Page 111 of Ashes of Gold
“Hey, I didn’t know you were in here. Thought everyone was out there.”
“Taavi wanted me to sit with the witch. So I stayed behind. Are you okay?”
“I don’t know.” I regret it the moment I say it. She sits beside me rubbing a hand over her shaved head.
“I don’t know either.”
“What do you mean?”
“Something is strange with Taavi. Ever since we left.”
I let the silence sit and she fills it, the distraction a balm to my panic. I focus on my breathing, listening.
“She trusts me and keeps me close, helping her out with things. She’s very to herself. But it’s like whatever I do lately, I’m doing something wrong. I got yelled at for bringing you all to camp the other night when I was supposed to be scouting.
“But you were scouting; that’s how you found us.”
“I know, but she wasn’t happy when I just showed up with you all. Then she was asking all sorts of questions about what I’d told you. I assured her I spoke to you with only the most respect. As any of us should.”
“Rojala.”
“Yes?”
“I’m no one special. I’m just me, Rue.”
“But that is exactly it. You are different from anyone Taavi’s had dealings with before. And we’ve met some characters. You…”
“I promise you, half the time I don’t know what I’m doing.”
She laughs. “Me either. When I got stuck on the grid and you found me, I had been trying to dig out this thing glittering in the pavement. I swear I saw it every time we stopped for water. Just a little flicker of something silver burrowed in the ground.” She digs in her pocket and drops a silver pin in my hand no bigger than a bobby pin. “But digging it out almost burned my feet off. And it’s not even anything. Just some dumb piece of metal.”
I turn it in my hands, then tuck it in my pocket. Her instincts,the way she questions herself. I stare at the girl, who couldn’t be more different from me on the outside, and see so much of who I am within.
“You don’t always have to know what you’re doing,” I say. “It’s okay to try something and mess up. And learn from it.”
“I guess.” Her voice is far-off. The night’s glow is barely visible on her face, but I can hear her shoulders slump in her tone.
“Everyone always looks to you for answers,” she says. “More so than even Taavi now.” Her tone lightens, like the thought pleases her. This girl trusts me and lord only knows what I did to deserve it.
I shift in my seat. “I just try to be true to who I am. I’m just me.”
“Out here I feel like it’s my chance to figure that out,” she says, drawing circles in the dirt. “Show the Macazi who I can be for them.”
“Don’t be who they need you to be. Be who you need to be for you.”
She smirks, considering.
Why is it always so much easier to give advice than take it?
“How do you know who you are?” she asks.
I sit back and take in the dregs of the night air.That’s a good question.“I guess I think about where I came from.”
She studies me for several moments. “You will make a good Queen.”
“Rojala, I’m not going to rule Ghizon.”
A stolen peek of moonlight darts between the branches, illuminating her tilted-eyed stare. She didn’t hear the Ancestors. She wasn’t out there. This is her unadulterated opinion of me too. Her conclusion grates and I pick at my skin. Thoughts of home swim in my memory. Tasha’s tie-dye everything, my oldbed. Moms’s hug. My lip trembles. I bite it so it stops.
