Page 21 of Ashes of Gold
“You will not speak this way to the Ancestors’ Chosen,” Jhamal says. “Kainese, you dishonor the gods with your loose tongue.”
Kai sucks her teeth with a hiss. But she says nothing else, just leads the way.
“You don’t have to do that,” I say to him out of Kai’s earshot. But he says nothing, just holds his chin up.
“I can handle mine, really.” I step away from him so he knows I mean it.
His adoration and protection of me is kind, sweet. But it’s his love for the Ancestors, for his people, crown jewels of Ghizoni pride, that sets his shoulders square—makes him puff out his chest. After my mistake, I don’t deserve a spot on that list.
CHAPTER SIX
WE HURRY ACROSS ANOTHERstreet and the quiet is eerie. Broken glass crunches under my feet and trash litters the street. It’s an upward incline and my thighs burn. Once we reach the top of the hill, I can see the District fully. Smoke from far off somewhere rises to clouds. The City is a carcass with burned bones. Businesses are dead, no people wander the street. Katsu’s is empty where patio chairs used to be teeming with students, their fizzy drinks in hand on a study break this time of day. A screen still hangs from a high-rise that’s somehow still standing. But its screen is glitching, black and white lines of static across it.
The truth of the Chancellor’s “great” land is bursting through like a boil preparing to pop. I dig my nails into my palm. The memory of his angry mug taunts me, his grimace when he told me I shouldn’t exist, the way he let the General play his games, killing my people back in East Row. My wrists warm at the thought and my fingers twitch. When I went up against him… what exactly did I do that made things go wrong? I look for the memories of how we started losing, but they’re not there.
I glance back at the Chancellor’s tower. How can a land be greatwhen it’s nailed together with lies and nourished with poison? When it was built on bones, then dressed in half-truths? If he thinks his City is fractured now, wait until I’m done with it.
Ashes will rise.
Blood will boil.
And those stolen from will take.
The Chancellor will pay. For stealing my people’s magic, forcing them to live in hiding. What would my father say? Would he be proud? Even if I messed up the first time?
I glance at Zora, then Kai, and can’t help but admire her posture. The way she moves. I need the Yakanna, Jhamal, all of us united. But something in Kai’s body language, the way she moves, the knowing way she runs everyone around her, tells me that will be easier said than done. I turn to Jhamal, walking close enough to him to feel his warmth.
“You think—” I start, when something dents my peripheral vision. “We’re not alone. Quick.” I gesture at a lamppost across an intersection. Kai’s girls move in one motion, bare shoulder pressed into the back of the girl in front of them. We duck behind a pile of debris as the growing footsteps get louder. The Chancellor’s footmen march past, sentries patrolling. We stick tight together and I notice how the Yakanna curve around one another, moving as one unit. Except for Zora, who is stuck to my side. Jhamal’s on my other side, wariness written into his brow. He needs food, rest. He’s held up the strength of the both of us for so long.
“Left,” the Patrolman yells, and his men rotate on their heels. The drum of their footsteps races my pulse. If they even so much as look in our direction, we’re caught.
“Halt.” The march comes to a standstill, their knotted fingersover their chests, when a siren wails. We scurry backward to tuck farther behind an old rusted communal trash dump, and I swear if that Patrolman listens hard enough, he could hear my thumping chest. A truck rolls to a stop beside them.
“Macazi,” the driver says to the sergeant leading the march. “Sixty degrees north of here, looting, another group on the southern quadrant vandalizing government property.”
The sergeant nods and more Patrol hop off the back. The truck rolls off and the marching formation breaks into a jog. They disappear around a corner and I step out, motioning for the others to come out too.
“That was close.”
He said “Macazi….”Those the Chancellor deems unfit to be bound to magic at the Binding ceremony are cast into community housing, given bare minimum wages. Most die or disappear. Some he keeps and lets his researchers experiment on, I’ve even heard. I shudder at the thought. You don’t treat people like that to no consequence. The tags on the Chancellor’s tower, the looting, vandalizing statues… it all makes sense. The Chancellor has more than us working against him. When the City started to fall, they probably saw their opportunity to step out against the tyrant who kept them as second-class citizens for so long.
But the Macazi are magicless…. How could they even?…I shake off the thought and turn my attention back to the fight ahead.
Despite the march being gone, we still press into building sides as we walk. Getting spotted out here isn’t ideal. Kai and I scout before we cross each intersection, then motion for the others to come along. We walk for what feels like miles. The sun has dipped low and themosquitoes, or blood bugs as Jhamal calls them, have picked up like they do in the evenings in this humid place. The scene is desolate, but random pops of revelry ring in the distance.
“That way.” Kai points east of Yiyo, its peak half caved in. “We must reach it before sunset.”
Bri and I share a look. “What happens when the sun sets?”
“The City is not deserted.” Kai’s steel stare sends gooseprickles up my arms. “It is asleep. Pochalla e’yuna kessi.”
“The cover of darkness is the enemy’s greatest friend,” Zora whispers to me.
I meet her eyes and she smiles, but her gaze falls, craters denting her cheeks. All of Kai’s girls, the Yakanna, have a rigid look about them, but Zora’s eyes are soft and her words gentle. She’s a bit shy, maybe? But the rest of her, pure steel.
Bri rummages through her bag and pulls out some metal gadget. She presses a button on its top and it glows green. Jhamal shoots her a quizzical glance.
“It senses magic harnessed through onyx. If there’s any Patrol or Grays nearby, it should buzz. Look, it’s the best I got.”
