LITMIR.BIZ

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knew she was supposed to be collecting wood, but they already had a bunch sitting right outside their front door. Plus, she hadn’t seen Mar’e in days, not since before the Kuroi girl’s excursion through the desert, a ritual for all who had reached twelve years of age.

      Mar’e had told her it was just a really long walk, where they had all followed a tribal elder around, discussing sands and winds during the day, and stars and signs in the night. Jessop wouldn’t admit it to the other girl, because it would have brought her too much satisfaction, but she was jealous. She was only part Kuroi and that exempted her from tribal rites of passage. Despite this, the elders were good to her, recognizing her and her mother as being of their people. They let them live in the green, walk their lands, visit in their shelters, trade and work with their people. Dezane DeHawn, the true elder, had been a constant source of kindness to her all her life.

      “It was very intense,” Mar’e concluded, nodding slowly, like she had some newfound wisdom that Jessop didn’t.

      Jessop shrugged. “It doesn’t sound that intense.”

      The other girl squinted her glowing yellow eyes. “Well, it was.”

      “If you say so,” Jessop chided, getting to her feet. She didn’t want to listen to Mar’e talk about the excursion anymore. She should have just gone to find more wood.

      “Jessop, you’re not Kuroi, you don’t know,” her friend snapped back, getting to her feet just as fast.

      “Who are you, Mar’e Makenen, to decide who is and is not Kuroi?” The voice of Dezane DeHawn startled them both. Jessop spun around to see the true elder standing several paces away, perfectly still as he watched them. His dark skin shone under the bright light of midday, his robes tucked around old lines of well-fortified muscle. His bright green eyes glowed at them both, emeralds on fire. The leader of the Kuroi inclined his head at the young girls. He was older than any knew, but he wasn’t aged. “Jessop may not be full blood, but her eyes shine as mine do, and her Kuroi tongue is better than all of those her age—yourself included.” Dezane spoke to Mar’e, but kept his eyes on Jessop.

      She smiled up to the elder, thankful for his support.

      Dezane’s soft smile turned to a frown. “There are foreign travelers in our parts today. Both of you should get yourselves home, now.”

      Jessop shivered, thinking of the telepath with the dark eyes, the one who always traveled with a younger companion. She kept her gaze fixed on Dezane. “You mean those men with mind control?”

      “They are telepaths, and many of them possess telekinesis, yes, but they do not control minds. Your mind can only be controlled if you let it be, Jessop.” She knew that in this, as in everything, Dezane was right. But it didn’t stop her from seeing the cloaked figure, drunk, yelling at his boy, moving everything from errant barrels to slow-moving people out of his way with just a flick of his hand. It was difficult for her to understand being able to control a whole human body, but not a small human mind.

      “Return home,” Dezane reiterated. Jessop would have usually hugged Mar’e goodbye, but not today. She offered a tight smile to her friend and a sincere one to Dezane before turning on her heel away from the village.

      * * * *

      Jessop crossed the desert sands quickly, her leather sandals light on the golden granules. The forest was just up ahead, the one salvation from the dunes. It was an oddity to find a lush forest in the middle of the desert, and many who passed through simply stared at it as though it were a mirage, some false salvation. It was no mirage though. It was her home. Her part of the world with her parents, where no one else lived and no one else entered. One may have thought it would have been lonely being ostracized to the woodlands by the Kuroi, but not Jessop. She knew the soft ground, the trees, the creatures, their shadows and their movements, as well as she knew herself. Plus, she wasn’t alone. She had her parents.

      Mar’e hated her own mother and father. So did most of the village children it seemed…but not Jessop. Her father, Hoda Jero, had taught her how to track the creatures of both the forest and the desert. He had shown her how to follow the side winding of a snake and the swoops of any bird. He was determined for her to know their lands as well as any full-blooded Kuroi, probably because he knew them in such ways despite possessing no Kuroi blood. Her mother, Octayn Jero, was Jessop’s best friend, and the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. She possessed the Kuroi blood, and with it, the same glowing green eyes her daughter had inherited. And she had endlessly flowing fair hair that she let Jessop braid every night after supper.

      Jessop didn’t need Mar’e, or anyone else. She had her parents, and her forest, and she was fairly certain that was all she would ever need. She ducked into the shade of the trees, curving under a low hanging branch. Immediately, she felt at ease. Mar’e was a spiteful friend. That was what her mother had called her. Her parents had told her much about Mar’e. They had explained that her friend felt Jessop’s mixed lineage rendered her somehow inferior, despite her superior skills in all things Kuroi. They had told her this was not Jessop’s problem, but Mar’e’s. Jessop and the girl had a relationship that swung from hatred to love on a near daily basis, and Jessop shouldn’t shoulder the misconceptions of her friend.

      Jessop stepped over a fallen branch, and moved expertly around a thick mud pit. She didn’t—

      Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of screaming. Her feet stopped. Her heart stopped. And then, all at once, everything started back up again at lightning speed. She took off into the shadows of the forest, weaving through the trees, expertly navigating the treacherous soft ground, swinging over and under, through the thick line of trees. She leapt into the clearing, where her home was nestled against the belly of a mountain. She waited on bended knee, scanning the perimeter. The front door to her house was open.

      She didn’t know what she was waiting for. Her mother. Or her father. She wanted to see one of them emerge from the house, mid-errand, a smile appearing as they saw she had returned. But she saw nothing. At the sound of her mother screaming again, she ran for the door.

      * * * *

      Her father was dead. Of this, she was certain. And it made her want to crawl up beside him and die right along with him, resting in his arms. The room was a scene of mayhem. There was the boy—the telepath—kneeling beside her father, and the older man with his hands wrapped around her mother’s neck. And there was Jessop, just standing there. She may have breathed, may have moved an inch, and the boy saw her. He jerked his head up from her father, and stared at her with large gray eyes.

      “Get out!” he screamed, his face contorting in pain. He flung his arm out and somehow, using those abilities his kind had, made Jessop fly back. She hit the door behind her, sliding down the wood to the ground. She shook her head, getting to her knees. The boy had fixed his gaze on her father, his hands hovering above the older man’s chest. Jessop didn’t know what he was doing, but she sensed he was trying to help him.

      She looked at all the blood her father was bathed in. His entire chest and neck were crimson. The blood soaked the tunic Jessop’s mother had just finished for him. It soaked the wooden floor Jessop had cleaned just that morning. It soaked the hands of the boy trying to fix a mortal wound. Jessop couldn’t feel anything. She couldn’t make sense of anything. She got to her feet and took a small step towards her father and the boy.

      With a heavy thud, dishes came flying to the ground, crashing around her mother and the old telepath attacking her. He rammed her body back against the cabinets once more, his hands tight around her neck. Jessop scanned the ground for a weapon, for something to stop the man with, and her eyes fell back on the boy.

      “Stop him.”

      Her voice was small, but it was a command that the boy leapt at. He threw his hands out at his master and focused with intensity, his eyes narrowing, his arms shaking. To Jessop’s amazement, the older man was jerked away from Jessop’s mother, and thrown into the wall. The young boy began to shake, forcing his master to stay in place against the wall.

      “Run! Run!” He screamed his directive at Jessop. But her mother was collapsed on

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