Page 13 of Children of Anguish and Anarchy

I look around my cell, searching for an ally. Anyone who will help. But no one joins in.

Everyone in the ship’s hold stays still.

“Come on!” I scan the desperate faces beyond my cage. “If we work together, I know we can break out. We can even take the ship!”

Across the way, Kenyon, my old agbön mate, meets my eye. The elder of the Burner clan, he’s barely recognizable without his white locs. Dirt covers the tattoos on both his arms.

“We’re not meant to die in these cages.” I shake my head. “The Skulls think they’ve broken us, but they’re wrong. Iknowwe’re strong enough!”

Kenyon rises to his feet. I recognize the familiar flame that ignites in his eye.

“Tzain’s right.” The Burner looks to Udo’s corpse. “We fight or we die.”

With the order of an elder on my side, the rest of the maji fall in line. The hold begins to ring with the sounds of maji tinkering. My heart pounds as we work to pick our locks.

I take the animal-skin pouch and let the tar run over the padlock on my cell. I cover my nose as its sulfur scent reeks. Though there’s little left in the pouch, the metal starts to bubble and steam.

Smoke builds in the hall as the others use what they have of the enemy’s corrosive tar. When every lock is weakened, we prepare to charge. As soon as the Skulls hear what we’re doing, they’ll return.

It’ll take everything we have to break out before they swarm.

“On the count of three!” I look to the maji in my cell. To the others down the hall. “Give it all you’ve got!” I demand. “Don’t hold back!”

I cling to the image of Zélie’s face in my mind, to the feel of her trembling shoulders in my hands. I don’t have time for fear.

I have to escape from here.

“Three!”

I’ll become strong, I vow to her spirit.

“Two!”

I won’t let anyone hurt you again.

“One!”

The moment I count down, we all break forward. The hall erupts as we hurtle our bodies against the weakened iron.

CHAPTER SEVEN

ZÉLIE

THE MOMENT THESILVERSKULLpushes me forward, my bare toes slide through something sticky and warm. A fresh pool of blood surrounds my feet. I follow the trail with my eyes to the young girl lying in a crumpled heap.

My insides curl at the blood smeared across her forehead; it spills from her mouth and from her round nose. Though pale, her skin carries deep red undertones. They must have taken her from the Warri coast.

I can’t look away from the gaping hole that lies in her chest. The scent of burning flesh hangs in the air. Tendrils of black smoke curl up, rising from the hole where her heart used to be.

If this is my fate…

I turn away. My hands start to shake. My throat closes up at the thought of Tzain.

What if that was the last time I ever get to see his face?

A lock clicks and I snap my head up. In the back of the room, a heavy door creaks open. The Silver Skull releases his firm grip, and each Skull bows. I’m left staring ahead.

I hold my breath as a new man enters the room. Deliberate. Slow. Unlike the other Skulls, his mask isn’t smelted in silver or bronze.

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