Beasts of Ruin by Ayana Gray

Author:Ayana Gray [Gray, Ayana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2022-07-26T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

The Most Beautiful Thing

Koffi spent the next few days training with Thornkeep’s darajas.

She’d learned first that there were six daraja orders; now she was discovering that, within those orders, there was a significant amount of room for variety.

She spent one day with a stocky boy named Izem, a daraja in the Order of Maisha. He showed her how, with a single touch, he could make a flower bloom or wilt on command. Another day, she met Onyeka, a tall, limber daraja in the Order of Mwili, with an affinity for mending broken bones. Some of the darajas were what Makena privately called “loyalists,” those who were sympathetic to Fedu and supported his plans, but there were plenty of others, she found, who wanted to leave as desperately as she did. The darajas in that group took time to help her with the splendor when they could, coming up with exercises that helped her practice using it in secret. It was, she realized, the first time in her life that she had some semblance of a real community.

In her spare time, Koffi still ventured to the library too, though her progress there was far slower than her progress in working with the splendor. She still hadn’t found any books that even mentioned the Order of Vivuli, let alone any details about other darajas in that order. She already knew—from her lessons and from Badwa—that being a daraja meant it was in her blood, a trait she’d inherited from a direct family member, but she had no idea who that family member might be. She thought hard about Mama, wondering now if she’d ever shown Koffi something by mistake. She was good with animals; perhaps she was in the Order of Maisha. If that was true, though, it still beggared the old unanswered question: Why hadn’t she spoken with Koffi about any of this? A thought came to her, one that stung. Maybe her daraja blood hadn’t come from her mother’s family at all; maybe it’d been Baba. That would make a lot of sense. Baba had died years ago, and in his death left she and Mama with so many burdens that weren’t theirs to carry. Maybe Mama had associated being a daraja with him, with all of his bad choices. It was plausible, but Koffi still couldn’t quite justify it in her mind. She decided then that, when she did get back to Lkossa, it was a question she would ask. Thinking of Lkossa, of course, made her think of Ekon, and Koffi felt a pang as his face filled her mind. Ekon had been hardest to think about during her time at Thornkeep, mostly because she was least sure of what had happened to him when she left. Had he been arrested? Had he escaped? Had he moved on with his life? Those were unanswered questions too, but Koffi wasn’t sure if she was ready for all of the answers to them.

When Makena came to her bedchamber to retrieve her the following evening, Koffi was dressed and ready.

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