Page 45 of Ashes of Gold
I want to tell her it’s gon’ be real. That our people ain’t gon’ be forced to live this way, broken and in secret. That we will bloom onthis island like kaeli flowers once did. But my words are wind. After everything I’ve done, every way I’ve failed, the only words she needs are actions.
The silence hangs between Zora and me as we stick to the perimeter, getting closer to Totsi’s. I’m careful to avoid walking in wide-open spaces. The Chancellor’s watchtower of an office is a dot up ahead at the far end of the Central District. I grit my teeth and press into the wall nearest us, sliding along its edge. It’s too far for him to see us, but if he’s up there, I don’t want to take any chances.
Jhamal falls in step with us and heat blossoms in me. In gratitude and something else I’m not ready to give words to. “Thanks for everything earlier. I’m really glad you came.”
He smiles, then winks. I hide my grin.
I check for Bri. She’s still to herself, quiet. As we walk, I pause every few moments, listening. We pass the Binding Ward, where onyx was attached to my skin before I knew I didn’t need that stolen toy. Before I knew the Ancestors’ magic lived in these cuffs and in me. It’s a heap of wreckage and something in me twists with joy. So many lies. Everything he built here was mortared in deception. Brick upon brick.
There’s so much carnage. Those fighting the Chancellor must be coordinated. Buildings tall and crumbled, the Justice Ward is a hollowed-out shell of a building. This is highly organized retaliation. Definitely not just some angry rioters. Smoke rises from a hill in the distance, from a residential neighborhood.
“Is that…?”
Bri shakes her head. “But my neighborhood is not that far from there.”
The Chancellor clearly has plenty on his side, too. And they fight dirty. Burning people’s homes? That’s low as shit. Bri chews her lip. I don’t know what to say that I haven’t already said, so I squeeze her hand. I think of Tasha, Bri’s little brothers. How she must be worried about her family.
“Hey, I meant to ask… any way I can use this watch to call Tasha?”
She shakes her head. “I only put that coding into your watch. Which you left with Julius. Sorry, Rue.”
“It’s okay.” Thankfully, Julius can check on things for me. But Bri… she has no way to know if the next neighborhood burned will be hers. “Bri, I’m sorry. I know this is a lot.”
“Stop apologizing. I chose to be out here in this fight with you. When the tyrant falls from his pedestal, we all win. This is my fight too.” She walks on ahead, and there’s nothing I can say. She’s right. The side of right isn’t hazy. There is no neutrality anymore. You’re either supporting the tyrant or fighting to see him fall.
We keep moving through a thicket silence. Other than a few strays, the occasional rustle in the brush, there’s nothing out here. No Patrol patrolling. No Dwegini or Zruki anywhere. I wrap around myself, the cool breeze chilly on my damp skin. The Capital is a dead zone… and yet somehow it feels like hundreds are watching.
“How do you put up with her?” asks Zora, who has stuck even closer by my side since the fire trap. “I do not understand. She is so clumsy, and her head is always in her bag of rocks. And for what?”
I snort and Zora smirks, but inside, my stomach flops like a fish. The unity on this island is tenuous at best. Is it foolish to hope we can coexist somehow?
“There’s some really useful stuff in that bag though… usually,” I say, skirting a crack in the pavement. “She grows on you. Give it time.”
“No, thank you.” Zora resituates the ring in her nose and tugs at her armor, wiggling to adjust its fit. “You can have her.”
Closer now, I can see the bits of jade are painted in ornate patterns, but the gold itself sparkles with a green undertone as if crushed gems were dusted over its surface. She still wears the rings and bells from Kowana Yechi; her left ear is adorned with seven thin gold loops, one in her nose and a gold band up her left arm. Her right arm, in fact her entire right side, is bare of any adornment.
“The armor the Yakanna wear is real dope looking. So beautiful.” I tug at the breastplate that’s like a steel blanket wrapped around my chest. “I mean… as far as armor goes… not like I have a lot of experience with it or anything.”
“I think you have a lot of experience that matters more than most of us.” She glances at my gilded arms. “Did it hurt?”
“Oh my god, yes! Like lava searing into your skin.”
She shudders. “Well, worth it, no?”
“Very much.”
I study her. She’s a flame, lethal, but I’m drawn to her like I’ve known her for years. Is that our Yakanna bond? “I notice you only wear things on your left. Everything on your right is bare. Is that intentional?”
“You are very observant.” She takes off a bell from her hair and a few loops from her ear and hands them to me to look at closely. “You think a lot more than you speak.”
The rings are surprisingly heavy. Solid Ghizoni gold. And thetiniest patterns are etched into their sparkling surface. “Well… I wasn’t always that way. I learned the hard way. A work in progress, really.”
“And you wear humility like a crown.”
My cheeks burn and I don’t know what to say, so I just look away.
“And yes, Jelani. Mother Yakanna believed the heart is forged with two cavities, the right filled with fear and the left side filled with love. If you are standing on the very edge of a mountain’s edge, are you more captivated by the love of the view or the fear of falling?”
