Page 82 of Ashes of Gold
She’s sitting upright when I find her, held up by a pile of bags at her back. Her legs are thin little things sticking out from underneath a thin white shift. Her hair is pulled back into a bun. Taavi must have done that.
“The sun is not what it once was.” The old woman titters to herself. “I used to love it. But it’s such an ancient friend that now I’m afraid it’ll burn my skin.” She tucks her feet under the edge of her garment.
“We plan to move as fast as possible. And hopefully stick underground.” I sit down next to her and she darts a glance in every direction.
“Are you liking being out of there?” I ask. “Where Taavi kept you, I mean.”
“Like? I cannot say yet. But I knew you would take me. I have tobe there, you see. I am part of this now. I’ve always been part of it, really.”
Uneasiness coils in me. “You have to be where?”
Her hand cups mine. “This mind is a curse. Each piece in its own time. You understand?”
“I don’t.” I scoot closer. “Help me understand.”
“It’s a curse,” she hisses, gripping my hand so tight I wince. But the flicker of anger or whatever it was dissolves as fast as it came, and she loosens her grip. “Tell me about the rain. I haven’t felt it on my skin in so long.” She rests her head back. “Tell me, child. Go on.” She’s a different person out of her cell. Much less frightening. Without the stone walls and her dank lair, she could be anyone’s grandma.
“The rain? O-okay, uhm. Where I’m from it rains a lot. Well, the weatherman says it’s going to rain all the time, but who knows if it’s actually gonna happen. It’s at least cloudy most days.” I glance at her and her eyes are still rolled back, so I keep going. “But, uhm, here on the island we get storms, a lot.”
“Warm summer rains were my favorite,” she says, eyes darting behind her eyelids and a smile tugging at her lips. “We used to lie out in the rain. Come back covered in mud. Memi hated that.”
“Rain and my hair don’t get along. So, I’m not a fan.” I laugh.
“Your hair is so beautiful. A crown.” Her eyes are open now, her neck rolled in my direction.
I tilt my head, trying to see the monster, the witch Taavi described. “Can I ask a freebie?” I hold up my hands. “I have no gold. Only blood.”
“I cannot tell you anything about your future without payment, that is the way it works.”
“Well, it’s about you….”
Her nose scrunches in confusion. “Well, that is different, I suppose.” She doesn’t say anything else.
“What happened to you? How did you get this way?”
She sighs and her gaze is far off… a lifetime away. “Love is so very blind, child.” She pauses and I let the silence hang there. “I loved him more than anything. He promised me the world, his loyalty, a future… but when he got what he wanted… he was gone. I was left”—she gestures at herself—“like this.”
Damn.“Your partner did this to you? Whatever happened to him?”
“Oh, child.” She coils a string of hair around her finger. “The man I loved died a long time ago.”
“That’s so messed up. And you have to just live like this?” Her telling me not to trust just anyone was deeply rooted. It was personal.
“Never love anyone or anything so much that it changes who you are, what lengths you’ll go to. That is not love, child. That is fear. Fear no one.”
“I don’t fear the Chancellor… or Shaun or any of them.” I dig a circle into the dirt with my finger.
“You do fear something, though.” She runs a bony finger across my brow. “It hides in the lines on your face, the lilt in your tone, the way you gird yourself in armor. Not armor in the traditional sense, of course.”
I press my lips close, but thoughts needle at me. Her stare, which was so eerie in the dim blue light of her prison, is now so much clearer. She’s carrying much pain. I’m not afraid of her…. She doesn’t want to hurt me. She wants to help me.
“Peoplediedso I could have this shot.” I sigh. “And Istilldon’t even remember everything from prison. The memories are just gone… wisps. What if there’s more I can’t remember? Critical pieces of what happened on the battlefield that made things shift in his favor. I-If I fail again.…”
“Failing is a part of it. He never understood that, either.” She laughs, but it pangs with regret more than joy. “His ambition was like a poison, a rot that festered until it took over all of him and eventually killed him. He died, but now that I think on it, did he ever really live?”
“He sounds awful.”
“He was gone by the time I found I was with child, twins. He knew his dealings had cursed me and yet he never came back to check on me or them, see how we fared. Tavi and Tot hated him for it. They never forgave him for what he did to me. They were convinced he must be a monster, especially Totsi. But even still…” She writhes in pain. “Wh-when I think of him, all I see is a man I pitied, a man I once l-loved.” She shudders and I grimace, watching her stoke such toxic memories that are obviously mingled with some sort of love. “There is a part of me that I’ve tried to bury that still loves him. Love is stubborn like that. A stain determined to leave its mark.” She gestures at herself. “Some more visible than others.”
