Pantha girl's Arc

Chapter 1 of 7

Marina Vale ran because the bunker behind her was burning, and the men inside it wanted her dead. She was a cryptographer, not a soldier. For three years she had decoded enemy orders in that concrete box at the jungle's edge. Tonight she had read one message too many, and they had torched the room to bury what she knew. Her uniform hung in torn strips. Her ribs ached. Still she pushed deeper into the Shadowwild, toward the only place no soldier would follow. Gunfire cracked behind her. Bullets chewed bark from a wide tree. Marina dropped into the mud and crawled. She did not know this jungle, only its name and the fear in it. Ahead, lightning split the sky. For one white instant she saw stone towers choked in vines. A temple. The locals called it the Temple of the Black Moon, and they said the jungle itself lived there. She ran for it. Her boot caught a root and she fell hard against wet stone. When she looked up, two gold eyes watched her from the dark. A panther stood between the trees. It was huge, black as a hole in the night, its body made of shadow and faint moonlight. Silver marks glowed along its shoulders. It did not crouch to spring. It only watched her, patient and old. Marina could not move. "He will not harm you." A woman stepped from behind the beast. Silver streaked her black hair. Marks like a panther's spirit wound up her arms, and she walked without fear, barefoot on the broken stones. She knelt and pressed cool fingers to Marina's bleeding brow. "I am Asha Devi. I have waited a long time for you to run this far." "Waited?" Marina pulled back. "I'm being hunted. Those men will come here." "They will not pass the trees." Asha looked to the panther. "This is Bagh Raat. He guards the jungle, and he chooses who the jungle will serve. He has chosen you, Marina Vale." Marina laughed, then stopped. The panther stepped close. Its breath smelled of rain and ash. When those gold eyes met hers, she felt the exhaustion drain out of her legs. Her heartbeat slowed to match something larger and older than herself. "I don't want a jungle," Marina said. "I want to live." "Then you will learn to do both," Asha said. "The men who burned your bunker are the smaller danger. A serpent cult has stolen a relic from this temple. If they learn what it does, no fire will matter." Gunfire echoed, closer now. Bagh Raat turned toward the sound and growled like far thunder. Asha stood and offered her hand. "Choose, cryptographer. The dying war behind you, or the throne the jungle offers." Marina looked at the burning sky, then at the panther. She took Asha's hand and rose. The soldiers reached the treeline and found nothing but shadow.