Page 84 of Children of Blood and Bone

“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 BRINGSa 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 ashêdoesn’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, bámi 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 ashêout 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 withwhite light still fills my mind. The surge of ashêwas 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.

Promise me, she whispered, squeezing my hand after she used blood magic to bring Tzain back to life.Swear it now. No matter what, you can never do it. If you do, you won’t survive.

I promised her. Swore it on the ashêthat would one day run through my veins. I can’t break my vow because I’m not strong enough to perform an incantation.

But if this doesn’t work, what choice will I have? This shouldn’t be so hard. Just hours ago ashêvibrated in my blood. Now I can’t feel a damn thing.

Wait a minute.

I stare at my hands, recalling the young divîner who bled to death before my eyes. It wasn’t just his spirit I couldn’t feel. I haven’t sensed the pull of the dead in hours.

I turn to the scroll again, searching for a hidden meaning behind its words. It’s like my magic bled dry in the arena. I haven’t felt anything since—

Minoli.

The girl in white. Those large, empty eyes.

So much happened at once, I didn’t realize the girl’s spirit had passed on her name.

In death, the other spirits of the arena passed on their pain. Their hate. In their memories I felt the sting of the guards’ whips. I tasted the salt of fallen tears on my tongue. But Minoli brought me to the dirt fields of Minna, where she and her sharp-nosed siblings worked the land for autumn’s corn crop. Though the sun shone brutal and the work was hard, each moment passed with a smile, with song.

“Ìw?niìgb3kànlémiòrìshà,ìw?ni mógbójúlé.”

I sing the words aloud, my voice carrying in the wind. As I repeat the lyrics a soulful voice sings in my head.

It’s there that Minoli spent her final moments, forgoing the brutal arena for the peaceful farm in her mind. It’s there she chose to live.

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