Page 59 of Children of Anguish and Anarchy

I scramble back to my feet. A trail of blood drips from my right ear. It falls from my neck, adding to the bloodstains on the emerald rock.

Do better. Be better.I push myself on. I won’t let Köa defeat me.

I won’t let him win.

I swing my leg at his ribs. Köa doesn’t even shift to hook my heel. With a sweep of his foot, he catches my ankle. I stifle my shouts as I hit the ground again.

I don’t know how many times I charge.

How many times I’m thrown to the ground.

My fury builds with every failed attack. I strike with everything I have.

But when I can’t bring myself to rise, Köa bends down. The warrior barely sweats. He stares like he can see straight through me.

Like he can feel how powerless I really am.

“Your axe—does not—make you strong.” Köa pushes through every word. “It shows—how weak—you really are.”

Köa takes the axe back from his men.

Shame rips through me as he drops the weapon by my head.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

INAN

MY BARE FEET DRAGacross the hard soil.

The night winds bite at my skin.

Walking through the forest outside of Lagos, I’ve never felt more exposed. More helpless. More alone.

Though I was able to sail around the front lines, the battle rages behind me at Lagos’s broken walls. The ravages of war surround my every step. Destruction meets me at every turn.

More than half the towering jackalberry trees have fallen. Giant caverns litter the earth. Severed limbs mark my hike. The corpses of tîtáns, soldiers, and maji lie intertwined.

A fallen soldier still grasps his sword. A tîtán lies with a twisted spine. My stomach churns at two children caught in an attack. The trunk of a snapped tree pins their lifeless bodies to the ground.

Guilt eats at me from within. Every body I pass reminds me of everything Orïsha’s lost. All I see are my mistakes. The failures that allowed the Skulls to succeed in their raids.

If the Skulls invaded our shores today, nothing would stand in their way. With our infighting, their forces would be unopposed. Their slaughter could travel from coast to coast—

A whistle blows through the air, growing with every passing second.I barely have a chance to hit the ground before a metal blade passes overhead. It collides with the trees at my back, cutting the old wood in half.

My heart thunders as I scurry across the ground. The treetops come crashing down with a vengeance. A trio of Welders appears ahead, their golden armor glistening under the sliver of moonlight. White streaks pass through their hair. Scraps of metal float around their glowing hands.

“I come in peace!” I shout, raising my arms in surrender. I pray for the words to be enough, but when one tîtán lifts his palm to attack, my fingers grow numb.

Dammit.

I scramble to my feet and take off. The air whistles as more blades launch. I zigzag through what remains of the standing trees. Metal blades fly through the air like arrows.

One blade nicks my cheek as it zips past my face. Another misses my side by a breath. I dive behind a thick trunk for cover. A series of thunks ring as the blades strike tree bark. Nausea rises in my throat as I climb over a pile of corpses. The rotting bodies shield me as more metal blades strike.

“Close him in!” a Welder yells.

My legs strain as I push. I dodge every blade that flies. But when one cuts through my thigh, I stumble forward. Nothing breaks my fall. Air rushes past me as I plummet headfirst into an empty cavern.

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