Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 154368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 772(@200wpm)___ 617(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 772(@200wpm)___ 617(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
More present.
More aware.
Stunned, I held up the spoon in mid-air.
"Tora?" Kenji watched me. "What is it?"
I couldn't look away from it. “Nothing.”
"What are you looking at?"
I shook my head and took a spoonful of ice cream.
And what was even odder, the dragon-shadow lifted his head and continued to watch me.
I swallowed. "You're not going to believe me. . .or you might. . .I don’t know. We just had a nice conversation. Perhaps, let’s wait until tomorrow for me to say something crazy."
"What would be crazy?”
My eyes stayed locked on the dragon-shadow. “A lot, Kenji. . .a lot.”
“Tell me.”
I put my gaze on him. “I might as well. You’re stuck with me. I can’t leave you. Trust me on this. You can’t leave me either.”
“I don’t plan on ever going anywhere.”
“Well.” I glanced at the dragon-shadow. “You never know.”
“What’s going on, Tora?”
"I'm looking at. . .what I think of as your. . .dragon-shadow." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "It’s this. I don’t know how to explain it. Shadowy-dragon shaped situation that sometimes rises out of you when you’re intense or angry. An animal behind you, but in shadow form. Alright. I know, I sound crazy."
What happened next, shocked me even more.
Silence.
Kenji didn't laugh.
He didn't speak.
But, his spoon slipped from his fingers and clattered against the table.
And the man who controlled an empire—who probably never flinched, never broke, never showed an ounce of surprise to anyone—stared at me with an expression I had never seen on his face.
Behind him, the dragon-shadow—that dark, wispy hovering beast—widened its eyes. For the first time since I'd started seeing it, the shadow wasn't watching me with intensity, possession, rage, or curiosity.
It was shock.
Pure shock.
Oh. . .you didn't know I could see you either?
Chapter seventeen
Shadow Beast
Kenji
Did she really say that?
I stared at my Tiger.
My mind emptied. Every thought I'd ever had vanished like smoke. My chest locked. My lungs forgot how to work.
My spoon was gone.
I didn't remember dropping it. Didn't remember hearing it hit the table. All I knew was that my hands were empty and my chest was full of something I couldn't name.
She sees. . .my dragon. The one my mother saw?
I wanted to speak. Wanted to say her name. Wanted to ask her a thousand questions. But my mouth wouldn't move. My voice had abandoned me.
And then I wasn't in the war room anymore.
I was seven years old.
My knee was bleeding. I'd fallen in the garden, tripped over a root while chasing a butterfly, and the stone path had torn the skin open. It wasn't a bad cut, but it hurt, and I was crying because I was seven and that's what seven-year-olds did.
My mother knelt in front of me.
Her hands were soft as she cleaned the wound. Her kimono pooled around her on the ground, pale blue silk with white cranes stitched along the hem.
She smelled like jasmine and ink, and her voice was so gentle. "Kenji, you're a dragon. Don't cry."
I sniffled and wiped my nose with the back of my hand. "A dragon?"
"Yes." She pressed a cloth to my knee and held it there. "I see it all around you. Your little dragon rising out of that little body and peeking at me. It tells me you're strong."
She lifted the cloth and kissed my knee. Right over the cut.
I felt the warmth of her lips and the sting of the wound at the same time.
“You see it?”
“Yes, Kenji. It lives in your shadow.”
“My shadow. . .” I looked around the space. At the walls. At the ground. At my own shadow stretched across the tatami in the afternoon light.
But. . .my shadow looked like a boy, not a dragon. “I can’t see it, Mommy.”
“No. You can’t.”
"Why can't I see it?"
My mother smiled. That soft, knowing smile she saved only for me and Hiro. "Because it's within you, my love. It is you. Therefore, you can't see yourself the way others who are special do."
“Special?” I frowned. “Is it a lot of special people that can see my dragon?"
"No." She cupped my face with both hands and her fingers brushed my cheeks, wiping away the tears. "Only the one who truly loves you will see it."
My heart lifted. "So, you truly love me? Because you can see my shadow?"
“Yes, my love.” Her smile deepened. "And mothers will always be able to see their child's shadow beast.”
“Why?”
“Because we are special, and you are a part of me. You grew inside me. And now you carry a piece of my soul." She tapped my chest with one finger. "That's what your shadow beast is made from, Kenji. It is a piece of my soul."
I grinned.
The pain in my knee didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered except that my mother loved me and could see my dragon and I was strong.
"What does it look like, Mommy? My dragon? Is it big?"