Page 207 of Children of Blood and Bone

My mind spins, trying to calculate the possibilities. Could I draw on the connection with my ancestors through our blood? Could we reach back, forging a new connection to Sky Mother and her gifts through our spirits?

Amari dives past, fending a soldier away from the ritual ground. Though blood drips from her back, her blows are ferocious, almost feral against the coming guards. And even as the entire army pours in, Roën and his men don’t relent.

They fight against all odds.

If they haven’t given up, neither can I.

My heart slams against my chest as I scramble to my feet. The next statue illuminates, bathing the dome in blue light. Only a few dark gods stand in Sky Mother’s way. The end of the solstice is near.

I grab the fallen sunstone, and it scalds under my touch. Instead of Sky Mother, I see blood. I see bone.

I see Mama.

It’s that image I hold on to as I drop the sunstone in the single golden column in the center of the dome. If her blood surges through my veins, why not the blood of other ancestors, too?

I whip out the true bone dagger from the waistline of my pants and slice through both my palms. With bleeding hands, I press onto the sunstone, releasing the binding blood for the ultimate sacrifice.

“Help!” I scream out loud, drawing on their strength. “Please! Lend me your hand!”

Like an erupting volcano, the power of my ancestors flows through me, maji and kosidán alike. Each grips onto our connection, onto the very heart of our blood. Their spirits twirl with mine, with Mama’s, with Baba’s. We pour ourselves forward, our souls fighting into the stone.

“More!” I scream to them, calling on all spirits linked by our blood. I dig through our lineage, clawing all the way back to those who first received Sky Mother’s gifts. As each new ancestor surges forward, my body screams. My skin tears like it’s being pulled apart. But I need it.

I need them.

Their voices begin to ring, a chorus of the living dead. I wait to hear the words inked onto the destroyed scroll, but they chant an incantation I’ve never read. Their strange words echo through my head, through my heart, through my soul. They fight their way onto my lips, though I don’t know what the incantation will do.

“Àwa ni?m?r?nínú1j1àti egungun!”

Spiritual pathways explode within me. I fight through my screamsto get the words out as the sunstone buzzes beneath my hands. The light travels up Sky Mother’s chest, over the hand holding her horn. It’s almost over.

The solstice is almost at an end.

“A ti dé!Ìkan ni wá! Dàwáp0Mama! Kí ìtànnáwa tàn p1lú1bùnàìníye r?l21kan síi!”

My throat closes up, making it hard to breathe, let alone speak. But I force myself to continue, channeling everything I have left.

“J2kíagbára idán wa tàn kárí,” I shout as the light zips up Sky Mother’s collarbone.

The voices sing so loud in my mind that the whole world must be able to hear. They push for the last of the incantation, desperate as the glow crosses the bridge of Sky Mother’s nose. With their blood, I can finish this.

With their blood, I am unstoppable.

“Tanìm3lèayél21kan sii!”

The light reaches Sky Mother’s eyes and bursts with a white glow as the last of my incantation rings. The sunstone shatters in my hands. Its yellow light explodes through the room. I can’t tell what’s happening. I don’t know what I’ve done. But as the light invades every fiber of my being, the whole world shines.

Creation swirls before my eyes, the birth of man, the origin of the gods. Their magic crashes into the room in waves, a rainbow of every vibrant hue.

Magic shatters through every heart, every soul, every being. It connects us all, threading through the shell of humanity.

The power sears into my skin. Its ecstasy and agony flow at once, indistinguishable from pleasure and pain.

As it fades, I see the truth—in plain sight, yet hidden all along.

We are all children of blood and bone.

All instruments of vengeance and virtue.

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