Page 26 of The Last Tiger

I reach for the book, but she snatches it back.

“Nuh-uh-uh. No touching. I don’t know how many copies are left, and you wouldn’t believe what I went through to get it.

” Carefully she flips it open to show the first chapter.

An enormous serpent is coiled up there, facing the reader.

A human stands in front of it, head bowed.

“What do you see there?” Jin asks me.

“I…” I’m not sure what I’m looking at.

“It’s a Serpent spirit. The source of Serpent ki.”

My hand tremors by my side as I pore over the pages.

Serpent…ki?

“You mean Dragon ki, don’t you?”

There’s no such thing as Serpent ki.

The part of me that wonders if coming here was a bad idea flares up again. This has been one of the most important facts the empire has drilled into our heads since birth—the source of their legitimacy, their claim to power—the reason I and others like me were always so jealous of them:

The Dragon Empire is the only people with ki powers. We’ve always known that.

Jin throws me a look of utter disdain. “Don’t tell me you really believe their propagandist bullshit.”

Maybe this is part of her test. Seeing how much nonsense I’ll take.

“I may not know much,” I say quietly, “but I’m not a fool. You can’t seriously expect me to believe every word that comes out of your mouth…”

Jin rests a hand on the desktop, leaning back. A glint passes over her eye as she reaches down and pulls a knife from her belt, which she unsheathes. I back away, raising my hands.

“Re lax ,” she says lazily, and holds it out to me, handle first. “For you.”

I look down, perplexed, then back up at her.

As we make eye contact, I gasp.

Jin’s pupils, a deep purple that matches the color of her hair…suddenly expand , covering most of the whites of her eyes. Her eyeballs have gone completely dark, like pieces of the night sky. They swallow me whole—

“Take the knife,” Jin commands. Her voice echoes in my brain.

Take the knife.

My hand moves on its own. It takes the knife out of Jin’s hand, holding it ready.

“Draw an X on the desk.”

My body lunges forward of its own accord, slamming the knife into the desk’s surface and carving a jagged X into the wood. My hand rattles from the effort. I’m shocked by the ferocity of the gesture, can hardly believe it came from myself—

“Okay. Cool. You can let go now. ”

Her eyes return to normal. My grip opens, dropping the knife with a clattering sound. I grab my hand, which is suddenly shaking—

“What was that—”

“Still don’t believe me?” The tip of Jin’s tongue flicks out between her teeth, framed by a cheeky grin.

And I get it.

“You have Serpent ki.” My jaw drops.

“There you go. You’re a genius. I’m shocked you failed the Exam.” Jin puts the book away, then slides the drawer shut.

“How in the spirits do you have—” Jin doesn’t seem like she’s from the Serpent Queendom. As far as I can tell, she’s of Tiger descent.

“The Dragon Empire did a grand job of stamping out every other ki power from the narrative,” Jin says. “Vanished from the schoolbooks, totally erased from memory. But it’s lies. They aren’t the only nation with ki powers at all. The Serpent Queendom has them. And so do we.”

She points at the map as she goes on.

“Serpent spirits give Serpent ki to people,” Jin says. “Dragon spirits give Dragon ki. Do the math, Seung. Why do you think they’re hunting down tigers?”

No. It can’t be.

A certain, nagging thought begins to grow in me—

Becoming a strange, exhilarating, frightening feeling…

With intense clarity, I see yesterday’s accident with the supervisor in the gold mine.

I remember the strange incident at the Exam, when I saw odd visions in the air.

And I remember that night in the woods.

When the tiger approached me. When it touched its nose to my chest.

When a moonbeam fell straight through the woods onto me, and I heard the distant sound of a woman singing.

“It’s because of Tiger ki, Lover Boy. That’s right. The Dragon Empire isn’t content with just rewriting history. Oh, no. They’re aiming for something much darker: to destroy every other nation’s ki power entirely. To eradicate their powers from the earth. Starting with us.”

This can’t be true. It can’t. This goes against everything I ever—

“We…we have ki powers?” My vision swims.

“Not many people know the truth.” Her voice drops. “Tiger ki was a hidden art, even before the empire. The Tiger shamans were careful not to let anyone learn their secrets. And after the Dragon Empire invaded, those secrets were completely lost.

“But I knew we could rediscover it. I knew if the empire was hunting down tigers, there had to be a reason for it. We could find out what it was, what the lost ki powers were, and use them to fight back.”

She leans back, musing.

“Dragon ki gives strength, endurance, healing powers. Serpent ki gives the power to control other people with words alone—with some caveats, provided that your willpower is stronger than theirs. Tiger ki must be something extraordinary too. I’m sure it would help us fight the empire.

“But ultimately, it doesn’t really matter what the powers are. It only matters that—”

“They exist,” I finish for her.

Jin looks at me with a different expression. She seems to be reading something in my face that she likes as I work it out.

Ki powers are the very foundation of the Dragon Empire’s hold over us. Ki can end any conversation, settle any dispute by force. It always made it necessary, at the end of the day, to submit to whatever they said was true.

But if what they said isn’t true…

The hair stands on my neck.

“If Tiger ki exists,” I say slowly, “and if you can prove it, you’re breaking down the empire’s source of legitimacy. You’ll give the Tiger people hope.”

Jin sighs, spent. “Which is why our mission is lost. The tigers are extinct.” Her brief moment of excitement drains away.

“How do you know—”

“You’ve seen how bad the drought is, Seung. The tigers are supposed to be the guardians of the land. No more tigers, no more rain. No one has seen a tiger in two years now. And the land is dry and desiccated. It’s true, then. They’re gone. The empire really has won.”

The black cloud of despair flares up behind her again—

And I see it: She really believes that all hope is lost.

This is a different side of Jin from the one I saw in the woods. There, she was commanding, cool, utterly in charge. Here, for just a moment, she looks almost defenseless. Defeated.

Is this really the same Jin who subdued Officer Hiyoshi, tied him up in the woods, and left him for dead?

“Jin,” I say slowly. “What if I told you that there’s still a tiger out there?”

She raises an eyebrow at me, clearly unimpressed.

“And”—I pause, then clear my throat—“that I know just where to find it?”