Page 10 of Ashes of Gold
“Breathe.”
My strength falters, my hands shake. But his eyes find mine and they urge me to listen.
I inhale, then let it out.Five… four… three… two… one.
His hand closes around mine.
“Wh-what did they do to me?”
He rubs the inside of my palm, stretching my fingers, and I scoot closer to him, to comfort, understanding. His nails massage circles on my hairline, and my shoulders sink.”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is what you do next.”
“I will get stronger. I’m going to get us out of here.”
“I know you will, my Queen.”
CHAPTER THREE
Six Months Later
SMOKE, PUNGENT, SALTY, HEAVY,burning with the stench of rotting flesh, curls my nose. I bat my eyes open and my cell surrounds me. I sniff again but the smell is gone.
Drip. Drop.
Clammy air sticks to me and I smooth droplets from underneath my eyes.
A dream, it was just a dream.
The rocky ceiling sharpens in focus, rows of rails on the peripheral. Every inch of me is cold except my left side, where Jhamal sleeps.
“One hundred seventy-one… one hundred seventy-two… one hundred seventy-three…,” I whisper, running my fingers in the familiar divots I’ve carved into the floor. My body might be in a cage, but my mind doesn’t have to be.
“One hundred seventy-six… seventy-seven… seventy-eight.” It’s been one hundred seventy-eight days since I told Jhamal I’d get us out of here. And today’s going to be that day. I reach for my magic out of habit. A spark of something coils in my hand then dissolves like dust.
I sleep next to the bars of the cell so I can always keep an eye down the corridor. Not too close, touching them makes my insides feel like a squeeze bottle. I rotate my head, careful not to wake Jhamal, and peer into the dark hallway. Nothing. No one.
I hug around myself, lying there on the ground, setting my mind on what I need to do today. What I’ve thought about doing every minute of every day between hauntings of my failure on the battlefield—getting out of here.
I need to get back to those who managed to survive. I swallow. Wherever they are. Once I survey the damage, I’ll figure out a way to fight the Chancellor again. But this time, win.
I gulp down the nerves welling in my throat and blink. The familiar sights, smells and sounds of my failure taunt me. But the air doesn’t get caught in my throat anymore when I know they’re coming. I focus on my breath, easing it out, and shove the images of bloody armor, chaos outside Yiyo, the crumbling barrier, far, far away.
I push and they fade.
I blink.
Eyelashes.
His face, I can’t seem to shake. I close my eyes hard, pushing them farther, but the face with long eyelashes comes firmer in view and new glimpses of the past slither their way around my throat.
Something sharp digs into my arms. Bright lights bob over me in a room with all-white walls and a metal table in the center, chilly at my back. I’m weighed down and covered in a thin shift. I strain for the sights and sounds of magic but hear only the scrape of metal. Stale air curls in my nose and I blink.
“Where am I?” I ask, trying to sit up, but I’m heavy all over, tetheredto a table with straps. Panic claws at me. “Jhamal?” But only my echo answers.
A woman in a lab coat presses me down to the chilly table at my back. “She’s awake. Give her more.”
I gasp and sit up fully.
