“Nya! Stop!”
More than one clan member screamed her name, but she lost herself in Sulo’s pain as he crashed into a spire and slid down onto his side.
Forgetting his state, she tried to approach him, but as soon as she neared his face, he lashed out with gnashing teeth and desperate swipes of his paws.
“What happened to him?” Sahib said, catching up to her, but keeping his distance.
No animal did this, she thought, sheathing her swords and looking over the grievous wounds. Great lacerations split down his back, branching down into his hind legs like a charred tree. Angry red blisters covered the raised ridges of swollen tissue where his golden-brown fur had been burnt away.
The storm—
She heard Sen’s words in the back of her mind. “That’s a mor’tye… A twelve-point attack pattern used by the Guild post.”
“Shock jockeys did this,” Nya replied, stooping down to level with the bully bear.
But why?
It didn’t matter. Not now, when his breath came in great heaves, and his movements became less and less coordinated.
“Sulo,” Nya said, trying to get his attention with the sharpness of her voice. “You need to turn back. I can’t help you like this.”
Kaden and Osan joined her side, each of them knowing well enough to stand behind her and not antagonize the bully bear.
“The rest of you—back off,” she commanded, waving away the clan members emerging from their tents or approaching the scene with weapons in hand. She spotted Sen and her beast not too far off, looking on with wide, curious eyes.
“Who’s this?” Natsugra said, pushing aside all but Nya to see the wounded Shifter.
“Sulo. He’s my best contact in the Realm.”
The bully bear growled and snapped at Natsugra as she tried to take a step closer.
“I can’t do anything for him while he’s shifted,” the medicine woman said, looking to Nya. “You’ve got to get him back or he’ll die.”
“Sulo, wake up!” she said, stretching out her arms to display her tattoos and scars. The bully bear dropped his head, blood dripping from his ears, saliva frothing from his mouth. “Come on—don’t do this, you stupid mutt. We want to help you!”
Yelling didn’t help, but she didn’t know what else to do.
“Please,” she said, dropping to her knees as he rasped and grunted, his eyes no longer maintaining any kind focus. “Shift back. Don’t do this to me.”
(Sho—)
One word, strangled by pain, escaped his muzzle in a wheezy breath. “Nezra…”
Nya’s stomach dropped to her knees. Did the Nezra attack a Guild post? Maybe Sulo got caught in the middle.
“Can I help?”
“Get back,” Nya said, waving Sen away as the young girl took a few tentative steps toward the bully bear.
A wrinkled hand covered in brown spots gripped her shoulder. “Let her.”
“What?” Nya huffed, shocked that the medicine woman would even entertain such an idiotic idea. “Like she could do anything.”
Natsugra and Osan exchanged glances.
“What other choice do we have, Nya?” Osan said, pointing his walking stick at the dying bear.
Gritting her teeth, but refusing to look directly at the girl, Nya asked: “What are you going to do?”
No response. Instead, Sen shrunk back, clinging to Akoto with a frightened look upon her face.
Come on, Sulo, she thought, holding up her arms again to show him something familiar, hoping to trigger him back to his human form. “Don’t give in to the animal,” she whispered.
A shadow fell over her and the injured bully bear. Nya looked back and jumped at the sight of the midnight beast rising up of his hind legs, sniffing the air and flitting his ears toward Sulo.
“Keep him back!” Nya shouted, her hands moving to the hilts of her blades.
“Akoto, stop.” Sen waved her hands in front of him, trying to get him to back off.
The beast didn’t listen. Whipping around his spiked tail, he nearly took Osan and Natsugra’s heads off, and forced Sen to dive between his legs.
That’s it.
Drawing a knife from her belt, Nya took aim for his throat.
What the—
Akoto’s howl, a mournful cry like none other she ever heard, stripped away her intent and sent her stumbling into the bully bear. As she dropped her knife, a memory, not her own, splashed across the surface of her mind: Insects droning, the pain of a thousand stingers piercing her skin. Glimpses of bloody teeth and a insect hand reaching out for her. Then, a chorus of voices silenced all at once, leaving her hollow and empty, in a place of darkness.
I’ve never felt such loss—
But before grief could lock into her heart, a light caught her attention.
Is Sen… glowing?
She didn’t believe her eyes. A soft yellow light radiated off the young girl’s skin as she clung to her beast, her arms wrapped around one of his legs.
No, she thought, resisting the new feeling taking hold as Akoto’s haunting song rose in pitch and intensity. For a moment she felt Sen’s arms hugging her tightly, in an embrace that cut through her armor.
“Stop!” she screamed, squeezing her eyes shut and falling to her knees.
“Look!” someone shouted.
Nya dared to open her eyes as the bully bear roared. Seconds later, golden quills reabsorbed and fur disappeared beneath tan skin as the man behind the animal emerged.
“A miracle…”
“I’ve never seen anything like it.”
As Osan and Natsugra exclaimed praises and awe, Nya shook off the tingling feeling still coursing through her body and lunged at Sen.
“What the hell was that?” she said, shaking the frightened girl by the shoulders.
“I don’t know!”
Osan pried Nya off as Akoto came down to defend his charge. Retreating under Akoto, Sen looked just as feeble and helpless as before as Nya and Akoto stared each other down.
“Nya?”
The weak voice broke Nya’s anger, and she shook off Osan’s grips to run over to Sulo.
“Sulo—Gods—what the hell happened?” she said, holding up his head as Natsugra waddled over and began tending to his wounds.
“Nezra,” he repeated, terror dilating his pupils.
“Did they attack you?”
“No,” he said, straining for breath. “They attacked… the wall… Guild tried to fight… death-dealers got through…”
“He’s in no condition for questioning right now, Nya,” Natsugra said, putting her ear to his chest and pointing a finger at her tent. “Help get him inside.”
Rounding up able clan mates, Nya helped transfer Sulo to Natsugra’s tent. As much as she wanted to question him, to find out more about the attacks, a greater need pulled at her attention.
We’ve got to go. Now.
Osan came up behind her as she paced outside Natsugra’s tent.
“Nya, a word.”
The stern look that squeezed down his bushy eyebrows and compressed his lips killed any defiant response.
Following him to the edge of camp, Nya couldn’t help but look again to the wall. Gray stacks of smoke rose from the forest, but lightning strike fires wouldn’t normally pique her concern; the Guild frequently displayed their power. Still, Sulo’s injuries and his limited account conjured a terrible battle in her mind.
“How many of us are left, Nya?” he asked, indicating with a nod of his head toward the Chakoan camp.
Already on edge, Nya didn’t want to rattle off the short list, or listen to Osan’s drawn-out lecture on the importance of detachment.
“Don’t make me do this,” she said, grinding her teeth together.
The chief stroked his beard, forehead wrinkles bunching over his eyes. “I have survived longer out here than you’ve been alive, Aniya,” he said, using her full name. “I do not mourn the dead, and I do not expect the rise of the sun. But what we j
ust witnessed…”
Is the chief crying?
No, not possible. In all her years, she’d never seen Osan show much of any emotion, least of all one that would give him the appearance of vulnerability.
“If you leave now, you risk the miracle we just witnessed.”
“Miracle?” Nya snorted.
“Did you not feel that great beast’s memories? Or see the spirits rising from Sen?”
Nya curbed the stream of curse words at the idea of “spirits rising” from Sen with a quick bite of her tongue. Tasting blood, she took a breath and answered through a clenched jaw.
“Fine. That beast is special. So what?”
“Did Sulo not transform?”
“What does that have to do with my rescue mission?” she asked, frustration quickening her words. “If the Nezra are attacking, then this is the perfect opportunity to infiltrate the Realm.”
“You cannot deny that the girl has a bond with that beast.”
Rolling her eyes, Nya crossed her arms but did not argue his point.
“We must protect Sen if she is nasci.”
Nya’s hands turned into fists. “You always taught me that the clan comes first. What are we without our blood pact? Will we become just like the favored, weakened by superstition and myth?”
The fury in his eyes should have stopped her, but it didn’t. Instead, she pressed farther, cutting deep into their oldest shared wound.
“I am shadowless—we are shadowless,” she said, spitting on the ground. “And I curse all who are ashamed of what we are.”
A swift palm strike dropped her to her knees. Cradling her cheek, the pain resonated just as loudly as the surprise.
“You’re blind, Aniya, to all but what cannot be.”
Spitting near her feet, Osan walked past her, leaving her alone at the edge of the camp.
She didn’t realize she was holding her breath until dark specks dotted her vision. With a great inhale, she filled her lungs until she thought they would burst, pushing back the pain, the tears, and the awful feeling tearing into her gut.
I don’t need him. I don’t need anyone, she reminded herself. Looking up, she set her sights on the wall, her promise to Sho renewed.
I’m coming. And nothing will stop me now.
Chapter 11
The second the tips of Sen’s fingers touched down on Nya’s shoulder, the warrior reared around, took one look at her through glistening eyes, and then took off toward the mountains.
“Nya, wait!” Sen shouted after her, but to no avail. Within a few seconds, only a dust cloud and the uncomfortable feeling in her stomach remained.
“Let her go.”
Still looking west, Sen didn’t turn to face Osan until he called to her again.
“Come, Sen.”
“But Nya—”
“Come.”
Sen wrung her hands together as she returned to the camp, Akoto grumbling as he followed behind. Something agitated him too, though she couldn’t be certain what.
“Join me,” Osan said, opening the flap to his tent to allow her in.
“Stay here,” she whispered to her oversized friend. Akoto grunted but found a shady spot under a red juniper tree to escape the building lowland heat.
Sen marveled at the oddities inside Osan’s tent. Old books with dust-covered jackets and yellowed pages served as tables and shelves for strange artifacts she couldn’t quite place. At first the jagged metal objects looked like scraps, but upon closer inspection, she realized it looked nothing like the metal she’d seen in the Guild.
“What’s that?” she said, pointing to a chipped red, white, and blue flag painted on a broken name plate.
“Patience,” Osan said, directing her to sit down on a cut of animal skin.
After she found her seating, he continued. “Tell me about what just happened with the Shifter, Sulo.”
Sen balked. What could she tell him—that she feared for Akoto’s life when Nya drew her weapon, so she hugged him with all her might?
(It’s more than that), said a from voice deep inside. The event replayed itself in her mind: The warmth rushing through her when Akoto’s fur brushed against her face and his doleful howl pulling apart her heart.
And then that feeling…
A memory, not her own, playing out in the back of her mind. She couldn’t recall exactly what she saw but remembered distinct sights and smells: the dewy air inside her lungs, glowing slugs sliding across porous rock. Then pain, immense and terrifying, drowning out all else. A blood-stained smile and a hand that looked more insect than human; thousands of stars blinking out at once.
“I don’t know.”
“You know something,” Osan said, scrutinizing her face.
Biting her bottom lip, she stopped herself from saying what first came to mind: We saved him.
“Akoto saved Sulo,” she said. Fidgeting in her seat, she blurted out whatever else surfaced as Osan continued to study her in silence. “I thought I could do something, but…”
Old doubts jangled her nerves. Who am I kidding?
She continued, her voice quavering: “But Akoto’s howl—it brought him back.”
Osan let go of his beard. “I see. How do you know this?”
No answer came to mind. Instead, she shrugged her shoulders and made herself as small as possible, hoping he’d lose interest in the subject.
“Akoto is special. In all my years wandering the outlands, I’ve never encountered a beast like him. Where do you think he comes from?”
Sen shook her head. Why does that matter?
Muttering to himself, Osan unstacked books and rummaged through a cache of old scrolls until he found what he wanted.
“This is a map of our world,” he said, unrolling a large parchment across the little ground space between them, and over several books.
“Wow,” Sen said. Eyes wide with wonder, she looked over the intricately sketched map of the Realm and the surrounding outlands. She’d never seen Hirak mountain drawn with such reverence, or the Gardens represented with the plant associated with each Pod. Even the foggy swamplands of the Nezra and the conical Swarm hives, drawn with only black ink and perhaps charcoal, popped off the paper just like the pictures in her father’s books. “This is beautiful. Where’d you get it?”
“I drew it.”
“Really?” she said, not understanding the rigidity in his voice or the way he avoided her gaze. Excited, she rose on her knees and ran her hands along the edges of the paper. “I like to draw, but I’m not very good. Do you draw other things, too? Animals, people?”
“Sen,” he said, his voice cutting down her enthusiasm. “Focus.”
Pointing a calloused finger to the map, he directed her to the spires. “We are here. This is where Nya found you,” he said, drawing a line back to the Dethros. “This is also where you say you met Akoto, yes?”
Sen nodded.
After scratching his chin for a good minute, Osan, pointed back to the map. “Judging by how good his teeth look, I doubt that Akoto is very old, so he probably hasn’t strayed too far from wherever he’s from. I’ve traveled everywhere on this map, inside and outside the Realm—the ice forests of the north, the forgotten islands to the east, the southern lavafields—even far west, where the world ends. But I’ve never been here.”
He stabbed his finger just southeast of their position, where the drawing abruptly ended in a furious scribble.
“Where’s that?” she asked.
“The Wastes.”
Dread pulled down on her stomach. She’d never heard of the Wastes, but by the way he said it, she felt she’d just learned something her father would have surely forbidden.
“This is where no man can travel.”
“Why?” she said, her voice just above a whisper.
“Only death—and dragons—lurk there.”
“Dragons?”
She thought the day she came running into her father’s office to show him the drawing she had done of a
big red dragon.
“Senzo, you shame me by believing in such foolishness. There are no such things as dragons.”
“But—”
“No!” he said, slamming his fist down on his desk. Swiping the drawing from her hands, he set it aflame with a spark from his fingertips.
As she cried, he continued to lecture her. “Never say—never think—of dragons ever again!”
Older kids spoke of the many mythical creatures that roamed the outlands, but of all of them, dragons fascinated her the most. She imagined their dark scales, sharp talons, and powerful wings that spanned the length of a hundred men. The fact that they actually existed made her both excited and scared.
“You’ve seen one?”
“More than seen,” he said. Unbuttoning the top of his shirt, he pulled down at the neck to give her a hint of the impressive claw marks that mutilated his chest. “Barely escaped one on a scavenging mission. I have Nya to thank for my life.”
A gasp escaped her lips. Akoto wouldn’t do something like that! “Akoto’s not a dragon.”
Osan studied her face with one eye half shut and his lips pressed together in a tight line. Finally, he reached for another scroll and spread it out for her atop the map.
Sen held her breath. The dark creature rendered in harsh brushstrokes and jagged, angry lines before her didn’t look anything like Akoto. With jagged teeth and cold fire burning in its eyes, Osan’s dragon wouldn’t know about protecting runaway girls, or keeping them safe against attackers. Its larger, webbed wings couldn’t wrap around her to keep her warm during the cold night freezes, and with only scales covering its massive body, how could she keep hold during rides across the outlands?
“Akoto’s not a dragon.”
“You can’t deny some of the resemblance,” Osan said, pointing to the similar tail and hindquarters, and the angle of the nose and jaw.
No, she thought, refusing to make any kind of connection with her friend and the monster on the parchment.
“And this power Akoto has—to reach a lost spirit—is very similar to what I felt,” he said, dragging his finger along the black curl of smoke rising from the dragon’s mouth and circling back under its cold eyes. A tremble found its way into his voice. “A dragon can see into your mind, break open your soul. Imagine if you could possess that gift as nasci.”
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