Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orisha)

er in the village. You would never guess a woman her age could be so lethal.

“It didn’t work?” I force out, but Amari shakes her head. She holds up a bleeding hand, and in the darkness it swirls with vibrant blue light. A white streak crackles like lightning in her black hair.

As realization takes hold, burns and aches sear into every cell of my body. The pain is stark. The pain that accompanies life.

“What you did in the temple is unlike anything the spirits have ever seen.”

“I didn’t recognize the incantation.” I shake my head. “I don’t know what I did.”

Mama takes my face in her hands and kisses my forehead. “You will learn soon, my mighty Zél. And through it all, I will never leave your side. No matter what you feel, what you face when you think you’re alone—”

I clutch at her, as if at any moment her spirit might slip through my fingers.

I bow as the chorus rings, unable to believe I lie at Oya’s feet. But when the goddess lifts the headdress embedded in her thick mane of white hair, her dark brown eyes make my heart stop.

The last time I saw these eyes they were empty, void of the woman I loved. Now they dance, shimmering tears falling from their lids.

“Mama?”

It can’t be.

Magic shatters through every heart, every soul, every being. It connects us all, threading through the shell of humanity.

The power sears into my skin. Its ecstasy and agony flow at once, indistinguishable from pleasure and pain.

As it fades, I see the truth—in plain sight, yet hidden all along.

We are all children of blood and bone.

All instruments of vengeance and virtue.

This truth holds me close, rocking me like a child in a mother’s arms. It binds me in its love as death swallows me into its grasp.

Their voices begin to ring, a chorus of the living dead. I wait to hear the words inked onto the destroyed scroll, but they chant an incantation I’ve never read. Their strange words echo through my head, through my heart, through my soul. They fight their way onto my lips, though I don’t know what the incantation will do.

“Àwa ni ọmọ rẹ nínú 1j1àti egungun!”

“Help!” I scream out loud, drawing on their strength. “Please! Lend me your hand!”

Like an erupting volcano, the power of my ancestors flows through me, maji and kosidán alike. Each grips onto our connection, onto the very heart of our blood. Their spirits twirl with mine, with Mama’s, with Baba’s. We pour ourselves forward, our souls fighting into the stone.

I grab the fallen sunstone, and it scalds under my touch. Instead of Sky Mother, I see blood. I see bone.