Children of Virtue and Vengeance (Legacy of Orïsha #2)(102)

“What’s happening?” Tzain fills my vision as he and Kamarū lay me across a stone surface.

“I don’t know.” Khani puts her hands on my chest. “Her body’s shutting down!”

“Ro?n.” I fight to speak his name aloud. He seizes across the ahéré, his body convulsing with mine. I used the moonstone to connect our lifeforces. I used our strength to make it through the mountains. But without a blood sacrifice to bind our connection, neither of us can survive.

“Break it.” Tzain puts the pieces together. “Now, before it’s too late!”

I lurch as an ache cuts across my sternum. I can’t! I try to wheeze.

I don’t have enough power to break our connection. And even if I did, what would happen to Ro?n? I already lost Mazeli.

I’m not giving up on him.

“He’s dying!” Healers carry Ro?n’s body from across the hut, laying him by my side. We’re running out of time. My heart will die with his.

But I know what I have to do. Oya showed me in my ìsípayá on that fateful day.

If the first ribbons of light were Ro?n and I, then the next lie right here. Connecting to more lifeforces is how we buy ourselves time.

It is how we survive.

I latch onto Tzain’s wrist, and his lips press together as he reads my eyes.

“What’s going on?” Khani’s gaze flicks between us when Tzain puts his hand over my own.

“She needs to connect another heart,” Tzain says. “It’s the only way to save them both.”

“No!” Khani shouts. “That strain could kill all three of you!”

“Then use me, too.” Kamarū extends his palm. “The four of us can handle it.”

“Torí if? Babalúayé.” Khani grabs her temples, cursing under her breath. She extends her palm. “Gods, just do it!”

They gather around me, all placing their hands over mine. Their heartbeats start to bleed into my ears as their lifeforces appear before my eyes. I see the emerald glow of Kamarū’s ashê. The tangerine light of Khani’s magic. Even Tzain’s lifeforce surges through his blood, powerful in its white glow.

“? t?nná agbára yin.” I wheeze the sacred command and my tattoos ignite with purple light. All around me, Tzain’s, Kamarū’s, and Khani’s pulses thunder between my ears. It’s like five drums beating at once, searching for the same rhythm.

Tzain grunts as his chest arcs toward the ceiling. His feet lift off the ground. Kamarū follows next. Khani rises between both of them, screaming as she floats in the air. The three of them hover as the particles of light materialize before their hearts, the very grains of their lifeforce. They stretch forward like ribbons, weaving themselves together as they twist toward my heart.

“? t?nná agbára yin!” I fight through the strain, chanting though I can no longer breathe. Tzain wheezes as he grabs at his throat. Khani’s eyes roll as her body shakes. Our connection is killing us all.

Oya, please. I close my eyes, pushing as the tether of life breaks through my chest. The ribbon of lights digs into my heart. My body burns as if my insides have been set on fire.

Tzain clenches his teeth. Veins bulge against Kamarū’s dark skin. I worry I can’t sustain it all without a sacrifice—

The force that erupts knocks everyone back.

Tzain grunts as he flies into the far wall. Kamarū trips over the stone tables and chairs in his path. Khani falls to the floor.

The world spins around me as I lift myself from the table. A foreign force pulses through my chest. Instead of two hearts, five beat as one.

“Did it work?” I exhale as Khani rises to her knees and crawls to me. Her hands still shake, but she lays her trembling palms on top of me.

“Heal.”

She doesn’t even summon an incantation. With one word, her magic spreads through me like a spiderweb, deep orange light healing me from within. The muscles and tendons crackle as skin regenerates around my injured shin. The heat of her magic erases all of my pain.

“It’s working.” Khani releases a breathless laugh. She looks at her hands before running over to Ro?n. With one touch of her hand, his breathing stabilizes.

“For the love of ògún…” Kamarū’s eyes widen as he lifts all the metal tables in the room with a single point of his finger. I haven’t seen him work with metal once, but now he crushes his fist and the iron breaks apart, disintegrating into a cloud of dust that condenses in the air before him.

Kamarū looks at his own iron leg before laying both his hands on Ro?n’s bandaged shoulder. He sculpts the metal as if it were clay. Khani moves to join him.

My mouth falls open as their magic weaves together, working in perfect tandem. Metal tendons connect to Ro?n’s raw shoulder as Kamarū fashions an iron arm with shifting plates. Though Ro?n stays unconscious, his metal fingers twitch. I can’t believe my eyes.

I’ve never seen magic like that.

I lay my fingers across his temples, fighting the knife in my throat. This was it …

Oya’s vision.

It all started with him.

“Let’s go!” Khani grabs my hand, leading me outside the hut. She stops before a corpse: the father whose red cap fell in the dirt. Her intent dawns as she kneels by his side, laying her hands over his heart. As she chants, I join her, weaving our magic together.