Page 12 of Cloak of Night
“Psst, Mariko!” Fairy whispered. Hells, she knew it was risky, but maybe they could help her. Or if they tried to fight, Fairy could easily take out three untrained girls in two seconds. Four seconds, at most.
No, definitely two.
The girls passed her, though, chattering excitedly about cooking for Emperor Gin.
Had they been hypnotized?
If so, maybe Fairy shouldn’t call out to Mariko. She did follow them down the long corridor, though. After all, it looked like they were heading to the kitchen, which was exactly where Fairy’s stomach wanted her to be.
The kitchen was bustling, preparing for dinner in a couple hours. It smelled not only of stewed beef but also dumplings, fried noodles, and roasted vegetables. Fairy’s stomach threatened to stage a revolt if she didn’t eat something soon.
She stepped into a nook with shelves lined with folded uniforms. Fairy grabbed one of the starchy white tops and buttoned it over her black tunic and pulled a matching white apron over it. Now she looked just like Mariko and the other girls.
Fairy emerged into the main part of the kitchen, next to a counter lined with baskets of rolls ready to be set on the long rows of tables in the mess hall. The rolls were shaped like triplicate whorls, the symbol the goddess Luna used to mark those she blessed as taigas. Fairy clenched her jaw. How dare the ryuu use the taigas’ symbol! She had half a mind to poison their meal, and she began to reach for the satchel on her belt.
But then she stopped. If she poisoned the food, she’d kill not only Prince Gin’s ryuu but also the innocent taigas who’d been hypnotized.
Gods dammit.
She left her satchel alone but grabbed a roll and crammed it into her mouth. The buttery dough seemed to melt on her tongue, and she almost moaned aloud, catching herself at the last moment. She gobbled up three more rolls to silence herself. Then she found an empty rice sack next to the counter and upended a couple baskets of bread into the bag to bring to her friends.
“Hello, servants,” a gruff voice said from the entryway to the kitchen.
Fairy looked up to see three ryuu—a man and two women. She didn’t recognize them.
“Master Ram,” the head chef said, bowing and fawning. “And Masters Quill and Edgewood. How can we be of service?”
They stormed into the kitchen and began snatching dumplings out of pans and sticking their fingers in bowls of sauce to taste them. “We want snacks in the sparring arena in five minutes,” Quill barked.
Fairy seethed. When the taigas had been in charge here, they were always respectful and grateful to the staff.
Mariko and a handful of girls hurried over to the stove to transfer the dumplings from the pans to platters.
“Those are disgusting,” Ram said, spitting out the chewed-up remnants of a dumpling he’d pilfered. “There are consequences for serving garbage to the Dragon Prince and the most powerful army in the world..”
He glanced at a handful of knives on the counter next tohim. One leaped into the air, as if of its own accord, and flew across the room.
It hit Mariko directly in the forehead.
“No!” Fairy shouted.
Blood dribbled around the blade. Mariko’s body and the platter of dumplings she’d been holding toppled to the floor.
But strangely, the kitchen didn’t erupt into chaos. None of the servants ran shrieking for cover.
Ram stared at Fairy.
Oh, gods help me, she thought as she realized why she’d been the only one to shout—everyone in here was hypnotized. Like with the people who sacrificed themselves during the Ceremony of Two Hundred Hearts, there would never be any panic, just continual devotion to whatever the Dragon Prince needed and wanted done. But Fairy had screamed and, therefore, stood out....
“The dumplings!” she cried, throwing her arms up as if she were concerned solely for the food that had spilled when Ram killed Mariko, rather than being upset over the girl herself. Fairy threw herself on the ground near Mariko and began frantically collecting pot stickers off the kitchen floor.
She felt the eyes of the three ryuu still on her.
But then finally, Quill shouted, “You heard Ram. Snacks in the sparring arena in five minutes—actually, three minutes now.” Then they turned and left.
The kitchen servants sprang back into action, as if one of their own hadn’t just been killed. Fairy fought back tears as she dragged Mariko to the side of the kitchen, out of the way of the commotion. The bread Fairy had eaten threatened to come up.
She couldn’t collapse here, though, not right now. She had to continue on her mission in order to save all of Kichona, including the Citadel’s staff.
