Page 30 of Children of Blood and Bone

“Oh my gods,” I breathe.

The princess.

Amari.

I kidnapped Orïsha’s princess.

“I can explain,” Amari says quickly. Now I hear the royal affect that makes my teeth grind. “I know what you must be thinking, but my life was in danger.”

“Your life,” I whisper. “Yourlife?”

Red flashes behind my eyes. The princess cries out when I slam her against a tree. She chokes, eyes wide with fear as I wrap my hands around her neck and squeeze.

“What are you doing?” Tzain shouts.

“Showing the princess what it looks like when her life’sactuallyin danger!”

Tzain yanks me back by the shoulders. “Have you lost your damn mind?”

“She lied to me,” I shout back. “She told me they were going to kill her. She swore she needed my help!”

“I did not lie!” Amari wheezes. Her hand flies to her throat. “Father’s executed members of the royal family just forsympathizingwith divîners. He would not hesitate to do the same to me!”

She reaches into her dress and pulls out a scroll, gripping it so tightly her hand shakes.

“The king needs this.” Amari coughs and gazes at the parchment with a weight I can’t place. “This scroll can change everything. It can bring magic back.”

We stare at Amari with blank faces.She’s lying.Magic can’t come back. Magic died eleven years ago.

“I thought it was impossible, too.” Amari registers our doubt. “But I saw it with my own eyes. A divîner touched the scroll and became a maji.…” Her voice softens. “She summoned light with her hands.”

A Lighter?

I step closer, studying the scroll. Tzain’s disbelief sticks to me like the heat in the air, yet the more Amari speaks, the more I dare to dream. There was too much terror in her eyes. A genuine fear for her well-being. Why else would half the army chase down the princess if her escape didn’t pose some greater risk?

“Where’s the maji now?” I ask.

“Gone.” Tears brim in Amari’s eyes. “Father killed her. He murdered her just because of what she could do.”

Amari wraps her arms around herself, squeezing her eyes shut to keep the tears inside. She seems to shrink. Drowning in her grief.

Tzain’s exasperation softens, but her tears don’t mean a thing to me.She became a maji, her voice echoes in my head.She summoned light with her hands.

“Give me that.” I motion for the scroll, eager to inspect it. But the moment it touches my fingers, an unnatural shock travels through my body. I jump back in surprise, dropping the parchment to cling to the bark of a jackalberry tree.

“What’s wrong?” Tzain asks.

I shake my head. I don’t know what to say. The strange sensation buzzes beneath my skin, foreign yet familiar at the same exact time. It rumbles in my core, warming me from the inside out. It beats like a second heartbeat, vibrating like…

Like ashê?

The thought makes my heart clench, revealing a gaping hole inside me that I didn’t even know still existed. When I was young, ashêwas all I ever wanted. I prayed for the day I would feel its heat in my veins.

As the divine power of the gods, the presence of ashêin our blood is what separates divîners from maji. It’s what we draw on to use our sacred gifts. Ashêis what maji need to do magic at all.

I stare at my hands for the shadows of death Mama could conjure in her sleep. When ashêawakens, our magic awakens as well. But is that what’s happening now?

No.

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