Page 7 of The Last Tiger

“I notice it doesn’t say here that the Dragon Empire is losing the war,” I point out.

“Just study what the book says.” Eunji rolls her eyes. “You’ll want to make sure you have these passages memorized—nearly line for line, okay?”

And so I swallow my protests—and start memorizing.

Several hours pass. There’s so much material I can hardly process it all.

I soak up as much as I can while I work.

By the time the evening ends, I’m completely exhausted from the combined physical effort of cleaning the whole western compound and the mental effort of memorizing so much tedious and offensive material.

Finally, Eunji slams her textbook shut, stands, walks over to me—and shoves it into my arms.

“For you,” she says.

I balk under the weight of the book; it’s heavier than I anticipated.

“What should I do with it?”

“Use it as a paperweight.”

I blink.

“I’m kidding,” Eunji says. “Go home. Read it. Memorize the rest—and then come back next week and tell me what you learned.”

“The whole thing ? It’s—hundreds of pages—we didn’t even get to chapter—”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Eunji says, her voice lilting as she reaches for the book. “I thought you wanted to pass the Exam. My mistake.”

“Wait, no!” I practically shout, hugging the textbook and leaping back. “What I meant was…is this all?”

“Hm. You’re right.” Eunji goes over to her desk, reaches down into a bin, and pulls out a thin packet of papers, which she places on top of the textbook in my hands. “Take this practice test too.”

I hurry home, eager to crack the book open and resume studying. I’m not too far down the mountain path when it starts to rain.

It’s only a slow dripping, but I stop, holding my hand up with a feeling of wonder.

The drought this year has been really bad; it hasn’t rained like this in months.

Cold droplets patter down onto my palm, one at a time.

The coolness of the rain feels wonderful after a long day working up a sweat through hard work.

My smile widens for the first time in weeks.

“You don’t look like yangban to me.”

I whip around, searching for the source of the voice.

But there’s no one around me on the path.

Until a form steps out of the shadows, behind one of the trees in the woods—

It’s a girl—she looks around my age—with pale, nearly white skin and dark, purple-black hair the color of magpie feathers.

Her cheeks are a bit sunken under her eyes, as if she’s gone many nights without sleeping.

Though she wears almost no makeup, her pallid face seems to gleam on its own under the wan early moonlight.

She steps forward, out of the trees, onto the path.

“Definitely not. Not with those worn-out shoes,” a second voice chimes in behind her.

Two more bodies slink forward out of the shadows, joining the first girl.

I hear footsteps behind me and turn to see another three guys forming an arc around me.

Suddenly all my senses are on alert—they have me surrounded.

I glance behind me, trying to judge whether I could outrun them down the path if I break for it.

“You’re right,” I say carefully, trying to keep all of them within my peripheral vision. “I’m a regular guy. No yangban, nothing on me worth stealing. I’m just a waste of your time; I don’t have anything you’d want.”

“Oh, I disagree, hon,” says the girl with the pale white face as she steps forward. The others seem to defer to her. “What I want is information . What exactly is a peasant boy like you doing hanging out late at night with the youngest daughter of the powerful Choi family?”

An involuntary shiver passes through me as she takes a step closer, through a shaft of moonlight.

“Just let me go. I don’t want trouble, okay?”

“ Relaaax , dude, I’m not going to rat you out or anything,” she croons. “I just want some answers. What, are you her secret boyfriend or something?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I meet her gaze, steeling myself.

The girl squints back at me.

“Tell me the truth.”

I must be mistaken, but her pupils seem to expand —covering the whites of her eyes until almost her entire eyeballs are jet black, like two pieces of the night sky. Something, unbidden, pulls the words from my throat before I can stop them.

Tell me the truth.

“Eunji is helping me study for the Exam,” I blurt out.

The pale-faced girl throws her chin back, her laughter pealing out into the evening air.

“Aw, that’s so cute. He’s studying .”

The girl’s friends join her, snickering.

“You shouldn’t waste your time on that ,” she drawls.

“The Exam is a trick, my friend. It’s a game they’ve designed—a series of hoops for us to jump through, to keep us occupied.

It’s all for show. But you, you’re a colony kid like us.

If you’re determined to waste your energy, at least put it toward something real. ”

“Such as?” I snap, annoyed.

“Such as fighting for our independence ,” the pale girl whispers, leaning forward.

An alarm passes through me.

They’re rebels.

Organizers, agitators against the Dragon regime.

If I’m seen together with them, I’ll be in serious trouble. I could be tortured, imprisoned, or worse—and my family will suffer heightened surveillance from now until eternity.

As subtly as I can, I scan around for an opening. If I run for it, will I make it past them?

The pale-faced girl, seemingly bored, snorts. She nods to the others, and the three guys surrounding me back off, moving behind her.

“You’re chasing a fool’s errand, you know.” She smirks. “The sooner you realize that, Lover Boy, the better.”

And then she and the other rebels slink off into the woods, peeling down the flanks of the mountain path. After a minute, they’re gone.

I release a long-held breath. I’m about to turn back down the path again—

When I hear something strange. It’s some kind of high-pitched sound.

What was that?

I frown. Almost like an animal moaning in the woods off the path, in pain…

I shudder as an instinctual sense of foreboding fills me.

The cries grow louder—whatever it is, it’s injured, and upset.

Against my better judgment, I step cautiously off the path, peering into the woods. The mountain slope here is so heavily thicketed, it’s hard to see. I shiver, feeling the cold sinking into my skin as my clothes are starting to grow damp from the drizzle.

And then I see him.

I can barely make out someone rolling in the dirt—

A tall man lies there, naked—no, he’s been stripped down to his underwear. His wrists and ankles are bound together. A blindfold has been tied over his eyes.

As I flinch, shocked, my foot closes down on a twig. It snaps under my weight.

The man whips his head back and opens his mouth.

“Who is it?” he cries desperately. “Who’s there? H-help me!”

I gasp, stepping back farther into the shadows.

I recognize his voice. It’s…Officer Hiyoshi.

“I’ve been ambushed,” the secret policeman cries out desperately. “That gang of rebels—they beat me, tied me up here, and left me for dead. Please, set me free. I’ll make sure you’re rewarded!”

I can’t believe what I’m seeing. This naked man in the woods is a shell of the mighty officer who strode so coolly into my house only days ago. He’s soaked, shivering, terrified, utterly vulnerable.

Of course he’s made enemies, I think bitterly. He’s been stealing from the whole village. Serves him right.

Officer Hiyoshi hasn’t seen me. He doesn’t know who I am.

A little cold might make him think twice before stealing from us again. He won’t know I left him to suffer.

Hiyoshi continues writhing on the ground, bleating for help. I watch him coolly for a moment before turning away.

It isn’t until much later—once I’ve almost neared the end of the path toward home—that I realize something odd. When the policeman cried out earlier for help, I’m pretty sure that he spoke in Tiger tongue.