Page 200 of Children of Blood and Bone

You tried, I console myself.You did more than your best.

It wasn’t meant to be. The gods chose wrong.

At least it’s over. At least you’re alive. You can leave on that boat, find a new—

“No!”

I freeze as Inan’s cries ring against the dome walls in a deafening timbre. Baba throws me to the ground as aswoosh!flies through the air.

I move to shield Baba, but it’s too late.

The arrowhead pierces my father’s chest.

His blood leaks onto the ground.

CHAPTER EIGHTY

ZÉLIE

WHEN THEY CAME FOR MAMA, I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t think I would ever breathe again. I thought our lives were connected by a string. That if she died, I would, too.

I hid like a coward as they bludgeoned Baba half to death, relying on Tzain to be my strength. But when they wrapped the chain around Mama’s neck, something in me snapped. As frightened as the guards made me, nothing compared to the terror of them taking Mama away.

I chased her through the chaos of Ibadan, blood and dirt splattering against my small knees. I followed her as far as I could until I saw it.

All of it.

She hung from a tree like an ornament of death in the center of our mountain village. Her and every other maji, every threat to the monarchy crushed.

That day I swore I’d never feel that way again; I promised they’d never take another member of my family. But as I lie paralyzed now, blood drips down Baba’s lips. I promised.

And now I’m too late.

“Baba?”

Nothing.

Not even a blink.

His dark brown eyes are empty. Broken. Hollow.

“Baba,” I whisper again.“Baba!”

As his blood spreads onto my fingers, the world goes black and my body grows warm. In the darkness I see everything—I see him.

He runs through the streets of Calabrar, kicking an agbön ball through the mud with his younger brother. The child in him has a smile Baba never had, a grin ignorant of the world’s pain. With a hearty kick, the ball bounces away and Mama’s young face appears. She’s stunning. Radiant. She takes his breath away.

Her face fades to the magic of their first kiss, the awe of their firstborn son. The awe blurs as he rocks his baby daughter to sleep, running his hands over my white hair.

In his blood, I feel the moment he woke after the Raid, the heartbreak that never ceased.

In his blood, I feel everything.

In his blood, I feel him.

Baba’s spirit tears through my being like the earth ripping in half. Every sound rings louder, every color shines brighter. His soul digs deeper into me than any magic I’ve ever felt, deeper than magic at all. It’s not incantations that run through my veins.

It’s his blood.

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