“Got it. I’ll look.”

“Thank you. I’ll be back.” I join Jhamal in the doorway and cool air meets us outside.

“Thanks for the heads-up.”

His hand touches the small of my back as he gestures for me to walk in front of him, and my insides twinge with longing.

“I want to help.” I’m not even sure what that means. I wish I knew. I wish I knew a lot. If I’d fully understood more about where I come from, our customs, traditions, I’d have known not to touch the body. I’d have known that my people are a tapestry of clans and traditions and cultures.

“I know you do,” he says.

“How exactly will the burial ceremony go?”

“Twelve are needed to complete the burial ritual. But helping is not enough. We need to show them you are learning. You are trying to get it.”

“Get what exactly?”

He stops me. “Get what it means to be Ghizoni.”

He keeps walking but I’m stuck where I’m standing. His words hit like a brick. The truth that’s been tugging at me, the burning conviction that helping with this burial is as important as finding that spell. The weight of his words takes my breath as we climb out of the underground lair.

Embracing my father’s heritage, my people here, is one thing… but he’s right, understanding what it means to be Ghizoni is something different entirely. If I knew more, maybe I wouldn’t have failed them on the battlefield. Maybe I would have better understood the plan the others were trying to convince me of in the forest outside Yiyo before everything went to shit. Maybe I wouldn’t have been locked up for months if I knew more about our tactics, the ways Kai leads and protects her saisas.

Shame sears through me. Once we get our magic back, why would they fight beside me? Why would they believe I even care if I’m not earnestly trying to understand who I am, all of who I am? And so much of that is here, in Ghizon, which I missed out on for seventeen years.

Maybe my people would be alive if I were Ghizoni in more than name.

If I’m going to be worthy of any of this, any of them—I glance at Jhamal—I have to stop screwing up. I study the ground as we move outside, watching my feet, embarrassment coiling in my gut. Here, in this place, I am home, but… I know nothing.

CHAPTER NINE