Children of Virtue and Vengeance (Legacy of Orïsha #2)(19)

A painful spasm erupts from my abdomen, but I force my shaking legs to run. I push the sandbags away from the balcony door, clawing for the handle.

How could this happen?

Even as I live it, it all feels impossible. The last time these walls were breached, I wasn’t even born. Burners rampaged through the palace halls, killing every member of Father’s family. It was that attack that made Father get rid of magic. He vowed that the palace would never be attacked again.

Father’s old stories fill my mind as the last sandbag falls away and I push open the door. My hands fall limp at the sight.

Lagos is gone.

“No…”

I drop to my knees. It feels like the ground has been pulled out from under me. I don’t recognize the carnage before me. It’s like my city’s been ravaged by war.

Gone are the pastel buildings of the merchant quarter. The colorful tents and carts of the bustling marketplace that sat at its border. Broken windows and blasted buildings lie in their wake. Helpless corpses line the streets.

Half the div?ner dwellings are up in flames, filling the night with the stench of ash. The wooden walls that used to surround them are no more than measly stubs. Giant mounds of rubble stand in their place, a barrier of destruction closing my city in.

I grab my stomach, stumbling as it reverberates with pain. I can’t believe this is happening.

I cannot believe this is my home.

Ha-woooooooo!

The alarm grows to its loudest blare yet and I finally understand its cause. A sphere of fire rises above Lagos’s rubble walls, the red sun growing larger by the second.

Even from kilometers away, my skin prickles from the searing heat of its flames. The fire’s crackle fills the air.

Then the red sun explodes.

“By the skies…”

My body turns to stone as countless balls of fire arc through the air. They explode when they hit the ground. It’s like flames raining from above.

Screams ring through the night as the firebombs ravage Lagos all at once. A pair of flames rise over the destroyed palace gates. I try to back up, but my legs don’t move fast enough.

“Get down!” someone shouts. Strong arms grab my shoulders, pulling me toward the balcony doors. The rasp in the guard’s voice makes me pause. I catch sight of the burn scars along the soldier’s neck as our perimeter turns red.

“Ojore?” I don’t trust my eyes. I haven’t seen my cousin since he left the naval academy.

He drags me inside, throwing me against the sandbags lining the wall. His armored body covers mine as the world is drowned out in a blinding flash of white.

BOOM!

The impact rattles me to the bone. Windows shatter with the force of the blast. Shards of glass rain down on our heads.

The palace quakes with the force, subsiding as black plumes of smoke roll in. I grab my ringing ears as my cousin covers my nose, pulling me to my feet.

“You alright?”

I nod, though my head throbs more than it did before. Any part of me that didn’t already hurt screams with pain now.

“What in the skies was that?” I ask.

Ojore shields his nose, coughing as he drags me toward the cellar.

“The Iyika,” he answers. “Welcome to the war.”





CHAPTER FIFTEEN


ZéLIE


LIGHT BLEEDS INTO the blackness of my mind, stirring me awake. I groan as I slip back into consciousness, my body moaning with pain.

My head throbs like a herd of rhinomes warring inside my skull. Fleeting images of the broken dreamscape fill my mind with each ache.

“Hold her down,” a hoarse voice orders when I stir.

I blink open my eyes as blurry faces come into focus. Tzain closes in, blocking out the rays of morning sun. Seeing him brings back the memory of running away with Nailah; of crashing into the tree before I fell into the dreamscape.

“Tzain…” I try to sit up, but he forces me to stay down. Amari appears at his side, applying pressure to my legs though she won’t meet my gaze. A young maji with high cheekbones and wide-set eyes kneels between them, slender fingers pressed to my chest. Thick white braids fall to the small of her back as her hoarse voice continues to chant.

“Babalúayé, ?i?é nípasè mi. Babalúayé, ?i?é nípasè mi.”

Behind her, two more maji stand guard at the forest perimeter, eyeing the rising clouds of dirt in the distance.

“They’re closing in, Safiyah,” one maji calls. “Be quick.”

“The queen?” I grumble, and the maji shakes his head.

“Her t?táns.”

The tangerine light around Safiyah’s hands turns dark as she releases more of the ashê in her blood. The spiritual energy heats her fingertips, increasing the strength of her magic.

I feel the drain on my own ashê as a searing heat kneads itself into my chest. A needle of fire threads through my ribs. My muscles spasm with the sudden surge—

Crack!

I flinch as my ribs snap together like reunited magnets. My bones grind against each other as they heal. I have to clench my teeth to endure the burn. Though the pain is sharp, the pressure lifts from my chest; I relish the way my lungs expand. But as cool air comes in, my mind returns to Inan.

He’s still alive.

I bring one hand to my neck, picturing the vines I wrapped around his throat. I don’t know how he survived, but I feel his lifeforce in my gut. My eyes fall on Amari, and I wrestle with what to do next.