FOR THE LOVE of Oya.
The airborne majacite attacks from all sides. My eyes sting inside the cloud of toxic gas. Smoke burns my skin like a branding iron.
The poison sears the skin of my calf. Another cloud hits the scars on my back. As the majacite burns my lungs, I can almost feel Saran’s knife carving through my flesh.
“Don’t let the traitor escape!”
Nehanda’s shouts continue to fill the dome. My vision blurs in and out of focus as she marches forward, shaking the curls loose from her golden helmet. I don’t believe my eyes when a single streak of white falls along Nehanda’s cheek. It can’t be.…
The Queen of Orïsha is a tîtán.
The air shifts as Nehanda summons her newly awakened magic. The green light of her ashê spreads around her hands, but it doesn’t stop there. Her magic glows inside her chest, so bright it casts her ribs in black silhouettes.
Emerald light crackles around the queen’s body like lightning as she calls on a power I don’t understand. She stretches out her hands and her legion of tîtáns freezes in place. My body shakes as Nehanda sucks the ashê from her soldiers’ veins.
How is this possible? I try to make sense of the sight. Green wisps of ashê break through the tîtáns’ skin like smoke, traveling into Nehanda’s palms. The feat brings Nehanda’s men to their knees. She sucks the very life from their trembling bodies. One soldier seizes in the sand before going completely still.
“You will pay for your crimes!” Nehanda marches forward despite the pain she causes her own people. She lifts her palms and her eyes glow with emerald light. With another shout, Nehanda punches her fists into the ground.
The earth splits open at her touch.
“Get back!”
Screams fill the dome as Nehanda’s fracture cuts across the sand. People fall to their knees, unable to stand on top of the quaking earth.
Nehanda’s attack slows the fleeing maji down, but her eyes widen as she loses control. The shaking builds with incredible force.
Then I hear the crack.
No.
My stomach clenches when I look up. The crack cuts through the dome’s walls, spreading through the sandstone like a spiderweb.
Get up, I scream at myself as sunlight filters through the widening cracks. But despair freezes my legs in place. I can’t believe it’s come to this.
Everything we did. Everything we lost.
It didn’t change a thing.
There will be no victory in Baba’s death. I’ll never be free of this guilt—
“Zélie, move!”
Roën dives from the side, ramming his body into mine. We roll across the sand, and he curses when a broken piece of the dome’s wall lands on his hand.
“Roën!” I scramble forward on my hands and knees, choking in the majacite cloud. When I find him, he presses bloodied metal to my nose. I wheeze as a burst of clean air passes through the golden mask.
“Hold on!” Roën yanks me close as we barricade ourselves under a fallen slab. The dome rains down like hail. I flinch with each piece of debris that crashes against our defense.
Someone shouts my name and I stick my head out; Tzain and Amari gallop toward us on Nailah’s bare back. When she spots us, Amari stretches out her hands.
“Grab on!” she shouts.
Roën and I latch onto her arms as they ride past. Amari grits her teeth, bracing herself against Tzain as we clamber onto Nailah’s back.
Nailah releases a vicious roar, dodging the giant slabs that crash into the tides.
The dome crumbles in our wake as we ride away from the beach.