Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 92392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
A man spoke on my far left. “The Tiger is fine. You should turn back and arrive with the Dragon.”
That voice sounds familiar.
I looked at him and wished I could see his face under the hood’s shadow. “Who cut her?”
“That was part of the ritual that she chose.”
“What ritual?”
“Turn back, Hiro. We must focus on the ritual.”
“If you all don’t move, then I will go through you.”
The Silent Ones remained where they were. The branches held them high above the forest floor. The moonlight touched their crimson hoods and silvered the edges of their cloaks. The wind stirred their capes. The figures stayed still.
Unease crawled through me.
People facing violence usually revealed themselves. A jaw tightened. A shoulder lowered. A hand drifted toward a blade.
These people offered me something else. They watched. They waited. They held their places among the branches as if the forest itself had grown them there.
The feeling reminded me of mourners gathering around an open grave.
Patience.
Sad acceptance.
Expectation for suffering.
Every one of them seemed to know exactly how this night would unfold. Every one of them seemed to believe I would eventually understand.
One figure lowered their head, and sympathy softened the gesture. The sight chilled me more than any weapon. “Go back, Hiro.”
“What the fuck is wrong with all of you?” I frowned. “I’m not going to just turn around and walk away, when she’s in pain.”
A woman on the left spoke. “We all should save our energy for the Fox’s people, not fight each other.”
Another hooded figure nodded. “We are all on the same side.”
“Move!” I leapt to the next branch.
The first one crossed the branch toward me with both hands open, reaching to catch me.
His mistake.
I seized the reaching wrist, wrenched it down across the limb, and drove my elbow through the hood where a jaw should sit.
“Ahh!!” He dropped, crashing down through the branches into the dark.
“Get out of my way.”
More gathered.
A woman balanced on a branch. “The Tiger is fine.”
“It doesn’t sound that way.”
“She has made a sacrifice.”
No. Not her. Not for our war.
My heart ached. “What sacrifice would our Tiger ever have to make? We’re the only ones to sacrifice. The enemy is our father.”
“Hiro, please turn around.”
“No!!”
Nyomi. . .what did you do?
Guilt almost suffocated and choked me.
Goddamn it. What did you fucking do?
Two more closed from either side and then attacked.
I went flat to the branch and let them sail over me, then hooked a heel behind the knee of the one on my right and sent him off the edge.
The one on my left twisted in the empty air. The red cape flared like a wing, and he or she landed soft as falling ash three limbs below.
The rest watched and waited.
This is going to get me nowhere.
I didn’t want to kill any of them, but I had to get to Nyomi. Fast, I charged the nearest one, a tall figure who had not yet moved. I feinted high and drove a fist at his throat.
He turned his head a hair's width and my knuckles grazed silk.
I hooked low for his ribs.
His elbow was already there, folding my punch down and away like he had known the angle before I threw it.
“Get out of my way!” I snapped a kick at his knee.
He lifted the leg, let my shin pass under his foot, and set it down again exactly where it had been. He never hit me back. Not once. I threw everything I had at him, and he gave me nothing to break.
The others only flowed around the edges of it, slipping my fists, folding under my kicks.
Another caught my wrists and let the force carry past them.
“Goddamn it!!!” I fell away and landed on the ground.
All of them dropped down and surrounded me.
"Hiro." A woman's voice came from behind me. "Stop. You will hurt yourself. We need you for the battle."
"Get out of my way!" I went after her.
She twisted out of my reach.
“No more time,” a man whispered. “Plan B.”
Huh?
They closed around me.
All of them.
And then they began to fill the air with this soothing sound. "Shhh."
“What?” I looked from left to right and then behind me. This soothing sensation entered my mind. I had to shake my head to get it out. “What are you fucking doing to me?!”
“Shhh,” they murmured together, and the soothing sound rose from every red figure, spilling into all of my pores and calming me so much I wanted to go to sleep.
"Shhh."
“Get out of my way.” I tried to rush forward, but my legs turned slow and heavy.
"Shhh."
“Shut up!” I hit at the air and grabbed a branch.
“Shh.”
I went dizzy.
The wind turned warm.
The branches above drifted a mile away.
“Shh.”
I blinked a few times as my head went dizzy again.
“Stop it.” I swung to another branch and barely missed it. I climbed on top of it and found my balance.