Thud.
Rai-si is the last to turn around. Everything is quiet. Tani-mah even looks surprised and somewhat impressed.
“Did I pass the last test…?”
The world around me sways. Cuts cover my body. Bite marks on my skin bleed. But here I stand, alive with the leopard lying dead on the table where I had stood toward the beginning of my initiation. I think it’s a good place to end, to make a statement. But did I pass?
The world tips.
I don’t feel the ground as I hit it.
CHAPTER 16