by Claire Luana
“Steady,” Vikal said, and it seemed to hearten his men. They formed a rank behind him and Cayono, weapons ready.
The first soul-eater through the gate stepped from the darkness into the sunlight of the courtyard, its green eyes glowing. “Soul-eater,” Cayono said, spitting at its feet. One of the creature’s arms shot out and buried its claws in the leather armor Cayono wore, raising the man off the ground as if a child. Cayono, to his credit, showed no fear, and swung his sword at the creature, striking its armored torso with a resounding clang. Vikal lunged for the soul-eater, bringing his sword down on the creature’s outstretched arm hard enough to send a ringing vibration through Vikal’s entire body. The blow should have severed the creature’s arm, but it hardly dented its armor.
Two of the soul-eater’s other arms shot out, taking Cayono’s head in its hands, almost tenderly. Vikal’s thick brows furrowed. What was it doing? When the soul-eater had embraced…taken Sarya, it had bent over her, sucking her essence into itself. Now, it seemed as if the creature was sending something into Cayono. Green energy pulsed between the monster and his friend, like an unnatural tether from the dark chasm of the creature’s helmet snaking into Cayono’s horrified face.
Vikal bellowed and hacked again at the creature, trying to pierce the seams of its armor, to get through somehow. Another soul-eater appeared before him, seizing Vikal by his jacket, lifting him up as he kicked wildly at the creature, screaming in anger and futility. The creature holding Cayono was setting him down now, releasing him. Vikal stilled for a moment in shock. Was it letting him go? But then his friend turned to face him, and hope turned bitter in his mouth. Cayono’s eyes were vacant, glowing green. He stood, swaying gently on his feet, his tanned face slack. The creature had infected him somehow. Was it…controlling him?
“No! Cayono!” Vikal bellowed, scrambling against the creature who held him, wedging his booted feet against the creature’s chest and pushing, straining against it. It was no use. The creature seized his ankles in one of its claws, while holding his jacket with the other. Its last two arms came up to his temples, cradling his head in its claws. He thrashed against it, fear rising like the evening tide. Take his soul. Fine. He didn’t want to live without Sarya. But to be a slave to these creatures…to be used by them…it was an unholy thing, too terrible to comprehend.
He screamed in anguish as the green light entered him, filling him with its sickly poison. He screamed until the energy clamped down on his vocal chords, silencing him with a mute command. His mouth shut, his body relaxed. The creature put him down and he swayed next to Cayono, his body compliant, waiting for its instructions. But in his mind, he was still himself. In his mind, he screamed, and screamed, and screamed.
CHAPTER 1
A STREAK OF silver slashed through the sky, leaving a tail as straight and true as a shooting star. A clap of thunder and an explosion of colors followed, filling the night with sparkling arches that fell towards the city skyline like shimmering raindrops.
The crowd erupted into applause, the cheerful light from their lanterns bobbing like ships on the sea.
“That’s the biggest one yet,” Quitsu said, appearing in Rika’s lap with a nimble leap.
Rika started in surprise at the sight of the silver fox seishen, causing her horse to dance sideways beneath her. She steadied him with her knees, giving his chestnut flank a pat. “Quitsu, you gave me a fright.”
“You’ll live,” he said, curling against her, pressing his warm fluffy back into her stomach while he turned to watch the expanse of cheering and waving citizens.
“It’s a miracle Colum hasn’t blown his eyebrows off, experimenting with that powder,” Rika said as another two fireworks shot up into the sky—one spawning tiny pops of red, the other flashes of purple and gold.
“Those and a few other parts he’d miss more dearly,” Quitsu remarked.
Rika chuckled.
“Is that a smile I see?” Quitsu turned, peering at her with black button eyes. “My mission here is accomplished, then.”
“Your mission?”
“Your mother bid me remind you that this is a celebration. There’s no need to look so stone-faced. You’d think someone had died, not that we’re commemorating the fact that twenty years ago we vanquished the greatest foe our world has ever seen.”
Rika sighed, pasting a fake smile on her face and waving at the crowd. It was hard to make out faces in the dark, but the lights held aloft by the crowd stretched as far as she could see, back through the streets and alleys of Yoshai. She supposed they could see her, what with the line of attendants walking alongside the royal family bearing bright paper lanterns. “Tell Mother there’s no way I could forget the brave deeds that were done that day, when she and Father destroyed the tengu, saved the gods, and returned our land to safety and prosperity. I would not dream of dampening the festivities.”
“Rika.” Quitsu tsked. “You used to love hearing stories of the Battle of Yoshai. You and Koji would beg me for it every night before bed. This was your favorite festival, year after year. I can’t believe you’ve outgrown it so completely. What’s wrong?”
Ahead, the parade stretched up the hill towards the palace, where the nobles would join them for feasting and dancing. Her mother and father rode before her on two golden lionhorses, Queen Kailani and King Hiro of the consolidated lands of Kita and Miina, waving to the crowd with broad smiles. Her mother’s silver hair, the trademark of her magical moonburner abilities, was woven into an elaborate crown, while her father’s golden locks—marking him a sunburner—fell loose around his shoulders, bound only by a golden circlet. They both wore lavish clothes richly woven in the colors of their country, silver and gold, navy and red. Her father’s seishen companion, Ryu, a golden lion who stood almost as tall as Rika did, padded next to Hiro. Her parents together looked happy. Regal. Practically divine. She fingered a lock of her own plain black hair before tossing it back over her shoulder. “I’m not feeling very festive this year,” she finally replied.
Quitsu turned to examine her with that inscrutable fox face, and traitorous tears sprang to her eyes. She ripped her gaze from his, watching another firework as it exploded over the crowd in a riot of color. She pulled in a deep breath.
“Your powers will come, Rika.” Quitsu’s voice was gentle. “You’ll see. One day you’ll look back at this time and laugh at how worried you were.”
“I’m almost seventeen,” Rika said, her misery flaring to anger at Quitsu’s words. “Of course I’m worried. No moonburner in history has had her powers develop this late. Usually they come at twelve or thirteen.”
“No moonburner in history? Performed a thorough study of all of history, have we? Even the parts that weren’t recorded?”
“I’ve done a lot of research,” Rika retorted. “Plus, I overheard Nanase saying as much.” Female magic wielders—or moonburners—drew power from the light of the moon and were able to turn it into light, or heat, or flame. Males wielded the power of the sun to the same effect. Rika, apparently, was as magical as a ball of wax.
“Your mother couldn’t burn until she was eighteen,” Quitsu said.
“But someone purposefully put a block on her powers. And her hair turned silver anyway. That didn’t happen to me. My hair is still black as coal.” She stilled her hand, resisting the urge to tug at her locks again. Yanking them out at the roots wouldn’t get them to grow back silver.
“The Oracle prophesied that your powers alone would save this land from the greatest threat we have ever faced.”
“Maybe the Oracle’s gone senile,” Rika grumbled. “Because unless we’re talking about my ability on the dance floor, I don’t think I’m going to be saving anyone.”
“The Oracle is most certainly not senile,” Quitsu scolded. “Unpleasant, enigmatic, grumpy as a koumori getting a bath, but not senile.”
Rika cracked a smile at that.
“I know sixteen-year-old princesses aren’t very good at it, but be patient,”
Quitsu said. “All will work out how it is supposed to.”
Rika nodded, taking in a deep breath and letting it out. Quitsu was right. True, she didn’t have her moonburner powers yet. And true, they were later in arriving than she had ever read about in the history books. But that didn’t mean they would never come. Perhaps they were just waiting to arrive with…a bang, she thought, as another firework exploded amongst the stars above her.
“Rika, mind if I ride ahead?” Her little brother, Koji, had trotted up beside her, an arrogant smirk pasted between the few sparse hairs he liked to call a beard. “Getting bored back there; plus, I figured all the burners should ride together.” He clicked his tongue and his steed reared magnificently, causing the crowd to murmur in awe. A wave of applause followed as he cantered ahead and fell into line behind her parents.
Rika’s spirits plunged back into blackness as she struggled to keep a twisted scowl off her face.
Quitsu sighed. “I see my valiant efforts to urge patience and faith are wasted with your brother around.”
“Does he have to be so…ARGH,” she exclaimed, curling her hands into fists around the reins, unable to find a word that encompassed the entirety of Koji’s state of loathsomeness. She wished she was an only child. She wished he had never been born. She wished she could wipe the smug little smirk off his smug little face…
“He’s not fooling anyone with that attempt at a beard,” Quitsu remarked. “Those whiskers look like gingko trees in the desert. Confused about how they got there and doomed to a life of loneliness.”
Rika laughed despite herself, trying to hold back more tears. The truth was she didn’t hate her brother. Sure, he was an annoying little brat who got on her last nerve. But the truth was she was desperately, hopelessly, jealous. Because Koji, even though he was only fourteen, was a sunburner. His hair was fully golden. His powers had come in over a year ago, and he lorded them over her on a daily basis. But more than that—Koji had Enzo, his seishen. He was a golden unicorn, with a mane and fetlocks that flowed like blowing autumn grain. His coat glistened over strong muscles and his horn twisted like a sugared candy, tapering to a delicate point. Like all seishen, Enzo was a creature of legend, a supernatural companion who had journeyed from the Misty Forest to find her brother. Destined to spend his life bonded to him.
Rika stroked Quitsu’s downy fur as their parade neared the palace gates, trying to keep her gaze from sliding to her brother and Enzo. She looked at the crowd, at the lights strung across the palace walls, at the torches angled up to illuminate the sandstone walls of their home. She was grateful for Quitsu’s presence leaning back against her. Quitsu was her mother’s seishen and had been with Queen Kai since she’d been seventeen. He had helped her find her way out of the desert, had been with her when Kai had first become queen, defeating the evil Queen Airi. He had been there when they had saved the goddess Tsuki and defeated the tengu demons. Quitsu was a comfort, but he was temporary. On loan in those moments when Kai saw Rika struggling.
What she wanted was a seishen of her own. She deserved one. More than Koji did, anyway. She had been a good princess her whole life, had done her duty preparing to be queen. Learning diplomacy, history, military strategy, language, science, mathematics. She had given up sunny days and adventures with friends, time for astrology and art and the things she really wanted to do. She knew what it took to be a good ruler—to be as fair and honorable as her parents were. Her brother, on the other hand, had run around like a feral child, refusing to listen to anyone or do anything but play in the armory.
And now, what did they have to show for their respective upbringings? She enjoyed a crushing loneliness and fear that her powers would never come. That all her sacrifices would be for nothing. Because by law, the queen had to be a moonburner. No powers, no crown. No purpose, no point. And Koji, for all his antics, had everything she had ever wanted and would probably step in to rule in the face of her failure. It was a bitter pill to swallow.
They rode through the palace gates to shouts of applause and the sound of music and revelry. The party had already begun while the royal family made the annual parade through the city. Rika reined her horse to a stop and Quitsu turned to her. “It’s a night for celebration. You must find something to be glad for.”
She nodded woodenly, and he turned, smacking her in the face with his fluffy fox tail before jumping to the ground. She watched him go as he trotted up to join her mother where she was already greeting her guests with smiles and embraces.
Rika straightened, steadying herself. Find something to be glad for. Something. Anything. She nodded. Otherwise, it would be a long, unhappy night. It would be a long, unhappy life.
CHAPTER 2
RIKA WAS THE first human to the breakfast table the next morning. She found Ryu, her father’s seishen, sitting by the giant fireplace, licking a great golden paw.
“Morning, Ryu,” she said, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. “Everyone else still in bed?”
“They’re up,” he rumbled, “but there is a lot of cursing the second bottle of sake. I thought it best to remove myself.”
Rika smiled and sat down, her stomach rumbling at the sight of the food that had already been laid out on the table. She poured herself a cup of green tea and began piling her plate with an assortment of fruit, fluffy white rice, and slices of smoked fish.
The celebration hadn’t been as terrible as she had feared during the parade. Her two best friends, Oma and Sadele, had found her soon after she had dismounted and whisked her into an evening filled with dancing, sneaking sake, and eyeing the cute sons of Yoshai’s nobles. Her parents, caught up in their own celebration, hadn’t paid any attention to Rika, and Koji had thankfully left her alone. All in all, it had been a pretty good night.
Rika was mid-bite when her parents breezed through the door. Her father had his arm around her mother and was nuzzling at her neck while she playfully swatted at him. Rika swallowed thickly. Ugh. Her parents were always all over each other. You’d think after twenty years of marriage, they’d be sick of each other. Kai finally pushed Hiro away with more force and seemed to register Rika’s presence.
“Darling!” Kai said, coming around the table and kissing Rika on the top of her head. She snagged a berry off Rika’s plate, popping it in her mouth. “That tea smells heavenly. Pour me a cup?” Kai slid into the seat next to Rika while Hiro took the chair at the head of the table, rubbing his face vigorously to wake up. “Did you have fun last night, panda?” he asked, using the nickname that had followed her since she’d been a baby. Apparently, she had been ridiculously chubby. “We hardly saw you with all our guests.”
“It was great,” Rika said, forcing a smile while she poured her mother a cup of tea. “A perfect night.”
“It was a perfect night,” Kai said, taking the cup from Rika and passing it to Hiro. “So clear—perfect for the fireworks. And unseasonably warm. You always know how to pick the most auspicious dates. What did you say? Last night was a conjunction of the blue dragon constellation and the kinsei planet?”
Rika poured a third cup of tea and handed it to Kai, who wrapped her hands around it like it was sacred, breathing in the trails of hot vapor.
“Yep. Master Fortin and I calculated the angles ourselves.” Master Fortin was her astrology teacher. She tolerated the rest of her lessons as part of her royal duties, but her favorites were astronomy and astrology. She had begged her parents for months for tutors in those particular subjects. They hadn’t seen it as a necessary part of her curriculum. But for Rika…being out among the moon and the stars….it was the time she felt the most clarity, the most herself. That, and her fighting classes. Somehow the dance of fighting made sense to her. It was an art form of its own. She didn’t care for archery or throwing knives, but whirling with the staffs or swords in hand-to-hand combat… She smiled despite herself at the thought of the last class, when she had landed two blows on Armsmistress Emi. Those were good days too.
Her smile crumble
d as her brother slouched in, still in his crumpled pants and shirt from the night before. Quitsu padded behind him. “You didn’t need to send Quitsu in to attack me, Mom,” he grumbled, collapsing into a chair across from Rika. “I barely got any sleep as it is.”
“Staying up late isn’t an excuse to shirk your duties the following day,” Hiro said. “The kingdom doesn’t sleep in late if we do.”
“Besides,” Kai said brightly. “I thought today we could spend some time together as a family.”
“Mother, no,” Rika and Koji both protested, their eyes meeting in surprise at their unexpected alliance.
“I had plans to go to the beach with Oma and Sadele today,” Rika said, thinking quickly. “We haven’t gone in forever, and it’s supposed to be sunny today.”
“And Armsmistress Emi was going to work with me and Enzo today on some joint fighting moves we could do. We need to learn to work together.”
“Joint fighting moves?” Rika snorted. “What, is he going to spear people with his horn?”
“I’ll have him start with you,” Koji said, throwing a grape at her with narrowed eyes.
Rika picked up a piece of fish to lob back at him when Hiro’s voice cut through their feud. “No throwing food at the table. Rika, put the tuna down.”
She dropped it on her plate, glaring at her brother. Why couldn’t she have been an only child?
Kai sighed, looking between her children. “Are you sure you can’t make an exception? I feel like I hardly see my babies anymore.”
“We’re not your babies anymore,” Koji said. “I’m a sunburner with my own seishen.”
Rika opened her mouth to make a quip about his “beard” but saw the warning look from Hiro and shut it. “You’re fourteen,” Hiro said. “You have a lot left to learn. Including a little humility.”
“Mother, I’m sorry, but I really want to spend the day with Oma and Sadele,” Rika said. “Some other time?”
