Page 55 of Children of Anguish and Anarchy

The emperor’s order comes so quick, I don’t have a chance to react. He turns on his heel, traveling up the stairs. The people roar at my back. Two warriors come forward, holding my arms. Köa stands at the top of the stairs.

He removes the obsidian cleaver from his skin.

“Please! Mercy!” I shout at the emperor’s back. Tzain’s muffled screams ring as Köa descends. The warrior raises his cleaver in the air. The world around me spins. I smell the sharp cut of ash.

Then I seeher.

The girl runs down the stairs, orange skirts swirling behind her long legs. Golden bangles jingle around her brown ankles. A jewel-studded scarf wraps over her long black braid.

Her eyes are so luminescent, they sparkle like diamonds, so much brighter than what I saw in my visions. Determination fills her as she lunges forward. She grabs Köa’s cleaver with her bare hands before he can strike me down.

“Mae’e!” the emperor shouts. The entire crowd gasps as the girl’s blood spills, but she doesn’t let go of the blade.

The ancient medallion boils in my skin.

“Men are coming,” I shout at the emperor. “They’re coming to take her.”

BLOOD POUNDS IN MY EARS. I wait in their town circle. The moment I declared the Skulls were coming for the girl they call Mae’e, the whole of the city broke out in a frenzy.

Now the entire civilization watches in the seats above, hundreds of thousands forming new mountains around me. The emperor sits on a dais, surrounded by Köa and his warriors. Tzain and Amari are forced to watch from a cell carved into the mountain’s side.

Vines bind me to the stone seat in the center. Dried blood soaks the rock floor. The seconds of life I have left feel like they’re slowly ticking away. With nowhere else to turn, I close my eyes and pray.

I followed the ancient voice’s command. I turned down the opportunity to sail back to my homeland. I found the girl I saw in the seas.

If they kill me now, what will it all mean?

The crowds roar from the stands. I don’t need the medallion to decipher the calls for my head. The way they react to us makes me believe we’re the first outsiders to enter their woven walls. I want to shout at them about the Skulls, make them understand that we’re here to help. I can only imagine what will happen to their people if King Baldyr lands on their black shores.

Across the circle, a boulder rolls away. My thoughts still as a silence falls over the masses. An elderly woman stands in the cave entrance, wrinkles woven through her brown skin.

“Yéva is here.…”

The woman’s name travels in whispers through the crowd. Gold pigment covers her neck and the curve of her jaw. Her hair forms a river ofsilver, falling to the small of her back. Shrouded faces reach out from the emerald cloak that adorns her frail shoulders. The entire earth hums in her presence.

I don’t speak as Yéva glides toward me. Mae’e follows her into the circle like a faithful servant, dressed in new emerald robes. She keeps her sparkling gaze fixed on the ground. No one makes a sound.

Yéva opens her palm, and the vines around me fall. Cool air rushes into my lungs. I lurch forward, hitting the hard rock. Yéva waves her hand again, and my stone seat slides away, revealing a crystal bath.

Yéva takes a stick of lavender from behind her ear and crushes it in her fingers. When she drops it into the bath, the water begins to steam. She fixes her gaze on me.

“Enter.”

Yéva’s lips don’t move, yet her voice whispers through my soul. My fingernails dig into the stone floor.

This voice…

She’s the woman I heard before.

I rise to my shaking feet. I feel every single eye on me as I remove the wool pants of the enemy and undo the wrap around my chest. Mae’e gasps at the sight of the gold medallion, but Yéva isn’t fazed.

The mystic gestures to the bath. The warm water burns where the vines rubbed my skin raw. Yéva raises Mae’e’s hand over the steaming waters. She pricks her palm with an obsidian dagger, and a single drop of blood falls.

The moment it hits the water, everything transforms.

Yéva starts to wail. The crowd above us cries out. Her diamond eyes sparkle. Her silver hair flies with a sudden gust of wind. Something deep possesses the mystic’s form. It’s like twelve different people yell at once. The medallion buzzes in my chest, more powerful than it’s ever been.

“Uma filha das tempestades da Grande Mãe…”

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