Unless you kept running …
The truth puts a bitter tang on my tongue. Even the fastest mask would be nothing compared to Nailah’s speed. If we had just ridden off on Nailah, the men couldn’t have ambushed us. Amari and my brother would be safe. But I ignored Tzain’s warning and he paid the price.
Tzain’s always paying my price.
When I ran after the guards who took Mama, he weathered their beatings to drag me back. When I saved Amari from Lagos, he gave up his home, his team, his past. And when I decide to fight Inan, it’s not me who gets taken. It’s him. Always Tzain paying for my mistakes.
Get up, a voice rings through my head, harsher than it’s ever been. Go after Tzain and Amari. Get them back now.
Whoever these masked men are, they’ve made a fatal mistake. One I will ensure is their last.
Though my body feels like lead, I drag myself to my feet and go over to where Inan and the masked figure lie.
Inan leans against a trunk, face pinched, still clutching his chest. When he sees me, he wraps his hand around the hilt of his sword, but still he doesn’t attack.
Whatever fire he summoned to fight me is extinguished; in its ashes, dark circles have formed under his eyes. He seems smaller than he did before. His bones pull against his blanched skin.
He’s fighting it.… The realization sets in as the air around me chills. He’s pushing down his magic.
He’s making himself weak again.
But why? I stare at him, confusion gathering by the second. Why did he cut me from that net? Why isn’t he raising his sword against me again?
The “why” doesn’t matter, the harsh voice rings inside my head. Regardless of his reasons, I’m still alive.
If I waste any more time, my brother could end up dead.
I turn away from Inan and press my foot to the masked boy’s chest. Part of me itches to unmask him, but this will be easier if I can’t see his face. He seemed like a giant when he dragged me through the forest. Now his limp body looks frail. Perfectly weak.
“Where’d you take them?” I ask.
The boy stirs but stays silent. Wrong choice.
Worst choice.
I reach for my dropped staff and thrust down, smashing the bones in his hand. Inan’s head snaps up as the boy lets out a violent howl that echoes into the night.
“Answer me!” I yell. “Where’d you take them?”
“I don’t—agh!” His screams grow louder, but they’re not loud enough. I want to hear him cry. I want to see him bleed.
I let my staff fall and pull my dagger from my waistband. Tzain’s dagger …
The memory of him placing it in my hands before I walked into Lagos breaks through my grief.
Just in case, he said that day.
Just in case I endangered him.
“Tell me!” My eyes sting. “Where’s the girl? Where’s my brother? Where’s your camp?”
The first strike is intentional, a cut in the arm to get him to talk. But when the blood flows, something snaps, something feral I can’t contain.
The second strike is quick, the third passes too fast to follow. The darkest part of my rage breaks free as I slash him again and again, drowning out all my pain.
“Where are they?” I thrust my knife into his hand as the corners of my vision blur. Mama vanishes into the darkness. Tzain’s netted body follows after her. “Answer me!” I shriek, pulling the blade up once more. “Where’d they take him? Where’s my brother?”
“Hey!”
A voice calls from above, but I can barely hear it. They took magic. They took Mama. They won’t take Tzain, too.
“I’ll kill you.” I move the dagger over the masked boy’s heart and pull back. “I’ll kill y—”
“Zélie, don’t!”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
INAN
I REACH OUT, seizing both her wrists just in time.
She stiffens as I drag her onto her feet.
The moment our skin touches, my magic thrums, threatening to engulf me in Zélie’s memories once more. I clench my teeth and force the beast back down. Skies only know what’ll happen if I lose myself in her head again.
“Let go,” she seethes. Her voice. It still carries all the rage and ferocity of before. Completely ignorant of the fact that now I’ve seen her memories.
Now I see her.
Unable to stop myself, I drink Zélie in, every curve, every line. The crescent-shaped birthmark along the slope of her neck. The specks of white swimming in the silver pools of her eyes.
“Let go,” Zélie repeats, more violently than before. She drives her knee toward my groin; I jump back just in time.
“Wait.” I try to reason with her, but without the masked man, her rage has found a new outlet. Her fingers tighten around her crude dagger. She rears back to attack.
“Hey—” Zél. The word pops into my mind. A rough voice. Her brother’s voice.
Tzain calls her Zél.
“Zél, stop!”
It feels foreign on my lips, but Zélie halts, stunned at the sound of her nickname. Her brows knit with pain. Just like the way they knit when the guards dragged her mother away.
“Calm down.” I loosen my grip. A small show of faith. “You have to stop. You’ll kill our only lead.”
She stares at me. The tears hanging off her dark lashes fall onto her cheek. Another surge of painful memories simmers to the surface. I have to brace myself to keep them at bay.
“‘Our’?” Zélie asks.
The word sounds even stranger coming out of her mouth. We are not supposed to have anything. We are not even supposed to be a “we.”
Kill her. Kill magic.
It was all so simple before. It’s what Father would have wanted.
It’s what he’s already done.
But the maji hanging from the tree still scar my mind.
Just one of Or?sha’s endless crimes.
Looking at Zélie, I finally have the answer to the question I was too afraid to ask. I cannot be like Father.
I will not be that type of king.
I let go of her wrists, but inside I let go of so much more. Father’s tactics. His Or?sha. Everything I now realize I don’t want to be.
My duty has always been to my kingdom, but it must be for a better Or?sha. A new Or?sha.
A land in which a prince and a maji could coexist. A land where even Zélie and I could be a “we.”
If I am to truly fulfill my duty to my kingdom, that is the Or?sha I must lead.
“Our,” I repeat, forcing confidence into my voice. “We need each other. They took Amari, too.”
Her eyes search me. Hoping. Fighting that hope at the same time. “You held Amari at sword point ten minutes ago. You’re just after the scroll.”
“Do you see the scroll?”
Zélie looks around for where she tossed her pack before our fight, but even when she spots it her face falls. They took her brother. Her ryder, her ally. And the scroll we both need is gone.
“Whether I’m after my sister or that scroll, those men have both. For now our interests are aligned.”
“I don’t need you.” Zélie narrows her eyes. “I’ll find them by myself.” But fear drips from her skin like sweat.
Her fear of being alone.
“Without me, you’d be knocked out in a net. Your only clue to their camp would be dead. You really think you can take these fighters on without my help?”