The Storm Dragon's Heart

Prologue

Welcome to the new Prologue for The Storm Dragon's Heart. Please check the links at the bottom to learn how to purchase the other four books in this series. Hope you enjoy! 

"I am a qengai...a spy...a warrior...a thief...an assassin."

The k'chasan girl lifted a sleeveless top off a pile of neatly folded clothing and slipped it over her head. Next came the matching charcoal shorts. She adjusted the skin-tight material so that it lay comfortably over her russet fur.

"I am devoted to Master Notasami's Sacred Codex."

Reluctantly, she stepped into a pair of thick canvas pants and cinched them tight. She hated the pants. Given her fur and the tropical rainforest she lived in, they were almost unbearably hot. But the pants protected her legs from brambles, rocks, and far more harmful things.

"I am willing to die for our cause."

She slid on her thick-soled sandals and wound the cross-gartered straps up her calves. Then, over the pants, she fastened on dark green shin and thigh guards made from hardened leather.

"I am the clouds and the wind."

She paused, savoring the feeling of one last cool breeze against her fur, before pulling on her long, canvas shirt and her padded leather breastplate.

"I am the rain and the hail."

With nimble fingers, she laced the hardened leather vambraces onto her forearms and wove her thick hair into a braid that circled her head like a crown. She pulled up the hood of her shirt, making sure her catlike ears retained their full range of motion, then wrapped the gauzy scarf around her lower face, so that only her amber eyes and the downy fur around them could be seen.

"I am the thunder and the lightning."

She tucked two sickle-shaped blades with long handles into the loops on her belt, strapped a sheathed knife onto each leg, and slid a set of throwing spikes into compartments hidden underneath the vambraces on her forearms.

"I am the storm."

Even though she had spent the last six years training in this uniform, she was already sweating. But a qengai ignored discomfort. All that mattered was the mission, the cause. She examined herself in a small, polished-bronze mirror, the most valuable thing she owned.

"And I am so not ready for this."

She sank onto the reed mat that served as a bed in her tiny, ramshackle cottage. Drawing a pebble from her pocket, she traced a finger across the name etched into it.

"It's just nerves. Everyone feels this way before their first mission...out in the world...all alone. I can do this." She clenched her fist around the smooth stone and nodded her head. "I have to do this: for myself, for my clan, and especially for my mother. I'll be fine. I've trained harder than anyone else. And I'm better than even some of the older, experienced boys."

Someone tapped on the door.

She kissed the stone and returned it to her pocket. Then she stood and looked at herself in the mirror again. "You've got this."

Elder Oreni, first-husband of their clan's leader, stood on the other side of the door, his expression sterner than usual. She didn't expect encouragement from him or anyone else in the village of Yasei-maka. Just because he was also her stepfather didn't mean that she got special treatment—exactly the opposite, in fact. "It's time to go. The Prophet is expecting you."

She nodded. "I'm ready."

"I took a chance on you, Iniru," her stepfather growled. "Don't make me regret it."