Page 15 of Ashes of Gold
I nod to appease him, but I can’t. I can’t just let it go. My people looked to me for answers of what to do, a plan that would work.
They trusted me to lead them.
And I sent them to their deaths.
I try to fight the tears that come as we fly up a flight of stairs cut into the wall. The wails grow louder. I sniff, trying to shove off the weight, the guilt, the shame, but it’s a stain I could never erase. How many of them survived? Kai, her girls… but who else? I want to ask her. But how do I even word that without it sounding insensitive? Why would she even tell me? I put some space between us, guilt worming its way deeper into me. I just need to see for myself.
We hurry down the hall, past cells, toward the exit. I look for afamiliar face. Bri? More Ghizoni? But the cells are all empty. My insides twist.Bri… where are you?
Magic tingles my fingers, waiting and ready, as we slip past a window. The room is empty, but I freeze, my father’s dying stare flickering in my mind like a candle that won’t blow out. The hope and promise he saw in me grating against the sallow, thin, weak person who stares back in the glass. This is not what he died for. For me to fail our people like this.
“Jelani, let’s move,” Jhamal says.
I tear myself from the quicksand of my guilt as we spill out into a dimly lit corridor where a Patrolman is standing sentry. His gray skin is a sickly yellow in the hall light. I recognize him; he’s one of the ones who escorts the server who brings us our midday meal. He glances at a door at his back when another wave of wails ripple through the air. I blink and see smoke.Away.I blink again, and thank god the image is gone.Focus, Rue.
“There should be more guards,” I say under my breath. Jhamal nods in agreement.
With endless time on my hands, noting the rotation of the guards in our cell corridor became a hobby. They operate with a particular decorum, even just standing duty. They stick together in groups of five, always. One in front, two in back, and one on each flank. The onyx stones fused to their wrists glow, as if they’re hungry to strike anyone who might buck up against them. And one of the rear guards usually carries a blade.
But this guy’s all alone.
“We need to go this way,” Kai says, unsheathing a spear tip from a sack at her back. Its point is gilded, like the one that poked through Breakfast Lady’s throat. “There’s just one of them. Sit tight, I’ll take care of him.”
I hesitate a moment. “N-no.” I grab her wrist, and a flicker of something in her eyes makes me let go. “Something is off.”
“I know what I’m doing.” She slips the pointed head into a gadget that pulls back. It springs into a place with a click. The guard’s head swivels in our direction.Shit.
He strikes first and Kai sends a dagger in his direction. But he’s fast. He twists out of the way and shoots magic back at us. I dodge and tug at the warmth gushing through me and let my magic rip through my hands. It burns through me, rekindling a part of me that I feared had all but burned out. This I know. This I can do. I fight. My magic blasts like a torch, the hallway glowing blue in the light. Jhamal is beside me, slashing a blade he got from Kai.
More Patrol slink from the shadows and we’re surrounded. Jhamal tries to charge past me, but like a reflex I shove him back. I aim and fire, dodging Patrol’s shots. But this time I miss and the wall above them explodes in a cloud of dust. I fire again, coughing. Aim. Fire. And again. Aim. Fire. My wrists are numb from the intense heat. I can’t tell if any shots are landing. I can hardly see. But I’m just so glad to feelsomethingbesides shame.
Someone moves on my right. I whip around to face them, fire erupting in my hands, and find myself nose to nose with Jhamal. The someone is behind him, magic sizzling through the air toward us both.
“Down!”
He ducks and I fling my wrists forward, pummeling a fireball at Patrol rushing up behind him. The fire catches the Patrol’s robes. He stumbles into a group of guards behind him and they all topple like dominoes.
Jhamal’s back up and we’re back-to-back, circling. His heart pounds against my back with rage and iron-willed determination. He, like me, sees the light at the end of the tunnel. He finally sees thattodaywe could smell the briny Ghizoni air, feel the sun on our faces. And he, like me, would die before letting that chance go.
I pivot and he moves with me, in sync as if he can predict my steps, hear my thoughts. A strike barrels toward us. His nostrils flare and his rage intoxicates me. In the best possible way.
“There,” I shout, pointing. We shift sideways as one and the streak of magic whirs past. Our eyes meet. When we’re together like this, fighting for our people, shoulder to shoulder, I am a part of him. In a way I couldn’t be part of anyone else. He gets why we have to win, why we have to survive this. It sets his jaw. And courses through him like fuel now.
Dust and bits of stone make it hazy. I squint for Kai, but all I see is a blur of gold, shifting and thrusting, followed by grunts and clangs.
“Help her. I’ll be fine,” I tell him.
Jhamal’s nostrils flare. “Not leaving your side.” The months might have slimmed his frame, but a lion still lives behind those eyes, and the ember for him that I buried begs for life.
But I deny it air.
I can’t.He doesn’t deserve the shell of a person I am. I can’t even look at myself in the mirror. How could he see me any differently? Magic dents my periphery.
“Jham—” Before I can get the words out, Patrol pops up through the smoke clearing and fires right at me. Magic whistles through the air.
“Yo’kuse,” I say, flinging my arms forward. A clear substance oozes from my fingertips and hardens into a barrier between us and them. Their magic slams into the wall and fizzles out with ahissss.
Where there were just a handful of guards, now there are at least a dozen. One sneers, his buddy joining him. They keep coming, two, no, three of them, firing at me. Their magic sails through the air like a thousand arrows loosed at once, and the barrier between us shatters in a shower of chimes.Shit. Shit. Shit.I throw my arms up, blocking as best I can. Bits of their magic and glass burn my skin, raining from overhead.
