Wings of Ebony

by J. Elle

  Pop.

  Pop.

  I shake off the memory of Moms hitting the ground and swallow my lunch back down, taking another tiny step forward.

  Celebratory banners in deep purples and jade sway in the breeze and a band of Ghizoni play curved horns that look like elongated elephant tusks onstage. The crowd moves to the rhythm, waiting for the designations to begin.

  Steel and glass buildings tower around me. New Ghizon’s Central District is full of cloud-blocking buildings tucked tight together with narrow alleyways between. Giant screens hang from the glassy skyscrapers and the words DESIGNATION DAY dance on their glass. The words dissolve every few seconds, replaced by flashes of the crowd waving, fingers twisted into what looks like a knot held over their hearts.

  Bursts of sparkle erupt over the crowd, glittering in the high sun. At first, seeing people conjure things out of thin air, bend animals to their will, shift and move and change things with magic wowed.

  Now, it just annoys.

  I’m not one of them.

  Patrol lines the outskirts of the audience, their fingers glued to their chests too. No idea what the gesture means, but judging by their reverent stares, it’s some allegiance type shit.

  The only other brown face in this place… in this world… is on the corner of the amphitheater stage in a too-small chair. The man I basically just met. The one Moms laid up with to make me: Aasim.

  I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to do any of this, but he didn’t make it sound like I had a choice. He looks at me and his lips crack a weak smile.

  I look away.

  I told him not to bring me to this place.

  I told him I don’t want their gift of magic or whatever.

  I told him, let me go to Moms’s funeral at least.

  And yet, here I am.

  “We have to go now,” he’d said, like I’d asked for his help. Like I needed him.

  I didn’t and I don’t.

  Now, barely a month here and I’m obligated to participate in this “honor” held twice a year. “To help you get acquainted with your new home,” he’d said. Like, what does that even mean? I’m not one of these people and won’t ever be.

  Behind me a buzzing line of sixteen-year-olds chirp like prating birds. They don’t say anything to me and I say nothing to them. What’s the point? The only one here who’s half-human… who I’ma talk to? About what? From my room, to class to meals I can barely stomach and back home again. This is my new life. Thanks, Aasim.

  On stage, a musician with a braid that dangles all the way to the floor plucks strings on a bowl covered with what looks like animal hide. Peering closer, I realize there are no strings. Just his fingers dancing across the leather daintily, somehow filling the air with a tune. His head sways, the balls of onyx in his wrists shining. The sweet lilt of his voice isn’t lost on me. Tasha loves birds and his melody would put a lark to shame. She’d love to see this. For a moment my baby sister’s face is all I see.

  The music livens, yanking me back to the present and the twenty or so giddy Ghizoni in line with me, constantly glancing at me when they think I’m not looking. I shrink a little. I should have stayed in my room. Anywhere but here. Under all these eyes. Strange, curious eyes.

  It’s not just their gaping that makes me uneasy, it’s the tilted stares and whispered words on my way here from the dorm. Any time I pass, really. It’s not just the buzzing magical energy pumping through this place like electricity. It’s not just that no one here looks like me—but him.

  It’s that this is not my home.

  These ain’t my people.

  And after seeing Moms’s blood bathe our stoop, home is the only place I wanna be. In my bed, wrapped up in the blanket Moms found for me at that garage sale that one time, hugged up in her smell, on her pillow. The thoughts of her used to make me sad, bring tears. Now… I don’t know what I feel.

  Nothing. Is that a feeling?

  A horn sounds and at the entrance to the Amphitheater, in the very back, a burly man appears. His head of wispy white hair folds upward like a crown, then cascades down his back in knots. Golden ornaments in his hair jingle with each of his steps.

  The Chancellor—the guy who runs Ghizon.

  He descends the steps, Patrol clinging to his sides like he’s royalty. I met him once when Aasim’s secret of being laid up with Moms first got out. He was an asshole, real condescending like. And not just with his words. Something about the way he held his chin, the way he looked at me when Aasim admitted his crime: making me.

  The Chancellor waves to the crowd and the edges of the aisles pull to him like magnets, grasping for any piece of him within reach. An exuberant few kiss his robes. Gems hug his knuckles and he smiles, cupping the face of some lady’s baby. She about faints. He climbs the stage with one more wave and it’s then I notice the screens are all his face. He holds his arms wide and everyone, literally everyone in the arena, stands, hands over their chest.

  Around me the jitters have quieted and every student waiting to be Sorted is rigid, fingers knotted with a glaze of adoration in their eyes. The Chancellor stops in front of a chair inlaid with gems larger than the rocks on his fingers. He surveys the crowd, a warm smile on his lips. Ugh.

  His eyes land on mine and with each breath his smile thins.

  I dig my hands into my pockets. He still stares expressionless, and yet I feel like maybe he’s trying to say something by not saying anything at all. This is weird. Really weird. I—I… what do I do? I peer around at the knotted fingers thing and try twisting mine, but before I can actually move, he gestures for everyone to sit, his gaze still on me as he plants in his chair.

  Another horn sounds, this time twice, and the girl first in line is two heads in front of me. She steps up on the stage platform, her red hair blowing, where an old woman greets her with a grimace. I don’t know what exactly happens when you’re Sorted, but I’m near the front so this is almost over.

  The music quiets and the old lady, who’s the Sorter by the looks of it, is hunched over, waiting. But not like she means to be; like she just walks that way permanently. A million creases fold her sienna skin, tanned from the sun. Without it, she’d be white or gray or whatever like everybody else here.

  I don’t know what she’s ’bout to do or how she’s going to do it, but whatever it is, it ends in being assigned to a group. Curiosity has me craning my neck harder to see. Aasim mentioned something about it determining my job, how I’ll contribute to Ghizon society. I don’t wanna work here. I don’t even wanna be here.

  Her chin bounces, up and down, up and down, as she mutters something under her breath, her dark linen shift fluttering at her feet. I can’t make out the words, but every eye in the place is on her. Including the Chancellor’s. Two beaming faces from the front row of the amphitheater appear frozen in time, staring. I’m not even sure they’re breathing. Must be the girl’s parents. They catch me looking and their smiles fade to disgust.

  Sigh. The sun beats down, but I slip my hoodie over my head anyway, my hair wilding out from each side. A stick bangs the concrete, popping like gunshots, and gooseprickled memories dance up my skin. The Sorter circles the red-headed girl, tapping a knobby stick taller than the both of them, so thick her hand barely wraps around it. She tap tap taps the ground. You could cut the silence in the arena with a knife.

  I crane my neck farther.

  The Sorter lady waves her free hand around the girl like she’s feeling the air.

  “She’s checking her energy, the vibe she gives off,” someone whispers behind me, but I don’t turn around.

  The air itself seems to ripple at the Sorter’s hand movements, the black stones on her wrists glowing orange. Redhead swallows and shrieks as flames ignite from the woman’s fingertips. She waves and waves some more, the fire coming within inches of the girl’s face.

  I squint. That lady ain’t bringing no fire anywhere near me. She wanna know my energy? I can just tell her—it’s annoyed, like
the rest of me. Is it too late to get out of line? Aasim didn’t say nothing about any of this.

  “Hmph.” Old Lady makes a fist and her flames snuff out. Well, that’s a relief she isn’t going to burn her skin off. Stick Lady circles again, her gummy bite bouncing like she’s thinking. Sizing up this girl like I would if I was ’bout to square up.

  “Mo’ya na na.” She raises her stick and holds it high before slamming into the back of the girl’s thighs. She groans in pain.

  Oh heeeeellllll no.

  The stick whirs through the air again and slaps the girl in the stomach. She grunts. I know one thing, that lady or nobody else is hitting me with no damn stick.

  I can feel the girls behind me staring, hard, like this is the most entrancing shit they’ve ever seen. Something they’ve fantasized about their whole lives: the day they get magic.

  After a few more swats with the stick, the Sorter seems satisfied she’s found whatever she was looking for. Then she shoves a thumb into the side of girl’s mouth, pulling it open and looking at the girl’s teeth.

  What the hell is this, an auction?! I cannot. She’s not touching my teeth. She’s not touching me period. I’m not being paraded on stage like property. Hell, the fuck, no. I have half a mind to leave. I look around; Patrol is everywhere. Would they even let me?

  “Hmph.” The Sorter grunts, but it’s, like, an approving grunt, if there is such a thing. She mutters more words I’ve never heard and I could swear someone behind me snorts. A few more seconds pass, and then she faces the crowd. “Zruki.”

  Zruki? The hell is a Zruki?

  A burst of applause rings out from the front row and a woman with her hair in an unkempt bun clutches her chest in relief. The man next to her with black-stained fingers presses his forehead to hers. They smile. Must be something good, I guess.

  Sorter Lady points a bony finger toward the sign that says BINDING and the girl’s pallor returns. It’s only then that I notice the old woman only has a thumb and a pointing finger. I gulp. I probably should have asked who all these people are, what being Sorted and Bound entails, something. But that would have required talking to him.

  We ain’t talked my entire life. Why start now?

  Been figuring shit out on my own all this time.

  This ain’t no different.

  Sorter Lady gestures for the next person in line and the girl in front of me disappears toward the platform. She’s wearing a crimson dress in a shiny material. Taffeta? Silk? Some shit. She sashays on stage like it’s a dance and the crowd ooohs and ahhhhs. The elder woman taps her stick at the spot where Crimson Girl is supposed to stand, apparently unimpressed with the flashy entrance. Crimson Girl blushes and hurries to her place, but not before fanning out her arms. Gilded peacock feathers sprout from her collar like her head is set on a pedestal shrouded in gold.

  I’m next in line and my sperm donor’s full on smiling now. I don’t want his smiles. I don’t want anything from him… I don’t want…

  “Next, daughter of Aasim,” Aasim says.

  I don’t want to be called that.

  Aasim says his piece then sits, pride alight in his eyes. The Chancellor’s stare is on me like dead weight. Standing on the platform, I can really see just how wide and deep the theater seating goes. A collage of bright blues, deep rusty oranges, and every hue in the rainbow colors the crowd’s made-up faces and matching ornate hairstyles. My heart flutters a million miles a minute. A woman in the audience with rose-shaped hair folds her arms and I can practically feel the chill from her shade. Glittered strands of hair hang in tendrils around her face, a sharp contrast to the stank eye she’s giving me. Deep red stain colors her lips, dark and glossy… probably sticky…

  Sticky like…

  Red like…

  My throat constricts and a stubby forefinger and thumb beckon me onto the stage. Sorter Lady’s looking away from me as she gestures. I come. My feet are lead, but I come.

  Our eyes meet and the chill I felt from Red Lips is as warm as a summer day compared to the ice of this old lady’s stare.

  “Na!” She bangs the ground, her eyes as wide as the moon on a cloudless night.

  “Uhhh?”

  “Na! Y’gi na.” She scowls, blocking the path between her evaluation deck and the BINDING sign where Redhead and Crimson Girl exited to be Bound to magic.

  “Na, Zruki. Na, Dwegini.” She turns to the Chancellor and her nostrils flare. “Na!”

  She’s not feeling me. At all.

  “Naaaa!” She hisses like a snake. I back up several steps and the crowd erupts in chatter. I can leave. I don’t wanna be here no way. Be sorted Zruki or whatever the hell the other option is. I spot my wannabe kin on the far end of the stage and he doesn’t move or speak, just chews his bottom lip.

  The Chancellor’s eyes haven’t moved.

  Still on me as he strokes his chin.

  Stick Lady points at me like she did the others, but she points toward the exit. As in leave. I don’t get to be Bound, apparently. Does that mean I get to go home? Because that’d be great.

  The crowd is harder to see as I descend the steps from the platform, backing up until I bump into something. “Oops,” I say. “Sorry.”

  Papers spill on the ground and the noise on the platform dies down. The Sorter woman is in a tizzy, arguing with some military-type dude with a scar under his eye. He doesn’t look like he’s playing, but the way she’s shouting, she ain’t playing either. I turn my back on the commotion to a smiling face covered in freckles, unruly blond hair, and red square glasses.

  “It’s fine.” She reshuffles the papers in her hand.

  Was I supposed to bring paperwork to this thing?

  “Don’t mind her,” she says, pointing at Stick Lady. “People say she smokes jpango leaves all day. Pretty sure her brain’s fried at this point. They say the only words she knows are ‘Zruki’ and ‘Dwegini.’ Which, for her job, covers it. So!” She snorts.

  I look back at the old woman and needles prick my spine. “Nah, something tells me she knows much more than that.”

  The girl shrugs. “Maybe. But don’t let her get to you. Even if she won’t sort you, you can probably still be Bound. You’re Ruler Aasim’s daughter.”

  Her words are sandpaper on my skin. “Oh no, it’s cool. I mean… wait, ruler?”

  “I know you’re new around here,” she says. “Half-human and all. Gossip mill spreads fast. But you want to be Bound. Trust me.”

  “I mean, not really. For what? To play dress-up every day? What’s the point?”

  She laughs, then stops when she realizes I’m foreal. “It’s so much more than that. The capabilities are wild. You’ll see.” She gestures at the air like she’s grasping for my name.

  I let her.

  I don’t know this girl.

  She sticks out a hand. “Ajebria.”

  Well, shoot… she’s being friendly as hell. “Ah-juh, what?”

  “Just call me Bri. It’s what everyone calls me. If I had friends, that is… I mean…” She facepalms. “I prefer Bri. Sorry for being weird. I don’t talk to many… I mean I don’t have…”

  “I’m Rue.” I offer dap and she stares, confused. I take her hand, ball it into a fist, and pound it on mine. “Dap.”

  “Dap.” She slow nods.

  “Dap.”

  We laugh. “You said Ruler Aasim… is he like…”

  “You’re not serious. You have to be kiddi—” She must read my face because she changes her tone, quick. “Yeah.” She bats flyaways out of her face like they’re a flock of gnats. “Third in command around here. So not like ruler, ruler, but like real close to the top ruler. He works right under the Chancellor.”

  Aasim works right under the boss man? That why he on stage in that little bitty chair?

  “The Chancellor,” Bri continues. “He doesn’t want to be called by name because that’s too personal. He founded this place and essentially owns Ghizon. He united the islands’ native tribes and shared
his magic with all of them, and he gives it to all of us, too, so, hello Binding!” She leans in for a whisper. “No one knows where he got it from, but rumor has it he laid with a goddess who desperately wanted a son and he wagered she’d give him magic in exchange. Only thing is, she didn’t conceive so he had to get away by the skin of his teeth with magic. Apparently there’s a veil of protection over the island so she can never find us.”

  She squints up at the sky as if she really believes this shit. “But who knows? There’s no shortage of rumors around here. Usually they have a seed of truth, I always say. I digress. But yes…” She does that thing with her fingers and lays them over her heart. “The Great and Generous Chancellor. Seyeen.”

  Now I want to know what she’s smoking.

  “You have a lot to learn about this place. Sounds like your da—”

  “Aasim,” I say, interrupting. She gotta stop with that father shit.

  She studies my face for several moments. “Your… Aasim didn’t tell you much about this place.”

  I gave him all of forty-five seconds to talk to me before my AirPods were in. “Very little.”

  “Well, not to worry. I’ll get you up to speed.” She nudges me with her elbow and I force a smile. I should try to be more friendly. She really is nice.

  “Th-thanks.” And I mean, having someone to actually ask questions probably is a good idea.

  The commotion behind us has stopped and it’s Bri’s turn for Sorting on the platform. But Stick Lady joins us on the far end of the stage and her watery eyes burn into me like frost.

  “Hmph.” She points toward BINDING before huffing and storming off. I guess Bri was right: I do get to be Bound. Bri holds two fingers to her lips like she’s blowing a blunt and winks. I laugh.

  “Meet you on the other side,” she says.

  “Bet.”

  * * *