Ashes of Gold

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  To Mommy,

  for making me believe

  I could do anything,

  and,

  to Emily,

  who held me up

  every step of the way.

  PROLOGUE

  KAELI BERRIES DOT THE morning 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 the shiske flower, 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 just opening 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 lekerae for 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, washing us 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 the usapa around 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 snoozing far 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 of Memi’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?

  The man still stares and tears sting my eyes, panic climbing like bile in my throat. Memi hasn’t moved, but terror is etched in her wrinkled expression. Her hand loosens over my mouth. He sees us. I just know it. He knows we’re here. The swollen bodies we buried just days ago flicker through my memory. I swallow hard, letting the fire in my hand swell. I’ve never fought anyone before. I haven’t even been fitted for armor. That doesn’t happen for three more years after turning out.

  Memi mouths the word “stay.” I grip her wrist, my nails digging in. Wait, don’t leave me here, I want to scream, but a word right now could be a knife at both our throats. She unlooses the knot in her dress, and the bunch of berries, hours of labor, spill out like blood on the soil. I tug on my knot tighter, willing mine to stay put.

  “I know you’re there,” the Gray says. He holds open his empty hand and stabs his blade in the dirt. “There. I’m friendly. See? Just needed a drink is all. Long day of walking.”

  “You’ve broken the territory agreement,” Memi says, stepping out. “Why are you here?”

  “A thirst is all.”

  A thirst? But I don’t see a canteen.

  “You need a blade that large to get a drink? You have your own rivers to drink from. Trespassing is a punishable offense. But I’m merciful. Get out of here.” She lets the fire in her hand go out and shoves the air. A gust of wind obeys Memi’s command, shoving the Gray off his feet. The trees behind him tip over. He stumbles up but doesn’t flee like I think Memi hoped he would.

  I let the fire simmer in my shaky hand and duck down lower. I will be ready if she needs me.

  She raises her fist and pulls it back down. The sky darkens and thunder claps answering to the call of her magic. Lightning touching down behind him.

  The Gray flinches, his nostrils flaring.

  “You think me stupid?” she asks. “Why are you here?” She peers at the water closely.

  “To get water.” His lips are a thin line somewhere between anger and scared as he gets up, dusting his pants. “That is all. I was taking a hike.” He pats his pockets and pulls out a container, something like a canteen, and hands it to Memi.

  “See for yourself. It’s very refreshing.”

  “No!” I step out of the foliage. “Don’t drink that, Memi. He never filled that canteen from the river, I was watching!”

  She turns her back to him to face me, her expression wide with fear.

  I go cold all over as I realize my mistake.

  A blur of metal flashes behind her and Memi grunts in pain, falling to her knees. Red. So much red. I’m frozen, my legs locked in place with terror. Your magic! Do something. But I only manage to blink.

  “You should have stayed hidden in the forest, girl,” the Gray says, blade slick and red, held high. Memi is on the ground and she does not move. A cry dies in my throat as I turn to run. I rush through the forest, thorns scratching my legs. My magic. I try to summon it, but fear overcomes whatever bravery I’d thought I’d had and my feet fly across the familiar passageways. The trails I’ve walked with Memi and Tomae year after year. A patch of sunlight peeks through the trees up ahead and my heart flutters.

  He won’t catch me. He won’t.

  Leaves patter behind me. The Gray’s breath is heavy, louder, closer as he gains on me. My knotted shift catches on a jagged branch, yanking me to a halt. He’s so close I can smell him. I tug and pull, snatching the fabric tethering me to the tree. It rips. Metal overhead blots out the ray of sun.

  Berries from my makeshift sack spill, painting the forest floor red.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE ENEMY LIES IN wait to bleed my people.

  To litter the homeland with our bones.

  To bury its secrets.

  But first he has to go through me.

  I crouch in the brush surrounding Yiyo Peak for a better view of the Chancellor and his men. The sun washes Ghizon in shades of evening. Bleak wasteland stretches before me, scorched and burning. Blackened jpango trees are claws raised in sacrifice to the Ancestors. An armament of uniformed Patrol stand where there was once a field of lush vegetation and wispy grass, onyx glowing on their wrists.

  Pangs churn in me—for justice, for the death of my parents, for the terror the Chancellor has caused my Ghizoni people, for the magic on his wrists that isn’t his own. He’d made sure the treachery was scrubbed from the island’s textbooks. But bones whisper from their graves if you listen hard enough.

  My gilded arms warm instinctively with power, but I blow out a breath. Easy, Rue. With my Ghizoni people nearly magicless, it’s basically me against thousands of Grays, the Chancellor’s men. I have one shot at this and timing is everything.

  Yiyo, the home my people have hidden in for years, sits behind us, perched in the middle of the forest. The Ghizoni and I hide in the foliage around it, clad in armor. I duck down lower behind thick waxy leaves to get a better glimpse of the enemy’s movement. Everything he and his men have touched in the past three days of this siege has been destroyed. The Chancellor paces so rigidly, I expect to see steam rise off him. As if he’d burn every piece of beauty in the world if it would secure his power.

  The destruction out here in the wilderness ends abruptly at a barrier as transparent as glass, which forms a dome over us and the mountain. Bri, in her haste to get me here quickly, said he’d broken through the barrier. Thankfully she was wrong. But he’s about to. And it’s the only thing keeping them from us.

  It glistens, hanging above us. Thin cracks spiderweb on its surface and my heart ticks faster, my fingers twitching. The Chancellor
scans the area and I hide myself behind a smooth-barked tree that’s as wide as I am. Thousands of Patrol surround him. There’s so many of them. So few of us. I swallow and gaze at the trees at my back, but my people are well cloaked, tucked into nooks of branches and wide leaves, in pockets of shadow, waiting, watching. The lines written into their faces are more determination than fear.

  The Chancellor’s nostrils flare and he shouts. Because of the barrier, I can’t hear it. But his men raise their arms in unison. I clench, my muscles tightening in angst as I watch them aim magic at the barrier. The cracks on its glossy surface spread. Their arms lower. He yells and they fire again. It’s been going on like this for days. But each “aim and fire” twists the corkscrew in my chest. That dome breaks, then what? I clench my fist.

  I fight.

  Outnumbered and all. I picture Moms’s face. There’s no other way. The General’s demise must have reached the Chancellor’s ears while I was in East Row. He is always poised, pensive, stoic. Three days ago, when they started this siege, they were collected, organized. But now, his reddened complexion, his corded throat, say the orders he’s shouting are rooted in exhaustion and frustration, not control. Which I intend to exploit.

  I wish I could have seen his face when he learned that hundreds of my people still exist. That some actually got away when he showed up to unify the tribes under him. And that they’ve been hiding inside Yiyo for generations, their magic fractured, a wisp of what it used to be. But even still, resiliently hopeful, strong, and ready.

  A twig snaps behind me and I turn to find Jhamal pressing in beside me. He’s no more than a breath away, a wall at my back. The siege glows orange in his ebony eyes.

  “They won’t break through,” he says.

  They will. I’m sure of it. But I swallow the words. I don’t want his hope to falter. Hope is its own kind of magic. But Jhamal studies my eyes and finds the truth. The lines deepen on his face and I squeeze his hand in reassurance.