The Spirit Heir (5 page)

3

JINJI

~ RAYFORT ~

The air was warmer than she remembered. Could three weeks in the damp dark really make such a difference? Or did the sun beat down harder on this gleaming city, blinding, boiling?

Jinji sighed as a breeze tickled her cheek, slipping through the open window, bringing a patch of goose bumps to her glistening forearm. The spirits were whispering to her, reassuring her. Though she was stuck in this castle, the far off promise of trees and grass and blue skies waited. She yearned to run.

But she wouldn't. Not this time. Not again.

"Oh, Rhen," Jinji murmured.

Two days had passed since she last saw him. Days of silence. Days of solitude in ways more deafening than the prison cell. His eyes haunted her. Their pain. Their confliction. Rhen had been so close to forgiving her. Jinji had sensed it in the softness of his voice. But then those eyes hardened, tightened, closed up and he was gone, sending her away to a new cell.

Jinji looked around. It was not the same room she had last stayed in—this one was clearly meant for a woman. But not a woman like Jinji, a woman of the court. Silky dresses sat untouched in the closet. Makeup rested unused on the tabletop. Shimmering jewels lay still in unopened boxes.

In the dungeons, everyone at least was the same. Vermin. But here, Jinji felt her otherness like a wound. Already, Rhen was treating her differently. Not as a friend, but as a foreigner. As a woman he did not know what to do with.

Jinji hugged the silk robe tighter around her body and curled her knees into her chest, turning her gaze back out the window. This robe was the only garment she could figure out how to wear—the dresses and their buttons were beyond her. But without real clothes, like the pants she yearned for, Jinji was stuck in this room until someone came to help her.

I can help you
, the voice whispered across her thoughts, sleek and smooth, somehow natural.

Jinji had not heard from the voice since she left the dungeon. In fact, she had almost believed it gone, a phantom of madness from being trapped in the dark.

Go away
, she ordered.

Just listen to me, unless you have something better to do…

Jinji could almost feel the phantom mocking her, gazing around the empty room, somehow aware that she was completely and utterly alone. Lifting her head from the wall, Jinji paused. Slam back and force the voice from her thoughts? Or sit and listen, giving in to the insanity?

The voice would just return. Jinji was certain of that now more than ever. But perhaps if she listened, she could be free of the infiltrator. Maybe then her mind would be her own once more.

Impatience invaded her senses, foreign, spreading quickly.

What did the voice want so badly to tell her?

With a deep breath, Jinji leaned softly back.
I'm going crazy
, she thought, resolved but also curious.

No, you're not
, it said. Jinji jolted, shocked that it could read her thoughts so easily, ones she had not directed at it.
You would know that if you just listened to me
.

"Who are you?" Jinji asked. Somehow, saying the words aloud made her feel more secure, more separated from the voice.

I am the spirit dragon, guardian of all living things. But I am also you. We are two souls trapped in the same human body. It is my power you use to weave the elements, my life force you channel to commune with the spirits.

"How do I know you're not the shadow?"

My shadow-self, the shadow dragon, is the guardian of all souls. I am his spirit-self. We are opposite sides of the same force. Whereas I weave the elements to create everything you see around you—the trees, the sea, the animals, the humans too—he fills my creations with souls, bringing them true life.

"I don't understand," Jinji said, shaking her head.

I have been with you for your entire life, but only recently in full. When you touched my shadow-self, you freed my soul from his grasp, allowing me to come fully alive in this world. Have you not noticed that your powers have grown stronger? They will. You have only touched the surface of what we're capable of.

Jinji's mind wandered back to the dungeons, to the illusions she wove of Rhen holding her, embracing her. His arms had felt solid. His touch had been real enough to hold her weight. Far different from the illusions of Janu she used to weave in the clearing. Those were made of air giving no resistance as her fingers slid deftly through.

But this voice, true as the statement might be, did not have her trust. Not yet. Jinji would admit nothing. "But why are you here? Why are you inside of me?"

That is a long story…

"As you said, I have nothing better to do."

There is much for you to learn, many more important things. Do you know of the three realms? That is where we must begin.

Jinji shook her head. Three realms?

Where we are now, this is the spirit realm, the realm of all living things and the place I guard. But there is a secondary realm, the shadow realm, the land of souls. When a human or animal dies in the spirit realm, their soul travels to the shadow realm to rest until it is time for rebirth. And those two realms are tied by a third, the ether. The shadow dragon lives there, transporting souls between the two realms. And when I die, my soul returns to the ether to wait for rebirth. It is the only place where my shadow-self and I are supposed to commune, where we live in our proper form, the only place we can be together without destroying the balance.

"But he is here," Jinji whispered.

Yes, he is. And that is the problem.

"He's killing people," she said, louder. The faces of her tribe ran across her mind. Leoa. Her mother. Her father. Maniuk, with his blank white eyes, possessed and turned into a murderer. She would never forget the self-loathing that filled his brown irises moments before he passed, the sadness he would take with him to his grave, the actions that would haunt him through eternity.

And Rhen. When the knife sunk into his gut, Jinji's own heart bled. He was alive, but countless others across her kingdom were not. They were dying. Or worse, they were already dead, beyond saving.

There is more at stake than the lives of a few humans
, the voice responded, hard and harsh, freezing her thoughts.

"A few humans?" Jinji repeated, voice airy and full of disbelief.

I know you have suffered. I've seen it.

"Seen it?" Jinji mocked. "But did you feel it? Was your soul also broken, shattered into a million pieces, so far gone you worried you might never recover it?"

For a moment, she thought the voice might confess. A hesitant buzz filled her mind, a foreign sensation. Words waited in that electricity, words she somehow knew held importance.

But the spirit remained silent.

Jinji was not the only one with secrets, the only one without trust.

"Can you help me kill it?" she asked.

My shadow-self cannot be killed, just as I cannot. But he can be sent back to his realm.

"How?"

Just as I am tied to your body, he has a human host. We must find that host and kill it.

"But he kills his hosts. He possesses their bodies and then he kills them."

Not them. He is the guardian of souls, so, just as I can control the elemental spirits, he can take control of human souls. But somewhere, his original body lives, the one his soul is connected to, the one that keeps him in this world.

"How can we possibly find it?" Jinji asked, hope quickly evaporating with the scale of her task. How could she find this one person? He could be anywhere, in Whylkin, in Ourthuri. He could be a she. Or even a child. Could she kill a child?

You must open your mind to me. You must let me fully in.

Jinji paused, eyes narrowing. "How will that help? Why can't we continue speaking like this?"

You must trust me. With our minds merged, we will be able to find him. You will have all of my memories and all of my powers.

But would the voice then have control? Would Jinji lose herself? Would she forget her life, her people, her family, Rhen?

Jinji fused her lips shut, letting her mind wander and hoping the spirit could not read all of her private doubts. Standing free of the windowsill, she stepped backward until her legs hit the edge of the bed and she sat, sinking into the soft cushion. Her thoughts were too consumed to process the movements of her body.

Trust.

The voice only appeared after she touched the shadow. All Jinji could remember was the barest brush of her fingers on the queen's possessed skin, one slight contact with the shadow, and the next memory was of waking in the dungeon.

Trust.

Why?

What if all of these words were lies? Near truths meant to gain her trust so the shadow could take control? So it could possess her, removing the only person who might be able to kill it?

There had been no reports of strange deaths. Of course, she had been trapped in a dungeon, cut off from the world, but still. The shadow had wanted Rhen dead, and what better time than when he was unconscious and she was locked behind bars. Yet Rhen lived. Which meant the shadow might be contained.

What if it was trapped inside of her? What if the deaths had stopped because the shadow was stuck in her mind and not free to roam the world, to possess other people?

Trust.

Jinji had lost too much to give such a prized gift away so freely. Until she had proof that this phantom was not the shadow, until she heard of more deaths, she could not trust this mysterious voice.

In one swift movement, Jinji slammed her head against the wall, wincing as pain zapped her nerves.

Wait…

But, as Jinji intended, the voice faded out into silence as though falling down a long hole, sound slowly disappearing into the distance, pulled away by the ache.

If they were lies, Jinji would hear no more of them. If they were truth, well, then time would only validate what the voice had said. Rashness was not something Jinji could afford. Not when the legacy of her people was on the line. Not when human lives, like Rhen's, were on the line.

A knock sounded.

Jinji jolted, head whipping toward the door.

"My lady?" It was a hesitant, feminine voice.

Jinji grinned, standing, hugging the robe even tighter to her body. Perhaps her prayers for aid had finally been answered. "Enter."

The door slowly eased open and behind it stood a servant in dull beige skirts with a tray of fruit in her hands.

"I was told you asked for me, my lady? I brought your breakfast as well, if I may come in?"

"Yes," Jinji murmured, stepping to the side and out of the way, suddenly shy, "please."

The girl kicked the door closed behind her and set the tray down on a nearby table. Picking up a silver pot, she poured a cup of tea, steam rising to the ceiling, and set the silverware out on a perfectly crisp napkin. Then she turned, careful to keep her head pointed at the ground in respect. But her eyes, those she could not completely control, and Jinji saw them flick to her wrists before widening and jumping quickly to the floor.

"Do they look so bad?" Jinji asked, her own gaze falling to her hands. Pulling the hem of the sleeves up, Jinji twisted her wrist, moving it in circles. The pain was mostly gone. Until now, she hardly remembered they were there.

The day before, a member of the guard had brought a balm to her room, a natural remedy. Upon using it, the blood stopped oozing, the redness started to dull, but dark slashing scars still encircled her wrists, permanent bracelets. A reminder of how powerless she was in the realm of kings without Rhen to keep her safe. Her illusions were just that—imaginary.

"No, my lady," the servant reassured. But a quiver of nerves laced her tone, proving her response was more from fear than from truth.

"It's okay." Jinji sighed. "I asked you here for another reason. Would you help me put on a dress?"

A small smile crossed the girl's lips, the barest hint of laughter. "Of course, my lady. Which one?"

Jinji shrugged, leaning back on the bed, resisting the urge to curl into a little ball at the daunting thought of the garments hidden in her closet. Life as a boy was so much easier. "You choose."

After a moment, the girl emerged, half-hidden behind a mountainous deep blue skirt.

"Is there anything…" Jinji paused, biting her lip. "Smaller?"

The servant disappeared again, and when she reappeared, a light grin pulled at Jinji's cheek. This dress would do.

The fabric was a pale yellow, the color of the sky just as the sun was rising. A shade lighter than gold but just as rich, fresh honey against her brown skin. Two days of sitting by the window staring longingly at the outdoors had brought some color back to Jinji's cheeks, color that this dress would only accentuate. Some people, she was sure, would stare. But she was an Arpapajo—she was different, and she was proud to embrace her heritage.