Page 12 of Ashes of Gold
“The mind is not above our tricks,” he says.
“We must go through the motions, keep living as much as we can every day, to maintain soundness of mind. To keep a firm grip on our sanity.”
His proposition to kiss memightbe about soundness of mind like he says, but it’s equally about… kissing me. I ain’t dumb. This is his way of holding on. We eat, recite spells, tell stories, then sleep. Every day it’s the same thing. And Jhamal doesn’t get nightmares like I do, but he does have this faraway stare each morning. And he makes sure I fall asleep first. When I wake every morning, his gaze is always already glued to the ceiling. But when our eyes meet, he’s all warmth and optimism.
He’s starting to think we might really die here.
He just doesn’t want me to think it too.
“They are just fattening us up for slaughter,” I say. “I’m not sitting here waiting for it.” What else explains why no one has seen us but the people who bring us meals? A draft moves from the hole overhead, and I run my fingers across the stone. Solid rock all around us.
“I do not know what they want, my Queen, but it makes no sense to capture us and keep us prisoner, feed us well, keep us alive. That is not the Ghizoni way. It is most honorable to end a life you intend to take with swiftness, or bring the Ancestors’—”
“… wrath down upon you. I know.” Jhamal’s storytelling has been a much welcomed sleeping aid the past couple of months. Honor and warrior ethos is apparently very important to my people here. I told him we have a code back home, too: ride or die. That’s what we call it.
“If the Chancellor wanted to kill us, we’d be dead. He wants us alive.”
“All I’m sure of is that he wants my cuffs, and I’m not sitting around any longer for him to decide to try to take them off me again.” I have a weapon, finally. This is our chance. I press deeper into the shadow. “I saw—”
But the words escape me, images rushing at me too fast to catch them.
Smoke.
Ash.
Death.
My father’s smile flickers in my memory. The joy stamped in his eyes even once their light had faded. Breathe, Rue. I shove out the air through gritted teeth, determined to grab my lucidity firmly with both hands.Five… four… three… two… one.
The images flee.
I clench my fist. The Chancellor is going to pay for what he’s done.
“So, what exactly are we going to do to her?” he whispers.
“We’re just going to scare her,” I say. “Convince her to give us her keys. We won’t hurt her.”
Jhamal sighs, but he falls in line beside me. When she comes down the hall, she won’t see the shadowed corner we’re in until she’s within arm’s reach.
We press against the wall, listening. I press a finger to the fork’s tip. Out pops a bubble of red. I suck my finger and dig my nails into my palm, clenching the weapon. Anticipation coils in me like a snake.
“Je—”
“Quiet,” I say. “She won’t even see it coming.”
“Outwit your enemy by convincing them they are your friend.”
Here he goes again.
“Feed the enemy until he eats from your hand, so when you lace it with poison…”
“… he will take it without question. I know your little warrior-isms, Mal.”
“Juh-mal.”
“I like Mal.”
“It is Juh-mal.”
