I felt the shift before he spoke. Not a Dragon-shift this time. A different kind. Something serious that wasn't violent. Something that had been sitting on his chest while I had been laughing on it.
"I have to ask you something."
I lifted my head off his and looked at him properly. That was when I saw it. Worry rose within his gaze. I thought about the dream. “Kenji, what's wrong?"
His hand came up and traced my cheekbone with his thumb. "You can see my dragon-shadow."
"Yes."
"Rin told me that Deja can see his serpent-shadow."
“What?!” I left him and completely sat up straight. "When did he tell you that? I don't remember you two talking at the party. Deja had him leashed and close to her."
"When we talked about this is not important."
"But—"
"What's important is that it made me want to go deeper into researching my mother's bloodline. And from that research. . .I found something interesting and had Reo look into a process called the Burial Ritual."
“Okay.”
“And. . .I think I want to do it, but it would involve you too.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“What would I need to do?”
“It could be dangerous for you, Tora.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “But what would I need to do?”
And then Kenji told me everything. He explained that the rite came out of his mother's people—the old Shinigami hunters from the mountains of Japan, who believed the earth itself was a living body. Soil was flesh. Roots were veins. The lotus was the earth's heart flowering upward.
He explained that the ritual had to be performed on a full moon night, with the moon at its peak. A large hole had to be dug into the earth, big enough for two bodies. There would be nine lotus blossoms placed inside for me to lie upon.
He told me about the two bindings. He would cut his palm. I would cut mine. Because both of us would need to bleed into the soil.
That was the first binding—blood to earth.
Then I would lie down on the nine lotus blossoms inside the hole, and he would come into the hole with me, and we would make love under the moonlight. That was the second binding—flesh to flesh to earth.
He told me about the gifts.
The first gift was that his dragon-shadow would be permanently bound to him. During battle, the beast would fight beside him, feeding on his enemies and weakening them before he struck.
The second gift was called Death-sight. During battle, he would see the moment of a man's death two minutes before it happened. Two minutes of warning. How exactly he would see it—whether as a vision, a shadow, a feeling—Reo hadn't found any specific information.
Then he told me the cost and a cold shiver ran through me.
"The rite braids your soul to mine, and it cannot be undone." He studied me. "If I die, you die. No matter where you are. I get shot in the battle and you die right here on this island."
I swallowed. "And the same goes the other way?”
“Yes. If something happens to you, I die too."
I sat there, taking it in.
