Blood Scion, page 30
With trembling hands, I flip all the way back to the beginning, turning the pages as fast as they’ll go.
Ten seconds.
One final toss and—there. Cut into a corner of the page, I pause at the image of a face so familiar, I’d recognize it even in the bleeding darkness.
Brown locks sweep down her angular face, golden eyes shining just as they did moments before she left the hut that night.
Mama?
A buzz rolls through me at the sight of her. Though the woman in the image looks everything like my mother, she dons the Lucis’ full military attire, fists clenched over her heart in proper salute. What is this? Who is this? My mind races as I try to understand, but the longer I stare, the more questions spring like thorns in my head.
Full name: Adelina Folashadé
Alias: Lieutenant Margery North, CR-254-389-64
Comments: See Service Files for Information Pertaining to This Military Personnel
The report below the image offers no solace, and this time, the unanswered questions are much, much worse. Especially as the name next to the alias jumps out at me.
Who the hell is Margery North? What connection does this soldier have to Mama?
The alarm blares overhead, frantic and loud, our only warning bell that the security cameras have picked us up. The guards are coming for us, and I can only imagine more will join them in time. Already, Nazanin and Jericho are on the move, their hands wound together, dragging each other forward.
“Sloane!” Nazanin shouts several paces up ahead. “We have to go!”
She’s waving me forward, gesturing wildly with all the desperation she feels. I should scramble after them, leave the Archives behind. Head back to the tunnels, straight to the barracks. Return to safety.
It’s what we agreed on. But I can barely move, rooted in place, the Book of Records clutched tightly in my grasp.
After two years of searching, two years of digging grave after grave for buried scraps of the truth, finally, finally, I found something. But as the name Margery North echoes in my head, I know it’s only a tiny piece of a puzzle I’ve yet to solve.
I can’t leave. Not now, not when there’s still far more to uncover.
Whoever Mama is, was, I have to know.
The echoing screech of the alarm continues as Nazanin breaks away from Jericho and rushes over to me.
“What the hell are you doing?” She huffs, breathless with fear.
“I can’t leave,” I tell her quietly. “The truth about Mama’s still in here, and I have to find it.”
“Sloane, if you stay, the guards will find you.” Her voice is an urgent plea.
When she glances past Jericho to the sliding doors, I do the same. After a second or so, our eyes meet, and I know we both share a similar thought. Any moment now, an army of uniformed officers will come pouring into that empty hallway, guns blaring and ready to kill.
We’re sitting ducks the longer we remain here, our chances of escaping dwindling with every passing second.
“Did you get it?” I ask Nazanin instead. “Did you get the trade routes?”
That was her mission. It’s why she’s here. The Lucis’ confidential file that she plans to use to buy her brothers’ freedom.
She nods grimly, knowing what I’m really trying to say.
I reach for her hands then and clasp them between mine. “You understand I’ve waited two years for this moment,” I say with conviction. “I have to see it through, Naz. No matter what.”
She remains quiet for another second or so, but in the end, she gives my hands a gentle squeeze, her features softening. “You do what you have to do, and do it fast,” she whispers. “The day is yours.”
Though something tightens in my chest, I nod, steeling myself. “Keep to the path,” I instruct her. “Turn left at the fork. Take the third branch down, and it should lead you to the barracks. Take care of Jericho, and stay safe.”
She flings her arms around my shoulders, pulling me into a crushing embrace. “Good luck, Sloane.”
And then she’s off, racing out of the Archives Room with Jericho at her side. When I’m sure they’re gone, my eyes dart to the information beneath Mama’s image, reading through the details once more.
See Service Files for Information Pertaining to This Military Personnel.
Yes, yes. I remember racing past the Service Files section only several minutes ago, one of the last two aisles just beyond the Lucis’ wall of pictures. With a burst of determination, I commit the lieutenant’s identification numbers to memory and tear off in a frenzy. I keep a breakneck pace as I round the corner aisle, almost tripping over my own feet. Now that the guards are on their way, I must act quickly, swiftly.
I don’t have much time.
It takes all of one minute to locate the labeled section, sifting through the stack of folders tucked into the shelves in perfect rows. Each folder bears a series of identification numbers on its cover, the Lucis winged-torch crest stamped right beneath, along with the word Confidential branded in bloodred ink.
My heart slaps against my rib cage as I push one folder into the next, searching until I find the exact numbers. My breath catches, body tensing, as I pry the folder off the shelf.
For a brief instant, I grip it with both hands, too numb to do anything but stare at the name scrawled across the face in solid letters.
Lieutenant Margery North.
CR-254-389-64.
Clammy fingers leave damp marks along the edges of the cover.
Go ahead, I urge myself. Open it.
I do.
It’s as though I’m staring through a parade of Mama’s—no, Lieutenant Margery North’s—old life. An array of official files spill into my palms, birth certificates and medical records. Service forms and identification tags—all of them telling the story of a little girl once named Adelina Folashadé, who stole into Avalon with her younger sister when she was only five years old. Together, they’d escaped a routine Cleansing in Oyo and took on the false identities of Margery North and Cecily North. Two sisters who would go on to become fearsome warriors among the ranks of Lucis soldiers.
By gods. My body trembles as my gaze winds down the printed pages, trying to absorb as much as my brain will allow. I never even knew Mama had much of a family, let alone a younger sister whose death they forged, all so she could escape to Ilè-Orisha.
Every new detail is like poison on my tongue, choking and burning as it forces its way down my throat.
It’s right there, right there.
Adelina Folashadé is Margery North.
Margery North is Adelina Folashadé.
Yoruba born and Lucis raised. Mama lived thirteen years of her life here, on these very grounds. A soldier who fought her way to glory, to status, collecting ribbons and medallions for her famed brutality.
Mama was a soldier, just like me.
Oh gods, oh gods.
Bile chokes the back of my throat when I see the image of Mama standing next to Olympia and the rest of their unit, looking every bit the soldiers they are. To know that Mama once stood in the presence of the queen, as comrades, allies, is a bitter lump to swallow.
But the records and certificates in the next pile are far more difficult to read, branding me with the worst of all truths. Like the day Mama was captured by Olympia for the conspiracy to assassinate King Ascellus and the royal bloodlines. Like the grotesque details of the torture she suffered while she was locked in Cliff Row, barely surviving as they mutilated every inch of her skin, marking her like the traitor they believed she was.
I don’t know how Mama managed to escape Cliff Row after her capture, but she did. And it was in that brief period in time that Adeline Shade was spawned. Another shadow born of both Margery and Adelina’s past.
Hers is a life I know, a life I grew up around.
A life I believed was the only one Mama led.
But I was wrong, so wrong.
And she was, too. She had to have been if she believed she could eke out the rest of her days in the shadows of a dusty village, away from the shackles of the Lucis. Away from Olympia.
April 18, 340 PME—Lieutenant Margery North was captured and killed by Nightwalkers on the Agbajé foothills under the order of Queen Olympia Turais.
The words parade before my eyes again and again, and a hollow feeling settles in my stomach, cold as stone.
There it is, at the bottom of the death certificate, the truth about what really happened that night.
Captured and killed by Nightwalkers.
Even though I knew those monsters had a hand in Mama’s disappearance, the confirmation is still a dagger to my chest, cutting deep, jagged wounds. Everything I came here for, everything I killed and fought for, is right here in my hands.
Mama is dead.
The Lucis killed her.
Olympia murdered her.
She did not betray her family. Her memory is a blessing, not a curse. The villagers were wrong. They were wrong. They were wrong. They were wrong.
Baba and I are free of shame.
With one hand on my chest, I fold over and gasp for air.
I can’t breathe. Nor can I fight the pain as it radiates from within, tugging and squeezing and wrenching at the corners of my heart. Hot, angry tears track down my face, and through the blur, I glimpse the life Mama once lived. Before the Lucis ripped through her world and tore it all apart.
Adelina Folashadé. Margery North. Adeline Shade.
They made her a refugee, a child soldier, a murderer, a deserter.
And then—
And then they killed her. The voice reverberates in my head as darkness bleeds through the core of my being. They took her from me.
They took her.
My rage is a violent storm, a gathering of heat and fire swirling like a tempest inside me. It lashes against my spiritual anchor, a fiery battle of wills.
It shouldn’t feel like this. Not after the àmì-orí ritual.
Yet, as the pain ravages my senses, Shango’s drums thunder in my head, pounding at a wild, fervent rhythm. It doesn’t matter how hard I try, I can’t fight the terrible wave of heat breaking over me.
When flames burst to life on my fingers, licking at the edges of the folder, I toss the papers to the ground and stomp on them until they’re nothing but ash. Still, àse stabs through me with the terror of a thousand needles burrowing deep into my skin. My body burns, hot and feverish, as magic crashes through my veins. It scalds my throat, throbs behind the back of my eyes until my vision starts to spot. Fresh tears fall and sizzle on my cheeks.
No, no, no.
Not tonight, not yet. Amiyah said I’d have more time.
But after only two days of reprieve, every effort to push back against my magic now drags throbbing blisters across my skin. I cry out in agony, claw at my stolen uniform, ripping fabric away from skin as the fire threatens to burn me from within.
I see it in the tendrils of àse dragging flaming claws across my flesh. The drums crash into a violent thunder in my head. With outstretched hands, I grasp at my skull, trying to force out the clamor, willing the world to right itself once more. But lost in the haze of fear and pain and shame and guilt, my àse bursts.
I scream.
I don’t know the moment my spiritual anchor breaks. But I feel it.
Pain. It comes over me like a rolling sickness, pulling me in and out of consciousness. One minute I’m hunched on the ground, panting hard. The next, a shaft of blinding light stretches beneath my closed lids, red and white and impossibly bright, threatening to consume me. I feel it in my blood, in my bones, scorching and blistering away until I am made raw and hollow.
Until I am nothing at all.
When I open my eyes again, I expect to find my entire being ripped apart, skin sloughed off, reduced to a withering husk. But though my spirit is charred and broken, I am still whole.
I lie there, hot and trembling, my breath a broken gurgle, unable to tear my eyes from the fire now eating away at the tunnels’ map, burning every inch of the parchment to ash. The flakes scatter into the air; soot settles onto my face.
Still, I watch as more flames slither across the floor like red serpents, twisting and dancing up the wooden tower to my right. With a shudder, the shelves collapse to the ground, sending giant waves of dust rippling through the hall. The books cascade onto the floor, each one a clattering burning mess.
With the full weight of the fire now forced out of me, my senses return slowly. Somehow, I manage to stagger to my feet, gasping at the spreading flames. Red and orange dots flicker at the edge of my vision. Torrents of fire leap from shelf to shelf, aisle to aisle, devouring everything in its path.
Gods, I never wanted this. But as the back shelves topple to the ground, spilling over in a cloud of fire and ash, I force my limbs into a sprint, stumbling over myself as I try to flee from the chaos. Deep gray smoke billows upward to the ceiling. Shards of glass rain down from above.
My heartbeat pounds with every step I take. But I’ve only just made it to the sliding doors when I bump into two solid figures, the impact sending me to the ground.
“Sloane!” Grabbing both my hands, Nazanin and Jericho haul me back up on my feet. Though Jericho’s eyes are still heavy and red, he seems better than he was moments ago.
“Are you okay?” he asks. “We heard a noise and came back.” At the sound of glass still clattering to the ground, he glances past my head. “What the hell is that?”
I can barely force the words out, my chest heaving with every ragged, hollow gasp.
Nazanin’s eyes widen, and she lets out a horrible scream. “Fire!”
The alarm is still blaring, the flames barreling forward at a terrifying speed. Blood rushes to my head as we push through the door in the same moment a shattering boom erupts behind us.
Archives Hall explodes in a roaring blaze. The blast picks us up off our feet, throwing us across the hallway.
At first, I hear nothing but the loud ringing in my ears.
Then another alarm carries, and the first silhouettes of the guards appear at the far end of the hall.
Through the choking haze of fire and smoke, I find Nazanin’s and Jericho’s bloodied faces.
I mouth the word Run.
Thirty-One
We race through the familiar underpass with the guards at our backs, their booted feet pounding against the hard-packed earth. Overhead, the alarm blares. The choking smell of fire and ash permeates the tunnel air. Smoke clogs my nostrils and lungs. Archives Hall is burning, and I’m the one who lit the match. The flames still crackle behind my eyelids, blackening the wooden shelves, lapping at the leather-bound books. They surge higher and higher, orange fingers clawing at the glass-roofed ceiling.
My heart thunders as I sprint down the curving passage with Jericho and Nazanin at my side. They match my strides, their heavy breathing an echo in my ears. Blood stains their ruined fatigues, and soot clings heavily to their skin. But worst of all is the fear clouding their eyes, a cold mirror of my own.
We made it inside the Archives without getting caught. And we would have made it out if I hadn’t unleashed that fire. Gods, if I’d just left as planned, perhaps we would already be back in the barracks, the three of us tucked away in our bunks, formulating the next steps in our plans. But that was before I learned the Lucis are the ones who took Mama from me. Now pain grips me in a tight embrace as the name Margery North echoes over and over in my head, searing a path into my memory.
Mama is dead. She’s really gone.
I thought uncovering the truth about her disappearance would set me free, slowly begin to heal the wounds she left behind two years ago. Finding the truth would rid Luna of her illness and make things right for Baba in the village. It would lessen my grief. The truth would fade my scars. But all it’s done is poke more holes at my heart and fill it with a burning vengeance.
I swear to gods I’ll destroy everything the Lucis ever built.
They killed Mama, and for that, I’ll rain fire on their precious island.
Despite the tears blurring my vision, I push my limbs forward, weaving us in and out of the twisting trail. Skulls and bones crunch underfoot, but it isn’t the dead that need saving now.
Keep to the path. Turn left at the fork. Take the third branch down, and it should lead you to the barracks. I repeat the same directions I gave Nazanin only moments ago, tracking a mental route in my mind even without the map as a guide. Behind us, guards scream out orders, their voices rumbling off the cracked stone walls. The ground shudders and heavy tremors rattle the domed ceiling, sending light pebbles over our heads.
My stomach clenches as more and more guards pour into the tunnels, the air hot and heavy with their presence. Judging by the chorus of barked commands, every bleeding soldier has been dispatched to the tunnels tonight. I try not to think about how many of them the commander must have called away from the celebration, or what any of these men will do if we should get captured. I try not to remember the sting of steel wire ripping away at my flesh. No matter what, I can’t let the guards find us down here.
Up ahead, the tunnel forks, splitting into four—not three—narrow routes. Beads of sweat drip down my back as we slide to a sudden halt.
“Which way?” Nazanin hisses, her breath coming in short, ragged pants.
My gaze darts back and forth between each path, unsure how to proceed. This part of the tunnel is unfamiliar, and with the map lost to the Archives Hall fire, I—I just don’t know.
“Sloane, which way?” Nazanin’s voice quivers in warning.
Footsteps echo. The guards are closing in, and I have no idea how to get us back to the barracks. My heart beats louder with each passing second.
By gods. We’re not going to make it out.
Think, Sloane. In my head, I picture the map, tracking the grid lines and entry points across the parchment. The barracks is just around one of these narrow bends. I know it is. But—which one?
The air shifts. A deep growl rumbles through the tunnels. I whirl on shaky limbs, only to find a pair of pale blue eyes glowing in the darkness. The hairs on the back of my neck rise as I stare into the face of a Nagean leopard. The Lucis’ highly trained beasts. The fearsome thing snarls, baring sharp fangs.
