A Dance of Dragons: Series Starter Bundle (9 page)

And then it was done.

Leoa tightened the strands, tying a series
of intricate knots at the base of Jinji's braid to keep it tight
and strong.

Just like that, she was a woman.

Waiting one more breath, Jinji opened her
eyes.

And screamed.

Jumping up and backing quickly away from the
spot, she stumbled over Leoa's feet until they had both fallen to
the ground again.

Eyes.

She had seen bright white eyes staring out
of her shadow.

"We must go," Jinji urged, breathlessly
struggling to stand on her feet. Was that a yell she heard off in
the distance? Were cries riding on the wind? "Do you hear
that?"

Leoa gripped her hands, keeping her steady.
"What? There is nothing. You're scaring me."

Jinji paused, took a deep breath, and
listened. She heard nothing. Leoa was right.

Looking down at her feet, Jinji let her eyes
run over the edge of her shadow, looking deep into the depths for
some sign of betrayal.

But it was all a dream. It must have been a
trick of the light. An illusion she had woven without realizing
it.

Everything was fine. Everything was as it
should be.

Her breath slowed as she tried to relax.
Everything will be all right. The past is the past—I will not
let it determine my future.

She would not let the shadows drive her
crazy—she had moved beyond that, past the craze that Janu's death
had left her in. She was better now. Stronger.

"Come here," Leoa said, holding up the
dress.

Jinji stepped closer, turning around and
slipping off the furs that she currently wore. They were brown,
covered in dirt and grass stains, blending into the spot where they
fell.

She raised her arms up, letting the fresh
dress slide down over her body. It was still rough and unworn,
scratchy against her skin. But it was beautiful. And it made her
copper skin glow.

Leoa tugged on the strap around Jinji's
waist securing it tightly before stepping back. Jinji turned,
meeting her friend's smile with a weak one of her own.

"Let's go—" Leoa began.

But she never got the chance to finish,
because the imagined scream Jinji had heard on the wind turned into
a real one, piercing both of their ears like a dagger.

Their eyes met. After years of friendship,
of sisterhood, no words were needed. The fear in their gazes said
it all, spoke more than words could, and they ran.

Another wail cut through the forest.

Then a growl and a grunt.

The howl of a warrior cry.

Then silence.

Leoa ran faster, her long legs carried her
farther than Jinji's petite frame could match. Before long, her
friend had become a phantom dashing farther and farther out of
Jinji's sight.

The fringe on Jinji's dress pulled against
branches, tangling her in the forest as if the trees themselves
were trying to stop her. The wind pressed against her limbs, strong
gusts that acted like a wall holding her body. Her feet dipped deep
into soft mud that should have been hard and dry.

But Jinji pressed on, speeding through the
small stream at the edge of their home until she spotted a figure
in the distance, just beyond the entrance to the great
longhouse.

She sighed, slowing her steps. It was
Leoa.

If her friend had stopped running, then
there was nothing to fear. Jinji had gotten them both worked up
over nothing.

"Leoa?" She called.

Her friend turned just enough for Jinji to
see a long stick protruding from her chest, a red spot seeping
through her skins.

"Leoa!" Jinji screamed. Her eyes widened in
horror and her heart pounded, but she was stuck. Her feet felt too
heavy to move, as if everything was happening in slow motion.
Janu's face flashed before her eyes. This could not be happening.
Not again. Her limbs were stiff, her mouth dry, her brain just
repeated
no, no, no
unable to comprehend anything but
agony.

And then a whisper filtered through the
wind, "Jinji," and Leoa's arm reached out.

Her instincts kicked in. Jinji dashed to her
friend, her sister, catching her just as her knees gave out and her
body fell. They landed together, sliding slowly to the ground as
Leoa's weight pulled them down. Jinji hugged Leoa to her chest,
wishing that the beat of her heart would somehow spread to that of
her friend's.

But she felt the body in her arms slacken,
felt it drop an extra inch into her lap, heard one last gasp of
desperate air, and knew.

Her arms lost their grip and Leoa tumbled
onto Jinji's lap, lifeless and wide-eyed, shock written across her
features.

"Ka'shasten," she whispered, ignoring the
tears that blurred her vision
. My family
. "Pajora
jinjiajanu."
Be with the spirits
.

Her voice cracked and she screamed.

And then her vision went red. She was not a
little girl this time. She was a warrior. And she would find out
who did this.

Jinji stood. Her eyes scanned the trees,
searching for the bow that loosed the arrow, searching for any
movement. But the village was still.

"Who are you?" She screamed.

A shuffling noise drew her attention. Just
beyond the longhouse, someone was moving.

Jinji crept closer, pressing her body
against the curved wood of the house, using it as a shield, hiding
from the invader.

Heart pounding, she peered around the
corner.

But it was a man she recognized.

"Maniuk," she hissed, trying to catch his
attention. His spear was poised at the ready, a bow was slung over
his shoulder, and the knife at his waist dripped red.

Part of her was proud. He was already a
great warrior, and he would be a great leader when this fight was
over.

But another part was afraid. Where was
everyone else?

Maniuk didn’t turn to her call. All of his
attention was focused on the trees opposite them. She followed the
line of his head, unable to see his eyes, and scanned the
woods.

There was nothing there.

"Maniuk," she called again. Chills ran along
her limbs. It was not the time to be fighting alone.

Suddenly he jerked into action. His arm
lashed out, releasing the spear in a low arc that sailed through
the center of their small village until with a thud, it landed.

A body fell forward, scratching against bark
as it dropped.

But it couldn’t be.

Jinji stepped back.

Maniuk?

He would never…

But there was Kekohi, one of their own, an
Arpapajo, facedown with the spear through his chest.

Jinji's trembling hands rose to cover her
lips, holding in the cry.

And then Maniuk turned around.

White.

His eyes were white, drained of all color,
of all spirit, empty and somehow full at the same time.

The shadow had found her. It had come for
her.

She stepped back again and again, moving
away from the monster before her until her foot caught, and she
stumbled.

Looking down, Jinji saw what she had missed
earlier. The feathers along the arrow piercing Leoa's chest were
raven black with red painted tips. They were Arpapajo, not
newworlder. They were Maniuk's—Jinji had plucked those feathers
herself.

He moved closer.

Jinji didn’t try to run. She had no weapons,
no hope of outpacing him. She had nothing left to run for.

Three feet from her body, Maniuk stopped. He
slipped the knife from his waist and held it before him, arm out,
almost as if he were offering it her.

Her eyes narrowed, traced the bulging veins
up his wrist to his shoulder, until she stared into those absent
yet knowing eyes.

The knife rose higher, up and up, over the
height of her head, until it rested at his throat.

"No," she reached forward.

But in one quick motion, it was over.

Jinji didn't look away. Instead, she
searched those eyes, and the instant before Maniuk's life was gone,
she saw what she had been looking for. The shadow disappeared and
Maniuk, her taikeno, was back. A deep despair flashed in his
irises, and they froze that way as death took him.

He dropped to her feet.

Jinji knelt down, put her palm to his cheek,
and closed his eyelids. "We would have done great things together,"
she whispered, brushing her fingers up through his hair, "I'm sorry
I brought the shadow to you. I'm so sorry, my taikeno."

Jinji lowered her head until her lips
pressed softly against his. Their first kiss. The one they should
have shared at their joining. The one that should have been the
first of many, yet would be their last. The only kiss they would
ever know.

Suddenly adrenaline punched through her
veins. This couldn’t be the end, there had to be someone alive. Her
mother. Her father. The children.

She jumped over his body and paused at the
edge of her home.

To her left, the longhouse where her tribe
slept each night. To her right, the longhouse where food was
stored. Across from her, the smaller hut where she lived with her
parents. And behind, the ceremonial grounds—today, the burial
grounds.

It did not take long to decide where to
check first, and before she realized she had moved, Jinji was
pulling the furs of the longhouse aside.

The stench hit her like a punch in the gut,
and she stumbled. Red splashed over the dirt floor, against the
wooden slabs of the walls, dripping from the beams.

The only way to keep moving was to turn her
mind off. She walked emotionless down the rows of bed pallets,
checking each cut throat for a pulse, not caring as her hand
stained maroon.

The children looked asleep, and she was
happy for that, happy they had drifted away in ignorance, without
experiencing the slow terror that was spreading along her
nerves.

None.

There were none alive. And barely any sign
of a struggle.

It was too much.

Jinji burst from the door and gulped in
fresh air, heaving and coughing until spit dribbled from the corner
of her lips—spit and tears.

Lifelessly, she moved back to Leoa's body
and lifted her by the arms, dragging her over to the longhouse.

Jinji did the same for the bodies of the
warriors she found sprinkled through the trees. She did the same
for Maniuk, because she knew in her heart it wasn't really his
fault—it was her fault, her burden to bear.

And when all of the bodies were safely
tucked inside, she turned to her family's hut, knowing without a
doubt what she would find.

She saw her father first, face down in the
dirt. She turned him over, hand trembling above the wound that had
opened his chest, and threw his furs over his stomach before
pulling him to the rest of their people.

And finally, her mother, hand tucked under
her cheek—peaceful and unaware.

And then it was done.

Before she could think, Jinji moved to the
great fire always burning in the center of their village. She
pulled a stick free and placed it against the dried wood of the
longhouse, watching it spark, flare, and spread wildly.

Jinji stepped back, letting it burn her
eyes.

Better to blaze than to drown.

Everyone she knew. Everyone she loved. An
entire people wiped out. An entire culture gone.

But no, not everyone.

She was still here.

Alone.

Jinji looked down at the red stains covering
her white dress, oozing wider with every second. Suffocating. The
dress was suffocating her. It scratched her throat, sucked close to
her body, constricting her breath, closing in on her lungs.

She screamed, ripping the dress down the
seams, pulling the skins her mother had spent hours preparing
apart, until she was standing completely bare in the sun.

Like a ghost, she turned around. Her eyes
were vacant. Her arms hung lifelessly by her side. Her feet
shuffled forward, barely lifting off the dirt.

Jinji went inside her home, reached for the
box she always kept by her sleeping mat, and lifted the lid. Her
brother's clothes. Tiny as she was, Jinji still fit in Janu's
boyhood clothes. She still wore them sometimes, when she needed to
feel like she was not alone. So she slipped them on, sliding her
legs through the breeches and her arms through the leather shirt,
both worn soft by time.

Reaching down again, Jinji gripped his
hunting knife and grasped the end of her braid. Barely there an
hour, and already all was lost. Her prayer had failed.

Slowly, she sliced through her thick hair,
back and forth, back and forth, mechanically.

The braid dropped to the ground.

Her body shivered.

She reached back up again, eyes wide and
wild, fighting the tears that were bound to come.

Crazed, Jinji kept cutting, grabbing any
loose hairs she could, forcing herself as bald as she could go, as
though cutting it all off could somehow bring them back, or at
least bring them peace.

When it was done, she lay down, curled on
her side with her legs pulled firm against her chest, so she could
cry away from the world—whatever was left of it.

And deep in her heart, she wished for one
thing, a wish she had longed for years ago—that she had died
instead of Janu.

Before, it had been a selfless wish, a wish
that her twin could live a long, happy life. She would have died to
give him that chance. But now, she was acting selfishly. She was
alone, and she wished beyond all things that she were the one with
her people in the spirit world.

Her eyes closed and she cupped her hands,
imagining the spirits and the jinjiajanu she had trapped in that
small place.

And as she wished, she wove, tying the
elemental spirits around her body in an intricate illusion, so for
at least a little while she could pretend that she was the twin who
had died, instead of the twin who was alone—the last remaining
Arpapajo in this hopeless world.