by J. Elle
Focus—my wrists warm and grow heavy, like before.
Command at its strongest point.
I close my eyes and center my thoughts on the swell of heat coiling around my hands.
“Feey’l”—and point.
Sparks like splintered pieces of wood fly from my fingertips and slam into a purple Blob-O lamp. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to—”
“You—you did it?”
If she means breaking Bri’s lamp, yes, yes I did. If she means having some sense of control over the daggers flying from my hands, that’d be a no.
She’s up on her feet. “H-how’d you do that?”
“I…”
“I’ve been studying these spells books for so long, I could recite the book cover to cover.” A nest of flyways brush her forehead and she shoves them back. “I—I don’t understand, how you just…”
“Are you done flipping out? How about you keep trying?”
Her mouth hangs open like there’s more she wants to say.
“Bri, you’re smart as hell. Keep trying.”
She tucks back in her chair with a deep sigh. That girl needs a study break. She’s losing it. I turn back to the book in my lap.
A plaque in Mr. Jon’ye’s honor can be found in the research wing of the Museum of Magical Advancement, resurrected after his untimely death shortly after his discovery.
Dude died after his big discovery? That’s sad.
Magic wielders are encouraged to practice spells in an environment with flame-resistant, incombustible, etc. walls, as misfiring a spell often ends up in literal fire (a translation complication between the close meaning of the words). Do not attempt new spells in the vicinity of precious objects.
Oh, now they tell me.
“Ah!!” Flames dance from Bri’s fingertips and she’s beaming. She wiggles her fingers. “I did it. Jon’ye’s spell!”
“Told you!” We do a handshake thing I’ve been teaching her.
“I mean, I knew it,” she says.
“Knew what?”
“If you could do it, of course I could.”
Huh? I mean, I am new here. Maybe that’s what she means. I wait for her to say more, but she’s back eyeballs deep in studying.
CHAPTER 26
AASIM IS AHEAD OF me following Bati deeper into the mountain, down a set of stairs carved into the rock. The farther we go the colder it gets. I told Bati on the way here that the cuff speaks to me, like it has something to say, and he didn’t laugh, actually. He had said two cuffs, a pair, were forged by the village Elders.
“But to hear their message, you may need both together,” Bati had said. “And we have its pair in the bowels of our lair.”
“The Chancellor is the ‘magic-giver,’ I say. “Zrukis and Dweginis worship and follow him because of it. And the magic was never his?” This is still so hard to believe.
“Never,” Aasim says, firelight casting an orange glow on the silver in his locs. “He took it from us… somehow…”
He and Bati share a look, but I miss what it means.
“And then he stored it in the onyx he found here. Onyx sticks to magic really well. One thing’s for sure, as much magic as he expends imbuing onyx on Designation Days, he has to be refilling it somehow. No way anyone uses magic—”
“Stolen magic.” Bati chimes in.
“Exactly—that often without a problem.”
They share that look again and I shift on my feet. There’s something I’m missing. “But h-how did he do it? Was your history written down anywhere? As proof to show people?”
“Our complete history, I’m afraid, we do not know in great detail,” Bati says. “Only what those of us who made it here can remember. And no, it wouldn’t be written, would it? Who expects their history to be erased?” Our procession deeper into the cave halts and Bati has a far-off look. “I do recall pieces of conversations I picked up from my own father when I was a boy.”
Aasim sets a hand on his shoulder.
“He was not one of the lucky ones,” Bati continues. “He was too old to run and never made it here. The Elders, though, they knew much, but many of them perished of the Sickness before the Chancellor even came.”
“And the ones who didn’t?” I ask.
Bati glances at my cuff. “That’s a whole other story for another time, I’m afraid. Why don’t we keep going, shall we?”
So many questions. So many things I don’t understand. I can see words are on the tip of Bati’s tongue, like he’s wondering how much to say. What to tell me and when.
“Please go on. I want to understand,” I say.
He looks to Aasim, who nods in response. “Understand me now, child, I was very young. The wisps of what I remember being told are no more than cobwebs pulled to pieces over the years.” He sighs. “We grew up in secret. Not here of course. Out there on our land, where the stars shone down on us at night and the sun coated our backs in sweat during the day. Our tribe was small but advanced, gifted with magic of the gods themselves. We knew there were others on the island, but we kept away from them so they wouldn’t know about our abilities, what we could do. Wars have been fought for less. We cloaked our piece of the land in a veil of protection, making it impossible to find us unless you knew we were there. And no one did. For generations. Until…” He steadies himself on the rocky stairwell.
This memory unsettles him. Scares him even.
He goes on. “The other tribes on the island had heard whispers of a brown-skinned magical people, I would bet. But no more than a myth, lore to lull children to sleep at night. But when the humans came from th-that place you are from…”
“America?”
“Sure. Strange objects floated in the sky at times late at night. And one day a group of men showed up scouting, hunger in their eyes. We came out from our veil and banded together with the other tribes on the island to get rid of the scouts. But by then the damage had been done. The human visitors were gone, but the other tribes saw we were no myth, saw what we could do. As a gesture of peace and friendship, we extended our cloaking veil to shield the entire island, so no one—unless they’d already been here—could find us again.
“That was nice.”
“Nice, but foolish. We had peace, trade even, with the other tribes for a time. Until one day the Chancellor showed up from the Moyechi tribe, known for their craftiness and ambition, saying he’d grown up hearing about our majestic people and wanted to see us himself. He could see the Sickness was eating our people away from the inside, stifling our magic, like a poison in our blood. It was no secret at that point we were weak. He offered us unification under him as Chancellor, saying he’d unearthed his own magic and would gift it to all who followed him.” He gestures at both Aasim’s wrist and mine. “He flashed those black beads on the insides of his wrists.” He scowls. “I overheard my father tell my mother that very night how the Chancellor’s eyes glittered with dark ambition, the kind that festers like rot in the bones. The Elders of our tribe knew we were the only ones marked with magic, so if the Chancellor boasted of magic… he was either a liar or a thief.
“We fled here. As many of us who could, that is. Many were too old, too sick. The Sickness had cut our tribe in half in just a few moons. The village Elders stayed behind and filled those cuffs with their collective power. I was but a boy when my father handed them off to me, told me to run like my life depended on it and make sure those cuffs make it here. He said no one would ever suspect a child to be carrying something so valuable. I ran faster than I knew my feet could go. The smattering that did make it here used the remnants of magic they had left to enchant that wall you passed through. That took a toll on everyone, weakened us even more.”
“Th-the Sickness? Wh-where did it come from?”
“I don’t know. But I do know from the moment the Grays knew of the power we possessed, their eyes dazzled with envy.”
Grays?
“People in New Ghizon,” Aasim whispers to me, apparently sensing my confu
sion. “And I have my own theories.”
“The Chancellor?” I ask.
“The Chancellor was ambitious, my father told me,” Aasim says. “He started showing people what he could do with the black stones fused to his wrists, telling them to follow him and he would share. Our people were taken with sudden Sickness, dying out, and coincidentally he’s full of magic to give? Pfft. I’m not naive. That is no coincidence.” He looks away. “Besides, my grandfather never trusted him.”
“Oh?”
Sadness shadows his stare. “That is definitely a story we will save for another day.”
My mind is blown. The Chancellor united the entire island around this lie. He sits up in his high office in New Ghizon living and breathing this lie. He condemns my sister to death for outing something that doesn’t even belong to him.
“And everyone from Ghizon with brown skin has some remnants of this raw magic?” I ask.
“It is very weak, but yes,” Bati says. “You have it too. You must only reach it. Lean into it. Let it be a part of you.”
I don’t know what kind of magic he thinks I have because I’m technically related to Aasim. But I don’t feel anything. Besides my hip being seared alive by the cuff in my pocket the deeper we go into this cave. And I did try. I tried to reach for magic to save Brian. And nothing. My chest aches and images of blood spatter settle over me like a storm cloud.
“I-I don’t know what to say. That’s messed up that he’s out there living a lie and all these people are forced to live their truth in here. Hidden, tucked away.”
“I have a feeling it won’t be that way much longer.” Aasim gestures for me to catch up to Bati, who’s much faster over these narrow steps than either of us. He snakes us deeper into the mountain and for several moments we walk in silence. So much to digest.
Warmth swims through my wrists, up my arms, dancing with the sleeping heat in my bones. I turn the cuff in my hand around and around, the deeper we go. I squint into the metal’s radiance and my heart flutters. It has a message, something it wants me to hear. I can feel it.
We descend steeper steps and now everyone’s chilly but me. The staircase grows darker the deeper we go.
“Bati,” a voice echoes from above us, followed by hurried steps.
The messenger looks toward me, but past me to Bati. “Grays, sir. A large group has been spotted kilometers from here.”
“Mine workers?” Bati asks.
“I am not sure. The leader does not look like the mine worker type.”
“No, the mines are closed today.” I look between them, fear coiling in my gut.
“What does he look like?” Aasim asks.
“Well dressed, tall, cruel jaw, mark below his eye.”
The General. I dig my nails into the craggy wall. He’s back with more people. He’s really throwing all he’s got to come for me.
“He won’t be able to get back here, will he, Bati?” asks Aasim.
“Not as long as the enchantments hold,” he says before dismissing the messenger. “But let us hurry, see what the Ancestors are trying to tell Jelani. We may not have much time.” He ushers us back down the stairs, faster this time.
At the bottom of the staircase is an iron door. It clanks open with Bati’s wave and we step inside. Darkness, so thick I can’t see my hand in front of my face, lies on us like a blanket.
Bati clears his throat. “Aasim, if you would, light please?”
“I-I’m not able to… uh.”
Despite the darkness, I can see Bati’s eyes turn Aasim’s way. “Oh, oh okay. Not to worry.” A flash of light sparks and weak flames dance from Bati’s fingers to stone bowls hanging over head. Aasim fidgets, tossing me a glance.
Why couldn’t he conjure a fire? He didn’t fire back at the General either when he was chasing us. Is his magic weakened too? But he has onyx…
The walls of the room are covered in shelves on one side, lined with tomes with spines inlaid with gold. Symbols I don’t understand are etched into their edges.
“Our history,” Bati says. “Or what I’ve been able to record of it since being holed up here.”
I slide one off the shelf and the leather is dry in my grip.
“Spells, elixirs, the bones of our language… it’s all in there.” The spell book we got in training was pencil thin. There were more pages of instructions and restrictions than actual incantations. How much does the Chancellor even know about the magic he stole? The paper is gravelly against my fingers. “Could I take a closer look at this please? Hold on to it for a bit?”
“Yes, of course, Jelani,” Bati says, and I catch Aasim’s smile.
The other side of the room is covered in markings carved into the stonework, but in neat clusters, like parts of a story being pieced together.
“These are the pieces of our history we are still putting together,” Aasim says. “Done by your ancestors. Yiyo was a sacred meeting place for them.”
My ancestors? But I’m not Ghizoni. I mean, not really.
In the center of the room is a single box on a pedestal I only just noticed. “The cuff’s pair… i-is it in there?”
“It is.” Bati steps back almost reverently, and suddenly my hands are shaking. It’s so, so hot again.
“Go ahead,” he says. “Please, open it.”
“O-okay.” I hand off the tome and smooth my sweaty palms clean. I can sense its warmth from just touching the box. It creaks open, and a golden cuff stares back at me. I hold the other beside it. Twins. Identical.
“Why didn’t you keep both here?” I ask.
“Aasim stumbled on evidence the Chancellor knew the cuffs might be more than folklore. He was trying to find them, so Aasim warned us.” He makes a gesture of thanks toward Aasim. “We agreed it would be wise to separate them for safety. So he stored one in the human world where he met your mother, I gather.”
Aasim nods, a soft smile on his lips.
“The other stayed here, with us.” Bati steps closer to me and scents of earthiness swirl in my nose. “They were made to be a sort of fail-safe… for protection. With everyone fleeing, the Elders didn’t want us overcome, our magic lost forever. We were already weak. The wisest, most practiced minds of magic in our village imbued those two cuffs with every wisp of their combined power.” He beams. “I can’t even fathom the unshakable power these things have.”
A chill washes over me. “What do they want to say, you think?”
“I could guess, but that remains to be seen. Put them on, child.”
I slip them on my wrists and the whispers are louder than they’ve ever been. Aasim starts saying something, but Bati’s hand silences him. The gold metal calls to me like a longtime friend.
I’m listening.
Firelight dances on the cuffs’ surfaces and their swirly patterns twist and shift before my very eyes. I gasp. The patterns coil and shift again, writhing like they’re agitated, unsettled.
“D-do you see that?” I ask Aasim. His eyes grow wide. He can see it. Thank goodness, I was beginning to think I was losing it.
“What’s it saying?” Bati asks. “What do you hear now?”
“Uhhm, I don’t know.” I close my eyes, focusing on the whispers, straining to make sense of them.
O’yatsa ki’nyokoo.
“I can’t…”
O’yatsa do’vexi.
“I don’t know what it means.”
“Say it,” Bati says. “Tell it to me.”
“Uhhm, okay.” My mouth is dry. “Let’s see…”
O’yatsa ki’nyokoo. “O-oh-yah-s-see-key-yoki,” I say.
His brows cinch. “Again?”
“Oh-yatsa-key-nuh-yo-coo,” I say.
“Blood of the ancient,” Bati translates.
O’yatsa do’vexi. “Oh-yatsa-doe-vex-see.”
“Blood of the future.”
Yoo yoo e grizz Yoo yoo e n’sh’kva. “You-you-e-grease-you-you-e-neesh-k-va.”
“Daughter of rage, daughter of truth.”
>
KeeI’i! Da’ya e kees’i n’boo. “Kee-e-die-yah-e-kees-e-nuh-boo.”
“Burn! Ashes of old. Fire forges the new.” Flames flicker in Bati’s eyes. “The cuffs have chosen a wearer, Jelani. You.”
My heart stops. Me? Why?
I am not even Ghizoni.
Apparently Bati can read the expression on my face. “You see, Jelani, magic is a living thing with a will to survive, like anything else. The Elders knew if our magic was at risk the cuffs would call to someone to bear them—to wield their power.”
What does that even mean?
This is too much.
“Rue,” Aasim’s hand warms my back. “You’re more than a stubborn girl from a poor neighborhood. You’re my daughter, blood of the ancient gods of this land. Before the Chancellor united the tribes, before onyx ever existed, we dominated this land in all our glorious majesty.” He pulls my face to his. “Our people—your people—possessed a magic beyond your wildest dreams.”
My insides scream as he tiptoes around a truth I’m not ready to see.
“You have that same magic inside you, and with these cuffs you can access it. Use it to restore Ghizon.”
No, there’s a mistake.
This isn’t… I’m not…
I can’t breathe. I can’t think.
“You are Ghizoni,” Aasim says.
I’m not. Words lodge in my throat.
He really believes this. That I’m… no, he has it wrong. Somehow, this is all wrong. I don’t even know these people. I hardly know him.
I’m just Rue—Rue from East Row.
The world spins and my chest tightens. The cuffs dangle from my wrists. Their burning swallows me and I can’t look away. I’m transfixed, the whispers as clear as day, and yet still a tangled mess in my head.
“Th-these cuffs… I… I thought they just had s-something to tell me.…”
“They do,” Bati says. “Our Ancestors, our Elders, are saying they stand with you. With these cuffs, you have not only your own magic but theirs, too.”
“I… I don’t… but…” My words and thoughts are all stutters.
Bad-ass magic would come in handy right about now.
