by Evelyn Skye
There was a sound below them, a rock skittering over the ground. Sora and Daemon froze.
A few seconds later, a pair of guards in light armor walked by. They didn’t look up.
She exhaled but spun to face Daemon. “Why would an Autumn Festival celebration require armed guards?” she asked, audible only to him at this moth level.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Probably the same reason they would have log fortifications. I told you something was off about this party.”
The easy, feline grace that had accompanied Sora now tensed. On alert, she was more panther than cat.
She pushed her way through the branches and climbed to the roof of the nearest tent. They hopped their way across the camp until they were just outside the circle of dancers and the bonfire.
A reedy melody weaseled itself through the air. It came from a long woodwind with a curved bell.
“What is that?” Daemon asked.
Sora had never seen nor heard that instrument before. “I don’t know,” she said. But the number of “I don’t knows” was beginning to heap up to an uncomfortable pile.
As the music intensified, the crowd of dancers stilled. It was then that Sora noticed their clothing.
“Daggers,” she swore. “Daemon—is it me, or are their tunics and trousers eerily similar to the taiga uniforms?”
He took a few seconds to study them. “Their belts are green; ours are black. Otherwise, they do look similar. But then again, how creative can you make a tunic and trousers? It’s not as if the Society owns the color black.”
“Maybe . . .”
At that moment, the flaps of a nearby tent parted, and a man in a hooded cloak stepped out. He folded his arms behind his back and walked casually to the dancers.
The fire flared. Then its flames changed from orange to green.
Sora gasped. How is this happening? Flames were yellow, orange, sometimes blue . . . but not green. Not like this.
The fire stretched taller. The tips of the flames rounded, and narrow eye slits formed in each one.
Fiery mouths yawned open and forked green tongues flicked at the sky. They looked like serpent heads.
Sora’s heart pounded like a taiko drum.
“What in all hells is happening?” Daemon whispered.
“I don’t know,” she said again.
“I think we should go before we get caught,” Daemon said. “We have enough to report to the Council.”
Sora glanced down at the bonfire and the cloaked man. They were not the fun sort of trouble.
The man let the hood fall away, and even from this distance, Sora could see how the light and shadows of the flames taunted the scalelike ridges of his face.
“Impossible,” Sora whispered.
But she knew who he was. All of Kichona did. This young man had been burned in a kitchen accident when he was a child, leaving half his skin covered in reptilian scars. Because of this, some called him the Dragon Prince.
Officially, however, he was known as Prince Gin.
Sora’s mouth fell open. Daemon’s shock reverberated through their gemina bond at the same time.
“He’s supposed to be dead,” Daemon whispered.
But here he was now, right in front of Sora. Her stomach lurched, not only because this traitorous, violent prince had returned, but also because he was the reason her sister was dead.
Ten years ago, as the Blood Rift was brewing, Sora and the other taiga apprentices had paid little attention. The politics surrounding Rose Palace had seemed too removed from them. On the same day the prince’s and princess’s factions prepared to fight, Sora had been preoccupied with much more interesting things.
“Is it Friday?” six-year-old Hana had asked earlier that afternoon. It was her last year as a tenderfoot—the rank of children marked by Luna but too young to be apprentices—so she lived and slept in the nursery. But on Fridays, she had a standing date to sleep over in Sora’s dormitory with the older girls, and she looked forward to it every week.
Sora had been eight then. “Yes, stinkbug, it’s Friday,” she’d said with a sigh. She loved her sister, but Friday evenings were when Daemon and her other apprentice friends began the weekend, and there was always mischievous fun to be had, like casting puffer fish spells on each other and then attempting to wrestle in the pool with ballooned bodies and useless limbs.
“You’ll come pick me up after dinner for our sleepover?” Hana asked.
Sora looked over her shoulder wistfully, toward the apprentice dormitories. She sighed again as she turned back to her sister. “I’ll be here at seven o’clock, as always.”
Except when seven o’clock neared and Sora was ready to go over to the nursery, Daemon and their friends burst into Sora and Fairy’s room.
“Are you coming for Cookies and Cards tonight, Spirit?” one of the apprentices asked.
“She can’t,” Daemon said. “Friday is her night with her sister.”
“Come, just once,” Fairy said. “We have empress cakes.”
Sora stopped and spun around. “You have what?” Her mouth watered. Empress cakes were rich little confections made of a thin, delicate pastry crust and filled with almond paste, quince, and goldenberries. Sora’s favorite.
“We’re leaving now,” Fairy said. “One of the Level Nines is going to take us up in the dirigible.”
Empress cakes and a ride in the taigas’ airship? The dirigible was usually reserved for upper-level apprentices and warriors. This was too good to be real. Sora looked at Daemon.
He nodded, almost apologetically, as if to say, Surprise. Fairy’s telling the truth.
Sora glanced in the direction of the nursery, but it was all the way on the other side of the Citadel.
Hana will be all right, she told herself. A little disappointed, but she’ll be all right.
Sora left with Daemon, Fairy, and the others.
But Hana was not all right. While Sora was eating empress cake in the dirigible, Prince Gin’s warriors launched their attack. The skirmish with Princess Aki’s soldiers lasted only two hours, but in that short amount of time, friends brutally killed friends. The prince’s warriors slaughtered innocent palace servants and decapitated taigas, leaving their heads on spears. They took the headless bodies and set them aflame on a pyre.
Then they set the Citadel on fire. The southern part of the headquarters burned to the ground. And the nursery—with Hana and many other tenderfoots inside—perished in the flames.
Eventually, Prince Gin was wounded gravely in the battle. Princess Aki’s taigas took advantage of that, and they forced the rebellious soldiers to retreat. They fled to the sea, casting the prince’s body into the waters in an ancient Kichonan funeral rite, and then never returned. The entire kingdom heaved a sigh of relief.
Except Sora. She’d never forgiven herself for that night. If she’d been with her sister, Hana might still be alive.
And now the Dragon Prince had returned, on the tenth anniversary of that horrific battle. Sora could practically feel the weight in the air, like humidity composed of blood.
Her knees buckled beneath her. Daemon caught her.
The men and women in the eerie, taiga-like uniforms bowed in unison to Prince Gin.
“We need to go,” Daemon said. “Now.”
Sora touched the pearl on her necklace and clung to the memory of Hana to help her summon strength. She climbed down from her perch. Moments later, Daemon appeared beside her, and they slinked between the tents. Behind them, the wordless music and dancing had started again.
Daemon scaled the cypress where their escape wire was tied. He slid off his belt, slung it across the wire, and zipped down it like a clothesline.
Sora climbed onto the wire, choosing to run it like a tightrope. She put one foot in front of the other, again and again, methodically making her way across.
Almost there. Almost there.
Across and over the log wall.
Before the line ended, Sora dropped fifteen
feet to the ground. She took one more look at the camp behind them, the bonfire lighting up the night as though the hells had opened a rift from the canyon floor.
“We definitely have something to report to the Council now,” Sora said, trying to make a joke because she couldn’t fully process what they’d just seen.
But what she did know was that if Prince Gin was back, things were about to change for Kichona, in a really bad way.
Chapter Eight
Sora and Daemon raced back to the Citadel as fast as their horses could gallop. When they arrived three days later, they immediately ran toward Warrior Meeting Hall.
Sora heaved open the heavy black doors and burst into a dark corridor.
Broomstick, Fairy’s gemina, rounded the corner from the direction of the Council Room, where he helped with administrative tasks.
“Thank the gods you’re back,” he said. “Fairy and I were worried about you.”
Sora looked at him quizzically. “You already know what happened?”
Broomstick stared at her for a second, as if she were dense. “Um, yes . . . everyone knows about the attack on Isle of the Moon.”
Daemon gaped. “What? The Council was attacked?”
“Yes, although by whom or what, we don’t know,” Broomstick said. Then he paused. “Wait a minute. I thought you said you knew what happened.”
“Not that part,” Sora said, “but we saw something else, and I have a suspicion it’s related. Tell us about Isle of the Moon.”
Broomstick filled them in on the strange typhoon attack. He didn’t know much—the Council was keeping information close to their chests while they tried to understand what they were up against—but being part of the Society’s administrative office staff, he’d gleaned enough to know this was formidable magic the Society would be up against.
“Stars,” Daemon cursed, as he leaned against the corridor wall for support. “I’ve never heard anything like it. Magic to control something outside of our own bodies?”
“We’ve seen magic like this, remember?” Sora said. “The fire at Takish Gorge.” She turned to Broomstick. “We saw Prince Gin. He’s back.”
Broomstick blinked at her. “What?”
A door opened and closed in the distance. A few moments later, Glass Lady turned in to the hallway. She walked quickly past the apprentices without even nodding to acknowledge them.
“Wait, Commander,” Sora said.
Glass Lady stopped and peered over her shoulder at her. “What is it?”
Sora’s insides nearly froze just from the commander’s stare. But she managed to speak. “Wolf and I have returned from our mission, and we saw something we think you’ll want to hear about—”
“I have much bigger things to worry about right now than Level Twelve missions,” Glass Lady said. “Submit the report in writing.” She began to walk away again.
“With all due respect, Commander, you’ll want to listen to this.” Daemon grabbed Glass Lady’s arm to stop her.
Sora and Broomstick both gasped.
Glass Lady stiffened. She turned and glared at where Daemon’s hand touched her. She let out a slow, chilly exhale. “You are not disrespecting a warrior—a councilmember—like I think you’re doing, are you?”
Daemon dropped his grip instantly. “N-no, Your Honor. I’m sorry. It’s just . . . please. We only need a few minutes of your time.”
“One minute,” Glass Lady said, crossing her arms.
Sora nodded. “One minute.”
“Then talk.”
“We saw Prince Gin,” Sora blurted.
Glass Lady raised a brow skeptically, as if she were listening to a tenderfoot’s story. “You did, did you? And how, pray tell, did that happen?”
Sora bristled. She’d never cared in the past about being taken seriously, but after the talk with Mama, Sora didn’t want to be merely a troublemaker anymore. Maybe Daemon was right—maybe it did matter now what other people thought of Sora, at least in some respects.
“Your Honor,” she said, standing tall with her arms by her sides as if she were giving a formal report in front of the entire Council. If she acted respectably, perhaps it would also command respect. “While on our annual trip to Takish Gorge three days ago, Wolf and I stumbled across a camp of nearly fifty people. They had a wall of logs around them like a fortification, and they danced around an enchanted bonfire. The flames changed colors and flared like green serpents. Then a cloaked man joined them, and when his hood fell away from his face, it was scarred. Like the Dragon Prince’s.”
Glass Lady’s expression remained emotionless. “They were dancing? Last I checked, that was not a violation of Kichonan law.”
Daemon pushed his way forward again. “Your Honor, the magic in the fire wasn’t taiga magic. Doesn’t that worry you given what happened at Isle of the Moon? And we saw Prince Gin!”
Glass Lady shook her head and sighed impatiently. “Spirit, Wolf, I appreciate your enthusiasm. Apprentices are often overly excited about their first missions. But think about it—you saw this during the Autumn Festival holidays. You yourselves just finished a reenactment of the Blood Rift. Other Kichonans across the kingdom also carry out similar playacting to celebrate Empress Aki’s victory. I’m sure what you saw was a masked actor. As for the color of this supposedly magical fire, that can likely be explained by the addition of a chemical—copper sulfate or alum—to the flames. Spirit’s roommate would know.”
Sora reddened. Fairy was obsessed with potions and poisons and all kinds of other concoctions. How could Sora not have thought of something as simple as the dancers throwing a chemical powder into the bonfire? Perhaps she had gotten too swept up by her new desire to be more than just another apprentice.
But then the image of Hana’s and the other tenderfoots’ charred skeletons after the Blood Rift flashed in Sora’s memory. She pulled her shoulders back and said, “No, Your Honor. I know what we saw. It wasn’t just stagecraft that made that fire.”
Glass Lady crossed her arms. “The typhoon attack was five days ago, and you saw this bonfire just two days later. If it were the same people, they wouldn’t have been able to travel the entire length of Kichona in that short period of time. However . . . we are investigating all possible leads to explain the attack on Isle of the Moon, so I suppose I can have a dragonfly messenger sent to the taiga outpost in Paro Village and have them send someone to investigate.”
The dread in Sora’s stomach settled, just a little. Glass Lady had listened to her. The warriors would handle this. “Thank you, Commander.”
Glass Lady walked away without saying anything else.
Broomstick spoke up once she disappeared down another corridor. “I’m glad she’s going to have someone look into that camp. But for everyone’s sake, I hope you’re wrong about the Dragon Prince being alive. It would ruin Kichona if he tried to resurrect his quest for the Evermore.”
The brief relief Sora had felt disappeared. The Evermore. That’s what had nagged her when she saw Prince Gin in Takish Gorge. It’s why he’d come back. She’d just been in too much shock that he was still alive to think it all through.
The Evermore was a story in Mama’s most famous books, the Kichonan Tales, a collection of the kingdom’s legends, written before Sora was born. It was common knowledge that, as a child, Prince Gin had spent hours poring over the volume known as The Book of Sorrow—stories about lakes that consumed people with nightmares, of days when the sky rained not water but blood, of an era when men prayed not for wisdom and compassion but for riches and power and glory.
Prince Gin’s favorite story had been “The Evermore.” Every tenderfoot, including Sora, studied it as a cautionary fable against greed. But sometimes, avaricious souls like the Dragon Prince read the story as truth rather than myth.
As a prophecy, rather than a warning.
It was Prince Gin’s quest for the Evermore that had caused the Blood Rift. The burning of the Citadel. The murder of Hana and the tenderfoots.
>
The dread in Sora’s stomach returned. The Dragon Prince had returned to finish what he started.
Chapter Nine
I don’t know why you like that story,” Aki had said when they were ten years old. They were lying on the carpet of Gin’s bedroom and reading together, albeit from different volumes of the Kichonan Tales. She had volume one open, The Book of Tranquility. Her brother had volume three, as usual, The Book of Sorrow. “It’s bloody, and it gives me nightmares.”
Gin had shrugged. “That’s because you’re reading it wrong. There’s a paradise at the end of it, and immortality. That’s a happy ending.”
“There’s a cult devoted to that story. That’s how you know it’s crazy. And Father would be upset if he knew how obsessed you were. You should stop reading it.”
“But it’s not just a story!” Gin slammed the book closed, and Aki jumped. His scarred face had gone red. “Why is it that some stories of the gods are accepted as true—like Sola blessing our family and Luna gifting the taigas with magic—while others, like the Evermore, are said to be myth?”
Aki rolled over on the carpet and put her hand on her brother’s cheek. He hated his skin, but she always told him it made his outside as unique as his inside, and whenever she touched him, it helped calm him down.
But this time, it didn’t. He ripped her hand away. “The only reason the Evermore is called a myth is because we don’t already have it,” Gin said, seething. He turned away from his sister and clutched the book to his chest. “People don’t have enough faith to believe in something they can’t see.”
The Evermore
As retold by Mina Teira
In Celestae, the gods’ floating island in the heavens, fruit is so sweet, its mere scent drips syrup from the stars. Beauty is so pure, it bestows joy from miles away. And youth is eternal, such that muscles never grow weak, nor minds, feeble with age. This is the paradise of the gods, a playground of power and immortality and bliss in the sky.
