by Lucia Ashta
Traya, who kept her wits about her, realized where I was, and where Rosie would be too. She spared a moment to reach ahead of her at thigh height. When she felt the dragonling, she went the other way. As soon as she cleared Rosie and me, she ran.
Yoon lunged at her. He was faster than I’d accounted for. He started to grab at her shoulders when he tripped over Rosie. He recovered quickly. While Traya ran, he stretched and latched onto a thick strand of hair.
He tugged while Traya worked to continue advancing in the opposite direction. She fell backward.
Traya was spinning to free her hair. The distance between them was small and growing smaller. I noticed Luma closing in and Rane running to interfere.
If I waited any longer, more people I cared about would be in immediate danger. Yoon’s blade was free of its sheath, and it was nastier looking than I’d anticipated.
He was in the middle of bringing it to what I assumed would be my sister’s throat when three of the forcers behind him moved to intercede. But I acted first.
I hadn’t decided what I could do that would diffuse the situation. There wasn’t time to think—perhaps that was a good thing. If I’d stopped to weigh Yoon’s skills as an experienced dragon charmer against my novice level, I might have hesitated.
I ducked in between Traya and Yoon and slammed my hand as hard as I could against Yoon’s arm that swung the blade around.
The blade went flying.
I’d hoped in his shock he’d let go of Traya. He didn’t. He reacted by gripping her hair even harder.
So I did what any girl who has no idea what to do in a situation that holds the life of her sister in the balance would do. Or maybe no one would do what I did.
I moved on instinct. I rammed the heel of the palm of my hand upward into his stubbled chin. His head snapped back.
I cringed and reached for his groin. I scrunched my face up in disgust while I squeezed his dangly bits with the intention to cause him enough pain to make him go down and stay down. Rane had assured me that if I ever squeezed a man’s groin, he’d go down.
Yoon did go down, but he was more resilient than he had the right to be. With a grunt of obvious pain, he hunched over and slashed at my gripping hand with a second knife he pulled from somewhere. The sharp blade cut through my bare forearm like a knife through fresh bread. Blood spurted, and I let go.
He looked in my direction with wild, pale eyes. I clutched at my arm and prayed that wasn’t the last sight I’d ever see. He looked murderous as he dragged Traya backward so that she fell at his feet.
He was in the process of drawing his knife back to lance me again when Rosie rammed into him. He fell, the look on his face announcing he’d forgotten about my devoted dragon friend.
But he didn’t drop the knife.
As Rosie left my side, she started fading into visibility. She pinned Yoon to the ground, two heavy paws planted against his chest.
Too many things happened all at once. I stood in the middle of them, watching them distill into slow motion, feeling as if there was something I should do beyond stand there and bleed, but there was too much going on for me to figure out what.
Yoon managed to bend the arm that still held the knife at the elbow. He slashed at Rosie, cutting her leg. She roared a sound I hoped never to hear again. It was the sound of pure pain. She was a baby who’d been hurt. That’s exactly what she sounded like, except for the screeching, haunting sounds in which dragons communicated.
Rane reached Yoon. He stomped on his arm. Yoon still held on. Rane jumped on his arm, putting all his weight on it as he came down. The blade clattered to the ground.
Several shadow warriors pinned Yoon down, breathing angrily in his face. The rest of them swarmed the forcers who stood behind Yoon.
Traya was freed of Yoon’s grip, and she stood in the middle of it all, looking suddenly unsure. Of all that was going on then, her saddened look affected my heart most of all. She’d been so strong when she needed to be—stronger than I’d managed. Now, she looked burdened by all the hatred of life, the lack of compassion and understanding.
I longed to go to her, but she wasn’t hurt, Rosie was. I moved to the little dragon. Several shadow warriors circled her, examining her wound. They must have sensed my invisible approach. They took a step back when I reached Rosie’s side. She shook from the shock of the attack.
I fell to my knees beside her and wrapped my arms across her midsection. “Oh girl, I’m so sorry.” The gash on her left front leg was deep. A vibrant violet blood dripped from it. But the cut looked clean. If she’d managed to survive being thrown off a cliff by her mother, she’d recover from this easily. Still, the cut looked like it hurt.
If it was anything like the one on my arm, it hurt like hell.
Some of the shadow warriors and forcers grappled, but most were in a face-off. Their stances were aggressive and threatening, but neither side seemed to be causing meaningful harm to the other.
If Yoon had convinced the forcers who’d joined him with arguments of the better good of the Ooba and the tribe’s sacred purpose and blah blah blah, then I understood why some of them would hesitate now.
Yoon had hurt a dragon. Of all the tenets the Ooba held sacred, never hurting the dragonkind we’d sworn to protect was foremost. Men and women of the Dragon Force had died over and over because they’d refused to harm the dragons. Yoon’s actions had spoken volumes of a truth he’d hidden with his lies.
I buried my head in Rosie’s side. My arm dripped blood all over her, but I didn’t care. She didn’t either. She nestled into me, toppling me to the ground. Then she curled onto my lap and nursed her injured paw.
“Poor girl, I promised I’d never let you get hurt again,” I said. “And now you got hurt defending me.”
I’d risked the well-being of everyone I loved simply for being who and how I was. It wasn’t fair to any of us. I’d tried to move past thoughts of being a freak, but Yoon had reminded everyone there that I wasn’t normal. An aberration better wiped from the surface of Planet Origins forever.
I kissed Rosie’s head, and she licked me with a rough tongue. I’m not going to cry like some baby, I told myself. Then I remembered I was still invisible.
When Traya, my loving and always forgiving sister, made her way over to me, even in the middle of the fray, found me by touch, and sat to hold me, I nestled into the comfort she offered me so selflessly, Rosie still on my lap.
I allowed just one row of tears to break free and roll down my cheeks before my body started to shake in relief.
Help had arrived.
“Everyone stop what they’re doing right now!” Dean’s voice rang across the space, bouncing off the steep crag on one side.
Immediately, another cry as filled with authority as Dean’s followed. It was Dune, and his warriors, including Luma, responded immediately. The shadow people holding Yoon down didn’t release him, but they shifted their heads upward to give Dune their attention.
The Alpha Team flanked Dean, just as a small group of shadow people did Dune. Behind them were the rest of the dragon forcers. They must have gone to notify Dean when they realized what Yoon was up to.
And in the midst of all of them was a single person. Small and harmless looking, he was anything but.
My tears dried up. “Pumpoo,” I whispered.
Traya’s long hair swept across my head as she turned to see the man who’d forever altered the path of our people—for the worse.
Chapter Nineteen
“What in the hell is going on?”
I’d never heard Dean’s voice so furious. But then, I hadn’t known Dean that long, a fact I consistently seemed to forget.
“Well?” he said. “Someone better start giving me the answers I need, and fast. I come back from capturing the enemy among us to find you fighting among yourselves. Explain.”
Several of the forcers, who hadn’t looked nervous when Yoon was threatening to kill Traya, looked plenty nervous now. Three men stepped f
orward, dodging the shadow people that faced them, and moved toward Dean, who stood side by side with Dune.
Both leaders looked angry, and even though I could barely make out Dune’s stern features, I had no doubt they mirrored Dean’s. The Dean I’d come to know was gentle and wise, a protector. This Dean was the fearsome warrior of legend, and I could fully understand how this man had managed to survive centuries doing the most dangerous work of the Ooba tribe.
He took a single step forward to meet the forcers, and Dune did the same. The shadow warriors retreated from the forcers they’d been confronting, and moved toward Dune. Masses of warriors moved.
I wasn’t ready to go anywhere, nor were Rosie or Traya. Rane sat next to Traya, his arms cycling between offering comfort to her and me. Apparently Rane wasn’t concerned about putting on a tough guy front just then.
He turned a face, still taut with the tension of almost losing both his sisters, toward Dean and Dune.
“Speak louder,” Dean was saying to the forcer brave enough not to withdraw from Dean’s scrutiny. “Everyone should be able to hear your reasons for opposing your own tribespeople.” Dean’s tone was unforgiving, and I wondered if he’d pardon the warriors who’d stood with Yoon in his absence. The gentle man I’d felt safe in approaching when he thought me a dragon spirit wasn’t the man speaking.
“Yoon brought to our attention the twins in our midst,” the forcer began. I was amazed that his voice didn’t shake. I might not have been able to speak at all if Dean had been staring me down like that, with those fierce-looking green eyes. The man said, “He called on our duty to protect the Ooba people. In this case, he reminded us of our obligation to remove twins from our people before they had the chance to carry out their devastation. Twins are a danger to the Ooba. So we stood with Yoon to deal with the threat.”
The man sounded like he believed everything he said. “If you’d been here, we would have come to you. In your absence, we moved to carry out our duty.”
Dean’s nostrils flared, but otherwise he said nothing for a few beats—long enough for me to notice I was clenching my jaw. Finally Dean said, “I see. So you were going to kill Rane and Anira before I returned.” It wasn’t a question. It was a clear statement of the forcers’ intention. It was the kind of thing I tried hard not to think about. But here it was, laid out plainly for everyone to understand. Our secret, out in the open.
Rane and I were twins. Twins were forbidden. It didn’t matter what he or I did, we’d always be Pumpoo’s forbidden twins, the ones feared greater than disease and pestilence. I directed a wave of my frustration at Pumpoo, but of course he wouldn’t care; he wouldn’t even feel it.
That’s when I first noticed Shula. She stood next to Pumpoo, a strong hand clamped against his shoulder, her other wrapped around the hilt of her sword. She looked as angry as I felt. Seeing her standing up for us, if with nothing more than her stance, relieved some of my frustration. There were those who stood apart from the rest of the Ooba, those tribespeople far too ready to eat up any lie Pumpoo served them.
“Yoon sought you out?” Dean asked. “All of you?”
“Aye,” the forcer said. The men next to him nodded.
“Yoon told you that your duty was to eliminate the threat of twins in my absence?”
“Aye.”
Pins pricked across my bare flesh, throbbing where my arm bled, as Dean’s gaze landed on Yoon, who no longer resisted the hold of the shadow warriors. I was relieved to see that the shadow warriors didn’t let go despite his lack of resistance.
“You did this?” Dean asked, his voice lower than it had been since he arrived on the scene. Despite its low volume, it became more chilling than before.
I waited for Yoon to lie to Dean, but he didn’t. “Aye.” I expected Yoon to continue with excuses and explanations, but he didn’t do that either.
“Even after what we talked about? After you told me you understood that Pumpoo was deceiving all of us, you still moved to enact his orders in my absence? When you knew we moved to overthrow the chieftain?”
“I believed it my duty.” If a man could puff out his chest in defiance while pressed to the ground by shadow people, he did. “I moved to protect the Ooba people.”
“By your own admission, you understood that our duty to the Ooba tribe was no longer dictated by Chieftain Pumpoo.”
“The threat of twins is from before Pumpoo’s rule.”
“The kill order comes from Pumpoo’s direct ancestors. You moved to kill two members of the Dragon Force when I wasn’t here to stop you. I assume you moved to do so with speed to ensure I wouldn’t return in time. If members of the force hadn’t seen what you were doing for what it was and come to get me, I wouldn’t have made it in time to stop you. If you’d killed the greatest hope of our people, I would have never been able to forgive you.”
Is Dean calling Rane and me the greatest hope of our people? I asked myself.
Rane answered me, when I hadn’t expected him to feel me in his mind. It sounds like it. I could feel the shaky smile through the waves of my mind, my eyes never leaving Dean.
You never could hear me before. You’re stronger now.
As are you, little sister.
There was so much more to say about that, but neither one of us wanted to miss what Dean did next. Even Dune waited. His deference to Dean spoke volumes. We were in the shadow people’s territory, yet Dune offered Dean respect.
“I did what I believed I needed to do,” Yoon insisted.
“Aye, I believe you did,” Dean said, “which is why I’ll find forgiveness to offer you.”
“He’s going to forgive him!” Rane said. I understood he wanted to direct his comment at Dean but didn’t dare to disrespect our leader’s judgment. I understood because I wanted to do the same.
“Wait,” Traya said to the two of us. “I don’t think he’s finished yet.”
“Thank you—” Yoon started to say.
“But I will never trust you again.” Dean took several steps closer to Yoon, then looked to Dune, who’d moved with them. There was a pause during which they communicated in silence.
Dune spoke to his men, and they backed off, leaving Yoon free.
Dean crouched next to the pale-haired man. “I owe your father my life. I’ve long defended you and your dubious alliances because I owed your father.” Yoon started to speak. Dean stopped him with an uplifted hand. “You started out as a narrow-minded young man, full of yourself and your convictions. You were Pumpoo’s greatest advocate within the force. Over the years, I watched you evolve, and you genuinely earned my respect and my trust with the changes in your character. Today, you’ve lost both.”
Yoon held a steady expression, but I could tell he was working hard to keep the hurt Dean’s words caused from showing on his face. He was mildly successful. He didn’t fool Dean, that was for sure.
“I was only following Ooba law,” Yoon said.
“If it were as simple as that, it would be a different story entirely. But you and I both know there was more to it than that. What was it? Did you believe you could run off to join Pumpoo, and that after you did his bidding he’d welcome you as one of his minions?”
“No.” Yoon sounded genuinely affronted. “It was nothing like that. It might be true that I admired Pumpoo at one time, but I don’t anymore.”
“Then what is it? I’d really like to understand your betrayal, Yoon.”
The word betrayal stung Yoon; he didn’t bother hiding it as he sat. My eyes darted to his blade, now within his easy reach. But Yoon didn’t move to grab his knife. He looked at Dean as if it were just the two of them, free of the hundreds of eyes watching them. Even the shadow people, whom I didn’t think understood our language at all, watched every move, seemed to hinge on every word.
Everyone there waited for Yoon’s answer. Complete silence echoed as I spotted a dragon at the edge of the sky, flying in our direction. I’d been looking for dragons to respond to Rosie’s call of distr
ess.
When Yoon spoke, all thoughts of dragons dropped from my mind. His words were all I could focus on.
He said, “I wasn’t following Pumpoo’s orders. I was doing what I believed must be done to protect our people. I was there when the seer spoke her prophecy.”
Chapter Twenty
“You actually saw this great seer Pumpoo claims came to speak with him?” Dean asked Yoon. I barely heard his words over the whooshing sound thumping annoyingly through my head.
I looked to Rane with wide, startled eyes. Finally, here might be some of the answers we’d been seeking our entire lives. I found Rane already staring at me—or at least staring at the spot I occupied. I never was certain with my twin whether he saw me or not, whether the sun rays reflected off me in just the right way to illuminate my outline.
I briefly considered becoming visible, now that doing so had become almost effortless, but I wasn’t out of danger yet. Dean and Dune had arrived, and that increased my chance of survival a hundred fold. But Rane and I weren’t clear of danger; I sensed the fact with an alarming prickle to the nape of my neck. No, nothing was settled yet.
At the same time, Rane and I shifted our attention to Yoon.
“I did actually see this person,” Yoon said, sounding as if he was affronted that Dean should doubt his word in any way. I believed it a show. Yoon couldn’t possibly expect Dean to trust him after what he’d just done in his absence. If he was sane he wouldn’t, anyhow.
“And what was this seer like?”
“A woman, old and frail seeming, yet with a strength of youth bubbling up from somewhere deep within her.”
“Go on.”
“She looked little like our people, and even less like these... shadow people. Her skin was fair, her hair as white as new snow. Her hands were gnarled and shrunken, as was all of her. She walked with the support of a cane. Do I need to go on?”
“Her eyes. What color were they?”
I wondered what Dean was up to. Was he trying to trick Yoon or something? If he was, I couldn’t imagine how.
