Page 52 of Children of Virtue and Vengeance

“Now, for answers.” Jokôye straightens and puts her hand on her sword. “It’s time to locate and exterminate the rest of these maggots.”

She marches into their camp, waist-length braid bouncing against the small of her back. With a wave, she halts the celebration. The determination in her gaze makes a new coat of sweat break out along my skin.

“Remove the bags,” she orders, and her soldiers step forward, ripping the bag from each maji’s face. Crackling flames fill the silence as Jokôye walks before them, inspecting every rebel.

“You’ve been efficient in your destruction,” she shouts. “Now it’s time for you to pay the price. Tell me where the rest of you maggots are hiding and I promise—your deaths will be quick.”

Some rebels hang their heads. Others try to hide their tears. But one Burner stares up at the moon, her white hair blowing in the night wind.

Jokôye stops in front of her, teeth grinding at the girl’s defiance. I flinch when Jokôye lunges for the Burner’s throat.

“I asked you a question.”

The girl struggles, choking under Jokôye’s tightening grip. My general lifts her into the air. The sight makes my stomach twist.

“Answer me!” Jokôye shouts.

The Burner gasps for air, but keeps her eyes fixed on the night sky.

“If I’m to die where we stand,” she chokes out, “then I choose the moon over your ugly face.”

Jokôye throws the Burner into the charred dirt. The maji coughs as air rushes back in. But the way Jokôye looks at her, I know her breaths are short-lived.

My scar throbs as Ojore hands the general a vial of black liquid and a hollowed-out needle.

It’s like watching Father torture Zélie all over again.

I start to get up, but Mother holds me back. She digs her hand into my thigh to keep me down.

“Whatever you’re thinking, stop,” she hisses. “You already gave them a choice. You can’t save everyone.”

I know she’s right, but nausea still rises in my throat. This doesn’t feel like being a better king.

This doesn’t feel like being a king at all.

“Do you know what it feels like to have majacite in your veins?” Jokôye’s voice rises as she fills the needle to the brim. Its metal glints in the firelight. “First it blocks the illness you call a gift. Then it burns you from within.”

Pressure builds like a bomb waiting to go off in my chest. Watching the girl, I see Zélie in chains.

I smell the way her flesh burned as Father’s soldiers carved through her back.

“You have a good heart, Inan,” Mother whispers. “It will make you a good king. But you will destroy yourself if you don’t distinguish between those you need to protect and those you need to eliminate.”

“But, Mother—”

“These rebels burned your city to the ground. They wanted you and your people to starve. They are the poison of Orïsha! If you do not cut off the hand now, eventually you will be forced to sever the entire limb.”

I clamp my mouth shut, digesting her words. I know as long as these rebels terrorize us, every maji in Orïsha will be seen as a criminal. TheIyikahave to go.

But despite knowing this, my insides twist as Ojore grabs the Burner by her hair. He yanks the girl’s head to the side, exposing her neck for Jokôye’s attack.

“Last chance to talk,” Jokôye offers, but the Burner spits. The girl cries out when the needle pierces her skin.

She tumbles from Ojore’s hand like a brick, body seizing in the dirt as the majacite kills her from within. Mother tilts my chin, forcing me to look away.

“You’ve done more good in a few days than other monarchs have done in their entire reigns,” she soothes. “Stay the course. End this war so you can continue to do good for the entire kingdom.”

I nod, but my eyes drift back to the girl’s corpse. Jokôye reaches for another needle.

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