“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 alafia 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 Or?sha 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 apadi 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.