Page 89 of Circle of Shadows
Every word he said was magicked as if dipped in rich caramel and chocolate. The people ate it up. “Long live the Emperor!”
But Sora was immune to his brainwashing because her gemina bond was open again, and this time, she knew to cling to her connection to Daemon. Back on the ship, she’d been so surprised to see her sister alive that she’d stoppedpaying attention to her bond with Daemon as he escaped. That had weakened his ability to help her fight off Prince Gin’s charm. Now, though, Sora held firmly to her connection, constantly sending and receiving emotion from Daemon. She still didn’t understand how he could resist the Dragon Prince’s spells, but whatever it was, she wasn’t going to let go of it.
With her sense of self intact, Sora watched the prince, horrified by how easily he could charm everyone.
He couldn’t be allowed to take over the Citadel. He couldn’t be allowed to conduct the Ceremony of Two Hundred Hearts. He couldn’t be allowed to wage war on the mainland, to pursue the Evermore. A glacial chill shivered through Sora’s spine.
By the time the ryuu mobilized for their journey to the capital the next morning, small shrines to Empress Aki lined the cobblestone streets, her painting surrounded by white chrysanthemums and mourning ribbons. But gracing every window were new banners—yellow and green, not the traditional Ora colors, but Prince Gin’s adopted ones for his ryuu army.
As they departed the Striped Coves and began to head inland, Sora’s thoughts turned to Fairy, Broomstick, and Daemon. As a survival mechanism, she hadn’t let herself think about them much since Copper Bluff. It was as if she could temporarily deny it had happened if she cordoned off that part of her brain.
Now, however, on horseback for a journey that would take several days, Sora had nowhere to hide from the guilt of leaving her friends. If something happened to them, she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself.
Did she give Fairy the right amount of the rira disk? Did Daemon and Broomstick get back to the Citadel safely? Would she ever be able to make it up to them, the fact that she’d tried to murder them in her hypnotic haze?
If only Sora could be in two places at once—here with her sister, and there with her friends and the Society, where she belonged.
That is, if the Society would have her back. Her gut twisted as she thought about how this looked. She’d started this by breaking the rules and sneaking off on a self-appointed mission. Then she’d gotten herself captured, ostensibly joined the ryuu, learned their magic, and used it in an assassination attempt against the empress. And Sora hadn’t gotten a chance to tell Daemon and Broomstick that Virtuoso was actually Hana, and that’s why she was staying behind.
Put that way, the facts looked bad. Very bad.
Sora’s horse stopped. The gelding ahead of her had lifted his tail. He let out an avalanche of dung.
Yeah,she thought.That’s how I feel.
The ryuu on the horse next to her laughed as he rode past. “I’d find a handkerchief to wrap around my nose and mouth if I were you. Shitstorm there lives up to his name. That is only the first of his many ‘gifts’ he’ll leave on the road in front of you.”
Nines.
She steered her horse around the steaming pile.
The army rode onward into the countryside, making good time. The rice paddies were green and flooded with water, and the terraces on the hills behind it were lined with what were probably sweet potato plants. The tigerpearls from the Striped Coves were one facet of Kichona, and these quiet farm communities were another—different, yet equally important. Sora tried to envision what would happen to them if Prince Gin won this fight against Empress Aki.
He would begin wars against other kingdoms, and their soldiers would come to Kichona’s shores in retaliation. In her mind, Sora saw foreign warriors lighting the sweet potato terraces aflame, burning a sickly, syrupy smoke. She watched the rice paddies dry up, their plants uprooted, farmers’ bodies impaled by hoes. She heard the screams of scared children, and of even more frightened mothers who tried to protect their babies’ innocence while enemies pushed up the women’s skirts against the farmhouse walls.
She also saw that the ryuu could do the same in other countries. Right now, they restrained themselves from too much destruction, because Prince Gin needed to preserve the kingdom he meant to rule. But she remembered how easily Prince Gin had beheaded the harbormaster at Tiger’s Belly, how he’d designated Hearts throughout Kichona—including babies!—without a thought to sacrificing their lives, and how he’d told the Black Widows they could have their way with their prisoners once the war began. If this was what restraint looked like, the Dragon Prince and his ryuu would be disastrous abroad.
How was Sora going to stop them?
Prince Gin’s army could control the ocean’s waves. They could summon hordes of stinging wasps. They could unleash fire as if from a dragon’s mouth, suck the air out of lungs, and boil the water inside a man until he burst from within. And that was just a sampling of the ryuu’s abilities.
The taigas don’t stand a chance.The answer set in like rot, rank and damp.
But then Sora adjusted her posture on her saddle and sat taller. The taigas might not stand a chance fighting the ryuu as they were.Butwhat if I could find a way to undermine the ryuu’s magic?It would level the playing field, at least a bit.
In front of her, Shitstorm lifted his tail again. Sora pulled her horse’s reins to the left and trotted around the gelding.
There was always more than one path to get where you needed to go. And if anyone could find it, Sora could.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Daemon and Broomstick rode up to the behemoth gates at the Citadel. A dozen guards perched in watch stations above, arrows aimed at those who dared approach. Others were poised to drop down and attack, should they be needed.
“Who goes there?” the lead warrior asked.
Daemon and Broomstick dismounted. They fell to their knees, splayed their hands wide before them, and pressed their foreheads to the ground.
“Welcome back, apprentices,” the warrior said upon recognizing them. There was a pause. Then he asked, “Broomstick, where’s the rest of the team that went to Dassu Desert?”
