Threshold of Annihilation (The Firebird Chronicles #3) - T.A. White Page 0,118

"You can have a look for yourself."

A wail came from a distance. "Kira!"

A muscle in Graydon's cheek jumped.

Kira stepped aside in time for a round shape to barrel into her.

"I thought you were dead!"

Jin burrowed into her chest, stray bits of electricity pinging off his casing and zapping Kira.

She winced but didn't push him away.

"You should know I'm tougher to kill than that."

Jin made a rude sound. "You got lucky."

He knew better than anyone else how bad it could have gone. They'd seen the aftermath of numerous waveboard crashes. They weren't known for having high survivability rates.

In a sense, the lu-ong's intervention was the best outcome they could have hoped for.

"Not everyone can be swallowed by a lu-ong and survive," Kira pointed out.

Jin held very still. She knew the exact instant he put together the fact she'd been in a creature's mouth with the substance he could see on her clothes.

Kira's arms closed on him the moment he tried to dart away from her.

She laughed at his struggles to escape.

"No! What is this stuff? Why did you let me touch it?"

Kira's chuckle was evil. "Don't you want to share in my fortune?"

"No!" Jin broke free, landing on the ground where he rubbed all sides of himself against the dirt.

Instead of removing the sticky substance, he simply mixed the dirt in with the saliva.

Kira's head dipped, her shoulders shaking as Wren and the rest of Graydon's oshota landed nearby.

The pitch of Jin's voice rose. "Are you laughing?"

Kira shook her head frantically, unable to stop her grin from breaking over her face.

Jin snarled, darting toward her head. Kira dodged as Jin chased her around Graydon.

"You shouldn't be so mean to someone who was just in a lu-ong's belly," Kira shouted, avoiding another of Jin's swoops.

Graydon stood still, letting them have their fun.

"I'm so glad you find this amusing," Wren said in a neutral tone of voice.

Kira and Jin shared a look as they stopped and faced Wren and the rest.

The oshota crouched beside Devon drew her attention. For the first time the field in his hood wasn’t activated, allowing Kira to see his face.

Like all Tuann, he had an ageless quality to him that made it impossible to guess his ages. Whether he was a hundred years or a thousand, his face would never age, except for the weight of experience in his eyes.

Despite the lack of clues regarding his number of years, he had a calm reserve that said he was much older than he looked.

His face was the sort that stayed with you long after its owner had dismissed you as unimportant. His hair was short and cut close to his head.

His gold eyes were striking against the backdrop of his light brown skin. They were the first thing anybody would notice about him. Those eyes made you feel like there was no escape. They saw everything.

For someone used to her secrets, that wasn't necessarily a good thing.

Seeing him next to Devon, it was impossible to mistake their resemblance.

There was a trace of awe and relief on Devon’s face as he looked up at the man.

Jin moved closer to Kira. “Who is that?”

Seconds passed as Kira studied Jin, surprised he needed to ask. Did he really not know?

Devon and the man’s features held enough similar characteristics to those of Jin’s original form.

After a moment, Kira mentally sighed.

Perhaps it wasn’t so surprising after all that he didn’t recognize the link between himself and them. It had been decades since he’d had that form.

The memories were no doubt hazy. It wasn’t like they’d spent the time in the camps admiring their reflections. Kira couldn’t recall a single time she’d looked at a mirror in that time. If she took all that into account, it was almost understandable Jin didn’t see what Kira did.

"You really don't know?" Kira asked.

"Should I?"

Kira started to scrub one hand down her face and paused, eyeing it in distaste. Her hand dropped.

“You find nothing familiar about that man? Nothing at all?”

“No?” Jin made the word a question.

For someone so smart, Jin could be awfully obtuse at times.

He inched closer to Kira when she didn’t say anything else. “Are you going to tell me?”

Kira debated with herself for half a second. She’d prefer to make this sort of revelation in privacy, but knowing Jin, now that he sensed something, he wouldn’t let the matter drop.

Kira did something she rarely did since their comms were so much easier to use and caused less side effects later on. She reached out

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