by Matt Laney
For the first time since my trip to the Haven, and for the second time in my life, I am completely at peace. I want to stay with him, melt into him. There are many things I want to ask, so much I want to say, but all I can manage is “Daviyah.”
“Eliyah.” Daviyah’s strange, soothing voice rings in my head and warms my bones. It is a voice that is many voices, overlapping and speaking as one. “I am proud of you. Alayah is pleased with you.”
“Have you come to take me with you?”
“No, Eliyah. Your story has only just begun.”
My heart sinks. I feel like Nagarjuna, stuck here to complete some assignment when I’d rather be elsewhere.
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Follow the path before you. Find out who you are.”
Daviyah lifts his fiery head and lowers his beak. Our eyes meet.
“I am with you always, Eliyah.”
And then he vanishes, just like all the others but without passing through me. Deflated, I face my quadron and Shanti.
Anjali and Zoya stare at me, slack-jawed and starry-eyed. Shanti is radiant. Stick avoids my eyes altogether. He groans and shakes his head. Despite everything he’s seen over the past ten minutes, he’s still struggling to fit it into his Singa upbringing.
Anjali struggles to put some words together. “Th . . . th . . . that . . . was amazing.”
“Are you going to be okay with this, Stick?” I ask.
Stick studies the ground. “There has to be a logical explanation. Maybe Shanti gave us some weird potion while we slept and we hallucinated everything.”
Zoya scowls. “Don’t be stupid.”
“Logic has its place. Science is good,” I affirm. “But maybe today is a day for . . . what was that word Galil taught us?”
“Faith,” Anjali says.
“Faith,” I repeat, enjoying the sound of it. “A different kind of knowing, outside of the evidence.”
“Faith is for the birds,” Stick mumbles.
“Like firewings?” Zoya says with an uncharacteristically large smile.
“We should go,” Anjali says, snapping us all back to the mission before us. “Time to leave Singara and find Leo’s mother. Great idea to have this draycon guard the cave, Leo. Once Tamir gets a report from Mandar and his company, he will send legions of soldiers here in no time.”
Tamir. The Maguar. Mother. I had nearly forgotten.
Anjali brushes past me and peers into the dark void of the cave. “How far is the Maguar’s realm?”
“It’s about a kilometer until you get under the Great Wall, and about a kilometer back up to the surface,” Shanti says. “The way is marked with painted handprints.”
“Stick, are you with us or not?” Anjali asks pointedly.
I search Stick’s face for some sign that he might be coming around and find none. “Please, Stick. We need you.”
“Stick?” Anjali repeats, touching the hilt of her blade.
“We’re a quadron,” he grumbles mechanically. “We stay together.”
“Good, because otherwise I’d have to kill you,” Anjali says. “You know too much.”
Stick can’t tell if she’s serious. He looks at me, and I shrug.
“Get your weapons, quadron,” Anjali commands. “We’re moving out.”
“No weapons,” Shanti says. “You must leave those here.”
Anjali almost chokes. “What?”
“If the Maguar see you with weapons,” Shanti explains, “and believe me, the Maguar will see you long before you see them, they will kill you on sight. If the Maguar find you without weapons, they might allow you to live long enough to explain what you are doing on their lands.”
Anjali unstraps her blades, signaling for us to do the same.
“And your armor, Captain,” Shanti adds. “I will keep it all safe until you return.”
Return.
It’s a comfort to know we might come back to our homeland.
Shanti lights a torch and gives it to Anjali. “Stay on the trail,” he cautions. “If you explore another path along the way, you might not find your way back.”
“Any leeches down there?” Stick asks, throwing me his signature smirk before striding into the inky, unknown regions of the cave. Zoya rolls her eyes and follows.
I grin.
The old Stick is back.
“Only a million or so spiders, rats, bats, and countless insects,” Shanti calls after him, “but no leeches.”
I approach Shanti. I want to take him along, but he has barely moved from his place near the mouth of the cave. He has no intention of going with us. Before we part, there is something I need to confess.
“Shanti, the place where the Jin come from and returned to, the Haven, I’ve been there.”
Shanti nods. “We are all players in a story told by Alayah, who is the Great Narrator. You may be small by Singa standards, but you have a very large part to play.”
“How does the story end?”
“That is difficult to say because every ending is a new beginning in disguise.”
I hand him my winged chest plate, offering a deep bow. “Thank you, dear friend.”
Shanti cradles my chest plate as if it is a delicate living thing and bows. “I served the Kahn once. It is an honor to do so again.”
My heart lurches.
Even after the brain-bending events of the morning, this simple reference to Grandfather brings a sudden weight to my shoulders. The memory of his death, the fact that I am supposed to be claiming the throne instead of marching into the land of our enemies to find my not-dead-after-all mother, whom Grandfather lied about all these years, is almost more than I can bear.
Yet there is Anjali, the ever constant Anjali, standing tall and strong, waiting for me in a circle of torch light. Absent her weapons and armor, she appears younger and not so fierce. Maybe this is the way she looked on the day of her slaycon hunt three years ago, just like any other young Singa waiting to be tested.
And we will be tested.
This time together.
And this time I am not afraid.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my amazing family and first readers Ann, Halladay, Camden, David, and Peg, whose steadfast support made this book possible.
I’m deeply grateful for my outstanding agent, Joy Tutela of the David Black Literary Agency, who often understands my books and characters better than I do. Thank you to Julia Richardson and Mary Wilcox, who acquired the manuscript for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for Young Readers. The entire team at HMH has been a joy to work with, including my editor Lily Kessinger.
Special thanks to Julie Goldstein, Lisa Perucki, and Kim Persons for sharing drafts of this book with their students at Breakthrough Magnet School. Thanks also to April Clark for allowing me to read an early draft to her students at Webster Hill Elementary School. These students and their enthusiasm for the story encouraged me to keep writing.
The expert advice of fellow authors Susan Aller, Stacy DeKeyser, Susan Schoenberger, and storyteller Jane Torrey was generous and invaluable. Thanks to author Tim Hollister for introducing me to Joy Tutela.
And to the two dozen or so people (young and not so) who reviewed early drafts forced upon them by the author: thank you for carving out time to read and to offer constructive feedback. I’m glad we’re still friends.
Praise be to God from whom all blessings flow.
Folktale Sources
The stories told by Leo are based on folktales from many cultures and traditions.
THE FIREWINGS is related to a Buddhist story about a flock of quail who escape a hunter’s net. I based my version on “The Quails’ Song” found in Doorways to the Soul, edited by Elisa Davy Pearmain (Resource Publications, 2007).
OREYON THE HUNTER is a retelling of an Indian folktale.
THE TORN CLOAK is an adapted wisdom tale from the first Christian monastics also known as the “Desert Fathers.”
THE WISDOM-SEEKING PRINCE i
s adapted from an ancient Indian story.
THE SAGE BY THE RIVER is inspired by a tale told in Antony DeMello’s book One Minute Wisdom (Doubleday, 1985), also retold in Doorways to the Soul.
RUKAN THE WOLF is based on a Tibetan story.
THE STORY-HOARDING PRINCE is a retelling of a Korean folktale.
THE DRAYCON’S WHISKER is adapted from an Ethiopian tale.
Join Leo as the adventure continues in the second Pride Wars book, coming Spring 2019!
About the Author
MATT LANEY is an ordained minister with a lifelong interest in world religions, folklore, martial arts, and big cats. The Spinner Prince marks his literary debut. Matt lives in West Hartford, Connecticut, with his wife and two children who love to read.
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