Page 129 of Ashes of Gold
“Jhamal, no, stay with me, please.” My voice cracks. “I-I can get you out of here. I…”
“No,” he breathes. “Sssh. The last moments I have, I will look upon the sun. Smile for me, my Queen.”
I sniffle and force my lips to curl; tears are salty on them.
“Please!” I cry out, turning my palms upward and looking up. “Ancestors, if you can give me anything, do anything for me in this moment, please keep his heart beating.” I collapse, crying on his chest. “Please, I’m so sorry I doubted your loyalty. I’m so sorry I…”
“You had to protect your heart. Protecting things is your gift. It is what you do. I will leave this world loving you and you loving me. Knowing he tried to take you from this world, and I helped stop it.” His eyes close and I hold on to the hum of his breath against me, growing more shallow by the second. I press him to me as if that’ll save him. As if that’ll make it possible to hold him here. Moments pass and I don’t breathe.
He goes still in my arms, a smile painted on his lips.
And my heart bleeds.
CHAPTER FORTY
IT’S BEEN AN ENTIREday since Jhamal died in my arms and somehow it feels like a decade. I laid awake last night replaying the stories he’d told me when we were locked up together. I remember the way he looked at me, and the entire world quiets. I hold my eyes closed, as if doing so lets me hold on to him. He had a scent about him and I would give the world if I could smell it once more. I move down the corridor and he is in every moment, every conversation, and the spaces between them.
I chew my lip and blow out a breath, steadying myself on the door outside the cell where Kai’s been locked away. I have to talk to her. I’m not even sure what to say, but that doesn’t absolve me of responsibility. And if I’m honest… she is Yakanna, my saisa, and she is hurting.
With a wave of my hand the lock on her door clicks open. I slip inside and find her hunched over a small wooden box, pulling at scraps of paper inside. She doesn’t even glance in my direction. I settle in a chair in the corner. Her room is in disarray—bed toppled over, linens tangled, food bowl overturned, her grief on display. I settle into my seat, careful to honor the silence.
Her topknot is unbraided and hangs in tight coils, draping herface and back. From the bottom down she’s still dressed in her armor, but her new breastplate is cracked in half, her left side exposed, bare. Smeared paint mixed with tears runs down her cheeks as she brings another scrap of paper to her face. I can faintly make out scrawly handwriting on the page. She plucks a jade from the box, drawing circles on its glassy surface before returning it. She pulls at threads on her pant leg before turning her glassy-eyed stare my way. She says nothing, but I hear her.
“I’m sorry,” I say, sensing the invitation to speak. “I know you loved them both.”
We sit like that until the light dims in the room, so dark I can barely make out either of us. I rotate an orb affixed to the ceiling.
“Feey’l.” Flames swell in the glass and the room brightens. I skirt my chair and take a chance, sitting on the floor beside her. “Kainese, I know you didn’t kill Doile. I’m not here to judge you. I’m here to listen.”
Her eyelids lift and her sullen stare burns into me.
“When I was little, Memi used to say I was fearless.” She glances at her bare left shoulder. “She was wrong.” She stands, her hands worrying one another. “I would like to say I’d never hurt my family, that I would do anything to keep them safe, to honor the Mother, protect my people. And yet somewhere in that haze I forgot what Memi’s words truly meant.”
She turns to me. “Memi meant fear would not drive me, love would. And I believed that. I held on to it so tight, pressed it to my face so firmly, that I could not see anything around it. How could I? Memi’s fearless daughter, blood of the Mother herself, lose footing? Never. Every step I took was so sure in the beginning.”
Her fingers graze a gemmed pin on her bedside table. “When you came to this island and Jhamal was sure of who you would be, what you’d become, I accepted it. I believed you would be perfect.” She smirks. “You see the irony, don’t you? I thought you’d be everything I was sure I was. But as you made missteps, and people began to die, I saw the fractures in your exterior. I saw that you were not perfect, infallible. And—” She drops her head. “That is where my first misstep was…. I wassureI could never stumble the way you had. I was sure that I could do it better. I would….”
A tear drips from her chin. “So when the Chancellor offered me the opportunity to lead our people in this new version of Ghizon, offering freedom and annexation and all of these golden promises, I told myself I was doing the right thing. When he told me to break you out of prison and make it look like I fought my way in, I believed misleading you was the only way to hold on to the glittered vision of the future he’d promised. I was certain the sacrifices were necessary. I am Kainese, the Mother’s own. When Jhamal pressed that I should support you and I made him choose, he folded, and I took it as a sign from the Ancestors that this was the way. Funny how when we are blind we can interpret things any way that suits us. I told myself what I was doing was right. When I thought Shaun killed Doile, I told myself, ‘See? I am not like him.’ When I made Zora promise me”—her voice cracks and the hand at her lip trembles—“sh-she would gain your trust and tell me everything, I knew she would obey, because Zora believed if I was leading her a way, that must betheway. I told myself I was shepherding her like a good leader would.”
She inhales a shaky breath. “And when I saw her betray thatblood oath… I knew the magic of the spell would slay her. But I told myselfshedid that to herself, not me.” She sobs and I wrap my arms around her. She is heavy on my shoulder, weeping.
“When Jhamal jumped in front of that dagger for you… when I knew he’d only pretended to support me, plotting and lying to me…” Her eyes harden. “That is not him, Jelani. I’ve known him since we were small. Jhamal’s heart is more pure than all our gold. So when I saw him do that… I-I…”
But she doesn’t finish. She paces the room a few times before settling back on the floor. I’m not sure what to say, so I keep quiet, give her space to process.
She huffs, meeting my stare. “It sounds so naive in hindsight, doesn’t it?”
“I-I mean, I’m not one to judge.”
“I swear to you, Jelani, darkness creeps in like music, like an intoxicating melody playing to our own vanities. And Idanced, Jelani….” She sniffles. “I was blind to the fragility of my own humanity. That I could be driven by anger or pride. That I could be wrong, Jelani.” Her shoulders shake from her crying.
“May I?” I ask, holding the edge of her armor. She nods, muffling her cry as I unstrap her breastplate. I set it on the ground and what’s left are both her bare shoulders, round with muscle, and yet slender and fragile. I set my hands on her right shoulder and I take her hand and put it on mine.
“You’re no more imperfect than I am, saisa. And I am sure the Mother is smiling with pride right now.”
She meets my eyes.
“If I’ve learned anything through all this, Kai, it’s that it’sthesemoments, like this one right now, that define who we are. And when we mess up, because we all will, the people we keep around us hold us up through it. The goal isn’t tonotfall….” I take her hands in mine. “It’s to get back up.”
