Circle of Shadows

by Evelyn Skye

  Daemon pointed at a collection of trunks and an old armoire along the back wall. They’d been obscured by netting, usually used to hold cargo against the walls in the case of turbulent seas. “I wonder if any of those are empty?”

  They shoved past the nets. The wood on the trunks and armoire were molded and nibbled at the corners.

  He opened the first trunk slowly, trying not to make too much noise with the rusty hinges. “Damn. It’s packed full of rope and broken buoys and other junk.”

  Sora pulled on the door of the armoire. Once. Twice. Three times. “This one’s jammed.”

  “Leave it. I don’t want us to get stuck inside a closet.” Daemon moved to one of the trunks they hadn’t examined yet. He opened it and found this one only half full of water-damaged books in another language. This must have been a merchant ship from a kingdom on the mainland.

  “We could stack those on the floor,” Sora said, behind him now.

  He shivered at the feel of her breath so close to him. But when he turned around, Daemon had control of himself again. “Good thinking. You can finish telling me about ryuu magic while we move the books.”

  Sora caught him up on what she’d overheard. It seemed that the ryuu didn’t need chants or mudras to cast spells; focused thought was enough to command the green particles of magic floating in the air.

  Daemon chewed on his lip, thinking about it.

  “Can all ryuu do the same things with the magic?” he asked as he set down the last of the books. “I assume commanding the particles to make little hands to lift things is basic, since that’s what Virtuoso had the recruit do. But what about the ryuu we’ve already seen in action? Do they get to choose if they like bugs or fire or whatever?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they do get to choose. Or maybe they have a natural inclination or talent for something.” She looked inside the trunk. “That’s going to be a tight fit for both of us.”

  Daemon thought of sleeping pressed up next to Sora.

  It was suddenly very hot on this part of the ship.

  He shoved up his mental ramparts and tried to think about ice. No, not just ice, but dunking himself in an entire bathtub full of it. No, wait, glaciers. Swimming in a frigid, glacial pool . . .

  Sora looked at him with her mouth twisted. “Are you okay? You look like you just ran headlong into a forest ogre.”

  “Hmm? Oh, yeah, I’m fine, never better. Great. Fantastic.”

  Sora’s stomach growled. Daemon’s rumbled in return.

  Saved by our bellies, he thought.

  “Hey, now that we have a place to hide out, why don’t I try to find us some food,” he said.

  Her stomach agreed loudly. She laughed. “That sounds like a smart idea. I’ll come too.”

  “No,” Daemon said, perhaps a little too quickly. But he needed to put some distance between them, just for a bit, so he could cool down. Thinking about glacial pools took him only so far. “You stay here.”

  “And do what?” She crossed her arms.

  “Um . . . try to see those green ryuu magic particles?”

  “I don’t have Sight.”

  “But you’re good at magic.”

  She shook her head. “As a taiga, not as a ryuu.”

  Daemon frowned. “Well, unless you’re planning to knock on the Dragon Prince’s cabin door to turn yourself in, which I doubt, we need to find another way to learn about their magic. Prince Gin might grant Sight to the recruits, but he had to have discovered the particles the first time, right? What if it’s possible to use ryuu magic without Sight, but it’s just harder than with it?”

  “You mean, if knowing the magic is there is half the battle?”

  “Maybe.” He shrugged. “To be honest, I’m making it up as I go along.”

  Sora nodded. “Me too.”

  They stood there by the trunk for a minute, contemplating the recklessness of their plan. They could be caught at any minute and either executed or hypnotized into service. Daemon may have been able to fend off Prince Gin’s charm once, but there was no guarantee he could do it a second time, and Sora was certainly susceptible to it.

  But they hadn’t really had a choice. Or, at least not a choice that Daemon and Sora wanted to pick. Before the ryuu left the Kaede City outpost, they had destroyed all the taigas’ dragonfly messengers, just as they had at Paro Village. Even if Daemon and Sora had stayed behind, they wouldn’t have been able to communicate with the Citadel. At least on the ship, they could attempt to gather more information so that the next time they landed somewhere with a Society post, they’d have more to share.

  Plus, there was Sora’s plan to poison the ryuu. They had originally plotted to target only Prince Gin, but now that they knew how loyal his soldiers were, it seemed wiser to take them all out. And frankly, they were more likely to succeed if they aimed for all of the ryuu instead of specific ones.

  He shuddered to think about killing everyone on board. Many of them had been loyal taigas just a day ago. And all Daemon had was the taigas. He didn’t have family. The Society was it.

  But he also thought about the rira disks that he and Sora had stashed away. Taigas would rather die than allow themselves to be captured. If the ryuu recruits knew what had happened to them—that Prince Gin had made them prisoners within their own minds—they would prefer Daemon and Sora poisoning them over continuing as mind-controlled tools of the enemy.

  Poisoning all the ryuu on board really was the best option for everyone. There was no other way that two apprentices were going to be able to stop them.

  Daemon’s stomach interrupted the downward spiral of his thoughts by growling again.

  “You were on your way out to get us some food, right?” Sora asked.

  “Um, yeah,” he said, coming back to the present. “I’ll go now.”

  “While you’re at it, why don’t you break into Prince Gin’s cabin and find out all his plans too?” Sora asked. It was supposed to lighten their mood, but given how much was at stake, the joke came out a bit flat.

  Daemon appreciated the effort, though, and tried to play along. “Is that a challenge?” he asked.

  She smiled grimly. “Work hard, mischief harder. You break into the Dragon Prince’s quarters, and I’ll find a way to access ryuu magic without Sight.”

  He nodded. “Challenge accepted.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Sora sat cross-legged on the ground. She was hidden by the cargo nets, so if someone came into the hold, she could dive into the trunk.

  How do I find this godsforsaken magic? She stared intently at the air in front of her, brows knit together and eyes narrowed. All she saw was nothing.

  Prince Gin had said the particles were everywhere, and the only reason taigas didn’t see it was because they didn’t know the magic was tangible.

  But now I know, Sora thought. “Magic . . . come out, come out, wherever you are.” There was a beam of light coming in from a hairline crack in the wall. She focused on it. Maybe it would be easier to see the ryuu magic there.

  And then . . .

  Aha! A particle!

  Sora smiled.

  When she looked again at the beam of light, though, the particle was gone. And come to think of it, it had been white, like ordinary dust, not green like Prince Gin had said.

  There was an awful lot of dust swirling around in that sliver of light. Sora sighed.

  Concentrate, she told herself, squinting harder. Where are you, you little green things?

  She stared and stared until her eyes crossed and actually began to ache.

  She thought she saw the particles, and she jumped.

  Her head smacked into the ceiling. Crow’s eye. Sora rubbed the spot she’d bumped.

  She sat down again, allowing her eyelids to flutter closed for a minute.

  Think, Sora, think. There must be something.

  Maybe she wasn’t looking hard enough.

  Or maybe she was looking too hard.

  What if I tried a dif
ferent sense?

  People could smell sea salt in the ocean air and feel dampness before a storm. If the ryuu particles were floating everywhere, wouldn’t there be other ways to find them besides seeing them?

  Sora inhaled slowly and deeply. And gagged. She’d gotten used to the stench of mold and wet rope and dank air, but a giant lungful all at once was a wallop to her chest.

  She took a moment to recover, then took another breath. A smaller one.

  This one still stank, but she pushed that into the background and searched out more subtle smells. The lingering scent of paper from the books piled nearby. Dried algae from the broken buoys.

  This was too general. Sora’s nose needed something more specific to home in on. But what did magic smell like?

  She got on hands and knees and started sniffing around.

  Iron.

  More stale water.

  Dirt.

  And the slight hint of rotting food . . .

  “Ugh.” Sora found herself directly in front of a rat’s nest of random things: scraps of old cloth, soggy bills of lading, and bits and pieces of partially consumed food, some to enjoy soon, others to be saved until they ripened to the rat’s liking.

  She got to her feet, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

  Sora couldn’t quit, though. Right now, she and Daemon were the only things standing between Prince Gin and his superpowered army.

  Sight and smell weren’t working for finding ryuu magic. But there were still other senses.

  All right, she thought. A short break, then another try.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Virtuoso stood with arms crossed on the main deck of the ship. Above her, the sails filled with wind, like puff-chested flag bearers hurtling the ryuu around Kichona to Tiger’s Belly, a trading port on the island’s eastern side. The air was bitter and sharp, and salt spray leaped over the railings, dampening her hooded cloak with coldness.

  She was not on deck because she enjoyed the abuse of the sea, however. She was here because she had been tapped by Prince Gin to give the recruits a crash course on ryuu magic.

  This was important. She was one of the youngest of the original ryuu, but she’d proved herself more adept with magic than any of the others, and she’d become the Dragon Prince’s protégée. Training the new army was the biggest responsibility yet. Her stomach knotted at the possibility.

  But she quickly untied it and focused on the task at hand. Virtuoso had learned at a very young age not to get her hopes up when there was any measure of uncertainty. She would earn the right to stand by Prince Gin’s side. She would make sure there was no room for chance.

  The new ryuu stood before her, already bruised and exhausted from loading the ship and from the hour of training she’d already unleashed upon them. A large wave rocked the ship violently, and some of the recruits almost fell over.

  “Are you tired?” Virtuoso asked, hands on her hips.

  “No, Your Honor,” they replied despite being soaked through with sweat and the salt water that had come from the last wave.

  “Good. Because I’m not even close to finished with you.” Besides making herself indispensable, it was also critical to the Dragon Prince’s plans that he amass the largest army possible. The more soldiers Prince Gin could count on, the better. “After you’ve mastered the basics, you will each begin to discover what your specialty is. If you were an excellent swimmer as a taiga, your ryuu ability may manifest itself as control of the water. If you used to tend the stables as an apprentice, perhaps your ryuu ability will be communicating with animals. But first, let’s review what you’ve learned.”

  She looked at Chainbreaker, a brute of a man who was strong but not the most accurate. She pointed at a straw-stuffed dummy on the other side of the deck and then at the racks of knives next to the recruits.

  “Attack the enemy, as I’ve taught you, but this time, you must also avoid me.” Virtuoso stepped into the center of the deck, in the direct path between the knives and the dummy. He’d have to arc the knives around her to get to the target.

  Chainbreaker cracked his knuckles and stepped forward. He squinted his eyes until they were the size of pinheads, concentrating on the green particles in the air. Virtuoso watched as they obeyed him, turning into small hands. He sent them to the rack, and each nebulous hand latched onto a dagger. He glanced at her and the dummy far on the other side of the deck.

  “Do it,” Virtuoso said.

  She pretended not to be worried. It was important to put on a cold, hard exterior, especially to counteract the fact that she was half the age of many of these warriors. But the truth was, she’d never taught anyone else how to use ryuu magic before. All Prince Gin’s soldiers had learned together, fumbling through it in their refugee camp in the mountains of Shinowana.

  And yet, the future of the Dragon Prince’s revolution rested on Virtuoso’s shoulders. She had to make proper ryuu of these new recruits.

  Chainbreaker eyed the dummy behind Virtuoso one more time. She held her breath.

  Several dozen blades launched themselves across the deck, whizzing around her. The fabric of Virtuoso’s hood rippled around her face, and her insides flipped at every single knife. It took effort not to grip the railing to steady herself.

  The blades embedded themselves in the dummy’s torso, plus one dagger directly in the middle of its forehead.

  Not a single piece of Virtuoso’s cloak had been nicked.

  She let out a silent exhale and hurried to put on her mask of unflappability again.

  “Acceptable,” she said. “Of course, I learned those skills within the first ten minutes of being a ryuu.” It came out a little more loudly—and cruelly—than she’d meant it to.

  But Chainbreaker nodded and returned to the other recruits. Taigas were used to harsh training.

  Virtuoso nodded at a woman. “Coyote, it’s your turn.”

  She stepped up. Her jaw was set hard, and there was fire and challenge in her eyes. Without waiting for Virtuoso’s signal, she set the green particles upon the knives embedded in the dummy’s body. The daggers dislodged from the straw and flung themselves past Virtuoso to the rack, where they executed flip turns as if they were synchronized boomerangs. Then they hurled themselves back past Virtuoso, whirling so fast, they whistled, and lodged into the dummy’s torso in a straight line down the center. The fire of ambition flared hotter in Coyote’s eyes.

  Underneath her hood, Virtuoso smiled. This was a good start. Very good. Prince Gin, she hoped, would be pleased.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  There were plenty of skills that Daemon was mediocre at, but stealth was not one of them. When he was a toddler in Takish Gorge, he was often tasked with catching foxes, raccoons, and other prey from the trees. The pack would identify a part of the forest for hunting, Daemon riding on the back of the mother wolf, and when they arrived, he would climb silently up into trees, aware of every twig or leaf that could brush against him and sound an alarm to his prey waiting above.

  The element of surprise was always helpful. But sometimes, trickery was also required, some way to draw a weaker or more curious member of a raccoon family away from the others, before pouncing and knocking him out of the tree to the waiting pack below.

  It was these skills that Daemon called upon now. He smiled at the chance to do something he was actually good at.

  On the main deck, Virtuoso trained the new recruits. Daemon had listened in but quickly moved on. It was difficult to understand what was happening without actually seeing it, but going onto the main deck itself was out of the question with so many ryuu up there.

  Acquiring food was a priority, but that ought to be easy enough. Sora had come onto the ship in a barrel of oranges, and there were more barrels and crates of provisions in that cargo hold close to the galley. Daemon would pilfer some supplies on the way back to their own hold, but not yet. He didn’t want his pockets laden with food while he tackled the challenge Sora had given him—acquiring information
on Prince Gin’s plans.

  Daemon made his way to the deck on which the captain’s quarters were located. If I can get inside, I can look for maps and notes. That was probably the most useful information he could contribute to the mission.

  But how would he get Prince Gin out of his cabin?

  It would be dinnertime soon. Daemon could stay hidden and wait for the prince to get hungry . . .

  Except captains usually had their meals brought to them, didn’t they?

  Ugh. There’s no way the Dragon Prince is going to eat with the rest of the crew. Daemon racked his brain for other ideas. He kept coming up with the same conclusion—he had to draw him out.

  Not in person, though. Prince Gin would probably recognize that Daemon didn’t belong here. Unless it was possible he could be mistaken for one of the new recruits?

  Still too risky. Daemon didn’t know if he’d be able to fend off the Dragon Prince’s hypnosis again. Plus, if he got caught, so would Sora.

  However, there was one trick from Daemon’s wolf cub days that might work here. One or two wolves would do something to draw out the prey from its hiding spot. The prey would be focused on the source of the distraction, and the other wolves would pounce on it from another side.

  Of course, Daemon didn’t have a pack with him. He had only himself.

  I can play the other roles, though.

  He stepped out of the shadows to knock on the door of the captain’s quarters. But he’d only raised his arm when someone climbed down the ladder from above deck and said, “Hey, what are you doing?”

  Daemon whirled around, his heart in his throat. The ryuu looked at him suspiciously.

  If the first strategy during a hunt goes wrong, don’t panic. Adjust and find a different way to get your prey.

  Right. Hunting often didn’t go as planned. A nearby bird could startle and set the prey on alert that something was amiss. Or there might be more raccoons than anticipated. Daemon could handle this.

  He puffed out his chest and acted confident. “I was just about to ask the captain what he’d like for dinner.”