The Spirit Heir (21 page)

Jinji shook her head. "No, nothing like that. I'm not sure how to say it, except, well, ever since I touched the shadow that day in Rayfort, I've been hearing a voice in my head. And…" She held up her hand for silence. "Before you tell me I'm crazy, please let me finish."

Rhen closed his mouth, nodding. But she had misconstrued his intentions—Rhen was going to admit that somehow, the words made sense to him. Deep in his soul, an understanding burst into awareness, as though the pieces were beginning to fall into place.

"It's too much to go into now, I'm not sure if I even truly understand, but the voice is really a soul that shares my body, a guardian of this world, and our connection is the reason I can manipulate the elemental spirits. Her presence gave me the power to create my illusions. And though she has lived countless human lives, this is the first time she has returned to our world in a thousand years, maybe more."

Jinji sighed, wringing her thumbs as though nervous. "The voice has been sharing memories with me, I believe just of her last life in our world. And dragons were alive, they were real. The phantom who follows you, who is with us right now, I've seen him ride them in my, I mean, her memories."

Rhen walked back to the wall, running his fingers over the flames, yearning to pull the fire under his skin, wishing it were real. But the stone was cold, dead, lifeless.

"Why bother to show us this? Why go through all the effort of bringing us here, just to show us an old painting?" Rhen asked, spinning around as his hand balled into a fist, fighting the urge to slam it against the wall. "Even if dragons were once real, they aren't any more. This doesn't help us."

"I don't know," Jinji said softly. "Perhaps this lost soul doesn't understand how much time has passed since his death, doesn’t realize that they're gone."

As though sensing Rhen's mounting anger, she let the illusion fall. The painting faded back to dust, to light brown soot hardly distinguishable from the stone. But the image still burned Rhen's eyes—he couldn’t get rid of it.

When the phantom had reappeared on their ship, Rhen stupidly let himself believe he'd found the answer—that somehow, someway, this ghost would show him the key to saving his family. And instinct to trust, to believe, had flared to life, burning the doubts away. It was the only reason Rhen veered off the path to Brython, the only reason he broke his promise to Whyllem to stay out of trouble. When they were led to a cliff, Rhen almost turned around. One slip, and he might fall to his death, might destroy the last hope of his bloodline. But still, Rhen pushed forward, too close to turn back.

And after all of that, this was it? This was all he had to show? Memories of an animal that had been dead for centuries, gone from this world, utterly useless?

Rhen's energy gave out as an invisible knife pierced his heart, stinging, and he fell to his knees. Broken. Baby Whyllean pushed into his thoughts—his pudgy hands as they wrapped around Rhen's finger, the dimples that carved into his cheeks when he laughed, the curiosity in his eyes as though the entire world were a marvel to behold. Those memories faded, replaced by the image of his tiny head on a spike, gaze blank, mouth frozen.

Rhen closed his eyes, fighting to suppress the nightmare as he ran his hands through his hair.

No…

He shook his head.

I should be there. Why did I run? Why did I listen to Whyllem?

"Rhen," Jinji sighed in his ear as her arms wrapped around his shoulders and she pulled him in for a tight embrace. Rhen gripped her as though his life depended on it, pulling her close, burying his head in her neck. Breaths coming quick and shallow, he tried to hold onto her warmth, her pulse, to fight the sobs strangling his throat.

But just when Rhen feared he would lose it, drowning in the despair choking his heart, a sound filtered into his ears, replacing the hurt with sudden alarm.

Boots.

Rhen and Jinji pulled back at the same time, eyes wide, looking at one another for confirmation. But the noise was impossible to mishear. Boots down an empty hall, echoing across the silence. Multiple sets. Soft but growing louder.

Rhen shook his head, confused. Who could it be? This area of the kingdom was abandoned—no towns, no villages, nothing except wilderness.

Jinji lifted her finger in front of her lips, latching her free hand around his. Together, they stepped to the side, hiding in the shade of a tall column. Rhen spared one more glance at the painting, noticing for the first time that the phantom had disappeared, abandoned them.

Good riddance
, he thought.

And then darkness descended. The candles across the floor winked out of existence. The torch at his feet disappeared. In his hand, Jinji's fingers began to tremble. Beside him, her voice grew short. Rhen settled an arm across her shoulders, pulling her against his chest as he ran a hand down her hair.

Remembering how much his friend despised the dark, how it reminded her of the shadow, of her nightmare, Rhen kissed her forehead ever so slightly, enjoying how natural the motion was. Then he whispered, "I won't leave you."

For a moment, her body relaxed against him, but then she sucked in a constricted breath. Placing her hand to his cheek, she pushed, shifting his gaze.

In the distance, a warm yellow speck appeared, confirming they were no longer alone.

13

JINJI

~ HILLS OF AIREDALE ~

When Jinji felt Rhen's lips press against her forehead, the barest hint of a kiss, she couldn't help but wonder for a moment if all of this were real—if it could possibly be happening to her.

Those dark weeks in the dungeon fluttered to the forefront of her thoughts—endless days where the promise of Rhen was all that had kept her together. Countless times, Jinji had woven illusions of him holding her just like this—arms warm against her skin, touch a comfort in the evasive dark, hands soothing as they ran up and down her back. And sometimes, when the burns around her wrist ached too much to bear and the piercing screams continued echoing through the silence, Jinji would tell Rhen's illusion to kiss her, comforting and loving, and his lips would land gently against her forehead.

But now, finding herself drowning in darkness once more, Rhen was there doing everything she wished in her dreams—only this time, he was doing them on his own with no prodding and no pushing from her.

"I won't leave you," he whispered, breath tickling her neck as the warm vibrato of his voice sent one last shiver down her spine. If there was ever a doubt, it was gone as the sound washed over her. This Rhen was real, not an illusion.

Jinji relaxed against him, melting under his touch.

Then she sucked in a breath, the moment of peace utterly shattered as the glow of fire sprang to life in the distance. A hundred feet underground in a castle that had not seen life for centuries, and yet, someone had found them—followed them.

Reaching up, Jinji placed her palm against Rhen's cheek, shifting his gaze to the intruders. The fingers holding her arm tightened as Rhen released a harsh breath, a silent curse. His free hand shifted, brushing the side of her hip as he reached for the knife in his belt. In that moment, Jinji was sure he wished for a sword. But his favorite weapon was waiting back on the deck of their boat where Rhen had left it before jumping overboard and following her into the water.

Still, a knife was better than nothing, which was what Jinji had. Empty hands. But with her illusions, she was never helpless—not really.

Jinji shrugged free of Rhen's hold, allowing him to crouch into a fighting stance as she lifted her fingers before her face, ready to produce whatever mirage was needed to aid their escape.

Neither of them moved as the men stepped closer. Jinji counted six as they neared, each one held a sword in one hand and a torch in the other, peering nervously around the space. The man in front crouched every so often, spotting their footsteps on the ground, continuing to follow the trail they had made in the dust.

"What do we do?" she whispered as quietly as possible. The men did not stop, did not look around. They were still too far away to hear.

"When they get close," Rhen murmured with lips pressed against her ear, making it difficult to concentrate on his words, "I'm going to attack. When I shout your name, fill the room with candlelight once more."

Jinji nodded, squeezing his fingers once before he slipped away. After three dull thuds of boots on stone, Jinji could no longer hear him. The sound of his steps faded away, too soft to penetrate the silence as he moved like a ghost in the darkness—like a phantom.

On instinct, Jinji's gaze shifted over her shoulder. Though there was nothing to see, the image of the painting was glued to her memory—more specifically, the image of the man riding the beast. As soon as they arrived in this room, as soon as Rhen began to rub away the soot covering the painting, Jinji had realized who the phantom was.

The rider from the memory.

The man the voice had loved.

Not her brother.

Not Janu.

And though her heart had sunk a little at the realization, it made sense. The phantom had not come for her, not initially. It had come for Rhen. Though the phantom's blue eyes were so different from the warm green ones that had captured her heart, there was something familiar about him, so like Rhen. The fire, yes, but also something more—something Jinji desperately needed the voice to help her understand.

In a way, Jinji felt sorry for the phantom, a soul who must not have realized how long he'd been in the grave. Every gesture at the painting had been charged with meaning, full of such intent. Jinji wished she could speak to it, tell the man that his beast was long dead, that dragons were now just a thing of legend. Maybe it would give him peace, let him descend back to the realm of the shadow and leave this world.

But he’d vanished before she got the chance.

Vanished at the exact moment when Jinji and Rhen realized they were no longer alone.

Quietly, Jinji shifted back around, pulling her thoughts from the past and back to the present—back to the men only a few yards away, mumbling to each other as they examined the circle of footsteps on the ground, trying to determine where best to hunt for their prey in the dark. But in their deliberations, the men failed to realize that their torches were bright targets, making them easy to watch and even easier to kill.

Jinji was hardly surprised when the first man fell.

Rhen's dagger landed perfectly in the center of his forehead, killing him before he even had the chance to scream. For a moment, the only sound to fill the space was the clank of metal on stone as his body fell, the tap of wood as the torch bounced on the ground, settling to a stop right in front of his face, features frozen in shock.

Then time rushed forward. His five companions stepped back, boots loud as thunder, breath a strong gust of wind as panic took hold and they turned in circles trying to locate the source of the throw. Swords raised, the men took turns cutting through air as they stepped out in quick motions and slashed at nothing.

Rhen remained invisible.

A moment later, the flames atop their torches shifted, stopped flickering, paused, and then flew away, illuminating Rhen's features for the briefest instant before fading into nothingness.

Ebony engulfed them all.

Perfectly silent.

Perfectly still.

And then a grunt broke through. Another. A scream of pain. A groan. The ring of metal on metal. The thump of a blade as it landed in skin.

Sweat glistened to life on Jinji's palms as her pulse ran rapidly, listening for Rhen's voice through the indistinct sounds. Was that his sigh? His groan? His hiss of pain? Heart racing, Jinji wanted to fling light across the room, to clear the darkness, to see what was happening. The not knowing was killing her. But Rhen told her to wait for his call.

Did she trust him enough to keep her promise?

The answer to the question would always be yes. So as much as it pained her to do nothing, to wait, she did.

"Jinji! Now!" Rhen's voice cut through the abyss, zapping her system as Jinji jumped into motion. Lifting her arms, she wove the same illusion as before, not bothering to close her eyes. A thousand candles blazed into existence, as bright as the sun, illuminating every corner of the room.

Three bodies lay deadly still on the floor.

Jinji located Rhen just in time to see the knife leave his hand, just in time to watch it sail across the room, just in time to see it land true.

Four bodies.

Before Jinji could blink, the fire disappeared, arching across the room and sinking under Rhen's skin as though her illusions were made of real flame. Shocked, Jinji stepped back as night descended once more.

How had he done that? No one had ever been able to manipulate her illusions before—no one except her.