Dragon Bones: a Nia Rivers Novel (Nia Rivers Adventures Book 1)

by Jasmine Walt

  “Hellooo?” Loren said after a moment of silence. She stared at both of us in turn, her eyebrows raising as neither of us offered up a plan. “We’re not going out like this, are we?”

  I couldn’t see a way out. We were bound and surrounded. Even if there was a way to call for help, we were out in the middle of nowhere.

  “They have nothing to say, Ms. Van Alst, because they see that their time is up for this lifetime. But don’t worry about them; they’ll be reborn. You, on the other hand … On the bright side, you’ll get to see your father again.”

  Loren’s fingers clenched into fists in her bindings. She gritted her jaw. Her eyes fell to her father’s bag, which lay discarded across the room.

  Mr. Xu came to me. He was no longer hunched or limping now that he’d shed the act of his ancient age. The archaeologist in me bubbled with a ton of questions for him. When did he start physically aging? Did he get weak being around his children? How had he kept his immortality, and his family’s long lives, a secret all these centuries?

  But there was no time for questions. Xu reached down and unbound me from Tres while two of his ninja offspring held blades to Tres’s throat. I saw Tres’s hand stress the steel bindings, but they did not give. His gaze locked on mine. His dark irises were harder than the steel holding him captive.

  I knew without him speaking that he wanted me to lash out at Xu. To ignore the blades whose tips drew out twin trickles of blood at either side of his neck. But then they would kill him, and Loren, and then proceed to sacrifice me anyway. There had to be another way.

  “Listen to me,” I said to Xu. “There are more of us out there—more Immortals. If you do this, they’ll find out and come after you.”

  “No one, besides the two of you, has come after me in the last two millennia.”

  Damn, good point. We’d gotten so good at hiding ourselves. “That’s because they didn’t know. I didn’t tell.”

  But I had told this time. Zane knew where I was. He would come. He’d be too late, but he’d come looking when I didn’t show up in France.

  “By the time anyone comes looking for you,” Xu said, “I’ll have amassed an army of immortal children. The Lin Kuie will come out of the forests. We will no longer be ghosts; we will be kings. Finally, our history, our true history, will be told. Everyone will worship you and await your next birth.”

  “You’re crazy.” I shook my head, giving up any more attempts to reason with him.

  No sooner were the words out of my mouth than my head jerked to the side and I felt blinding pain in my cheek. Xu had cracked me across my face with the blunt end of a sword. It was disorienting. I felt warm liquid crawl down my cheek. It wasn’t tears; it was blood.

  So much for reverence. Xu shoved me onto the altar. I was still too dazed to do much more than open my eyes. And when I did, I wanted to close them again. I was in the nightmare that had plagued me for nearly two thousand years.

  My bound hands were pulled over my head. My bound legs were pulled downward onto the altar. This time, there were only two screams—Tres and Loren’s.

  I couldn’t see the blood on my face, but I felt its thick heat. Xu walked up with the business end of the blade raised above his head. I looked up and saw it was the same jade blade from my nightmare come into my reality.

  I thought of the mole tied to Aleph’s gardening table. Would I squeal like it had? Would the light go out of my eyes? Would my flesh be discarded in the weeds and taken back into the earth?

  The men began to chant, “Your bones for our blood.”

  It rang in my ears, drowning out Tres’s growls and Loren’s screams. The blade glistened under the rising moonlight. It was the last light I’d ever see. I shut my eyes to it as the chant rang louder in my ears.

  And then, in the midst of the chant, there was an “Oof” followed by a thud. And then another grunt and thud. And then I heard it—the bloodcurdling warrior’s yell from my nightmare.

  I opened my eyes. Once again, the world slowed down. Maybe the slow motion was my brain trying to imprint these new memories so that I would never forget again. Before me, I saw a vengeful, angry god wielding a bow. He felled five more ninjas with arrows pierced through to the heart before anyone understood what was happening.

  Xu looked up, sword still raised above him. His gaze connected with Zane. I saw Xu’s eyes narrow in recognition. He looked at Tres on the ground and then back at Zane. He turned to me and raised the blade an inch higher, preparing to strike.

  But instead, he stumbled back and the blade clattered to the ground. An arrow stuck out of his shoulder. Blood seeped out of the fabric of his shirt.

  For a moment, there was chaos, but I registered none of it. Zane hopped to the ground from the opening where the moon’s pale light rained down. In the blink of an eye, he was before me.

  He tossed aside the bow and withdrew a blade. It sliced through the steel at my heels and then my hands. He pulled me up into his arms, taking my face in his hands. His gaze gentled, and he exhaled a silent prayer of gratitude.

  His breath tasted sweet and familiar, like a breakfast pastry from a sunny Sunday brunch. I wanted to curl up in it with a warm cup of tea and go back to sleep.

  I thought he was about to kiss me. I wanted to tell him that now wasn’t the time. There were ninjas coming up behind him. But his eyes weren’t focused on my lips. They were locked on my cheek.

  His thumb swiped across my cheekbone. His path was slick, and I winced. His jaw tensed. His eyes darkened. A storm raged in his irises. It was a rage I’d seen once before—more times than that if I had a moment to be honest with myself.

  He let go of my chin. From his belt, he raised a mace; the ball hanging from the end of the wooden baton had countless sharp, deadly spikes. Zane turned around. He held a dagger with a handle in the shape of an Egyptian ankh in one hand and a medieval club of death in the other.

  He raised both as he advanced. When he lowered his hands, he wreaked havoc on the ninjas who approached him. They went down in a spray of blood worthy of any graphic novel.

  There were still over twenty ninjas remaining. They scurried forward. Instead of facing them, Zane backed away.

  He turned and approached Tres. Tres’s eyes narrowed as he watched Zane’s casual, unhurried approach while a horde moved in at his back. Zane’s face was blank as he came to Tres’s bound feet. His eyes were dull as he raised the bloody blade of the ankh dagger.

  Even though I was free, I sat immobile on the altar. Deep down, despite the carnage before me, I still refused to believe that Zane was a cold-blooded killer.

  Zane lowered the blade toward Tres. A scream of protest bubbled in my throat. But it was drowned in the sound of metal against metal.

  Zane’s cudgel smashed through the bonds at Tres’s feet. Then his dagger broke the ones at Tres’s hands. Without a second of hesitation, Tres jumped to his feet and rushed into the oncoming fray.

  I watched in immobile horror as the blood ran off both of their blades. The crunch of bones and the screams of death turned my stomach. From somewhere, I heard someone calling my name.

  I turned to Loren, still on the floor. Seeing her lying bound and prone on the ground was what I needed to put myself in motion. I slid off the altar, grabbed a discarded blade, and freed her. Giving her a hand, I pulled her up.

  Once she was on her feet, she shoved me to the side. She struck out her foot and caught a lone ninja in the groin. The man doubled over, and I made an offering of him with my blade.

  Loren looked to the side, and her face contorted. I followed her gaze to see Xu struggling to his feet. Blood from Zane’s arrow dripped from his torn shoulder. With the hand of his uninjured arm, he grabbed for the dragon bones. He took the one with my signature. He raised it above his head with a grimace and threw it into the wall.

  The bone shattered into a million fractured pieces that rendered my name mute. Loren and I exhaled as though he’d knocked the wind out of us. Then the fool did something eve
n stupider. He picked up the first bone that told this twisted tale. It was the bone Loren’s father had discovered.

  “You destroy my legacy”—Xu raised it above his head with one hand, and Loren and I gasped as though he’d pulled a gun on us—“then I’ll destroy yours.”

  We raced into the danger zone. Loren went for the bone. I went for Xu.

  Loren was able to wrench the bone from his weakened grasp. He let her have it, but he had other plans for me.

  I had no idea where the blade came from, but I felt where it went. Pain I’d never felt before tore through me. I sank to my knees.

  “If I’m going to leave this life for the time being,” he said, “then so too shall you.”

  He pulled the blade out of my gut. The serrated edge was even more painful coming out. I nearly blacked out. But I kept my eyes open. I heard Zane calling out to his Nova. Tres growled at Xu to let go of his Theta. But they sounded so far away, as though they called to me from another time.

  I knew neither one would make it to me in time. The blade glinted once more in the growing moonlight as it rose above my head. Before it came down, a cane struck out from behind me. It hit Xu in the gut, in the chest, and then in the neck in quick succession. He went down. The blade extended from Loren’s cane and ended Xu’s long life.

  “That was for my father.” She spat on his corpse.

  I felt hands on me. I heard myself being called every name I’d ever signed on a stone wall, animal bone, parchment, or digital file. But I couldn’t respond to any of them. It sounded as though someone was praying over me. I even heard the word “Amen.”

  “You have to get her away from us so that she can heal. Go quickly.”

  I couldn’t tell if that was Zane or Tres. I couldn’t remember anything after that. I wasn’t even sure if I’d closed my eyes, but everything went black.

  27

  “When most people think of archaeology, they think of huge reptiles buried beneath the ground and great rulers hidden in triangular castles in the sand.”

  I stood behind a lectern at the National Museum of China. There were more than fifty attendees before me this time. No one took notes. Everyone’s eyes were glued to the covered dais.

  “We’re not just uncovering physical relics of the past, we are uncovering the stories of the marginalized, the minorities, the underrepresented. The history books are written by the victors. But sometimes they lie. Sometimes they get the story wrong. Sometimes they leave out the details.”

  I winced as I leaned too far forward against the lectern. My wound had healed. The skin had knitted itself back together in a day. But a phantom pain remained two weeks later. It was a mental reaction to the ordeal I had been wrung through. The memory, the feeling, the details of those events were things I was sure I’d never forget.

  “It is up to us as archaeologists to give these buried voices a second chance to be heard,” I continued. “Their stories matter. All tales must be told, even the ugly ones—especially the ugly ones.”

  I looked over at the side of the stage and nodded to Loren. She winked at me and then pulled the sheet off the newest display in the museum. It was the two dragon bones that told of the rituals and sacrifices of the Xia Dynasty. There were others still being excavated from the Gongyi, along with a full exploration and cataloguing of the buried city and the pyramid mound.

  The find had caused quite a stir when it was discovered that there was ancient Aramaic writing on the tablets. The historians were interpreting the writings as a retelling of the story of Jesus, saying the fabled River Goddess was Mary and the Xia warrior was Jesus. I did not offer comment. Instead, I fielded as few questions as possible and made my way out of the lecture hall. On my way out, I spied the tall and lithe Mr. Li of SACH sidling up to Loren, who was ensconced in a group of experts and academics who had tons of questions about her father’s find and his work. Loren turned her back on Mr. Li.

  We’d both achieved our goals. She had exonerated her father. I’d found the truth. And, like it often did, the truth hurt. I headed away from the crowd and wandered down one of the halls, taking in the exhibits.

  The current exhibition on display throughout the museum was a collection of state gifts given to the Republic of China as a show of friendly relations and cooperation. There was a sculpture of two porcelain swans resting on lotus blossoms from the United States of America. The people of Thailand had presented a teakwood carving of an elephant transporting lumber. My eye continued to return to the painting of a peacock whose tail feathers were embroidered with pearls; that gift was from India.

  A painting called to my attention. A face like my own stared out at me. The woman depicted on the canvas was painted in fuchsias. The brush work in the facial expression, especially on the cheekbones, was incredibly detailed. It was a gift to China from France.

  I looked down at the signature. It was signed Qi, which also happened to be the word for the number seven in Mandarin.

  I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly. Wrapping my arms around my shoulders, I gave myself a squeeze, but a heaviness settled over my limbs. He hadn’t tried to contact me at all. Not once in the last two weeks. It was the longest we’d gone without contact since the invention of the telephone. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to talk to him or hear what he had to say. But at least he should give me the option to call him names, hang up on him, or cry into his ear. Instead, silence.

  “Nia?”

  Tresor Mohandis stood on the other side of the hall. I supposed he thought the distance would keep the allergy at bay. But I was all healed and my Immortal strength had returned.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Like I just came out of a really bad martial arts film.”

  He didn’t laugh. Zane would have laughed. Instead, Tres’s eyes roamed my body, looking for signs of weakness. “You’re healed?”

  “Like new.”

  He nodded, continuing to stare at me as though he wasn’t sure if I were real or not. His gaze softened, but his mouth turned down in a frown.

  We stood there in silence for a moment. Until, finally, I asked him the question that had haunted my waking hours the past two weeks. “What happened? After…?”

  In real time, the concern in his eyes glazed over and was replaced with a thick sheen of fury. “They’re gone.”

  I waited to hear more details about the fate of the Xia people of the Gongyi. Of course, I knew all the ninjas who were in the cave that night didn’t make it out. But there were the people in the city. The children who Xu had ushered upstairs.

  “Gone?” I asked.

  “All of them,” he confirmed.

  “But … there were children.”

  I thought back to the festival in Beijing. The children had danced that horrible dance, but they were still just children. They had to be around the twentieth generation. They wouldn’t live that long with their blood being diluted.

  “You didn’t…” I began and stopped, unsure I wanted to know. Not certain I could handle more nightmares.

  Tres’s face was as hard as granite. I thought he wouldn’t answer me. Then I was even more terrified when he opened his mouth.

  “No,” he said. “We didn’t kill the children.”

  I closed my eyes and sighed.

  “At least, not yet.”

  I opened my eyes wide and stared at him. My hand went to my gut. Tres’s eyes followed the motion, and he kept his eyes there as he spoke.

  “He said that’s what haunted you at night—the sounds of the children screaming. He didn’t want to give you any more nightmares. So we agreed to wait … and watch them. The root of the problem is gone. Xu is dead, as are all his grown sons who came with him that day. We have identified the ones who remained, and if any of them—male, female, or child—raises a hand against you or any of our kind, we will finish the job. On that, he and I are in agreement.”

  His gaze found mine. The unyielding steel brooked no argument. I didn’t offer any. But there wa
s still one matter left. “What about the land?”

  He smirked, the hard veneer from a second ago cracking. “I’m moving forward with my plans. I’ve let you win long enough.”

  My entire face tightened as I narrowed my line of sight on him. “Let me win?”

  He grinned at my indignation. It wasn’t a friendly grin. It was the look he’d give a worthy adversary after a hard-fought battle. “I’m going to bulldoze the surrounding forests and build a spa—a youth and rejuvenation spa.” His eyes twinkled with mirth.

  Wow, so he did have a sense of humor. He was going to build a spa for people looking to capture youth and vitality on a land that once belonged to people who killed to have it. Funny.

  He studied me for a long moment before he asked his next question. “Are you going back to him?”

  I knew what him he was talking about. I looked down to the floor, then back at the painting.

  “And you said the last time would be the last time.” Tres snorted. The sound reminded me of a caged bull. “What power does he hold over you?”

  I didn’t know. I only knew that I ached to see him even now.

  I crossed my arms over myself again, suddenly feeling very cold. Tres stood as still as a statue at the wall. When I looked up at him, another memory assaulted me.

  I remembered him leaning against a structure looking at me just as he was now. His face was hard, but soon it broke into the most beatific smile. I saw myself run into his arms. He caught me, twirling me around and bringing me down for a kiss.

  He must have seen the flicker of recognition in my eye because he pushed off the wall. Slowly, he made his way to me, as though I were a deer that would spook.

  “Tell me about us?” I asked as he strode toward me.

  “No.” He stopped when he came within a foot of me. “I’d rather we start anew. A clean slate.”

  “Isn’t the moral of this story that it’s never a good idea to forget the past?”

  He turned those words over in his head before looking down at me with those obsidian eyes. “Fine. I’ll tell you our story, but only the beginning.”