Memories of Ash by Intisar Khanani

Author:Intisar Khanani
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Epic, Fantasy, Coming of Age, young adult, Magic
Publisher: Purple Monkey Press
Published: 2016-05-30T07:00:00+00:00

Kenta waits beside the tea tray, gold-flecked eyes intent on me. He’s tied his hair back with a leather cord, and he looks completely different now from the laughing, carefree man of a few minutes past.

I clear my throat. “Tea?”

He grins, a slight upward curve of one side of his mouth. “Of course.”

Was it a memory of me that made him smile, or something else? Perhaps I used to love food … or I was always hungry. It’s unsettling to be in the company of someone who knows me better — knows better who I was and what my life was like in Karolene — than I do myself.

Kenta pours himself a cup while I sit. “Will you tell me?”

I reclaim my plate, remembering the regret with which I’d left it. This time, I’ll finish everything on it, even though my stomach feels as hard and small as a stone. In a moment. First, I take a sip of my tea, now barely warm.

I tell him what he already knows: how we’d been taken to Blackflame’s home, and then how I’d picked the locks to help the Degaths escape Blackflame’s cages only to be caught again. I stumble to a stop, remembering that first glimpse of my mother — my shock at seeing her alive, the surreal vision of her across a decorative lotus pond.

“What happened?” Kenta asks. His words are not just the curious pressing of an acquaintance, but the gentle inquiry of a friend.

“I saw my mother there,” I admit. I cannot bring myself to speak of this morning, of how I last saw her, cold and callously uncaring, a source slave that could have been me huddled against the wall beside her.

He closes his eyes for a heartbeat. “I thought she was dead.”

I nod. “So did I. But she was alive and well, and she didn’t see me.” I shift, smooth out my skirts. Against the embroidered cushions and the vibrant colors of the carpet, they appear mottled gray, creased and stained, threadbare in spots. I focus on a snagged thread, teasing it with my fingers as I go on. “Blackflame gave me to Kol. Some kind of trade to cover a minor debt, I guess. You know he has a portal hidden in the gardens?” I glance up. For the first time since my recovery, the fact that I know this detail strikes me as important.

Kenta’s gaze sharpens. “We suspected. Did they use it?”

“Yes, it looked like a—” I try to fix its image in my mind’s eye, make sure I haven’t somehow changed it by my remembering. “An archway with a gate. Nothing fancy. I don’t remember much of it.”

Kenta nods.

“They took me through, and the next day Kol gave me to a breather he held prisoner.”

Kenta nods again, as if he expected this, though his eyes burn with anger.

I hold up a hand, letting the loose thread go. “The breather and I, we made a pact and escaped together.”

“A pact?”

“I picked the locks. He dealt with the guards.

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