Prologue
Emi dragged herself up the dunes, crawling on her hand and knees. The mangled remains of her left arm were poorly wrapped with a piece of her cowl that she had ripped off. The shard of bone she had broken off from the bloody and ripped stump was strapped to her thigh. She had screamed when she did it, but she needed the make shift blade to cut into the prickly-pear for its watery pulp. But it been hours since she had last had a drink and she was delirious from the heat.
Emi didn't know where she had gone wrong. She had just thought that red-headed boy with the tattooed forehead had looked lonely. She tried to play with him, but then the sand around her started to attack her. Emi only just barely ripped away from it and then she ran, she ran, she ran. She ran straight into the harsh and unforgiving desert. The guards at the gate didn't stop her. A parentless street urchin wasn't worth the bother. It was, of course, when she had run too far into the desert that she realized she was lost and couldn't get back. And that her left arm had been ripped off by the sand.
It was the second day now, and she was close to death. She had almost gone in the freezing night, but so stubborn was she and so strong was her will that she had just clung to her life. And so now, she trudged on, sliding through the dunes.
That is, until, she came across a beautiful boy walking through the desert. A boy with a shining crown of crimson hair and wide, owlish brown eyes. Emi sat back, pitifully in the sand, staring up at the boy in awe. His lips moved, but Emi couldn't make out his words. A sudden fear shot through her heart. In her delirium, she believed this beautiful boy to be Death, here to whisk her spirit away. And little nine-year-old Emi Abeyama was not ready to die.
So, crying out, Emi yanked her bone-knife from its place strapped to her leg and jammed it into Death's leg.
She heard Death laugh before exhaustion took hold and Emi passed out in the sand.