Page 125 of Ashes of Gold
“Look what you’ve done!”The scream thunders through me, my chest heaving with anger.
Kai reaches toward him as the Beerchi carry Jhamal, who is holding his wound, wincing in pain.
“No!You don’t get to touch him. You don’t get to look at him.”
“I-I just wanted to preserve us. I-I just wanted us to win. Once.” She scrambles up to her feet, deep lines creasing her face, which is swollen with tears. “I loved him so much.”
“Your love is poison.” I aim at her and magic coils around her like a rope, binding her where she stands. She doesn’t fight it. “Leave her there. She’s going to watch the terror she’s brought upon our people.”
I swivel, taking in the chaos around me. The door to the underground is wide open and Ghizoni and Macazi are everywhere, holding lead as shields, blocking streams of magic coming from the fewPatrol left. The Chancellor aims, shooting daggers as fast as he can, but he’s only one person. A Beerchi bears down on him holding a sheet of lead the width of his arms.
“Aarrrrgh!” He brings it down over the Chancellor’s head. But he blocks it. They wrestle, limbs tangled, when another Beerchi swings a solid right hook and the Chancellor’s head swims. He spews magic in every direction, woozy on his feet. His magic ricochets like a bullet until it hits a group of Macazi, and they topple over.
Taavi works through the crowd pressing her metal box to any Ghizoni she sees. They drop to their knees on contact, convulsing, temporarily paralyzed like I’d been. Then she binds them with rope.
“No!” I rush over and shove her out of the way, but she’s made short work of it, and a dozen, maybe more, of my people are folded on the ground. She gazes up at me, but where I expect to see grit and determination in her stare, I only see pain. Her hands tremble as she stuns another’s ankle as he rushes by. He falls.
“Stop it!” I pull her up by the collar and shake; the metal gadget falls from her hands and rolls away. “What’s gotten into you?”
Her shoulders slump, her lip trembling, the firm defiance and confidence she used to hold in her posture is fractured, broken.
“Why would you do this?”
“He’s my father, Rue. Myfather. Totsi never wanted it… b-but… I have a chance here. T-to show him…”
“Taavi,” I sigh, but before I can get the words out, something pinches my spine and my knees hit the dirt. The Chancellor’s broken free from the Beerchi and is coming after me. His magic stings my back and the spot is wet, sticky. Taavi rushes off as I pull myself up to find more of my people bound, limbs tied on the ground, theirlead weapons and accessories discarded. The winds that had blown in our favor are changing course and I’m running out of steam. Their glazed gazes pierce me.
I muster as much strength as I can and fire magic at the Chancellor. Flames roll through the air from my fingertips. “Fightme!”
My magic catches his sleeve and he stumbles backward.
“Leave my people out of this! I’m who you want. Me. My magic. Come take it!”
He gathers both his hands when a frail voice cracks the air.
“Xiiiirrrrre!”
His pale complexion drains. He’s white as a ghost.
“Andyou!” The Seer turns to Taavi, thunder booming overhead. “Youshould be ashamed of yourself.” Taavi folds in on herself, weeping, and I don’t even know who this woman is. Only deep regret can torture a person like that. She wore a tough mask, but in the end, she wanted what she would never be able to get from the coldhearted Chancellor: a father who loved her.
My people struggle on shaky limbs to pull themselves to their feet, some flinch less, the stun wearing off. The Seer hobbles toward the Chancellor, using a lead stick as a cane. “I had to see your face one more time.”
He doesn’t move, rigid with shock or fear or something equally as potent.
“Look at me, Xire. Look at your life’s work.”
He blinks and I call on my magic. He’s going to take her out any second, I just know it. I wait, but he stares, his hands unmoving.
“K-kitri.” He gulps. “I-I thought you were dead.”
“You’dhopedI was dead,” she hisses, taking another step, her skinpeeling in the direct sun. I want to go to her, to do something, but this is her moment and it’s been a long time coming.
“Did he tell you all how he founded this great land?” She addresses the Loyalists, but the Macazi, the Ghizoni look up too. “How he poisoned those good people’s Ancestors?”
“Well… I didn’t technically. You did.”
Lightning crackles and the world darkens. Cold droplets of rain pelt my skin.
