Page 109 of Ashes of Gold
In the distance, through a part in the trees is Jhamal heading our way with Kai and the Yakanna, in full armor, beside him. Zora turns, hearing the commotion. Her weapon falls from her fingertips and she runs to them. Kai is tough as nails, but I swear I see her lip tremble. They hug tight, spinning in a circle, and her sisters wrap around them. They hold it there, swaying, chanting something. I know that feeling. That feeling of one of your own coming home again, safe, okay. Nothing like it. As angry as I am with Jhamal, and Kai, I’m happy for the rest of them.
A horn blows, and in the far distance, behind Jhamal, are flocks of men in fur, curved blades attached to their arms. Beerchi. Shaun isn’t among them. It’s no secret what I left to do. It’s no secret what this spell will be able to do. And it says something that so many of Shaun’s people showed up to see it.
“Rue,” Julius says. “The moon.”
The sky’s black is starting to wash out to a deep shade of blue. I shove off concerns about who is watching and hurry to the grave. My people surround me, a tapestry of gray furs and gold and jade armor. Maybe… maybe this can finally bring us back together again? Could it be enough? My fingers shake but I exhale, trying to steady them. What if someone followed us? What if the Chancellor sees? Bri flashes me a thumbs-up, then crosses her fingers.
I bury the thoughts and kick off my shoes, stepping onto the soil where my Ancestors were buried. The very ground tingles under my feet and I fall to my knees, palms up, head back. Starting witha prayer just seems right. I search for the Seer’s words, trying to remember the instructions she gave.
When the sky is heavy with sorrow…
“Ancestors, rain. I need rain.” I dip the ends of Shaun’s hair and Bati’s in the jpango sap and set them in the dirt beside one another. Gray wisps of clouds roll in, and I thank the Ancestors for hearing my prayer. I sink my hands into the ground.
Chant, three times…
One.“U’shaka wesee,” I say. The tips of my fingers tingle under the soil and my arms gleam. The Yakanna fall to their knees, except Kai. She watches with bated breath. Jhamal stares, but I focus on the dirt between my fingers.
Two.“U’shaka wesee.” The dirt stirs like dust, unsettled. Something underneath the dirt touches my fingertips. I yelp but keep my hands still.It’s okay. It’s a bug. It’s a shift in the earth. It’s definitely not dead people’s fingers.The wind picks up and dirt rises higher, swirling in a cyclone around us. Thunder clatters louder overhead and the entire world darkens, rain drizzling around us. The wind gusts sharply, trees sway, some bent all the way over.
“They are coming,” someone says.
The Beerchi fall to their knees too.
Three.“U’shaka wesee.” Something in the dirt pulls me tighter to it and my elbows buckle. I’m prostrate on the ground with an invisible weight on my back. The fine debris raining in the air glints in the moonlight. I squint. The dirt is not dirt but ashes of gold.
The dust shifts to the shape of a person. First an outline of one person. Then another. Until there are several figures, silhouetted in golden dust.
The Ancestors.I gasp.
Their features are faint shadows, wisps that disappear if you stare too hard or too long. Even their clothes glisten so bright, you wouldn’t know the sun was hiding on the other side of the world. I sit up blinking, trying to make sense of what I’m seeing. Luscious cloaks wrap around their frames, jewels hug their knuckles, and sculpted metal rests on their nests of coiled hair. Golden stripes run down their arms, across their cheeks, and are dotted around their temples.
I reach for words, for breath, but I have neither. I’m frozen, facing my Ancestors in their full robed majesty.
“Who calls upon the Ancient Ones?” The earth trembles and the voice booms overhead like it’s coming from the clouds. I try to say something, but it comes out like a squeak.
One of the robed Ancestors steps forward, sweeping her hand in an upward motion, and somehow I am standing. Dust swirls around us, a backdrop of chaos, but in the center, I, the Ancestors, the Ghizoni, stand in an eye of calm.
“Rise, Jelani.”
My name.
They know my name.
Of course they know your name!
“A storm wars within this one,” one of the other Ancestors says, and the one closest to me steps closer.
“Do not be afraid, Jelani.”
I’m not,I want to say. But again, words escape me. Maybe I am? Maybe I’m terrified. She holds out her hand and I take it. Her skin is dust on my fingers, but grows warm the longer I hold it, skin materializing out of nothing. Where there was just the silhouetteof a woman written in swirls of dusty golden haze, now is a woman in fully human form, holding my hand. Her skin is richer than the lushest valleys on the earth. Her eyes hang like jewels beneath long lashes. Her nose curves and slopes widely, like the journey of the moon around the sun. She is perfection. A bed of jewels dot a tangle of metal resting on her head. Her hair is tightly coiled, braided with gold into a high bun. I smile, thinking of Moi Ike Yakanna and just how glorious she, too, must have been.
These aremypeople.
Thisis who I come from.
Iam part of them.
The truth of it is a weight on my chest, but in the best way.
