Page 1 of Ashes of Gold
PROLOGUE
KAELI BERRIES DOT THEmorning leaves like dew; usually they sparkle in the sun’s rays, winking at me over the edge of the mountain peak.
But this morning there is no sun. No glittering water at the edge of the shore. This morning fog hugs the island like a scarf tied too tight. I squint through the hanging gray clouds, and a chill of air sweeps up my arm every few minutes. I tighten my sleeves around myself and clench my skirt tighter in my fist. The sooner we finish, the sooner we can get out of here.
Mornings like this, when the world is just waking up and the blood bugs are still asleep, Memi and I do our walks to gather. It is much cooler, so we do not return home as itchy. I work a few berries from branches where the leaves have fallen, and salty mountain air gusts my tightly coiled hair, the gold twine wrapped around it coming undone. The berries hide beneath the blooms of theshiskeflower, a thick red plant with toxic leaves. In their center is a tiny red berry, hiding like a pearl in an oyster.
I dig my fingers around a stubborn one determined to stay attached to its flower. The riper berries are softer, but too ripe and their sticky sweetness sours on the tongue. The blooms that are justopening are the perfect ones. Still hard on the outside, but when pestled are smooth, creamy, and sweet. The foliage on the island is thick with them, a tapestry of bendy black-bark trees dotted with red.
Jpango leaves curl and twist over one another, fighting for sunlight. I pull my shift up around my knees and pluck more red dots, dropping them in the belly of my skirt. I glance over my shoulder at Memi. Sweat drips from the edges of her head wrap. Tufts of salt-and-pepper hair coil up on top of her head like a crown. Her fingers work around the berries, and with one snatch of her wrist, she grabs a fistful to drop in her makeshift bucket. Her eyes flick to mine and her eyebrows jump.
“If you want that lekeraefor your ceremony,” she says, “you better fill that skirt faster.”
A smile tugs at my lips. Memi’s threats are as rigid as jpango sap. She is all sticky sweet. She’s been stocking up on kaeli for moons. Because tonight when the moon is highest, it will be my turn to dance the l’jyndego to the Ancestors. My turn to be presented to our clan as a woman in her own right. Kaeli lekerae is the first dish a girl eats after she becomes a woman. It is sacred, and to make it takes all day and thousands of berries at the precise sweetness.
I toss one in my mouth and move down the thorny bush, working my fingers between the leaves. I crane for another view of the water, hoping the sun has decided to wake and greet us too. But fog hangs, closer somehow, over stoic waves. An eeriness prickles my spine at the sight of the fog moving in from the ocean, hovering like a ghost. I scoot closer to Memi, picking berries in arm’s reach of her.
The Ancestors say the goddess of the sun smiles on us, washingus in her warmth. And her lover, the god of moon, smiles so radiantly at night—so captivated by her beauty that he glows too. But when neither shows their face, it is a foreboding day. A day for wrapping hands in prayer cloths and singing around the fire. The lines in Memi’s face say she senses it too, even if she doesn’t admit it aloud.
“Very good, then,” she says. “Come on. Before it gets too hot out here. You have a full day ahead.”
“Ya, Memi.” Today, the morning of my ceremony, I’d woken more tired than usual. I was up all night with Tomae picking out which silks and jewels to pair with my sash later today, deciding how to paint my face, and what beads would adorn my hair. Or messing up my hair more like. Little sisters are good at that. Tomae will not turn out for seven more years, so she’s wrapped up in furs still, fast asleep, while I’m out here. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I’ve waited on this day for as long as I can remember. Since Memi would fold me on her lap and let her rings swallow my fingers. She’d wrap me in her gold robes and kick out her ankles, showing me how to dance in praise to the Ancestors.
It was fun then. I swallow. Now the thought makes my insides wriggle like a bed of worms. What if the Ancestors think me not good enough? What if I dance wrong and when Memi reaches to put theusapaaround my neck, with its fine jade beads, what if…
My breath catches. No, I will not think it. I will turn out beautifully, just like my saisa and Memi and GraMemi and her saisas and every Yakanna before me. I clench my robes in my hand.
The fog is suddenly so blindingly close, I can hardly see the bushes of berries steps in front of me. I shudder.
“Memi, can we get back to the chakusa? The clouds are snoozingfar too close to the ground.” I touch my hair. It’s set in coiled rollers, and the humid air won’t be helpful for the style.
She gazes up to the sky and her brows kiss. “Yes, maybe you are right.”
Thunder rolls and I knot my skirt, the berries stored there like a sack dangling against my leg. I loop my arm under Memi’s and she grabs her walking stick and we turn back for our village. Her fingers hang loose at her side. Somewhere a branch cracks. She nudges me with her elbow and I let my hand hang by my side, tingling, warm, ready.
Ever since the veil was extended over the entire island, we have coexisted with the Grays. Most are friendly enough. They keep to their villages. We trade once each moon. They love our silk dyed robes and they’re very adept at metalworking.
But occasionally, a radical or two among the bunch gets beside himself, parched with ambition, envious at us—the “brown-skinned with magic” as they call us—and shoves his way into our village late at night, demanding we share our magic. Demanding we heal their ailing parent or some other reason they deserve to have what the Ancestors gave us: magic. We have rules, lines they cannot cross. When they barge in like that, armed with their sharp blades, with their demands and murder in their eyes, we cut them down. And tighten up our sentry patrols.
Thirteen have gone missing from our village in the past moon. Twenty-two before that. Four washed up on the shore, bloated and open-eyed. All appearing to have drowned. My chest pangs, my jaw tightens. The Grays did it… even the village Elders suspect it. But no one could ever prove it.
Memi taps her ears, snatching me from my ruing.Listen,I can practically hear her think. Branches crackle against the sound of crashing waves. It’s quiet, subtle, but goosebumps skitter up my arm. This part of the island is ours—its rivers, its trees, its kaeli berries. That’s the agreement. I bite down. And aside from Trading Meet each moon, no Gray has any reason to be over here. We respect their boundary. They never respect ours.
We buried the four by the Ancestors, next to Yiyo Peak. We pray daily that those gone live on with the Ancestors in eternal peace. Memi gestures for me to get closer to her. I do. Branches scratch my legs, but the cover of leaves isn’t one we can risk. If someone is following us, we know this part of the forest better than anyone. Heat tickles my fingers as we creep over branches. I won’t be a body washed up on the shore. I have a turning out ceremony today, a life to live, and if I’m to be all that Memi is, a clan to run… one day! A sick feeling twists in my gut remembering the faces, and yet so many are still missing. This should be a morning of celebration.If the Grays come for me…My knees shake, threatening to go out from beneath me.I-I will defend myself.
Something burns my leg, but before I can glimpse it, a flicker of movement between the branches catches my eye. I bend instinctively, crouching behind a thick jpango tree, hiding myself in its folds, my heart thumping.
Memi holds out a shaky hand, trying to push me behind her. I touch my burning leg and my fingers are sticky. The thorny branches cloaking us in safety cut me. I shift in my stance to get a better view of my leg and a few berries spill out of my makeshift bucket.The ceremony!I reach for them, not wanting to lose even one.
Memi gestures for me to be still, and I notice the fire rolling in her hand. I peer harder between the branches. There is a lone man, young from the looks of it. Skinny, with thin sharp features, a prominent nose, a well-defined jaw. He’s one of the well-to-do Grays. The ones with the larger plots of land. The leathers he wears and silver buckle at his waist both confirm his standing. He comes from a name, a family. Which means he knows the rules—well. But I guess he doesn’t think they apply to him.
He crouches at the edge of a muddy patch of water. He angles his back to us, and I tiptoe. But his shoulder blocks my view from seeing what he’s doing. He leans over the water like he’s taking a drink and fiddles with his pockets. I move a branch and step up on a rock for a better view, but my foot slips. Twigs snap under my feet. Memi cuts me an iron stare and I still.
The man is still hunched over the water; thankfully, he didn’t hear it. I study Memi to glean some meaning of what she thinks is going on. Why he is on our side of the island. To drink from our river? He has servants that fetch things like that for him, I’m sure. He stands up, dusting off his pants. His skin’s as red as a kaeli berry when he stares at the tree line again. His mouth thins and he pulls a blade I hadn’t even noticed lying flat in the dirt beside him. It’s longer than his arm. I gulp and I swear he looks through the branches right at us.
I gasp. And Memi’s thick fingers clamp across my face. Blood pools in my ears. I summon magic to my fingertips and fire erupts in my palm. I squeeze my hand closed and the fireball shrinks. I can’t risk him seeing the light.I don’t want to fight this man. But I will…. I will defend myself, my people, if I have to.I think ofMemi’s jade and gold armor that she’d left by her bed. Because why would she need to be armed picking berries with her daughter on the morning of her turning out?
