Summary
Tzain and Amari take a barely-alive Zélie to Khani, the diviner who received healing powers by touching the scroll. With the sunstone's assistance, she saves Zélie's life. When Zélie falls asleep, she transports to Inan's dreamworld. To avoid telling him that her magic is gone and King Saran broke her spirit, Zélie kisses Inan. In love and afraid of losing each other, they sleep together.
Zélie wakes up in a tent, still in pain; though Khani was able to heal her, the word "maggot" remains etched on Zélie's back. With only a day until the solstice, Tzain and Amari want to run away and leave Orïsha. Kenyon and the others propose taking a dangerous route through Jimeta, a mountainous region infamous for its criminal activity. Zélie does not tell anyone she cannot use her magic; even touching the sunstone awakens nothing in her.
The group travels to Jimenta to charter a boat. The local custom dictates that only one representative from a group can meet with the mercenaries, so Zélie goes into the base, which is a cave, alone. The leader of the mercenaries turns out to be Roën, the pickpocket who claimed he and Zélie would meet again. One mercenary tries to remove Zélie forcibly, but when he touches her, she flashes back to being tortured and throws the man to the ground. Impressed, Roën, with the promise he will be the queen's chosen mercenary, agrees to take Zélie and her friends to the island of Zaria. As they sail, Saran's naval fleet appears. Roën and his team seize a ship, shocking Zélie, Tzain, and Amari.
Meanwhile, Inan longs for Zélie, feeling there is no good in the world without her. In a rare moment of authenticity, Saran reveals his past to Inan, explaining that he had supported a policy that would incorporate the maji into the nobility at the urging of his first wife. The maji eventually killed Saran's wife, Alika, and Saran swore never to let his heart influence his decision-making again. To affirm this attitude, he had a majicite blade forged and inscribed with Duty Before Self. Kingdom Before King. Saran gives Inan the blade and urges him to choose Orïsha over his heart.
Unable to sleep because of her memories of torture, Zélie leaves her room on the ship and goes to the deck, where she meets Roen. Zélie is initially annoyed by Roen's constant jokes and flirtations. When he opens up about being tortured himself, Zélie realizes she wants to tell someone the truth about her magic and seeks out Amari. Amari braids Zélie’s hair into six plaits. They share an intimate conversation, where Zélie admits Saran's hold over her and her inability to do magic. Amari explains how she was always afraid of her father, but the last time she saw him, she wanted to chase after him and fight. Therefore, Amari believes Zélie can complete the ritual even if she doesn't feel magic because she will overcome her fear of King Saran. Zélie sleeps in Amari's bed with her.
Dressed in the Royal Guard uniforms, Roën's crew along with Zélie, Tzain, and Amari land on the island of Zaria. They find an unfathomably large pyramidal temple to the gods, and Zélie brings the sacred items inside. Inan and Saran ambush the group, holding Baba hostage, and Saran says he is willing to exchange the artifacts for Baba. Zélie, still unable to do magic, feels as if all hope is lost and decides to give Inan the sunstone and the scroll, so she does not have to lose another parent. Since Inan hasn't seen the bone dagger, she gives him a rusted knife and hides the authentic artifact.
After the exchange, an archer shoots at Zélie. Baba jumps in to defend her, and the arrow pierces him; he dies instantly. Baba's sacrifice acts like blood magic, and Zélie, channeling her rage, kills the guards and turns on Inan. Inan, believing he is working to protect Zélie from the magic that will kill her and keep his promise to build a better Orïsha, tries to destroy the sunstone and the scroll.
Inan goads Zélie into attacking him with magic and puts the scroll in her path, causing her to destroy it accidentally. A mercenary raises a sword to kill Saran, and Inan freezes him with magic, saving his father's life but exposing himself as a maji. King Saran sees that the dead mercenary's body is covered with the same crystals found on Kaea. Saran, realizing Inan killed Kaea, stabs his own son. As he moves to decapitate Inan, Amari charges forward to challenge the king.
Amari and Saran fight, but when Amari has the opportunity to kill him, she hesitates, unwilling to become a murderer like her father. Saran seizes the opportunity and slices down Amari's back, right over her scars. This act pushes Amari over the edge, and she kills her father.
When the solstice begins, Zélie, unable to remember the incantation written on the scroll, slices her palm with the bone dagger. By doing this, she uses her blood magic to form a chain with her ancestors, all the way back to the Sky Mother. The magic destroys Zélie, and she enters the afterlife, where she sees her mother dressed like Oya. Zélie and her mother share a loving conversation. Though Zélie wants to stay with her mother, Mama says it is not Zélie's time to die. Zélie wakes in the world of the living surrounded by Amari and Tzain. Amari conjures magic and has a streak of white in her hair, indicating that the ritual saved the divîners and gave some nobles a spark of magic.
Analysis
Though Khani uses the sunstone and saves Zélie's life, the word "maggot" remains etched on her back. Symbolically, this scar demonstrates that, though Zélie may recover her magic and purpose, the memory and trauma of Saran's torture and abuse will always remain with her. When Zélie falls asleep, she wakes up in Inan's dream world, signifying that she feels safest with him, which makes his betrayal more damaging.
The group travels through Jimenta, an area regarded as dangerous. When the mercenaries led by Roën prove to be sympathetic and helpful, the text reveals that, though the divîners suffer from being discriminated against, they also hold prejudices against other groups.
King Saran reveals the horrors of his past in a rare moment of father-son intimacy with Inan. The timing of Saran's reveal is significant, as the King only offers this information after Inan proves himself to be a valuable asset to the crown and what Saran considers as a good future king. Thus, Saran regards his children as little more than sênet pieces in the strategy game of politics.
Saran offers Inan a majacite sword that he had forged after his family's death at the hands of the maji. Saran made a weapon to represent his hatred and pain, demonstrating that pain and trauma yield violence. Inan accepts the sword, "ignoring the way it blisters" literally and symbolically. By accepting his father's orders, Inan physically injures himself and betrays the people he loves, namely Amari and Zélie.
Amari braids Zélie's now-curly white hair into warriorlike braids. Hair is a common motif throughout the text, with coarse, curly hair indicating a powerful maji. Though Zélie does not feel her magic, her curly hair displays her potential.
In the temple, Zélie's magic erupts from a place of grief and rage; it is unstoppable and destructive, like Zélie's sister goddess, Oya. This destruction is somewhat ironic, as Zélie spends most of the text dutifully adhering to the way of the staff, trying to protect those who could not protect themselves. Mama Agba said that "the staff does not destroy." Thus, in her rage, Zélie abandons the way of the staff and replaces it with something new.
