Page 24 of Dragon 7

My grandmother stood beside me and hummed a slow tune. Behind her, other women stood from my family. Some I recognized. Some I didn’t. It was a long line of them stretching back into the darkness past the torchlight—dark-skinned, broad-backed, every shade of brown.

Some in headwraps.

Some in chains.

Some so free it made my eyes water.

Trembling, I looked down the line of women stretching back into the dark.

Some watched the baby.

Some watched me.

One older woman stood with tears shining on her cheeks. Another pressed a trembling hand to her mouth. And suddenly I wondered how many of them had stood where I sat now.

How many had looked at a future they would never have?

How many had said yes anyway?

I shut my eyes.

Stop. Don't do this to yourself.

I opened them, and my baby girl disappeared, and the moon stared down where her face had been.

I breathed through my teeth and dragged myself back to the clearing and cold stone.

A large bowl waited on the ground between my open feet. Age had blackened it. Carved figures circled its sides, yet they appeared so worn as if smoothed by centuries of hands.

The moonlight poured into the bowl’s mouth.

A hooded figure stood behind the bowl. A taller person was on the right, holding the rod.

Swallowing, I stared at the rod.

It was thin, dark metal and longer than my forearm. It narrowed to a point fine as a long needle. The torchlight slid down the length and made it gleam.

Fuck.

I shivered, and a new vision came.

My little girl sat on a small bicycle in a wide green yard, and Kenji crouched beside her with one hand steady on the seat and one hand on the handlebars. He spoke to her as if it were the most important conversation of his life.

And then she nodded her little head and wobbled forward on the bike. He kept his hand on the seat and ran beside her.

Reo stood near with a massive medical team like he’d prepared for every possible injury to the Little Tiger.

But she remained balanced.

And when Kenji let go, she rushed forward and laughed.

And Kenji stood in the grass with the biggest smile on his face.

And Reo and the medical team clapped.

What are you doing?

I blinked and shoved that away.