Shiori Inoue's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

Shiori held still beside the cracked crystal. The tiger did not lunge. It rose, shook out its bright wings, and stepped past her into the open air. Something swung from its jaws on a thin cord. She followed it out of the broken shrine. The tiger dropped the object at the lip of the hollow and waited. Shiori knelt. It was a small locket, smeared with dried blood, the painted face of a child inside. Pressed flowers crumbled when she touched the glass. "That isn't what's emptying the villages," she said. The tiger's yellow eyes held hers. It picked the locket up again and turned away from the trail that led down toward the silent valleys. It walked instead toward a fallen stone arch on the far ridge, vines swallowing its carved symbols. Beyond the arch, driven into the dirt, stood a rough wooden post wrapped in white fur and dangling bones. A claim marker. The tiger had a hunt of its own, and the path of that hunt split clean away from hers. Shiori stood at the arch and watched the bright stripes vanish between the trees. She had come to aim a weapon. The weapon had already chosen its target, and the target was not hers. She turned back toward the broken shrine. The villages were still emptying below. Whatever was taking them, she would have to find it without the guardian. She shouldered her pack and started down alone.