Read Online A Dance of Dragons: Series Starter Bundle by Kaitlyn Davis - Free Book Online Page B

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