Page 42 of Circle of Shadows
“I’m saving you from yourself,” Daemon said.
She blinked several times before she understood that he was carrying her over his shoulder, balanced like a precarious sack of taro root, while he climbed down the side of the taiga command post’s wall.
Sora jolted upright.
“Holy heavens!” Daemon cried out as he slammed himself and Sora’s lower half into the wall. “What are you doing? You almost hurled both of us to the ground!”
But what he was saying only partly registered. Now that Sora was awake again, she resumed basking in the sunshine-like warmth of Prince Gin’s promises.
“Are we going to the Dragon Prince?” Sora asked. “Did he make us ryuu?”
“I swear on Luna’s name, I’m going to knock you unconscious again if you don’t shut up about the traitor,” Daemon said. He secured Sora over his shoulder and began his descent again. He couldn’t go as quickly as usual with her as cargo, but she was starting to get the feeling that he wouldn’t want to let her climb down on her own.
“Daemon...” she said slowly, “do younotwant to become a ryuu?”
“No, Sora, I do not.”
She frowned. “But why wouldn’t you want to join in Prince Gin’s cause? He wants what’s best for the kingdom. Plus, he’s going to teach us incredible magic. You would love being good at magic, wouldn’t you?”
She felt him flinch. Perhaps that wasn’t the best thing to say to someone who was sensitive about his abilities.
“I mean, also, I want to be the best taiga ever,” she said, attempting to cover up her flub. “With ryuu magic, we could be better than anything we could do with just taiga magic. I mean, you saw what the ryuu could do with fire and wind and...” She trailed off because she couldn’t remember what else they’d done.
But I’m sure it was incredible.
Daemon reached the ground and smashed Sora against the wall. He had a hand around her throat and a knife pressed under her rib cage. “He did something to you.”
“What are you—?Whodid something to me?” Sora’s pulse quickened, but at the same time, she analyzed their position for ways she could escape.
“Prince Gin. He magically brainwashed everyone toconvince them to switch allegiances. It must be the new magic he learned while he was exiled, because he certainly wasn’t able to persuade taigas that easily during the Blood Rift.”
Sora frowned and shook her head. The sunny awe the Dragon Prince made her feel couldn’t possibly be a lie. It ran too deep, as though it was woven into the fiber of her being.
Oh... Maybe Prince Gin had rejected Daemon. Maybe he was angry because he was upset. Sad or embarrassed or jealous to be left behind again....
“If the prince said you couldn’t join him, I’ll talk to him,” Sora said. “I’ll tell him you’re great, and I’m sure—”
“I don’t want to join him!” Daemon said, pushing Sora into the wall again. “Listen to me. The Dragon Prince doesnotwant what’s best for Kichona. He wants to raise an army of taigas—or ryuu, whatever—to go out like mindless pawns and conquer other countries to expand our kingdom. But if he does that, do you think our people will get to continue leading their peaceful lives with Autumn Festival celebrations and apple harvests and quiet, lazy mornings of fishing?
“No,” he continued. “If the prince gets what he wants and starts attacking other countries, they won’t sit back and let him take them. They will attack Kichona. They will storm our coastal cities. Torch the crops and the countryside. Pillage towns, rape women, kill children. Empress Aki has preserved Kichona’s stability, prosperity, and peace. But Prince Gin will bleed other kingdoms to conquer them, chasing that stupid Evermore legend, and in turn other armies will come to Kichona and burn our country to the ground.
“So just... please,” Daemon said, the anger in his voicesuddenly giving way to desperation. “Please snap out of it. I can’t do this without you. I can’t save the whole gods-damn kingdom on my own.”
A sharp electric shock zapped through their gemina bond, and Sora jumped. It fried the pride and sense of purpose Prince Gin had inspired, and the literal jolt Daemon had sent through their connection jostled her brain awake. For a minute, all she could see was bright blue light, bursting like sparklers and engulfing everything in its brilliant determination to set her free. Even her nerves vibrated.
When the blue light faded, the remnants of the spell were gone, and horror set in. “Stars, Daemon, I’m sorry,” she said. “He got into my head. If it weren’t for you, I’d be...” She couldn’t bear to finish the sentence.
Daemon narrowed his eyes. “Is this a trick? How do I know you’ve really come back to your senses?”
“I don’t know....”
But then she did. She let the shame she felt flood through their gemina bond. It was like waking up in sewer water.
“Oh, Sora. There was nothing you could have done.” He released his hold on her throat, lowered his knife, and embraced her.
That sent a surge of a different kind of spark through their bond, this one gentler. Soft, like a lullaby.
She relaxed into it.
