Chapter Twenty-Five: Zélie

Zélie, Amari, and Tzain sneak beneath the arena after the bloodbath to reach the sunstone, tracing its heat to a locked iron door. Zélie picks the padlock, but the rusted wheel breaks and the door won’t open. As guards approach, they hide among crates of blastpowder.

A white-haired divîner boy is cornered and savagely beaten by the announcer and guards. Unable to stand by, Zélie reveals herself but improvises, claiming she wants to enter the games. The ploy spares them discovery, and the trio retreats to the desert sands, realizing they can’t steal the stone under heavy guard.

Pressed for time before the solstice, Zélie proposes using an incantation from Lekan’s scroll—Reanimation of the Dead—to raise spirits in the arena as hidden soldiers. Despite Amari’s concerns and Tzain’s caution, they agree Zélie should try to learn it before deciding their next move.

Alone under the cold night, Zélie repeatedly fails to summon ashê and resists the temptation of blood magic, recalling her mother’s fatal warning. She notices she hasn’t sensed the dead since the arena and remembers Minoli, a girl whose peaceful final memory of farming in Minna contrasts with the arena’s torment.

Invoking the incantation by name and memory, Zélie’s sênbaría flare, ashê floods her body, and sand whirls into an animated figure. Minoli’s spirit, formed from the dunes, touches Zélie’s cheek—proof the magic works—before Zélie collapses into unconsciousness.