The Golden Cage (A Dance of Dragons #0.5) Read online

  Part of her was proud. He was already a great warrior, and he would be a great leader when this fight was over.

  But another part was afraid. Where was everyone else?

  Maniuk didn’t turn to her call. All of his attention was focused on the trees opposite them. She followed the line of his head, unable to see his eyes, and scanned the woods.

  There was nothing there.

  "Maniuk," she called again. Chills ran along her limbs. It was not the time to be fighting alone.

  Suddenly he jerked into action. His arm lashed out, releasing the spear in a low arc that sailed through the center of their small village until with a thud, it landed.

  A body fell forward, scratching against bark as it dropped.

  But it couldn’t be.

  Jinji stepped back.

  Maniuk?

  He would never…

  But there was Kekohi, one of their own, an Arpapajo, facedown with the spear through his chest.

  Jinji's trembling hands rose to cover her lips, holding in the cry.

  And then Maniuk turned around.

  White.

  His eyes were white, drained of all color, of all spirit, empty and somehow full at the same time.

  The shadow had found her. It had come for her.

  She stepped back again and again, moving away from the monster before her until her foot caught, and she stumbled.

  Looking down, Jinji saw what she had missed earlier. The feathers along the arrow piercing Leoa's chest were raven black with red painted tips. They were Arpapajo, not newworlder. They were Maniuk's—Jinji had plucked those feathers herself.

  He moved closer.

  Jinji didn’t try to run. She had no weapons, no hope of outpacing him. She had nothing left to run for.

  Three feet from her body, Maniuk stopped. He slipped the knife from his waist and held it before him, arm out, almost as if he were offering it her.

  Her eyes narrowed, traced the bulging veins up his wrist to his shoulder, until she stared into those absent yet knowing eyes.

  The knife rose higher, up and up, over the height of her head, until it rested at his throat.

  "No," she reached forward.

  But in one quick motion, it was over.

  Jinji didn't look away. Instead, she searched those eyes, and the instant before Maniuk's life was gone, she saw what she had been looking for. The shadow disappeared and Maniuk, her taikeno, was back. A deep despair flashed in his irises, and they froze that way as death took him.

  He dropped to her feet.

  Jinji knelt down, put her palm to his cheek, and closed his eyelids. "We would have done great things together," she whispered, brushing her fingers up through his hair, "I'm sorry I brought the shadow to you. I'm so sorry, my taikeno."

  Jinji lowered her head until her lips pressed softly against his. Their first kiss. The one they should have shared at their joining. The one that should have been the first of many, yet would be their last. The only kiss they would ever know.

  Suddenly adrenaline punched through her veins. This couldn’t be the end, there had to be someone alive. Her mother. Her father. The children.

  She jumped over his body and paused at the edge of her home.

  To her left, the longhouse where her tribe slept each night. To her right, the longhouse where food was stored. Across from her, the smaller hut where she lived with her parents. And behind, the ceremonial grounds—today, the burial grounds.

  It did not take long to decide where to check first, and before she realized she had moved, Jinji was pulling the furs of the longhouse aside.

  The stench hit her like a punch in the gut, and she stumbled. Red splashed over the dirt floor, against the wooden slabs of the walls, dripping from the beams.

  The only way to keep moving was to turn her mind off. She walked emotionless down the rows of bed pallets, checking each cut throat for a pulse, not caring as her hand stained maroon.

  The children looked asleep, and she was happy for that, happy they had drifted away in ignorance, without experiencing the slow terror that was spreading along her nerves.

  None.

  There were none alive. And barely any sign of a struggle.

  It was too much.

  Jinji burst from the door and gulped in fresh air, heaving and coughing until spit dribbled from the corner of her lips—spit and tears.

  Lifelessly, she moved back to Leoa's body and lifted her by the arms, dragging her over to the longhouse.

  Jinji did the same for the bodies of the warriors she found sprinkled through the trees. She did the same for Maniuk, because she knew in her heart it wasn't really his fault—it was her fault, her burden to bear.

  And when all of the bodies were safely tucked inside, she turned to her family's hut, knowing without a doubt what she would find.

  She saw her father first, face down in the dirt. She turned him over, hand trembling above the wound that had opened his chest, and threw his furs over his stomach before pulling him to the rest of their people.

  And finally, her mother, hand tucked under her cheek—peaceful and unaware.

  And then it was done.

  Before she could think, Jinji moved to the great fire always burning in the center of their village. She pulled a stick free and placed it against the dried wood of the longhouse, watching it spark, flare, and spread wildly.

  Jinji stepped back, letting it burn her eyes.

  Better to blaze than to drown.

  Everyone she knew. Everyone she loved. An entire people wiped out. An entire culture gone.

  But no, not everyone.

  She was still here.

  Alone.

  Jinji looked down at the red stains covering her white dress, oozing wider with every second. Suffocating. The dress was suffocating her. It scratched her throat, sucked close to her body, constricting her breath, closing in on her lungs.

  She screamed, ripping the dress down the seams, pulling the skins her mother had spent hours preparing apart, until she was standing completely bare in the sun.

  Like a ghost, she turned around. Her eyes were vacant. Her arms hung lifelessly by her side. Her feet shuffled forward, barely lifting off the dirt.

  Jinji went inside her home, reached for the box she always kept by her sleeping mat, and lifted the lid. Her brother's clothes. Tiny as she was, Jinji still fit in Janu's boyhood clothes. She still wore them sometimes, when she needed to feel like she was not alone. So she slipped them on, sliding her legs through the breeches and her arms through the leather shirt, both worn soft by time.

  Reaching down again, Jinji gripped his hunting knife and grasped the end of her braid. Barely there an hour, and already all was lost. Her prayer had failed.

  Slowly, she sliced through her thick hair, back and forth, back and forth, mechanically.

  The braid dropped to the ground.

  Her body shivered.

  She reached back up again, eyes wide and wild, fighting the tears that were bound to come.

  Crazed, Jinji kept cutting, grabbing any loose hairs she could, forcing herself as bald as she could go, as though cutting it all off could somehow bring them back, or at least bring them peace.

  When it was done, she lay down, curled on her side with her legs pulled firm against her chest, so she could cry away from the world—whatever was left of it.

  And deep in her heart, she wished for one thing, a wish she had longed for years ago—that she had died instead of Janu.

  Before, it had been a selfless wish, a wish that her twin could live a long, happy life. She would have died to give him that chance. But now, she was acting selfishly. She was alone, and she wished beyond all things that she were the one with her people in the spirit world.

  Her eyes closed and she cupped her hands, imagining the spirits and the jinjiajanu she had trapped in that small place.

  And as she wished, she wove, tying the elemental spirits around her body in
an intricate illusion, so for at least a little while she could pretend that she was the twin who had died, instead of the twin who was alone—the last remaining Arpapajo in this hopeless world.

  2

  Rhen

  ~ Roninhythe ~