing higher and thicker by the second. But when the horn rings again, the cloud surges forward.
The gas unleashes its attack, launching the wall of death.
“No!” I scream.
The cloud moves like a wave, crashing over everything in its path. Birds squawk as they try to escape, only to hit the rotating sphere of air and be thrown in another direction. One’s wings fold as it’s flung into the cloud.
The second it’s hit by the gas, its body shrivels. It plummets to the ground.
“Run!” I scream at the top of my lungs, not caring who hears me. In the distance a few villagers exit their homes, marveling at the orange smoke.
I try to climb down from the ledge, but I only crash to the ground. There’s no way my legs will be fast enough. I have to use my magic. I have to move like Mâzeli.
“Èmí òkú, gba ààyé nínú mi—”
Four shadows of death twist from my hips like ribbons as I wrap my arms around Roën. I think of the way Mâzeli flew through the jungle as my shadows shoot forward.
Rocks crack as they dig into the mountain stone. An instant is all I have before my body lurches through the air, propelled by my shadows like a slingshot.
I grit my teeth, clutching Roën’s body as the world flies by. Mountains blur against the pale orange wall and I struggle not to inhale. As I’m propelled forward, the sky becomes the ground. I don’t have much time to orient myself before my descent. Though my magic wanes, I push again.
“Jáde nínú àwon òjìjí re. Yí padà láti owó mi.”
The wall of gas closes in as I swing through the mountain peaks with my shadows. Ibadan’s village center nears. The last place the toxic gas will hit. Landing there will buy us time, but where do we hide? If Nâo were here, we could dive into the lakes, wait in the water for the gas to dissipate—
The well!
I hone in on the circle of granite rock as the idea takes hold. Baba used to walk me there every morning, letting my legs dangle over his strong shoulders.
As more villagers spill into the streets, I know it’s our only shot. We have to get inside. Barricade ourselves and pray to our gods.
“The well!” I scream as the last shadow lowers me to the ground. “Get in the well!”
Feet thunder as the villagers follow my command. I drag Roën over the edge and hand his body off to those who’ve already climbed down.
“Come on!” I wave my hands as more people climb into the shelter. Hysteria transforms to honor as people push their spouses and children to the front. The wall of gas swirls like a storm, an endless orange cloud closing in from every direction.
There’s not enough time.
No matter what I do, they won’t all make it.
“Wait!”
The desperate plea rises above every other cry. I turn to find a woman with tears in her eyes. She pushes out her arms, frantic to save the baby in her hands.
The gas is only seconds away. The woman cries out as it hits the back of her head. Blood shoots from her mouth on impact. Her skin shrivels as it turns black.
I see the moment she realizes that she won’t make it. The baby falls from her hands.
“Èmí òkú, gba ààyé nínú mi—”
It’s the fastest I’ve ever seen a spirit transform. The mother’s corpse doesn’t even hit the ground before the incantation allows her soul to course through me, granting me new shadows, new arms. They reach out, catching the baby before it can hit the ground.
The shadows retract as I pull the infant to my chest before the spirits transform.
They block off the top of the well as the gas howls overhead.