Page 112 of Wings of Ebony
“Grow stronger in the pain.”
He smiles, brushing a hair out my face. “Spoken like a true Ghizoni.”
“IamGhizoni,” I say, and his smile deepens.
The cuffs rattle on my wrists, gleaming.It’s happening.
His eyes close and he exhales.
The cuffs cinch tighter.
His chest stills and the skin on my wrists burns, like the cuffs are piercing the marrow of my very bones.
He shudders and his time spell dissolves, the world whirring back into motion. The sound of sirens wailing, people chattering, clamor for my attention. But I only have eyes for my dying father. He stares up at me and his eyes are as deep as the ocean, but still.
He’s gone.
The finality of it washes over me, when faint whispers play in my ear.
Ancestors… I hear you.
I am listening.
Really listening.
Something wiggles more violently. I’m so close, so close to this power I can feel it. I squeeze my eyes shut, urging my fury to dance with my pain, clutching my dead father’s robes.
People stop and stare. I don’t care.
“Ahhhh!”I cry out. My skin feels like it’s been set on fire and turned inside out. Moms’s stilled expression flashes in my mind, the Elders uprooting the trees, commanding the rain, my father’s dead stare, Brian’s blood everywhere… the memories wanna choke me. But instead, my anger erupts in flames.
Both cuffs cinch tight and my arms shudder and shake.
I don’t breathe.
I can’t see.
I bite back a scream as my cuffs melt, molten gold running down my arms like honey, hardening into a shell over my flesh. My arms glisten and voices chant in my ear, “Alaya nah, ick e’bah.”
I am stronger. I am.
Greatness… power… strength.
I feel my magic there like a weight in the deepest part of myself. I reach for it and heat rushes from my center, snatched along like a string. I hold up my hands and release. What feels like a hundred lifetimes of stored energy rips through my hands, gushing like a blowtorch.
The ground shudders.
Thunder rolls.
Lightning cracks.
My magic is back.
CHAPTER 33
EAST ROW’S PICKING UPthe pieces around me.
I sent Aasim’s body back to Yiyo with a quick spell. People clear away trash piles and hug one another, crying. A few who were around when my magic blasted give me weird looks. But most ignore me. There’s so much chaos in repair, I’m a detail on the periphery.
