A Third of the Moon and the Stars Struck

by Jade Brieanne

  Onyu sighed, interrupting her. “We have to go now, ladies. Kowloon awaits.”

  Benja’in-su squeaked. “Oh! Of course! Of course!” She turned to Jin and grabbed her hands. “Remember. They aren’t going to hurt you…much. You just have to–”

  Onyu laughed. “That’s enough Benja! She will learn.” Onyu walked off and Jin had to jog to keep up.

  “Uh, what is she talking about?”

  “Benja’in-su is the socialite of Discord. She talks too much. Ignore her.”

  “You mean ignore the part about someone hurting me?”

  “Yes.”

  Jin was about to voice a complaint when they turned the final corner and approached two filth covered doors, the handles shaped like peacocks, their feathers trailing to the floor. Onyu pulled open the doors and Jin’s jaw dropped.

  A forest. It was a freaking forest.

  “Welcome to the center of Nuh–Kowloon Forest.”

  Jin worked her mouth but no words came out. The forest was dense and packed with trees–there had to be thousands of them. Strangely, they were all bare of leaves, just thin branches that stuck out at odd angles. In lieu of leaves on the trees, there were rectangle strips of paper with words scribbled on them in a strange language. Despite no leaves, green foliage and pale pink petals covered the ground.

  Just above the forest line was a sky that was blue with hints of purple and pink but cloudless. The air smelled like the sea and gulls flew through the air. Staring above, it felt like the freedom Jin wanted. A bird’s cry was heard. She frowned as the feeling of freedom melted and was replaced by something else. She could feel the thump of her pulse in her neck.

  “In order for you to believe, you must see. In order to see, you must believe.” Onyu picked up a handful of petals and let them slip through her fingers.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” she muttered under her breath.

  Onyu put a firm hand to her back and gave her a push. “The truth you’re seeking is in this forest.”

  Jin stumbled forward as Onyu began collecting more foliage from the ground, gathering a pile of fallen leaves and petals in her arms, lifting to eye level, and then dropping it. Instead of the leaves and petals hitting the ground, they floated mid-air. When it was padded enough Onyu gingerly took a seat, crossing one long leg over the other.

  “Ascend,” she invoked and Jin watched as her leaf and petal nimbus rose, higher and higher until she was level with the top of the forest. Onyu stared down at her from her new throne in the air. “I can offer you no assistance until you find your truth.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Jin shouted from the ground.

  “Exactly what I said,” Onyu shouted back before shooing Jin away with a wave of her hand. “Oh and keep your hands to yourself until you’ve made your choice. It can get nasty.”

  Jin barely kept back a nasty retort of “You’re a goddamn psychopath,” instead of turning towards the forest. It wasn’t the creepiest thing she’d ever seen but it was pretty high up there. The strips of cloth seemed to glow eerily and the background of Kowloon seemed to fade into a misty gray nothing.

  “It’s just trees, Jin Lily Jean Amaris. Just trees,” she whispered to herself. She took a timid step forward, then another and another, moving forward until she was in the thicket. “Okay, so in order for you to believe, you must see and in order to see, you must believe,” she repeated.

  She frowned when her path led her right to the base of a tree. Its bark was a lifeless pallor, leading her to believe there were no leaves because the trees were dead. A gentle wind swept through Kowloon and the little strips of paper danced in its breeze.

  “In order for you to believe, you must see. In order to see, you must believe. In order to see…”

  Jin’s eyes narrowed as she looked at the paper strips with their weird language on it. “Wait. I’ve seen these before….from Key’s Watcher Coin.” That was the clue she needed! Something I’ve seen before! Excited, she reached high above her, the tips of her fingers brushing a low lying strip.

  A blunt force rammed into Jin’s ribs and the wind flew from her lungs in a loud gasping wheeze. She stumbled back from the tree, her eyes wide. “That hurt!” she rasped.

  She wrapped an arm around her torso as her head snapped to the left and then the right, looking for whoever just hit for her no reason. No one. Not a soul was near her, not the boogie man or a masked murderer.

  Jin approached the tree again and decided a different tactic. I’ll just climb the damn thing. Pushing the sleeves of her white linen top up her arms, she located a sturdy branch, bent low and jumped with all she had. One hand wrapped around the branch and Jin smirked as she reached up with her other, and began hauling herself up. Whapp! Something long and hard rapped across the top of her head. The sharp pain radiated across her skull and her hands flew from the branch to her head. As she fell, an angry face appeared from inside the tree. From inside of the tree. It stared at her and Jin screamed.

  Her back slammed into the hard ground and Jin scrambled back, her hands clutching at handfuls of leaves and her feet slipping on petals as she tried to get away. The apparition emerged from the tree, forcefully ripping itself apart from the trunk.

  “It’s a g-g-g-gh-gh-ghost!”

  The figure stood above her, tall and sure, large black eyes glaring down at her and lips pressed into a severe line. Her body seemed to be like a translucent wisp of smoke or steam…or something. Jin didn’t know and she wasn’t trying to figure out either. The whisp-person held a mean looking bō with a very sharp set of spikes jutting out of it in a spiral. The other end was wrapped in cloth.

  The figure snarled at Jin before taking the bō, hauling it over her head and swinging it towards the ground. When it connected, the impact was so powerful the ground shook. It just barely missed Jin, mainly because she had the good sense to claw the hell out of its way. She could tell, call it intuition, as she avoided another downward swipe, that she wasn’t dodging the bō because she was just that fast. No. The apparition was toying with her, assessing her, sizing her up for a blow that might actually take Jin’s head off.

  Can you die if again if you’re already dead? She dodged another thrust. Apparently so!

  Without warning, the figure doubled her speed, bringing the bō down to the ground, up towards the sky, then swinging the staff at Jin’s head like a baseball bat. Jin ducked and the bō smacked across the top of her hair like someone had hit a bush with a stick. Jin wished she had a weapon to fight back with!

  She rushed to her feet as the figure slid back into an attack pose.

  “What do you want?” she shrieked as the specter charged, taking another swipe at her, this time an upward motion that had Jin stuttering backward out of the way. “Leave me alone!”

  The figure moved like smoke in the wind, her speed reminiscent of Aria’s on the bridge. Maybe not as quick but faster than Jin could keep up with. On each offensive, Jin tried keeping her eye on its movements but by the time she figured out the figure’s location, it had outmaneuvered her. On the last attack, the figure crouched low, spinning and kicking Jin’s leg from up under her.

  Jin flew up in the air and back down, hitting the ground with a pained oof. Was that her arm? That was her arm. She probably just broke her arm? Leg? Back? No. Arm…? Her heart slammed in her chest and she watched in abject horror as the figure hovered over her, the staff raised, the spiked end high in the air. Jin threw her hands up defensively.

  “Please ghost woman don’t kill me I’ve done nothing to you please oh my god!” she pleaded, miserably.

  The apparition looked at her like Jin was a babbling idiot. She blinked at her for a few long moments, her head tilting back and forth like a bird before she lowered then tucked the bō safely at her side. With a hand on her hip, she looked up at the forest canopy, opened its mouth and squawked, the noise so earth-shatteringly loud that Jin rushed to cover her ears.

  “Of course she’s not reacting!�
�� was Onyu’s reply from above. “You aren’t scaring her enough!” The squawking and how Onyu could understand it became a second thought.

  “What do you mean ‘not scaring her enough?’” Jin screamed towards the sky. “I am terrified!”

  “So you believe in fear and fear has approached you. How do you combat fear?”

  “If you say by facing it…” Jin growled.

  “Atta girl!” echoed through the canopy. “Mo’nae! Bring forth the others!”

  The others? “What in the entire hell do you mean the others?” Jin yelled.

  The bird ghost warrior woman–Mo’nae–squawked again before back-springing away from Jin. As soon as she’d created some distance between the two of them, she took her bō and flipped it to the other side, yanking the cloth off to reveal four holes bored into the staff and one at the top. Mo’nae held the staff to her lips and blew out the same note, long and loud and hollow, three times.

  “You feel fear and so it will greet you.” Onyu’s voice was soft but it carried across the air as if she yelled. “These spirits are The Goryō, Guardians of every Kowloon city in Discord. They don’t like people much, but your face is probably more infuriating than most. You have Aria Jinni’s face and Aria Jinni contributed directly to all of their deaths. They are honorable spirits. Aria knew that. It’s how they ended up here.”

  Jin wanted to thank her for the history lesson but she was too engrossed in fighting the horrid dread clawing at her throat. More figures ripped themselves from the trees, each as tall and sure as Mo’nae, each with their own weapons like Mo’nae, and each with a nasty glare they directed at Jin like Mo’nae.

  Jin couldn’t tell you where the first blow came from but it was as if the earth exploded and Jin felt her entire body fly through the air. She hit the ground with a grunt and realized as she peeked an eye opened, that she couldn’t see the opening of the forest anymore nor the walls of Nuh. She was surrounded by trees on all sides.

  Run!

  Jin recognized the voice. She rolled, trying to collect her bearings so she could protect herself but something in her blood was singing, telling her to ignore the pain of the impact–to get up and run.

  They are going to kill you! Get up and run! Run! Look for higher ground! You need the higher ground!

  Jin’s blood raced through her veins, screaming at her to listen. That one voice that sounded like Aria’s had never led her wrong. So she picked herself up and she ran for her life. She ducked and weaved between trees as she aimed for the back of the forest but the grey mist lifted and revealed more and more forest. As she approached a tree, the ghostly outline of an arrow peeked out of the trunk.

  Duck! Roll!

  Jin did as she was told, ducking and rolling away from the tree. The arrow whizzed past her head and sunk into the bark of the tree across from her with a thick sounding thunk.

  Look up!

  Again, Jin listened to the command and gasped. There was an entire mob of smoke warriors behind her, ripping through Kowloon, through trees, rocks, and bushes, gaining on her by the second. Jin clambered from the ground and pivoted on her heels, turning in the direction she came from only to feel dread strangle the breath from her lungs.

  “How….how is this possible?” she whispered in horror.

  Where the forest once was, now a giant chasm stretched out in front of her, the earth crumbling away into a deep dark hole. Jin approached the chasm, frantically searching for a bridge or a rope… anything! Shit! Nothing! She looked down into the darkness. Maybe I can climb down onto a ledge? No. The side was rugged with nothing sturdy enough to stand on. Jumping across the chasm was out of the question and there was no way she was going to guess if there was anything at the bottom such as a river to fall into it. She was trapped.

  She looked left and right, the adrenaline making her vision hyper-aware. The trees blurred in and out of focus and for a faint moment, she could see inside of them. She looked down at the ground and it shook. With the vibrations, she could tell the Goryō were close. She looked up and her suspicions were confirmed. They were gaining on her. Fifty-eight yards? She shook her head hard to clear her head the numbers calling out to her. Forty-five yards. Forty-two yards. She didn’t understand how the numbers would save her. She didn’t know what could save her at all. The feeling of not knowing sunk her heart into her stomach. She needed help.

  “Dad, Mom…Aiden…someone...”

  Run!

  Jin nodded. “Left…no, right. No…no….” The vibrations grew stronger. Where? There is nowhere to run to! “Onyu,” Jin screamed, looking at the tree canopy. “Help me! Please!”

  The sound of footfalls crescendoed into a roar, scaring her, freezing her to her feet. Her palms began to sweat, her head began to pound, and her heart raced. Onyu was right. She didn’t know how to protect herself. She couldn’t fight, she didn’t know how to! She’d proven that when Shen came for her. She’d proven that when he’d attacked them and she hid behind the bed like a coward. She proved that when she was in Caeli and wanted to run instead of finding out the truth.

  Have courage, young lion! Please!

  “No, I don’t–I don’t have any. I’m so scared. Help me,” she whispered as she crouched low and brought her arms over her head.

  No, you’re wrong. Courage isn’t the absence of fear. It’s looking fear in the face and telling it to go to hell!

  “No…no….just…help me!”

  A warm breeze caressed her skin and it felt like love. I am helping you by teaching you to help yourself. No one can be you but you. You are alone, yes, but you are made of stars and of your ancestors and galaxies and sunlight. You are the Sun. You are incandescent. Glow!

  “Please help me. I can’t do this. I’m scared!”

  And you always will be! That will not stop you from standing! From fighting! Stand!

  A force jolted her and she raised her head. A feeling took over Jin, one of power and reassurance. She felt it in her blood, under her skin, deep in her bones. She felt the stars, galaxies, and cosmos within her. She felt the courage of every ancestor she knew and didn’t know, the ones buried deep in her grandmother’s stories.

  She stood. Words she did not recognize, words she’d never heard before in her life, filled her head. She raised her hand to the approaching storm.

  You know the words to say. Say them and claim your right to live!

  “Araboth Path.”

  Her vision sharpened and numbers and colors and scents became alive to her. She could actually smell the burnt smell of the figures’ existence, the essences of the trees, Onyu’s wild cherry fragrance. The wind howled in her head, unbalance and wild.

  “First disciple,” she whispered. “I command you!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  Onyu gazed at the scene from the comfort of her rose petal pedestal, accessing the situation with the calmness of a woman who’d seen this sort of power before. This had been a test of sorts but it was the only way Onyu could show Jin Amaris that everything she was telling her was the truth.

  Onyu was bound by certain rules in Discord. She wasn’t allowed to show visions like Pythia Del used to, or give anyone or anything exact truths without equivalent exchange. Jin had to trust Onyu, of course, but she also had to trust herself.

  Those in Caeli had not been honest with her; Aria had not been honest with her. So, even if Onyu hadn’t been restricted by rules, she had a feeling that Jin would not respond to just words.

  The Goryō would give Jin something that words wouldn’t prove.

  When Onyu called for the Goryō to attack, she knew they wouldn’t hold back. To be honest, there was a chance that they would seriously hurt Jin. But as Onyu requested trust from Jin, Onyu already had that trust in Jin. And she proved that trust at the edge of the chasm. With nowhere to go, Jin had a choice. She always had a choice.

  Jin chose to fight.

  Light engulfed Kowloon and Onyu shielded her eyes. Then there was a rush of power and a subsequent heav
iness in the air that caused her cloud to lower towards the ground under its weight. Good, she thought. Good.

  By the time the light had faded, the Goryō had receded to the edges of the forest, some even hiding behind the trees. That was fear. The Goryō recognized the structure of Jin’s spiritual mass. It mimicked Aria’s completely, maybe not in strength but in substance. Of the seven angelic paths, one contained bits and pieces of each. And, wisely, even if she didn’t know, Jin picked the exact path that exhibited that.

  Araboth.

  Jin blinked out of the daze, her eyes still dilated, and her hair still flowing in the backdraft of her energy. She had a new addition now. Aria’s tattoos were tribal, thick and bold. Jin’s looked delicate, intricate and angry, dancing down her side. Onyu had to give it to her. She should have fainted with the amount of power pouring out of her yet she stood even as her chest heaved with exertion. Silver cabochon eyes shifted to the Goryō and they scattered under her gaze, the smoky trails of their existence vanishing as they escaped back into the safety of the trees.

  Jin’s steel gaze rotated to Onyu in a mechanical manner, ticking across the forest, and Onyu could see the anger there–which was fine. She expected anger. A part of spiritual training came with emotional training. The very base of these powers was pure emotion. What she didn’t expect was the speed. One second Jin was on the opposite side of Kowloon, banked in a haze of power, and the next, her hands were around Onyu’s neck as she slammed her into one of the concrete walls of Nuh.

  “What is this,” she hissed in Onyu’s face, her teeth bared, red bleeding into her eyes.

  “You wanted me to show you the truth. This is it.”