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CHAPTER FOUR

ZéLIE

G ODS HELP ME.

My insides freeze. Inan’s shouts die in the hold below. The Silver Skull yells orders at his men, and we follow close behind, ascending the wooden steps in the cramped stairwell.

The Skulls’ meaty palms dig into my arms. Their hooded eyes gleam in the dark. A sulfur scent rises from the pouch bombs strapped to their animal-skin belts. Brine coats their fair skin and their chestnut hair.

Where is he taking me?

The human bones embedded in the Skulls’ masks glower in the flickering torchlight. Even without my magic, I sense the torment soaked into the crushed skeletons. I hear the cries of their dead.

The fight that started to light in me before withers away. The hope of escape strangles me, restraining me like my chains. Everything Inan shared with me swirls in my mind.

If I’m the one they’re after, I die tonight.

They’re searching for a girl. I hear Inan’s voice. A girl with the blood of the sun.

I think back to the sunstone that shattered in my hands the moment I brought magic back.

I remember the power that surged through my form, the force that crashed through my very being, threading deep into my heart.

In that instant creation swirled before my eyes, the birth of man, the origin of the gods.

Is that power what these beasts hunt now?

Do I even hold that power if I can’t feel my magic at all?

I have to break free.

I ball my fists. Escape is my only hope. But what can I do with my hands in chains? How can I fight when I can’t even move my legs?

As we move past yards of rope and tarp-covered cannons, I search for a weapon, anything I can use to escape.

The broken shards of wood that hang overhead, the rusted harpoons mounted on the walls.

I look down at the Skulls’ waists and shift, wondering what it would take to snatch one of their knives.

A few daggers hang from each of their belts, but they pale in comparison to the crimson hammers and axes strapped to each Skull’s back.

Something about their weapons feels alive.…

When we reach the top of the stairs, I’m hit with a familiar stench.

The cells I shared with the others when the Skulls first locked me on to their ship hang with the bite of death.

Flames pass over rows of cages, revealing broken bones and gaunt brown faces.

There are nearly a dozen young girls per cage. They cower as the Skulls near.

“Zélie?”

I hear Amari’s hushed whisper before I see her emaciated frame.

The sight of my former ally takes me by surprise—her hollowed cheeks, her sunken eyes.

A ripped kaftan hangs over her skeletal shoulders.

Her bones protrude from her copper skin.

Grime and dirt mat the curls in her hair. She withers from within.

Hold on . I mouth the words. Instinct to protect overpowers our former war. I can’t bear the sight of her in enemy chains. Her slender face, twisted in pain.

Across from Amari I spot Nao, the elder of the Tider clan. Always one of the most powerful fighters in our group, I hardly recognize the scrawny figure who stares back.

Cropped white coils pepper her formerly shaved head. She looks at me like she’s crawled back from the dead. Nao reaches her tattooed arm through the bars of her cell as we pass. The Silver Skull is quick to react.

“ Fareu! ” The captain bangs on the bars of her cage. Nao and the girls back up at once, staring after me as the Skulls carry me away.

But they’re alive. We’re still alive.

I attempt to let the news spark hope. But pairs of empty shackles lie between the lines of girls. Every maji I was captured with isn’t onboard.

I note the open chains where Imani, the leader of the Cancers, once was. The freckled face of her twin sister, Khani, fills my mind. Grief tears at me from inside.

If I lost my brother to this horrid ship, I would die.

Flames dance over the faces of eight maji chained to a corpse, a body they’ve yet to throw overboard. The young girl’s round eyes hang open, and a tattered rag doll lies in her clenched hand.

She can’t be more than twelve.

How could this happen?

The girl’s body haunts me as the Skulls drag me through the long, damp hall. My body aches with the pain she must have felt. The utter misery her final hours of life held.

I take in the captured faces of my people, the festering lesions where the Skulls’ shackles meet their skin. The cramped quarters echo with their unspoken fears, their questions of whether or not they’ll ever escape from here.

I think back to Inan’s plan, his insistence that I need to escape. Despite what the Skulls may be after, this can’t just be about me. We are all locked in these cages.

We all need to break free.

Push, Zélie.

The heat of determination flares in my core. I try to move, though panic seizes every limb. My legs start to shift as the Silver Skull opens the door to the next level. We rise up another narrow stairwell.

When we reach the next hall, the sight of the boys sparks a new thought—I consider how many maji sit before me now, how many Skulls might lie above deck. What chance might we have if the maji on the ship outnumber the Skulls?

How many of us would need to break free to overwhelm them all?

Seven… nineteen… My head swivels from side to side as I try to keep count. Hatred burns through me with each protruding rib cage and hollowed face I pass.

If I could just get the keys…

I glance to the Skull on my left; a ring of brass keys jangles against his hip. The Skull jostles me, and my majacite crown pricks at my forehead.

Its blackened thorns hang just beneath his chin.…

This is it. I brace myself. One shot is all I’ll have. I rear my head back. My body quivers with my impending attack.

But before I can strike, we pass another cage. Everything changes when I see a familiar frame.

A boy with sturdy shoulders and cropped black hair.

My brother, Tzain.