Page 1 of The Rebel King

PART 1

“Tell me a story.

Make it a story of great distances, and starlight.”

—Robert Penn Warren, Tell Me a Story

CHAPTER 1

LENNIX

I’m running.

Desert wind whistles past my ears and whips through my hair. My feet are feathers, light, quick, but my arms and legs are lead, the muscles aching and burning. The shouts, the encouragement of my tribe spur my spirit when I fear my body will fail.

Run.

Nistan.

The Apache word thumps in time with my heart and races through my veins as I run in the four directions.

East.

South.

West.

I turn north but falter, coming to a halt when I see the beautiful woman standing solemnly among the cheering crowd. The wind lifts the dark hair from her shoulders, and her eyes fix on me.

“Mama?” The strangled whisper catches in my throat. I stumble toward her, the ceremony forgotten. The run abandoned. Tears roll over my cheeks, and my hands reach out. Beseeching. Begging for my mother’s touch just once.

The unique blend of her soap and shampoo and natural scent floats to me. Longing, desperate and sharp, spears through me with aching familiarity. I’m almost there, can almost touch her, but shepoints a finger over my shoulder. She points in the direction I have not yet run.

North.

“Finish, Lennix,” she says, the words firm and unyielding.

“What?”

Her lips tighten. Her eyes are slits. She is the fierce warrior who lives inside the gentle mother, and she shouts.

“Run!”

I jerk awake in complete darkness, startled, disoriented.

Panic rips my mouth open on a scream, and the sound shatters, falls around my ears. I can’t move my arms. Ropes bite into my skin, my wrists bound in front of me.

Oh, my God. Where am I? What’s happening?

I want to be strong, but a whimper dissolves on my lips.

“Lenny,” a voice says to my right.

I know that voice.

“Wall?” The word grates painfully inside my throat. “Is that you?”

“Yeah. Thank God you’re awake.”

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