CoS32

## Chapter 32

**Chapter 32** of **City of Spells** follows **Zekia**.

## **Full Version**

DANTE ASHWOOD, LEADER OF USKHANYA’S magical nexus and capital city of Creije, was sipping Cloverye. He let Zekia have some, mostly because she was bored and he didn’t seem much for conversation in the late hours of midmorning. Ashwood was like a moon flower, blooming best at night when the shadows and the darkened skies came out to play.

While he sipped his Cloverye and the glass disappeared beneath his cloudy lips, Zekia toyed with the core of an apple. They brought her out in a rash whenever she ate them, but she liked the taste, and scratching away at her skin almost felt like she was scratching away all of the evil things inside of her, like the fruit was bringing the rotten parts to the surface and Zekia could scrub them into nothingness.

“There’s still much to do,” Dante Ashwood said. “So much left to conquer, even after Yejlath falls.”

Zekia nibbled at the apple core.

“Your once Kin, for example,” Ashwood said. “Your once family ran and escaped like the treacherous rats they are. They couldn’t face us and our vision for this great realm.”

Zekia put down the apple core and scratched at the rash on her hand.

“You said you wouldn’t hurt them. You promised that we’d wait until I was ready. That busker Nolan—”

“Gave me what you couldn’t, little warrior.” Ashwood shook his head and placed his Cloverye in the center of the table. “You and Wesley are starting to disappoint me.”

Zekia looked to the floor and kept scratching, but the more she did, the more a voice scratched at the back of her mind. As though Wesley, upon hearing his name through the winds of the world, had come to say his piece.

*Zekia*, he whispered.

His voice touched at the back of her mind, like he was tapping against a door.

Zekia opened her thoughts to him.

“Let me tell you a story,” Ashwood said. “About a little boy who grew up on the streets of Creije, long before you were ever born.”

He wiped a hand across the surface of the table, smudging the dust between his forefinger and thumb.

“He was raised by a doting mother, who only wanted what was best for him, but she was too poor and too sick to be of any real use. She couldn’t take care of the boy or give him what he needed.”

Ashwood circled the table, running a hand along the back of Zekia’s chair. She stiffened in response.

*Zekia*, Wesley whispered again.

To Wesley, she said, *Hello! There you are! You didn’t forget about me.* And smiled into the very corners of her mind.

“The little boy was fascinated by magic and one day he met a busker who promised him wonders,” Ashwood said. “He begged the crooked fellow to give him something to help his mother. Then the busker pulled out a vial, bright as the sun, and told the boy it was the secret to happiness. And so the boy ran home as fast as he could and poured the elixir into his mother’s soup and watched her drink it. He waited for the moment it would fix all of their problems.”

Ashwood paused with a long sigh.

“The elixir did not fix anything,” he said. “It only made the boy’s mother sicker, until one day she died. The busker had called it happiness, but it was the destroyer of happiness.”

Zekia had never heard this story before, but it echoed with familiarity. Ashwood had named her elixir the Loj because of *ljoisi uf hemga*—the light of happiness. She had never questioned why he’d chosen that name, but it made sense now.

Zekia had finally given him what nobody else had been able to.

*It’s not your fault, kid*, Wesley said. *Don’t listen to him. Listen to me. Listen to* my *voice.*

Zekia bit down on her lip.

“Before the boy’s mother died, she told him a secret,” Ashwood said. “She told him his father’s name with her dying breath. Magnus Robertsson.”

The old Realm Doyen. Zekia knew the name just as anyone in Uskhanya did.

“He knew he was my father and he didn’t care. He turned his back on his family just like he turned his back on the realm. He tried to erase my destiny.”

“But leaders aren’t chosen by blood,” Zekia said. “They’re elected.”

She knew the words were dangerous as soon as she spoke them, because good little warriors knew when to stay quiet.

Ashwood spun Zekia’s chair around and slammed his palms on the armrests. When he leaned in, close enough that she could smell the ash on his breath, he said, “My story isn’t finished yet.”

*It’s okay, kid,*Wesley said*. I’m going to get you out*.

*There is no out,*she whispered back. *There never was.*

Ashwood righted himself and adjusted his suit in a way Zekia had seen Wesley do so many times.

“After my mother died, I set out to find my father and confront him,” he said. “I vowed to become a man he could never ignore. That’s why I found that busker who gave me the elixir and killed him. Why I approached the then-underboss of Creije with his head as a trophy and earned my place in the ranks. Back then the underrealm was barely organized and poorly maintained, but I had vision. I saw the opportunity to be great and eventually I took charge of the magical trade and became the first ever Kingpin.”

He looked to Zekia.

“When the War of Ages broke out across the realms and the Crafters revolted, my eyes were open to the way the world should be,” Ashwood said. “But by then it was too late. Still, the Many Gods did grant me one favor. Can you guess what it was?”

He continued circling the table until he settled in front of Zekia again and placed a hand on her small shoulder.

“I met my father on the battlefield. I saw the Realm Doyen of Uskhanya, surrounded by death. It was a sign from the Many Gods that my path was true. And so I approached that man, under the light of a shadow moon, the magic of my Crafters embedded into me. I told him who I was. I watched his face change. And before he had the chance to speak, I gutted him.”

Zekia’s hand still itched from the apple, but she was too scared to move to scratch it.

“You see, leaders are *born* and family must sometimes be sacrificed for the greater good. You know that my vision for the realms will have Crafters take back the world from the weak. I will have magic be worshipped like the gift from the Many Gods that it is.”

He placed a hand on Zekia’s cheek and it was cold, cold, cold.

“I will keep our family safe, little warrior.”

*Your family is with me*, Wesley said. *We’re still in Rishiya and we haven’t given up on you.*

*I don’t have a family, Zekia told him. I don’t have anything anymore.*

*Yes, you do, he said. You have me, kid.*

Wesley had never referred to Zekia as family before, no matter how hard she tried and how good she was. If something had happened in Rishiya to change that, then Zekia felt very sad that she had not been there for it. She felt a little left out that half of her—the old, with Amja and Saxony and their father—was mixing with the new. With Wesley. All without her.

“You still believe in our future, don’t you?” Ashwood asked.

*You never told me your name back when we first crawled into each other’s minds*, Wesley said. *I guess I never told you mine, either.*

Zekia frowned and then righted her brow quickly before Ashwood saw. She knew Wesley’s name, just like everyone this side of Uskhanya did. Only, she also knew his favorite color and his worst nightmares. She knew him well enough that sometimes it seemed like he was a character in a story she had created, each line and curve of his mind a reflection of her own imagination.

*Wesley Thornton Walcott*, she said to him, uttering a name she knew so many people had whimpered right before their death.

“It’s because of you that we were able to achieve so much,” Ashwood said. “Because of you, I can take the realm that is rightfully mine and carve our new world from the blood of those who challenge me.”

Zekia felt Wesley shake his head inside of her mind and the action jolted her enough that her own head threatened to sway.

*Malik,*he said. *My name is Malik Akintola.*

Zekia dug her hands into fists to keep from screaming.

*Malik.*

The digging wasn’t an effective technique, because her hands started to shake so much, and then bleed from her nails, that she had to shove them quickly behind her back.

*You need to listen to me*, Wesley said. *I can only protect you if you let me, remember?*

Zekia swallowed.

*Malik,*she said. *MalikMalikMalikMalik.*

Her big brother wasn’t gone and a part of her wasn’t even surprised. She had sensed it, maybe, all along, and perhaps that was where the desperate urge to please Wesley and make him a part of her new family had come from.

This was the boy whose destiny she had stolen. Whose future had been thrust upon her before she was even old enough to know his face.

“Little warrior,” Ashwood said. “You still trust me, don’t you?”

*MalikMalikMalik.*

“I trust you,” Zekia said.

Ashwood smiled, but she wasn’t speaking to him. She was speaking to her brother, whispering in her mind and watching over her even now. She was speaking to the boy who would make the world okay again, just like she had seen in that vision.

Malik would fix it all.

Malik would fix her.

“Good,” Ashwood said. “Because I need you more than ever.”

*I have to ask you something*, Wesley said. *I have to ask you to make a choice.*

Zekia hadn’t made a real choice in a long time. She wasn’t sure that she still knew how. Somewhere the realms had gone off-kilter and no matter how often she tried to steady them, or pull all the fragments together to create a new and level line, nothing was quite like before.

Zekia didn’t trust her decisions or her thoughts, or even her magic.

“If it comes down to it and we can’t bring Wesley to our side, then we’ll need to kill him,” Ashwood said.”He can’t be a weapon for our enemies. You know that, don’t you? You must be prepared to do what’s needed.”

*Is that what you want?*Wesley asked*. Or will you join us?*

*I want it to be over,*Zekia said. *Please, just let it be over.*

*I can’t promise that*, Wesley said. *Not until you give me your answer.*

Zekia closed her eyes and pictured her brother’s face.

She pictured her visions, side by side: the world she had seen that Wesley could bring, filled with so much light. And the world that Ashwood had shown her he could create, with Crafters no longer afraid.

Just a little blood and they had already spilled so much.

Wouldn’t it be wasted to stop now?

Would that make all of those deaths mean nothing?

“Little warrior,” Ashwood said. “Will you do this for me?”

*Kid*, her brother whispered. *Will you join us?*