Page 71 of Ashes of Gold
My platform begins its descent, and her death grip slips from my arm, but her eyes burn into me. My bones throb all over like I’m being pierced with a thousand needles.
“At least tell me who has already betrayed me!” I shout again, but the fire is out and it’s so dark, I can’t see my hand in front of my face. My platform eases into place in the ground with a shudder, and Ibarrel toward the door. I bang on it with my fists and Taavi pulls it open.
“Did you get what you need?” she asks.
I ignite a flame on my fingertip and hold it to her throat. “Get me out of here.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
TRUST NO ONE.
It’s not a foreign concept, but I’d be lying if the Seer’s words didn’t shake me. I’m careful about who I let in my bubble. It took Jhamal months in that cell to get me to open up about what happened to Moms and Tash. And he’s never done anything to me. Once people wriggle their way in, something shifts, and it’s impossible to get rid of them. So I keep the list short.
The fire at Taavi’s throat snuffs out the minute we step into the lead-lined hall, and she quickly leads me back up the stairs without a word. I play the Seer’s face over in my head. Something about her living there locked away doesn’t sit right with me. She’s the only one with magic here. She’s different, powerful, but she’s kept away from everything and everyone like a prisoner.
I flick side-eyes at Taavi, noting the way she walks. Her back is straight, chin up, and her hands don’t shake. Whatever she was worried about is a thing of the past, done. But I don’t care how chill and compliant she seems right now; it’s not lost on me that she put me in there not knowing whether I’d be able to make it out.
“Why didn’t you tell me the Seer was your mother?”
“And have you look at me the way you’re looking at me now? No, thanks.”
“You put me in there without knowing if I could pay her. She could have killed me.”
She stops at the top of the stairs. “First, I know my sister. If you are half the person she said you were, your magic could overpower my mother’s. And second, if Totsi sent you, I knew she’d prepare you.”
“So just lucky me I stumbled upon the bone and gold coins. You’re not making the best case for me trusting you.”
She stops walking. “I told you from the beginning, everything we do here is with our survival in mind. If you were who you claimed to be, who Totsi believed you to be, I knew you’d make it out of there. And if you weren’t…” She walks again and I follow.
I don’t like it.
But I can’t help but respect it.
The hall is a cloud of chatter as Macazi stuff blankets and food rations in backpacks with wide-eyed stares. Some have blades made from broken wood and sharp metal tucked into their pant legs.
“I’ve had them grab things to make camp,” Taavi says over her shoulder. “We’ll feed and water ourselves. And we have things to sleep on.”
“Wait,we?”
She stops and turns to me. “I’m not letting you take the bulk of our strongest people without me. I’m sorry, I just don’t trust that easily.”
Meeting her eyes is like staring into a distorted mirror.
“I feel that,” I say. “Neither do I.”
We keep moving down the hall, and I spot Joshi filling a carton for a young girl who can’t be any older than Tasha. Her head’s shaved and she wears a hard expression that’s resolute as much as it is riddled with angst.
“I’ll see you up there,” he says.
I paint on a smile and give Joshi a chin up.
“Many of the younger ones were born here,” Taavi says. “They’ve never even seen the Outside. The older ones though, they remember.”
The guilt wedged inside sprouts roots. Taavi couldn’t have been more right: Most of these people aren’t combat fighters. Their magic is trickery, cunning, wit. We need the extra hands, but I can’t send these folks to slaughter. If they’re in my charge, I can’t let anything happen to them. They have good reason to hate the Chancellor too. We are on the same team even if I did have to use intimidation to get them on our side. But theywillcome out of this alive. I’ll make sure of it.
“The ones we leave here will truly need your magic,” she says. I don’t like hearing her talk about my magic. But this is where we are.
“I gave you my word and I’ma keep it,” I say.
