Page 2 of Ashes of Gold
The man still stares and tears sting my eyes, panic climbing like bile in my throat. Memi hasn’t moved, but terror is etched in her wrinkled expression. Her hand loosens over my mouth. He sees us. I just know it. He knows we’re here. The swollen bodies we buried just days ago flicker through my memory. I swallow hard, letting the fire in my hand swell. I’ve never fought anyone before. I haven’t even been fitted for armor. That doesn’t happen for three more years after turning out.
Memi mouths the word “stay.” I grip her wrist, my nails digging in.Wait, don’t leave me here,I want to scream, but a word right now could be a knife at both our throats. She unlooses the knot in her dress, and the bunch of berries, hours of labor, spill out like blood on the soil. I tug on my knot tighter, willing mine to stay put.
“I know you’re there,” the Gray says. He holds open his empty hand and stabs his blade in the dirt. “There. I’m friendly. See? Just needed a drink is all. Long day of walking.”
“You’ve broken the territory agreement,” Memi says, stepping out. “Why are you here?”
“A thirst is all.”
A thirst? But I don’t see a canteen.
“You need a blade that large to get a drink? You have your own rivers to drink from. Trespassing is a punishable offense. But I’m merciful. Get out of here.” She lets the fire in her hand go out and shoves the air. A gust of wind obeys Memi’s command, shoving the Gray off his feet. The trees behind him tip over. He stumblesup but doesn’t flee like I think Memi hoped he would.
I let the fire simmer in my shaky hand and duck down lower.I will be ready if she needs me.
She raises her fist and pulls it back down. The sky darkens and thunder claps answering to the call of her magic. Lightning touching down behind him.
The Gray flinches, his nostrils flaring.
“You think me stupid?” she asks. “Why are you here?” She peers at the water closely.
“To getwater.” His lips are a thin line somewhere between anger and scared as he gets up, dusting his pants. “That is all. I was taking a hike.” He pats his pockets and pulls out a container, something like a canteen, and hands it to Memi.
“See for yourself. It’s very refreshing.”
“No!” I step out of the foliage. “Don’t drink that, Memi. He never filled that canteen from the river, I was watching!”
She turns her back to him to face me, her expression wide with fear.
I go cold all over as I realize my mistake.
A blur of metal flashes behind her and Memi grunts in pain, falling to her knees. Red. So much red. I’m frozen, my legs locked in place with terror.Your magic! Do something.But I only manage to blink.
“You should have stayed hidden in the forest, girl,” the Gray says, blade slick and red, held high. Memi is on the ground and she does not move. A cry dies in my throat as I turn to run. I rush through the forest, thorns scratching my legs.My magic.I try to summon it, but fear overcomes whatever bravery I’d thought I’d had and myfeet fly across the familiar passageways. The trails I’ve walked with Memi and Tomae year after year. A patch of sunlight peeks through the trees up ahead and my heart flutters.
He won’t catch me. He won’t.
Leaves patter behind me. The Gray’s breath is heavy, louder, closer as he gains on me. My knotted shift catches on a jagged branch, yanking me to a halt. He’s so close I can smell him. I tug and pull, snatching the fabric tethering me to the tree. It rips. Metal overhead blots out the ray of sun.
Berries from my makeshift sack spill, painting the forest floor red.
CHAPTER ONE
THE ENEMY LIES INwait to bleed my people.
To litter the homeland with our bones.
To bury its secrets.
But first he has to go through me.
I crouch in the brush surrounding Yiyo Peak for a better view of the Chancellor and his men. The sun washes Ghizon in shades of evening. Bleak wasteland stretches before me, scorched and burning. Blackened jpango trees are claws raised in sacrifice to the Ancestors. An armament of uniformed Patrol stand where there was once a field of lush vegetation and wispy grass, onyx glowing on their wrists.
Pangs churn in me—for justice, for the death of my parents, for the terror the Chancellor has caused my Ghizoni people, for the magic on his wrists that isn’t his own. He’d made sure the treachery was scrubbed from the island’s textbooks. But bones whisper from their graves if you listen hard enough.
My gilded arms warm instinctively with power, but I blow out a breath.Easy, Rue.With my Ghizoni people nearly magicless, it’s basically me against thousands of Grays, the Chancellor’s men. I have one shot at this and timing is everything.
Yiyo, the home my people have hidden in for years, sits behind us, perched in the middle of the forest. The Ghizoni and I hide in the foliage around it, clad in armor. I duck down lower behind thick waxy leaves to get a better glimpse of the enemy’s movement. Everything he and his men have touched in the past three days of this siege has been destroyed. The Chancellor paces so rigidly, I expect to see steam rise off him. As if he’d burn every piece of beauty in the world if it would secure his power.
