A Dance of Dragons: Series Starter Bundle (20 page)

"Stay seated," Rhen said, pushing down just
slightly on her shoulder when she tried to lift herself up for the
second time. He sat too, sighing as he dangled his feet over the
edge and leaned back into the railing. His large frame took up over
half of the small space.

Their arms touched from shoulder to elbow,
causing a heat to rise under her skin. Jinji grabbed her legs,
pulling them into her chest and shifting her weight, careful not to
touch his body anymore. It was too intimate, she realized, after
spending so many hours locked in the same room as him. There had to
be a distance between them, otherwise she might slip up, might
forget that she was supposed to be a boy, that she was supposed to
be lying. He might notice that though her face was that of a male,
her body was not. The baggy clothes hid it well, but in these close
quarters, she had to be careful.

No matter how many times he taunted her,
Rhen had come to be a friend, and she would not mess that up, not
yet.

"This is one of my favorite spots on the
ship," he said, eyes still closed in relaxation, "though many
wouldn’t say the same. It's considered a punishment to be put up
here, because of all the movement, but I've always found it very
peaceful, very liberating."

Feeling her stomach unsettle slowly, Jinji
might have agreed with the others, but there was something oddly
comforting in her mood and oddly settled too.

"This was where I came to escape the castle
and my father and mostly my responsibilities. Even if I was only on
the dock, still stuck in Rayfort, I seemed miles away on top of
this ship."

He opened his eyes slowly. The wind rustled
his red hair, forcing it to spill over his forehead. Jinji wondered
if her own short hair was doing the same, without her braid to keep
it still and steady. Just the other night she had borrowed Rhen's
knife to cut it short again, not ready to stop her mourning
period—not even close.

"Do you have a place like that?"

Jinji closed her eyes tight, fighting back
the water gathering there.

The clearing.

The meadow.

It used to be her spot, but all she saw now
was Leoa, tying her braid, pulling over her joining dress. Both of
them giggling, completely ignorant to the cries of their people, to
the children and the women, to the warriors, to her parents. Even
to Maniuk, singled out by the shadow for his strength and his
skill—used and discarded.

All she heard now was the blood-curdling
scream that cracked her spirit in half, the pounding of her
footsteps, the soft thud of a body as it fell to the ground.

"No," was all she said. No, she didn’t have
a safe place like that, not anymore.

"It will get better," Rhen said. Jinji
wouldn’t look at him, but instead focused on the far away horizon.
"I know it doesn’t seem like it, but it will."

He took a deep breath, cracked his knuckles.
Jinji almost heard the words waiting on his lips, could feel them
press against his tongue wanting to come out. The air was static,
electric from his pounding heart, his pulsing nerves.

And then it all stopped.

Silence.

"I had a younger brother once," Rhen
confessed, his words heavy with an emotion that was mirrored by
Jinji's wounded soul. "He was barely a year old when he was
murdered by the man my father trusted most in the world. And I
could have stopped it, if I had only understood what—" His voice
shook, wavered on an edge. "I found papers that held evidence the
murder was going to take place, but I was too young to understand
what they meant, too naïve to know what I had found. And for that,
my brother paid the price." He turned, met her stare with eyes a
deep dark green, like the forest at twilight. "I know what it means
to lose someone, but I also know that though the pain will never
fully fade, eventually you will be able to endure it."

Jinji didn’t know what to say, so she said
nothing at all. Silence was the better option. Silence let the
words sink in, let their truth ring, let her realize that Rhen had
allowed her a peek at a place within himself that he didn’t show to
everyone—that he did not even show to most people.

Jinji opened her mouth, aching to tell her
own story, but her throat closed up, stealing the sound from her
voice.

She trusted him, after all he had done for
her, Jinji trusted Rhen. But trusting someone was one thing, and
opening herself up to him, making herself vulnerable to be hurt
again, that was something else entirely. Rhen might have been
willing, but it was only because he didn’t know that in the end, he
would just be wounded—by her lie if he ever found out the truth or
by her leaving without a word of goodbye.

And Jinji couldn’t handle any more pain.

"Thank you," she said quietly, instantly
regretting it. Rhen blinked once, but once was all it took for his
gaze to unglaze and his features to retreat, to harden. One blink
was all it took for him to shut himself off again.

She looked out over the water, the small
space of the crow's nest suddenly crunching in on her, suffocating
her.

In her panic, she almost missed the unusual
color on the horizon, the black speck that seemed to grow larger in
her vision. But her brain registered what her heart did not, and
before she realized it, Jinji was leaning forward, asking, "What's
that?"

Rhen followed, his features popping in shock
when he locked in on the speck. "A ship," he said and grinned,
standing instantly.

"Captain!" He shouted down toward the deck.
Having caught several people's attention, he pointed. "A ship off
the starboard side."

Captain Pygott immediately pulled a long
brass tube from his vest, extending it, holding it to his eye.

"I don’t see any colors," He yelled back up
toward them. Jinji watched Rhen's grin spread wider. His fingers
tapped his leg energetically.

"Let's take a closer look, shall we?"

The captain nodded.

Rhen swung his leg over the railing, moving
to leave the crow's nest and Jinji behind. All notions of sadness
had fled his gaze, replaced by pure adrenaline. Jinji began to
stand but Rhen shook his head.

"Stay here, Jin. It'll be safer, just in
case."

"In case of what?" She asked.

He grinned.

"Attack."

And with that, he was gone, slipping down
the ropes faster than her eyes could follow, landing with a thud on
the deck as he charged Captain Pygott, demanding a look through his
metal device.

Jinji looked out toward the ship again, and
the spirits flung into her view, filling her head with a somewhat
crazy idea. She looked down at her hands—were they up for the
task?

It would be a larger illusion than any she
had woven before.

But, she paused, looking down to the deck
once more. Jinji owed it to him to try. She owed it to all of
them.

Her secret way of thanking Rhen for the
moment of peace, for the first moment of true companionship she had
felt in a while, for the memory.

Jinji cupped her hands in her lap, thinking
of the mother spirits, of jinjiajanu, preparing herself for the
weave.

And without her realizing, Jinji's fingers
began to glow.

8

Rhen

~ Open Ocean ~

Thank the gods for unflagged ships
, Rhen
thought as he stared through the telescope, searching for some sign
of coloring on those distant masts.

Why had he told the boy so much? The words
had just spilled out, uncontrollable. He hadn't spoken of little
Whyllysle in years, to anyone, his family let alone his
friends.

But even after burying it in the back of his
mind, the memory came to life just as clearly as if it had happened
yesterday.

Rhen, seven years old, searching through the
old spymaster's papers as he usually did, barely able to read them
but able to read them just enough. The year before, when he had
been locked away in his room for misbehavior, Rhen had discovered
the secret passage behind his bed, the one that led directly to the
master's office. He was just able to sneak through, just small
enough to fit under his bed, and a year later, he was still
snooping around.

But this had been different, now he had a
younger brother to take care of—one he would treat far better than
his own older brothers had treated him. And part of taking care of
him was making sure Rhen knew everything that was going on.

Hours and hours of looking through
parchments and Rhen had never found a thing—until one night, when
he found his brother's name scribbled in the margins of a sealed
letter.
Whyllysle
. Immediately, Rhen had stolen the paper,
folded it, and tucked it into his shirt before scurrying back to
his room. He read as much as he could, picking out words like
queen
and
king
and most importantly,
poison
.
But he didn’t really understand, and he definitely didn't know what
to do. Show it to his father and risk being punished? Or pretend he
had never found it in the first place?

What Rhen didn't realize at the time was
that there were no options. He had been too late either way.

Not even an hour later, word spread like
wildfire through the castle—the youngest prince was dead. The king,
like a madman, demanded information. And Rhen, not knowing what he
held, gave the parchment to his father, waiting for the blow to his
head for stealing another person's things.

Instead of a blow, the king disappeared. A
day later, the spymaster was hung for treason and the entire castle
dropped into a deep despair.

And this was the part Rhen had never told
anyone, the part he had almost spilled but was able to keep secret.
Eventually, Rhen did understand what the papers had held—they had
named the fourth heir to the throne a babe born out of infidelity,
the queen's bastard, not the blood of Whyl. For that, an innocent
child paid the price. The spymaster, rather than admit what he had
found, poisoned the boy in his sleep, hoping the king would never
understand, hoping that it would turn into an unsolved mystery
allowed to linger.

Clearly, he had been wrong.

King Whylfrick was a proud man—he never said
a word to his sons and never to the queen that Rhen could tell. It
was a secret between the two of them; one he wasn't sure his father
even realized they shared.

But sometimes when he caught his father's
gaze, Rhen was sure the king knew. Deep down in his green eyes, so
like his son's, there was a speck of resentment, a glimmer of
unspoken rage, and Rhen could think of no other cause.

Which was why he remained silent—was why
Rhen would never tell a soul—not even a small boy who had no one in
the world he could tell.

And maybe that, Rhen realized, was why he
had allowed himself one moment of vulnerability with Jin. The boy
had no one—no political motivations, no idea of what it meant for a
prince to be indebted to him. For the first time, Rhen had someone
other than his two brothers he could be honest with, could show his
real self to.

But that wasn't quite true, no matter how
much he hoped it was.

Rhen thought of the snoring comment. A
lighthearted story, a good laugh—but also so much more, a little
tale that could wreck a reputation.

Jin's innocence was his appeal and his
danger—he could break Rhen's hard work without even realizing
it.

He could destroy it all.

"See anything, Prince Whylrhen?"

Rhen dropped the telescope—he had stopped
scanning the waters a few minutes ago.

"No flags."

A child-like glow burned in the captain's
eyes.

"Attack?" He asked.

"Your call, old friend," Rhen replied,
nodding his head. Rhen might be leading this expedition, but he
trusted the captain. What very few knew, no one outside of this
ship, was that the two of them had made an arrangement. When Rhen
officially earned his knighthood, he commissioned Pygott as the
first member of his spy network—his own personal captain.

That was the reason Pygott had left the
crown. Not for the queen, a ridiculous rumor. But because Rhen had
always been like a son to him, the son he and his wife could never
have, and he could not say no.

But at times like this, looking at the fast
approaching ship, Rhen understood what the captain had given
up.

He loved a good fight.

And he was about to get one.

"Archers!" The captain yelled. Immediately,
the crew stopped in place. Even the air seemed to still.

Then chaos—organized, as these men all knew
their places.

Six of the crew ran to the bow of the ship,
opening a chest that held their weapons, searching for nicks in the
wood and stretching out horsehairs that had been hardened by the
salt air.