Page 14 of Cloak of Night
They pressed themselves against the outer walls and caught their breaths. There was a surprising lack of patrols—it seemed most of the ryuu were down at the Citadel. Was the Dragon Prince so secure in his position that he didn’t feel the need to have more warriors guarding him?
But why would he? He was controlling the minds of the entire Society of Taigas, minus the four of them. He had powerful magic at his fingertips, and he was holed up in a bastion protected by an army of ryuu in a fortress. There was little reason to be threatened, especially by four kids, who he probably thought were off feeling sorry for themselves somewhere.
Surprise, Sora thought.Here we are. And I’m going to stick a throwing star in your eye. Maybe two.
She and Daemon snuck around the perimeter of the castle.
And almost ran right into a group of ryuu pouring out of one of the side doors.
Sora jerked Daemon back. Despite their invisibility,they needed to be careful, because the ryuu knew there was a rogue ryuu running around who could make herself invisible. If they felt something touch them that they couldn’t see, the conclusion would be easy to draw.
“That was close,” Daemon said.
But she didn’t respond, because a familiar caustic voice carried in the wind, giving orders to the ryuu. Sora didn’t need to look around the corner to know who the voice belonged to.
Hana.
Sora cringed as she remembered the scathing hatred on her sister’s face when they’d fought on the Citadel walls. And the taunt as Hana held Empress Aki’s unconscious body atop the bloodstone castle, a knife pressed to the empress’s throat. Sora had lost track of them during the Ceremony of Two Hundred Hearts, when Prince Gin had compelled innocent men, children, and women to cut out their own hearts as sacrificial gifts to Zomuri. Whatever progress Sora had made in reconciling with Hana while they were both ryuu, it was destroyed now.
Maybe I didn’t try hard enough to save her.Sora touched the necklace at her throat. It was the gold memorial pearl her mother had given her during Autumn Festival, in remembrance of Hana. Sora still wore it, even though she now knew that Hana was alive.
“Hey-o, are you okay?” Daemon asked. Sora’s distress had curdled their gemina bond like sour milk.
“Hana is just around the corner,” Sora whispered. She wasn’t prepared—physicallyoremotionally—to face her sister again. To see her fury seething beneath the surface, waiting to be unleashed.
Daemon’s eyes widened in alarm. “We need to get inside the castle, now. Hana can see us even if we’re invisible because you have the same ryuu talent, right? She’ll kill us.”
Sora bit her lip so hard it split open. “Wh-what if we could convince her to abandon Prince Gin?”
“And fight on what might be the losing side, just because it’s right?” Daemon asked. “Sora, you already tried that, and Hana rejected you. I know you’re hurting, but we can’t save her right now. If you confront Hana, it’s the end of both you and our hopes of saving Kichona.”
“I don’t want that to be true.”
“But it is. I’m sorry. We need to move.” He pointed up to the third floor of the tower near them. “I think we can get in through that open window. We have to climb, fast, before the ryuu head this way.”
Sora glanced with longing at the bend in the castle perimeter, as if she could just will Hana to shift allegiances from around the corner. But Daemon was right. Sora had already attempted that, and it had backfired.
Daemon was already halfway up the wall with a gecko spell when he looked back down at her. “Sora! Come on!” He shot a sharp arrow of alarm through their bond, and it pierced through the fog of her regret, jolting her to action.
She followed him up the wall and swung herself in through the window frame, landing on the floor without a sound. Just in time, too, because the ryuu turned the corner where she had just been. Sora let out a long exhale.
Daemon looked around the room, perplexed. “It’s completely empty in here.”
“The castle is only a few days old,” Sora said. It was probably too much to ask that it already be furnished.
With Hana left behind, Sora forced herself to get back to her job. She tiptoed to the door and pressed her ear against it. It was quiet on the other side, so she pushed it open a crack and slipped through.
Here, there were torches. The tower was narrow, and the center was mostly a spiral staircase with only a room or two on each level. The walls were made of black stone streaked with crimson, and the flickering of the torch flames made the red look like pulsing veins full of blood.
She and Daemon poked into the room opposite. Again, no one there.
“If you were the Dragon Prince, where would you stash a usurped empress?” Sora asked.
“Nowhere as obvious as a tower,” Daemon said.
“My thinking as well.”
They trod carefully down the stairs. The ground floor connected the tower with the rest of the castle. Sora and Daemon hurried along the corridor.
