“Don’t hurt him,” I beg.
“I gave you a chance.” Kwame tightens his lips. “This is on you. I won’t lose my family again—”
“What’s going on?”
My eyes snap to the tent’s entrance as a young girl enters, her fists clenched. Her green dashiki sits bright against her coconut-brown complexion. Her white hair settles around her head, big and fluffy like a cloud. She can’t be more than thirteen, but Kwame and Folake stand to attention in her presence.
“Zu, I wanted to get you.” Folake speaks quickly.
“I wanted answers first,” Kwame finishes. “My scouts saw them by the river. They had the scroll.”
Zu’s dark brown eyes widen as she grabs the parchment from Kwame and scans its weathered ink. The way she runs her thumb over the symbols gives me all the confirmation I need.
“You’ve seen this scroll before.”
The girl looks at me, taking in the cuts on my skin, the shallow gash on Tzain’s forehead. She fights to keep her face blank, but the corners of her lips turn into a frown.
“You should’ve woken me.”
“There wasn’t time,” Kwame says. “They started moving. We had to act or they’d be out of our range.”
“They?” Zu asks. “There were more of them?”
“Two others,” Folake answers. “They got away. And Jailin…”
“What about him?”
Folake exchanges a guilty look with Kwame. “He still hasn’t returned. There’s a chance he’s been taken.”
Zu’s face falls. The scroll wrinkles in her grasp. “You didn’t go after him?”
“There wasn’t time—”
“You don’t get to make that call!” Zu rasps. “We don’t leave anybody behind. It’s our job to keep everyone safe!”
Kwame’s chin drops to his chest. He shifts and crosses his arms. “The scroll was in play, Zu. If more guards are coming, we need it. I weighed the risk.”
“We’re not guards,” I cut in. “We’re not part of the army.”
Zu glances at me before walking up to Kwame. “You’ve put us all in danger. I hope it was fun playing king.”
Though her words are harsh, each is filled with sadness. With her thin brows pinched, she looks even younger than she really is.
“Gather the others in my tent,” she instructs Kwame before pointing to Tzain. “Folly, clean and bandage his head. The last thing I need is him getting an infection.”
“What about her?” Folake nods in my direction. “What do you want us to do?”
“Nothing.” Zu turns her gaze on me, unreadable once more. “She’s not going anywhere.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
INAN
SILENCE SURROUNDS US.
Thick and heavy, hanging in the air.
The only sound between Zélie and me are our footsteps as we trudge up the tallest hill in the forest. It amazes me that with the soft soil and weighted nets, the masked figures didn’t leave more tracks. Whenever I stumble on a path, it seems to disappear.
“This way.” Zélie takes the lead, scouting the trees.
Following the advice of the masked boy we interrogated, I search the trunks for the painted symbol of his people: an X with two diverging crescents. According to him, following the discreet symbols is the only way to discover their camp.
“There’s another one.” Zélie points to the left, changing the direction of our path. She climbs with an unyielding resolve, but I struggle to keep up. Slung over my shoulder, the unconscious fighter weighs down my frame, making each inhale a battle. I almost forgot how much it hurts to breathe when I have to push my magic down.
Fighting Zélie, I was forced to let go. I needed my full strength to gain control. Now it takes everything in me to block my magic again. No matter how hard I fight, the risk of feeling Zélie’s pain lingers. A constant and growing threat—
My feet slip on the soil. I grunt, digging my heel into the dirt to keep from sliding down the hill. The slip is all my curse needs.
Like a leopanaire escaping its cage, the magic breaks free.
I close my eyes as Zélie’s essence rushes in like a crashing tidal wave. First cold and sharp, then soft and warm. The smell of the sea surrounds me, the clear night sky mirrored bright against its black waves. Trips to the floating market with Tzain. Hours passed on a coconut boat with Baba.
There are parts of it, parts of her, that light something inside me. But the light only lasts a moment.
Then I drown inside the darkness of her pain.
Skies. I push it all down, push every part of her and this virus away. When it’s gone I feel lighter, though the strain of suppression causes sharp pains in my chest. Something about her essence calls to my curse, bringing it up at every chance. Her spirit seems to hover around me, crashing with the force of the turbulent sea.
“You’re slowing me down,” Zélie calls back, nearing the top of the hill.
“Do you want to carry him?” I ask. “I’m more than happy to watch him bleed on you instead.”
“Maybe if you stopped suppressing your magic, you could handle the extra weight.”
Perhaps if you closed your wretched mind, it wouldn’t take so much energy to block you out.
But I bite my tongue; not every part of her mind is wretched. Laced in the memories of her family is a fierce love, something I’ve never felt. I think back to days sparring with Amari, to nights spent flinching from Father’s wrath. If Zélie had my magic, what parts of me would she see?
The question haunts me as I grit my teeth to finish the final ascent. When I reach the top, I set our captive’s body down and walk until the hill plateaus. Wind whips at my face, and I yearn to take my helmet off.
I glance at Zélie; she already knows my secret. For the first time since getting this miserable streak, I don’t have to hide.
I unlatch my helmet and savor the way the cool breeze runs over my scalp as I approach the hill’s steep edge. It’s been so long since I could remove my helmet without fear.
Below us the forested hills of the Gombe River Valley spread beneath the shadows and moonlight. Mammoth trees fill the land, but from up here, one unique symbol makes itself clear. Unlike the random spread of trees throughout the forest, this grove is arranged, forming a giant circle. From our vantage point, their special X is just visible, painted onto some of the trees’ leaves.
“He told the truth.” Zélie sounds surprised.
“We didn’t give him much of a choice.”
“Still.” She shrugs. “He easily could’ve lied.”
Between the circular formation of trees, a secret wall has been erected, formed from mud, stones, and crisscrossed branches. Though rudimentary, the wall sits high, reaching several meters up the trees’ trunks.
Two figures armed with swords stand in front of the wall, guarding what must be their gate. Like the boy we interrogated, the fighters wear masks and are completely clad in black.
“I still don’t understand who they are,” Zélie mutters under her breath. I echo her question. Besides their location, the only other thing we learned from the boy was that his people were after the scroll as well.