Page 38 of The Last Tiger

Strike first and strike hard. Nari’s voice rings through my mind. With focus and precision you can throw off a stronger opponent if you strike at the right place.

I leap into the air, slamming the heel of my foot into the creature’s side.

Dragon ki courses through my veins, giving my kick the force of a truck bearing down.

Somehow, it works—the gumiho belts another shrill screech as it hurtles back through the air, thrown by my strength into the stone wall of the bridge. It slumps to the ground.

The monster adjusts its shaking legs, leaping back to its feet as it refocuses its attention on me. A deep, unearthly growl releases from its chest. I raise my fists, preparing for battle.

And then, suddenly, the fox…is nowhere to be seen.

Instead, in its place, rises someone who I haven’t seen in a very long time.

Someone I thought I might never see again.

Seung gazes back at me, apologetic and tearful. He wears the same expression on his face that he had the day after he failed the Exam. Breathless. Kind. And so distant.

My hands fall to my sides.

Snap out of it, I tell myself desperately. This isn’t Seung. This isn’t real.

But I can’t break free. I’m helpless.

I drop my fists and watch, dazed, as Seung sighs forlornly, carefully holding my gaze. My pulse quickens as he beckons me forward. He holds his hands upward, palms out, as if to say, It’s me, Eunji.

It’s so utterly Seung , that lopsided grin…

I walk toward him, stopping only centimeters away from him. Seung reaches up with his hand, the back of his fingers brushing softly against my left cheek. When he pulls his hand away, it’s glistening with tears. Mine. I didn’t even realize I was crying.

Seung looks down at his fingertips, then back at me. His face is torn.

He opens his mouth to speak—

As Kenzo shoves me out of the way—

Just in time, as the boy I once knew morphs back into the monstrous fox, its jaws snapping over the air where my face was only seconds ago.

I lose my footing, latching onto Kenzo at the last second.

We tumble down, careening over the edge of the bridge, and fall headlong into the rushing river.

I gasp just before we crash through the surface.

My backside smashes against a sharp rock jutting out from the bottom of the river, and I cry out in pain as I see a smattering of stars. Water rushes into my mouth.

Not exactly the refreshing drink that I was hoping for.

For a moment, I’m bathed in cold, dark silence.

Then I scramble, kicking my legs rapidly, propelling us back to the surface of the river. I break my head clear and look around, coughing and gasping, blinking away the water from my eyes.

I don’t have time to stop for long—the force of the rapids pushes us along, threatening to send us downriver. Kenzo shivers with cold as he clings to me with one arm, the other dangling lifelessly by his side. The gash looks brutal.

Crash! Meters away, the gumiho leaps into the water after us, snarling viciously as it paws toward us.

I turn to face the other side of the river and swim as fast as I possibly can, dragging a nearly unconscious Kenzo by my side. The gumiho shrieks as the rapids swipe it away, whining into the distance, trapped among the white waves.

We reach the other riverbank, and I pull Kenzo out of the water and onto the sand. He groans upon impact, then rolls over to his non-injured side, coughing up water. I glance behind us, wary, but the demon fox is gone.

As the sun continues to descend over the top of the barren trees, I can only pray that the monster—or one of its friends—doesn’t return to finish the job it started.

Kenzo looks half-asleep. A bead of cold sweat trickles along his jawline and down to his neck, disappearing beneath the collar of his damp shirt.

He moans again in agony. The gruesome wound in his shoulder reminds me to attend to my own injuries.

It takes nearly all the energy I have left to force my skin to reseal itself, the muscles in my back to reweave themselves, my bruises to heal and disappear. I sigh, exhausted.

Kenzo moans in pain. I shake him awake.

“Kenzo,” I croak, jostling him. “Wake up. Hey. You need to heal.”

“Cold…can’t feel…” His voice is barely a whisper.

“It’s your shoulder,” I say. “It’s probably going numb from the gash. Heal yourself before you fall unconscious, okay?”

Kenzo mumbles something unintelligible, then falls silent again, his breath ragged and effortful. I bring a hand to his clammy cheek, patting it a few times in an attempt to rouse him. “Hey. This is a terrible time for a nap. Wake up, please.”

An icy slap against his pale skin seems to do the trick. Finally, Kenzo’s eyes flutter. They meet mine, two ebony pools shining in the fading sunlight.

“Heal first—then sleep,” I insist.

A strange look in his eyes, Kenzo slowly pivots his head to the left, then to the right.

I don’t understand why he’s refusing to cooperate.

Now that I come to think of it, the most perplexing observation I’ve made about Kenzo over the last few days is how reluctant the guy is to use his ki powers.

He declined to run with me through the marketplace or fight back against the Dragon officer.

Those were understandable, maybe. But allowing himself to be totally overpowered by the gumiho…

? Refusing to heal his shoulder from a near-mortal wound? That doesn’t make any sense.

I suddenly remember the spring party a year ago, just before our engagement. Even then, when implored by the guests and his own father to demonstrate his newfound powers, Kenzo graciously declined.

Please, I couldn’t possibly, he’d said.

Suddenly a very strange thought enters my head.

No. I wave it away. That’s impossible.

“Kenzo…” I shake his good arm once more. “Stop it. Whatever this is about—quit it. Heal yourself before you bleed to death and leave me alone out here, you idiot.”

Kenzo’s mouth forms a flat line as he stares up at me, still lying on his back. He mutters something.

“What?” I demand.

“I can’t.”

“You can’t what?”

He presses his lips together once more, closing his eyes.

“Just use your ki,” I tell him. There’s no way he doesn’t know how to heal ; we learned this in the first month of school.

“Eunji, I can’t ,” he repeats darkly.

For a few moments, I stare at him, dumbfounded.

It can’t be true.

“You don’t have ki powers.” The accusation flies out of my mouth.

His jaw twitches. “That’s…not…”

“Not true?” I ask. “Then heal yourself. Prove me wrong, if you can.”

Kenzo swallows. It looks painful.

A breeze wafts through the sky, sending a shiver through me as my dripping clothes flap in the wind. It’s beginning to get dark; the last of the sunlight has faded beneath the tree line.

Kenzo shivers, his back still pressed against the ground. He falls unnervingly still, as though he’s willing himself to turn to stone.

Suddenly I spring away from him as if he’s caught fire.

“Who else knows about this?” I can’t believe he’s been lying to me all this time. To everyone.

He takes his time before answering. “Just you.”

My head swims with questions.

Foremost: How? How in the spirits could Kenzo have managed to secure such a high position in the Dragon Army…without any ki powers?

This must be the real reason that he left Adachi—or did he ever even go there in the first place? And, spirits below , how was he able to hide a secret so immense from the Dragon Empire?

Kenzo lifts his head, tries to pull himself to a seated position, but he doesn’t have the strength.

He doesn’t have any strength, I realize, stunned. None.

It’s been a facade. Kenzo Kobayashi isn’t a prodigy, isn’t a prideful hero, nor a genius, destined for greatness. He’s nothing…but a fraud.

“Just leave me here,” he mutters, shutting his eyes, blocking out the world. He shudders again. “I’ll only slow you down.”

And for a moment, I really do consider it.

Someone so vulnerable and powerless won’t stand a chance against even the weakest of my foes.

If I continue to drag him along with me, Kenzo is bound to be nothing but a deadweight, especially with his injury.

He’ll just be another person to watch out for, another voice in my head telling me that I’m on the wrong path.

I heave a sigh. Bending over at the knee, I lean down—and scoop up the towering boy with my arms, cradling him like a damp pile of clothes, then rise. His shaggy hair swings back and forth, still dripping with water, as I begin to walk.

Minutes pass. Or perhaps hours. It’s hard to tell.

I walk until I can’t feel my legs. Until my powers begin to give out from exhaustion, and my arms sag under the weight of Kenzo’s body.

Until the sound of the rushing water fades into the distance.

Until the evening sinks from a warm twilight into a deep, dark night.

I walk in search of a light, a town, something, anything that might house a warm fire and a bite to eat.

But there’s nothing out here. Not this far in the countryside.

My mind begins to wander, to lose itself in the endless forest. Each labored step blurs into the next.

I’m barely awake, stuck halfway between a daydream and a nightmare.

At one point, I think I hear someone shouting, crying in desperation for help. Maybe it’s Kenzo. Maybe it’s me.

Eventually, I stumble into a small glen surrounded by towering trees.

This’ll have to do, I think. I can’t bring myself to trek any farther.

I set Kenzo down on the ground and remove his cloak from my shoulders. Then I kneel over him and tear the thick, insulating cloth into thirds. Only at the sound of his beloved cloak being ripped to shreds does the boy finally stir.

“That’s vicuna wool ,” he whines in protest.

“Oh hush,” I murmur. “I’m sure your father will buy you a shiny new one if you somehow manage to survive the night.”