“COUNT TO TEN,” I whisper to myself. “Count. To. Ten.”
Because when I finish counting, this horror shall end.
The blood of the innocent will not stain my hands.
“One … two…” I grip Father’s sênet pawn with a shaking hand, so tight the metal stings. The numbers rise, but nothing changes.
Like Ilorin, all my plans have gone up in flames.
My throat tightens when the village falls in a fiery blaze, taking the homes of hundreds with it. My soldiers drag the corpses through the sand, bodies charred beyond recognition. The shrieks of the living and the injured fill my ears. My tongue tastes nothing but ash. So much waste. Death.
This was not my plan.
Amari should be in one hand, the divîner thief chained in the other. Kaea should’ve retrieved the scroll. Only the divîner’s hut need have burned.
If I had succeeded in returning the scroll, Father would’ve understood. He would’ve thanked me for my discretion, praised my shrewd judgment in sparing Ilorin. Our fish trade would be protected. The only threat to the monarchy would be crushed.
But I’ve failed. Again. After begging Father for another chance. The scroll is still missing. My sister at risk. An entire village wiped away. Yet I have nothing to show for it.
The people of Orïsha are not safe—
“Baba!”
I grab my blade as a small child hurls his body to the ground. His cries cut through the night. It’s only then I discover the sand-covered corpse at his feet.
“Baba!” He grasps at the body, willing it to wake. The blood of his father stains the skin of his small brown hands.
“Abeni!” A woman trudges through the wet sand. She gasps at the sight of the approaching guards. “Abeni, no, you must be quiet. B-baba wants you to be quiet!”
I turn away and squeeze my eyes shut, forcing my bile down. Duty before self. I hear Father’s voice. The safety of Orïsha before my conscience. But these villagers are Orïsha. They’re the very people I’m sworn to protect.
“This is a mess.” Admiral Kaea stomps to my side, knuckles bloody from beating the soldier who lit the fire too soon and started the blaze. I fight the urge to walk over and beat him myself as he lies moaning in the wet sand. “Get up and bind their wrists!” Kaea barks at the guard before lowering her voice again. “We don’t know if the fugitives are dead or alive. We don’t even know if they came back here.”
“We’ll have to round up the survivors.” I release a frustrated breath. “Hope that one of them…”
My voice trails off as a vile sensation crawls up my skin. Like in the market, the heat prickles my scalp. It pulses as a thin wisp of air floats toward me. A strange turquoise cloud cutting through the black smoke.
“Do you see that?” I ask Kaea.
I point, stepping back as the smoke slithers near. The strange cloud carries the scent of the sea, overwhelming the bite of ash in the air.
“See what?” Kaea asks, but I don’t have a chance to respond. The turquoise cloud passes through my fingers. A foreign image of the divîner ignites in my head.…
The sound around me fades out, turning murky and muddled. The cold sea washes over me as the moonlight and fire fade from above. I see the girl who haunts my thoughts, sinking among the corpses and driftwood, falling into the blackness of the sea. She doesn’t fight the current that pulls her down. She relinquishes control. Sinking into death.
As my vision fades, I return to the screaming villagers and shifting sand. Something stings under my skin, the same bite that started when I last saw the divîner’s face.
Suddenly all the pieces come together. The thrashing. The vision.
I should’ve known all along.
Magic …
My stomach twists in knots. I rake my nails over my tingling arm. I have to get this virus out of me. I need to rip the treacherous sensation from my skin—
Inan, focus.
I squeeze Father’s sênet pawn so hard my knuckles crack. I swore to him I was prepared. But how in the skies could I have prepared for this?
“Count to ten,” I whisper again, gathering all the pieces like pawns. By the time I hiss “five,” a terrifying realization hits: the divîner girl has the scroll.
The spark I felt when she brushed against me. The electric energy that surged through my veins. And when our eyes locked …
Skies.
She must’ve infected me.
Nausea churns inside my stomach. Before I can stop myself, this morning’s roasted swordfish fights its way up. I double over as vomit burns my throat and hits the sand with a splash.
“Inan!” Kaea wrinkles her nose as I cough, a hint of concern eclipsed by her disgust. She probably thinks me weak. But better that than her discovering the truth.
I clench my fist, almost positive I can feel the magic attacking my blood. If maji can infect us now, they’ll defeat us before we have a chance to take them out.
“She was here.” I wipe my mouth on the back of my hand. “The divîner with the scroll. We need to locate her before she hurts anyone else.”
“What?” Kaea’s thin brows crease. “How do you know?”
I open my mouth to explain when the sickening sting erupts under my scalp again. I turn. The prickle grows—it’s strongest when I face the southern forest.
Though the air stinks of charred flesh and black smoke, I catch the fleeting scent of the sea again. It’s her. It has to be. Hiding among the trees …
“Inan,” Kaea snaps. “What do you mean? How do you know she was here?”
Magic.
My grip tightens around the tarnished pawn. My palm itches at the touch. The word feels dirtier than maggot. If I can hardly stomach the idea, how will Kaea react?
“A villager,” I lie. “He told me they went south.”
“Where is the villager now?”
I point blindly at a corpse, but my finger lands on the scorched body of a child. Another turquoise cloud shoots toward me. All rosemary and ash.
Before I can run away, the cloud passes through my hand with sickening heat. The world fades out in a wall of flames. Screams bleed into my ears.
“Help—”
“Inan!”
I snap back to reality. A cold tide rushes over my boots.
The beach. I squeeze the pawn. You’re still on the beach.
“What happened?” Kaea asks. “You were moaning.…”
I whip around, looking for the girl. She has to be behind this. She’s using her wretched magic to fill my head with sounds.
“Inan—”
“We should interrogate them.” I ignore the concern in Kaea’s eyes. “If one of the villagers knew where they were headed, another might have information, too.”
Kaea hesitates and purses her lips. She probably wants to pry. But her duty as admiral comes first. It always will.
We walk over to the surviving villagers. I focus on the tide to ignore their shrieks, but the screaming only grows louder as we draw near.
Seven…, I count in my head. Eight … nine …
I am the son of Orïsha’s greatest ruler.
I am their future king.
“Silence!”
My voice booms into the night with a power that doesn’t feel like my own. Even Kaea gives me a surprised glance as the cries quiet into nothingness.
“We’re looking for Zélie Adebola. She has stolen something valuable from the crown. We were told she’s heading south, and now we need to know why.”
I scan the dark faces of those who refuse to meet my eyes, searching for any sign of the truth. Their fear soaks into the air like humidity. It seeps into my own skin.
“—gods, please—”
“—if he kills me—”
“—in the gods’ names did she steal—”
My heart slams against my chest as their voices attack in flickers, broken thoughts that threaten to overwhelm me. More turquoise clouds rise into the air. Like wasps, they dart toward me. I start to fall back into the blackness of my mind—
“Answer him!”
Thank the skies. Kaea’s bark pulls me back.
I blink and grip the pommel of my sword. The smooth metal grounds me in reality. With time, their fear fades. But the unnerving sensation remains.…
“I said, answer him!” Kaea growls. “Do not make me repeat myself.”
The villagers keep their gazes to the ground.
In their silence, Kaea lunges.
Screams erupt as she grabs an elderly woman by her gray hair. Kaea drags the moaning woman through the sand.
“Admiral—” My voice chokes when Kaea unsheathes her sword. She places the blade against the woman’s wrinkled neck. A single drop of blood falls onto the ground.
“You want to stay silent?” Kaea hisses. “Stay silent and you die!”
“We don’t know anything!” a young girl cries out. Everyone on the beach freezes.
The girl’s hands are trembling. She shoves them into the sand.
“We can tell you about her brother and father. We can tell you of her skill with a staff. But not a soul in Ilorin knows where she’s gone or why.”
I give Kaea a stern look; she drops the woman like a rag doll. I trudge through the wet sand until I reach the girl.
Her shaking intensifies as I approach, but I can’t tell if it’s her fear or the cold of the night tides licking her knees. All she wears is a soaked nightgown, ripped and frayed around her being.
“What’s your name?”
Standing this close to her, I see how her oak-brown skin stands out against the darker chestnut and mahogany hues of the villagers. Perhaps there’s some nobility in her blood. A father who played in the mud.
When she doesn’t answer, I bend down, keeping my voice low. “The faster you answer, the faster we leave.”
“Yemi,” she chokes out. Her hands grip the sand as she speaks. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know, but only if you leave us alone.”
I nod. A simple concession. Duty or not, I don’t want to see more bodies.
I can’t bear to hear more screams.
I reach down and untie the rope binding her wrists. She flinches at my touch. “Give us the information we need and I promise your people will be safe.”
“Safe?”
Yemi meets my eyes with a hatred that impales me like a sword. Though her mouth never opens, her voice rings in my skull.
“Safe ended a long time ago.”