by Evelyn Skye
And because the residents of Tiger’s Belly avoided him, Daemon made quick progress to the grain silos. They bordered the edge of town and the farmland, rising like a forest of cylindrical towers from the ground. Amazingly, the silos were largely untouched by the ryuu. Perhaps because they didn’t think taigas would be hiding inside.
The Society’s local command post, however, was a different matter. It was a manor made of black stone, large enough to house the majority of the taigas who were stationed in this region, although there were probably some smaller safe houses farther out in the country for warriors when they were on rotation there. The manor had probably been impressive a few hours ago, but now its black rice paper windows were blown out from the force of ryuu-controlled wind, and the wooden roof had been torn off unceremoniously, like a toupee ripped rudely off a gentleman’s head. Daemon winced at the humiliation of the once grand building.
But this was not why he was here. Even though all the taiga warriors were gone, their dragonfly messengers were hopefully still alive. If they were, Daemon could send a missive to the Citadel to let them know what had happened and where the Dragon Prince planned to hit next.
Daemon stepped through the space where the front door had been, careful to tiptoe around the debris. He was 99 percent sure the ryuu were gone, but he’d be quiet, just in case.
He slipped through the entryway. Upstairs and in the back of the manor, there would be living quarters, but here on the ground floor, Daemon passed by meeting rooms where the sliding doors had been torn off their tracks, meditation spaces with the reed mats wrenched from the floors, and a dining room where the tables had splintered when they were hurled against the walls.
Finally, he found the communications office. There ought to have been terrariums full of dragonflies here, trained to deliver taiga messages throughout the kingdom. This was how the command posts throughout Kichona communicated with the Citadel every morning, and vice versa.
Unfortunately, the ryuu were not stupid. As with the previous posts, all the terrarium tanks before Daemon lay in pieces on the floor, the glass slivers interspersed with charred dragonfly bodies.
“Daggers,” he swore. Had it really been necessary to incinerate helpless insects? He growled under his breath. Growing up with wolves meant he was particularly sensitive to the treatment of animals, dragonflies included. Daemon kicked at the lone desk in the room, throwing quiet caution out the window. There was nothing here but destruction anyway.
He let out a long, frustrated exhale. He was trying his best, yet it still wasn’t enough.
Daemon couldn’t stay in the communications office. Not with the dragonfly corpses all over the floor. He stormed out into the hall.
But now what? How would he get in touch with the Citadel? It would take too long to find a horse and ride it all the way back to the capital. By then Prince Gin would have taken at least another target or two, and the size of his army would near the critical mass needed to overwhelm the Society.
If only a single dragonfly had survived.
“I’m an idiot!” Daemon tore through the manor and into the kitchen. Broomstick had told him a while ago that there were always backup dragonflies kept in a separate location at every post, in case disease or heat stroke or something else happened to the squadron in the communications office. It was not common knowledge—only those who worked on receiving and dispatching messages knew—but a small contingent of dragonflies were kept in a frozen, suspended state inside a special icebox in the kitchen.
Daemon threw himself into the walk-in icebox. His teeth chattered within seconds, but he methodically searched each shelf and drawer. There were hunks of frozen beef still in crates. Tubs of peach ice cream, probably made from fresh fruit and milk from Tiger’s Belly farms. And giant, frost-dusted blocks of ice. But no dragonflies.
The hair on his arms now frozen stiff, Daemon stumbled out of the icebox. He paused for a moment to allow himself to warm a little.
Then he tackled the shelves of pots and pans, tossing each one aside with a clang when he found nothing there. Next, the cabinets full of plates and bowls, which he only sort of tried not to break in his hurry. Then he dug headlong into the pantry of dry goods, leaving clouds of flour and slashed bags of rice in his wake.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there isn’t a backup set of messengers.
Daemon leaned against a workstation in the center of the kitchen, the weight of the day pressing against the countertop.
It gave way behind him. He jumped up, away from the workstation.
Part of the countertop had unlatched and slid open to reveal a secret compartment inside.
Ice. And a small crystal box.
Daemon whooped and pumped his fist. Then he lifted the box carefully out of its frozen chamber and took off the lid.
Wisps of cold floated out. They evaporated and revealed six dragonflies lying on beds of blue satin edged in gold, small soldiers honoring Kichona’s colors even in slumber.
As the warmth of the room thawed the dragonflies, their tiny legs began to wiggle. Their wings fluttered, rasping against the satin.
Daemon smiled at them as he carried the crystal box back to the communications office. He hated to go in there again, but he needed the miniature scrolls and needle-tipped pens that the taiga dispatchers used to compose messages small enough for the dragonflies to carry.
When he arrived, he set the box down on the desk and quickly found the supplies he needed in the top drawer. He secured the miniature scroll onto a board with fasteners designed to hold its corners down. At the edge of the desk, a magnifying glass on a long brass arm stood waiting to be called to action; Daemon extended it so it was positioned directly above the scroll. Then he began to write with the dispatcher’s pen. It was no easy task. Dispatchers needed not only impeccable penmanship but also a steady, detailed hand, for each letter was no bigger than half a millimeter.
Daemon painstakingly recorded what he’d discovered of the Dragon Prince’s plans. It took multiple sheets of paper, and he hoped the Council could read what he wrote, but he did the best he could. If he were still a Level 2 or 3 apprentice, this scroll would be the highest mark he ever received in handwriting class. But alas, there were no such rewards for composing messages about impending doom.
He rolled up the scroll and secured it to one of the dragonfly’s legs using tweezers and thread. Then Daemon tried to set it free. It should know what to do, how to fly to the Citadel.
The dragonfly stood around the desk awkwardly, one-sixth of its legs bound to a scroll.
“Hmph,” Daemon muttered.
He tried nudging the dragonfly.
It remained where it was.
He tried talking to it, as if it could understand what he wanted.
Nothing.
Then, as Daemon was about to give up, the dragonfly seemed to wake up from its daze. Perhaps it had still been groggy from the icebox. It bolted into the air, circled the communications office twice, and zipped out a hole in the window.
Daemon exhaled and collapsed back in his chair.
He let himself rest for all of two minutes.
And then he launched himself into the other part of his self-appointed mission—he had to get through to Sora.
Hey-o, he called out through their bond. She wouldn’t be able to hear his words, of course, just feel his presence and his emotion, but sometimes he spoke to her to help convey his feelings.
But as before, his greeting seemed to ricochet off something and smack back into him. He actually ducked, as if the rejected “hey-o” could hurt him.
Undeterred, he tried again. Sora?
Her name boomeranged back.
The silence in their bond ached. Daemon’s and Sora’s minds had been interwoven, their partnership omnipresent, for eleven years. When they were children, they used to do everything together—eat together, spar together, study spells together. For things they couldn’t do together, like sleep, they’d stay connected to each other unt
il the last moment, sending soothing thoughts through their bond until they were drowsy enough to fall asleep.
He took the pain of not having Sora and drilled that into their connection, shoving it like a battering ram. It would not be a nice emotion for Sora to receive, but that was the point. Maybe he needed something intense—like his terror when Sora was hypnotized by Prince Gin at Kaede City—in order to smash his will through their connection.
There was resistance, stubborn and solid like the Citadel’s fortress walls.
He drilled his anguish into their gemina bond over and over again. The battering ram kept smashing against Sora’s ramparts. Daemon broke out into a sweat. At one point, he felt a slight give, like he’d made a dent in the blockade, but then there was no more progress after that.
Daemon fell back against the chair again, utterly drained.
The dragonflies flitted in front of him, as if concerned.
He waved at them, shaking his head. “Thank you, but this is on me alone.”
Maybe he couldn’t get to Sora without better understanding what it was that he’d done in the first place. Or what had triggered it.
Daemon hesitated to think there was something special about him. Other than the odd origin of being raised by wolves, he had spent his life being decidedly not special. Sora could pick up new spells on the first try. Fairy had a golden touch with botanicals. Broomstick more than played with fire. But Daemon didn’t excel at anything besides physically fighting people to the ground, and honestly, even an ordinary Kichonan could be good at that if he trained hard enough.
There had to be an explanation for his strange ability to resist Prince Gin’s hypnosis. I’m stuck here until I get a dragonfly response from the Citadel, he thought. I should spend some time doing research. He’d seen a small library down one of the halls. Burying himself in stacks of books wouldn’t be as active as trying to reach Sora, but he wasn’t doing any good on that front and needed a break. Besides, good reconnaissance was as much about what one saw as what one understood about those observations.
Daemon pushed back from his chair. Who knows? Maybe this was a blessing in disguise. Maybe he’d learn something about his strange magic that would give him a clue about where he’d come from.
Chapter Forty
Aki paused outside the Council Room. The commander had summoned her, and she had come swiftly from Rose Palace. But now that she was here, she stopped. Why am I running to them like I’m one of their warriors? she thought. I’m the empress. It should be I who summons the Council, not the other way around.
Besides, what had the Society accomplished since the attack on Isle of the Moon? Aki had let them do things their way, but the old system had proven too slow.
She had great respect for the taigas, but now it was time for Aki to take charge.
She pushed her way into the room before the guard could properly announce her.
The councilmembers jumped at her entrance and hastily laid themselves prostrate at her feet.
Aki strode over to the commander’s high-backed chair. “I’m sitting here today,” she announced to Glass Lady, leaving no room for debate.
The commander, only halfway up from her bow and still on her knees, looked stunned for a moment. But proper etiquette meant she had to defer to the empress, so Glass Lady dipped her head in concession and pulled up an extra seat. Now she and the other councilmembers sat opposite Aki across the black stone table, the shift in power evident.
“This came in today, Your Majesty,” Glass Lady said, passing a stack of miniature papers, curled at the edges, to the empress. “You were right. Prince Gin is involved. And now we know his plans.”
Aki took the magnifying glass offered to her by Scythe, one of the councilmembers. She took her time reading the details of her brother’s attacks on Paro Village, Sand Mine, Kaede City, and Tiger’s Belly, as well as his subsequent targets.
“This message didn’t come from your naval ship,” she said when she’d read the pages twice.
Glass Lady’s usual arrogance faltered. “No, Your Majesty. It’s from an apprentice.”
“An apprentice? I thought you said you didn’t have any taigas who could reach the far outposts before the navy could?”
“Er, we didn’t send Wolf,” Glass Lady said, looking down at the table. “He and his gemina, Spirit, slipped out of the Citadel on their own initiative.”
Spirit? The name sounded familiar. Aki glanced up from her magnifying glass. “Was Spirit the one who set off the fireworks at Rose Palace?”
One of the other councilmembers, Bullfrog, made a croaking noise. “Unfortunately, yes. She and her friends have a penchant for breaking rules. Or at least for finding the loopholes in them.”
“And you say the Council didn’t sanction Spirit and Wolf leaving the Citadel?”
“No, Your Majesty.”
Aki pondered this for a moment. The Council had been spinning their wheels, unable to figure out the mysterious assault at Isle of the Moon or protect against Gin’s stealth attacks. They were relying on a specific way of doing things, which may have worked in the past, but clearly wasn’t getting them anywhere right now. In the meantime, Spirit and Wolf had tossed traditional methods aside and uncovered Gin’s plot on their own.
Interesting. Perhaps this was what Kichona needed. An unorthodox approach to an unorthodox enemy.
“We must stop my brother before he grows his army further,” Aki said. “Can you send a dragonfly to the Striped Coves before he arrives?”
“I cannot guarantee it, but we’ll try.”
Aki nodded. “Good. Tell the Striped Coves taigas to evacuate the citizens. And then the taigas themselves should hide.”
Strategist smacked both hands on the table. “You want the taigas to hide like cowards?”
Glass Lady glared at him. She turned to the empress with an apologetic dip of her head. “What my colleague means, Your Majesty, is that, with all due respect, we don’t think it’s advisable to leave the Striped Coves completely unprotected.”
“I don’t mean for them to abandon their duties. The Striped Coves are a valuable part of Kichona, and we won’t leave it open to pirates. But they can’t stay at the Society post there. The taigas would be captured by Gin, and we’d be handing him an army, which is precisely what he wants.” Aki sat back in the commander’s chair and crossed her arms. “I want half of them to stay in the Striped Coves, and the other half to regroup here to protect the capital, which I guarantee is where Gin will end up. I appreciate your perspective, but with all due respect, I defeated my brother once. I can defeat him again. We will do this my way.”
The councilmembers held their tongues. She knew they didn’t approve. They probably thought her inexperience was leading her to act rashly. But the old guard’s way isn’t working, Aki thought. Gin certainly isn’t following the old rule book.
“Actually,” she said, “have this message posted at the harbor for my brother: I would like to meet with him in neutral territory where there is nothing to tempt him—let’s say, Dassu Desert—to discuss a cease-fire and peace treaty.”
“He’ll use his magic to hypnotize you,” Glass Lady said.
Oh. Aki hadn’t considered that. Now the Council really would think she was just plowing headlong into folly.
There was some scuffling beneath the floor of the black stone table. The councilmembers leaped to their feet, weapons trained on the source, while the Imperial Guard grabbed Aki and began shoving her toward the door to safety. Her heartbeat skittered.
“Don’t hurt us!” a boy shouted, his voice muffled but loud, as if he were pressed right up against the floorboards. “It’s Broomstick. And Fairy.”
“What are you doing down there?” Scythe asked.
Glass Lady rolled her eyes. “Eavesdropping, I’d wager.”
Bullfrog grumbled. “Like I said. Penchant for breaking rules.”
The councilmembers muttered a spell that allowed them to heave the boards off the floor
. Two apprentices climbed out, covered in dirt and coughing.
“Aren’t you two already in enough trouble for Spirit’s last stunt?” Glass Lady asked.
Broomstick screwed up his face. “Yes, Your Honor.”
“And you thought it would be wise to tempt fate by crawling under the floorboards of the Council Room to eavesdrop on the most confidential of conversations?”
Fairy shrugged sheepishly. “It seemed like a good idea at the time?”
Glass Lady sighed. “Your Majesty, meet Broomstick and Fairy. They’re two of your fireworks hooligans.”
Chapter Forty-One
Fairy and Broomstick laid themselves prostrate on the ground.
When they rose, Fairy said, “We’re sorry for the, uh, intrusion.”
“I suppose it’s all right,” Empress Aki said, as she returned to her seat. Her Imperial Guard remained close by. It almost made Fairy laugh out loud. As if I’m a threat the Imperial Guard needs to protect her from.
“We wanted to speak to you because we have an idea,” Broomstick said.
Bullfrog grumbled. “Normal people with ideas to present come in through doors, not floorboards.”
Fairy’s tongue tripped over itself.
But then Empress Aki said, “Normal isn’t working. You say you were part of the league of rogues who rigged the fireworks in my palace? Well then, I want to hear what you have to say. After all, we are dealing with my brother here. Some trickery is almost certainly afoot.”
League of Rogues! Despite the gravity of the matter at hand, a grin spread across Fairy’s face. Beside her, Broomstick did a better job of hiding his, although she could feel through their gemina bond his pleasure at being recognized by the empress as worth listening to.
“We heard you suggest a meeting with Prince Gin in Dassu Desert,” Broomstick said, “but as Glass Lady mentioned, if you get close to him, he can hypnotize you and make him your puppet.”
