Page 119 of Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

With Yumi nowhere in sight.

Yumi had alwaysconsidered the appearance of the daystar to be a good sign. An omen that the primal hijo would be open and welcoming this day. In fact, the star seemed extra bright today—glowing with a soft blue light on the western horizon as the sun rose in the east.

A powerful sign, if you believed in such things. There’s an old joke that mentions that lost items tend to always be in the last place you look for them. Strangely, by converse, omens tend to appear in the first place people look for them. (Even if you’re doing so for the second time.)

Yumi did believe in omens. She had to, as an omen had been the single most important event in her life. One that had appeared right after her birth, marking her as chosen by the spirits. She settled herself on the warm ground as her attendants, Hwanji and Chaeyung, entered. They bowed in ritual postures, then fed her with maipon sticks and spoons—a meal of rice and a stew that had been left on a hotspot outside to cook.

Yumi sat and ate, not being so crass as to try to feed herself. This was a ritual, and she was an expert in those. Though she couldn’t help feeling distracted. Today marked one hundred days until the big festival in Torio City, the seat of the queen. And this was also nineteen days past her nineteenth birthday.

A day for decisions. A day for action.

A day to, maybe, ask for what she wanted?

First she had duties. Once her attendants had finished feeding her, she rose and went to the door of her private wagon. As they opened the door for her, she took a deep breath, then stepped down into her shoes.

Immediately her two attendants leaped to hold up enormous fans to obscure her from view. Naturally, people in the village had gathered to see her. The Chosen. The yoki-hijo. The girl of commanding primal spirits. (Yes, it still works better in their language.)

This land—Torio—had a dominant red-orange sun the color of baked clay. Bigger and closer than your sun, it had distinct spots of varied color on it—like a boiling stew, churning and undulating in the sky.

This bloody sun painted the landscape…well, just ordinary colors. The way the brain works, once you’d been there a few hours, you wouldn’t have noticed that the light was redder than yours. But when you first arrived, it would look striking. Like clay fresh from a potter’s kiln and bearing a distinct molten heat.

Hidden behind her fans, Yumi walked on clogged feet through the village to the local cold spring. Here she put her hands to the sides and let her attendants undress her for…

For…

She cocked her head. Something was…odd about this experience. Something was wrong. Wasn’t it?

Something wasmissing.

She opened her mouth to ask, then bit her tongue. Speaking to Hwanji and Chaeyung now would shame them. Yet as the bathing progressed, she felt oddly out of sorts. She found herself glancing at the side of the cool spring, expecting…

Someone is supposed to be there,she thought, incongruously. That would beterrible. Shaming. Why would she want someone to watch her bathe?

Instead she closed her eyes and let her attendants continue their work.

Painter scattered hisstack of rocks in frustration. As with his previous attempts, the shroud remained immobile. A wall of mottled black, indifferent to his inferior stacking.

Painter tried to meditate, as Yumi had always taught. He found any semblance of calm impossible, as closing his eyes only made him think of her huddling in terror, looking at him, pleading as the horror consumed her.

He still couldn’t make sense of any of it. Was it some kind of trick played by the scholars? That couldn’t have been Yumi…Yumicouldn’tbe a nightmare…

If she was, what did that mean? Had he fallen for someone created by his own…his own perceptions? Like a painter loving his own painting?

No. No, she’d been real. Shewasreal.

And he was going to help her.

Somehow.

Painter forced his eyes open and grabbed his sack of rocks, collected in haste on his way to the shroud. He calmed his frantic breathing and started stacking, and each stone placed reminded him of her. Yumi wouldhave been proud of the twelve-stone height he obtained, and the way he chose rocks of irregular size, looking to make not only a pile, but a tower.

The shroud didn’t move. Though it had bowed for her, it didn’t notice him. Painter was forced to admit the truth. Yumi had been special. Being yoki-hijo wasn’t merely about stacking rocks, but about the power the spirits had given her. He could do nothing to disrupt the shroud without being Connected to her, just as he could never have attracted spirits without being Connected to her.

He sank back onto his heels, slumping his shoulders.

“Please,” he whispered. “Just let me see her. Let me help her…”

“Nikaro?” a voice asked.

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