Page 9

CHAPTER NINE

ZéLIE

N O !

The moment I feared rushes at me. There’s no place for me to run. Blood pounds between my ears. The little time I had to strategize is gone.

I try to escape, but the Silver Skull holds me tight. He mutters a curse against my ear. Baldyr raises his palm and aligns the golden medallion with my heart. As he moves, the gaping hole in the maji’s chest flashes into my mind.

Her blood still coats my feet. The stench of charred skin still taints the air. In an instant, I understand how she died. Her and every other maji they’ve tried.

I can’t let that medallion touch me.

If it does, I won’t survive.

“ Strike, Zélie! ” Mama Agba’s voice rings through my head, and I force myself to act. I drive my elbow into the Silver Skull’s groin. With a sharp grunt, the captain keels over.

The swaying ship makes him lose his footing. I pivot and kick back. My heel collides with his stomach, sending the Silver Skull flying into the back door.

Baldyr reaches for me as I scramble forward. I launch myself across the bloodstained floor. I head for the table, reaching for the knife I spotted before. Baldyr’s goblet of mead crashes to the floor as my fingers graze the knife’s wooden hilt—

“ Nei! ” King Baldyr roars like a wild beast. He grabs the shackles around my wrists, yanking me back. My feet slip out from under me as he throws me to the right. I hit the marble walls with a powerful thud.

The impact ignites the majacite crown on my head. It burns with a new wrath. Its matte-black thorns dig into my temple. Hot blood drips into my eyes and rains down my neck.

Fight, Zélie.

Though I can hardly see, I reach for everything in sight. My fingers grasp at a fallen chicken bone. When Baldyr comes for me, I swing wildly, stabbing through his cheek.

A brass candleholder falls to the left. I grab it and beat Baldyr over the head. I swing the candleholder again, clocking the king across the jaw.

But before I strike once more, the Silver Skull grabs me from behind and throws me against the back wall. Another sharp crack rings as my head collides with the marble. With another shove, the candleholder falls from my hands.

King Baldyr rips the chicken bone out from his cheek and releases a mighty laugh. Blood mixes with the black paint on his face. It travels down his chest, staining the golden medallion he holds in his hands.

The Silver Skull uses my shackles to hold my arms back. Baldyr’s eyes home in on my chest. The medallion in his hand starts to glow.

There’s nowhere to run as Baldyr drives the medallion into my breastbone.

“ AGH! ” I shout. Pain unlike anything I’ve ever experienced drowns everything out. I seize on the floor as the medallion digs into my sternum like a branding iron. It goes so deep, its metal melts around my bones.

The sharp heat burns through my heart. Tendrils of smoke start to flare around its rim. Despite how hard I push, I can’t breathe. My lungs sear from within.

“ Tae er hón! ” King Baldyr shouts. My skin burns red as my blood begins to glow. A blinding gold light fills the room. It bounces against the marble walls. It cascades in brilliant arcs, blocking everything else out.

“ Oya, please…” I whisper the prayer. I call for her to take my soul. I don’t want to die out at sea in the hands of these foreign beasts. So far away from home.

Please…

My seizing body stills. My heartbeat slows, tasting the bitter end.

A deafening boom of thunder is the last thing I hear before everything fades to black.