by Evelyn Skye
They passed Fairy without noticing her, but panic spiked in her chest nevertheless. Something was happening to the people of Kichona because Zomuri was the official god now? What was it? She hadn’t felt it herself, or noticed it in Broomstick, Wolf, or Spirit. Maybe they were protected because Luna, as goddess of the taigas, was still their patron god.
Even so, she worried for everyone else.
Broomstick’s concern pulsed through their gemina bond. He’d sensed her worry, and now undulations like sound waves drummed through their connection, a continual question about whether he needed to come to her aid.
She sent back an arrow of reassurance. He’d understand that she was dismayed but not in danger.
Fairy had to get back to digging. Finding Empress Aki was more important than ever. They had to stop whatever it was that Prince Gin and Zomuri were doing to the kingdom, put the empress back on the throne, and make Sola, goddess of the sun, the people’s patron god once more.
With a renewed sense of urgency, Fairy started scraping through the mud again. This time, she found the wooden trapdoor she was looking for, the planks softened from years of being forgotten and buried in the earth. She pried it open.
A blast of dank air greeted her. Fairy cast an owl spell, the skin around her eyes tightening as night vision took hold, and she slipped into the darkness and cobwebs of the abandoned staircase.
Soon, the humidity was so heavy, it was hard to breathe. The steps ended in what appeared to be a wall. It was actually the back of a massive boiler, though, installed at some point in the past for additional heat but with the side effect of rendering the emergency exit stairwell virtually unusable. That is, except for someone as tiny as Fairy.
She paused here and listened for any sign of guards or a prisoner. The room was filled with the labored pumps of steam through the pipes that crisscrossed the walls and ceiling. Fairy released her owl spell—she couldn’t see anyway, with the heavy mist clouding the air—and cast a new one to allow her to hear better.
As her ears tingled, she began to discern the sounds layered beneath the churning of the boiler. There were kitchen workers’ footsteps in the mess hall above. Rats skittering inside the walls. Moths clustered in the warm corners of the ceiling.
But no soldierlike sounds. No methodical pacing inside or outside the boiler room. No idle conversation between bored guards.
And there weren’t any prisoner noises either.
Fairy crept out from behind the boiler, stiletto knives in each hand. “Your Majesty, are you here?” she whispered.
The only answer was the rhythmic bursts of steam in the pipes. Dammit. Fairy lowered her knives. The chances had been slim of her guessing correctly on the first try where Empress Aki was hidden, but the failure was still disappointing.
If the empress wasn’t here, then it meant the main boiler room door wouldn’t be locked or guarded. Fairy might as well exit the mess hall that way. Fewer cobwebs.
She took one last pass around the boiler room, then headed up the stairs. She listened to make sure there was no one outside the door before she snuck out.
As soon as she was on the other side, the rich aroma of braised beef stew embraced her. Fairy’s stomach rumbled. She’d only had a few crackers and picked at a piece of fish jerky earlier. Now she realized she was ravenous.
I’ll just sneak into the kitchen and steal a bite, she thought. And maybe, if it was busy enough that the staff wouldn’t notice another body in their midst, she could get some provisions for Broomstick, Wolf, and Spirit. They’d be hungry when they reconvened.
Someone was coming down the hall. No, several someones. Fairy tucked herself into a corner.
Three women hurried by. They were dressed in plain brown tunics and trousers, white aprons around their waists, hair pulled back in neat buns. The Society employed an entire staff of non-taigas like these kitchen girls to help the Citadel run. Fairy recognized one of them as Mariko, who was friends with Broomstick and often would give him extra cookies when the baker made too many.
“Psst, Mariko!” Fairy whispered. Hells, she knew it was risky, but maybe they could help her. Or if they tried to fight, Fairy could easily take out three untrained girls in two seconds. Four seconds, at most.
No, definitely two.
The girls passed her, though, chattering excitedly about cooking for Emperor Gin.
Had they been hypnotized?
If so, maybe Fairy shouldn’t call out to Mariko. She did follow them down the long corridor, though. After all, it looked like they were heading to the kitchen, which was exactly where Fairy’s stomach wanted her to be.
The kitchen was bustling, preparing for dinner in a couple hours. It smelled not only of stewed beef but also dumplings, fried noodles, and roasted vegetables. Fairy’s stomach threatened to stage a revolt if she didn’t eat something soon.
She stepped into a nook with shelves lined with folded uniforms. Fairy grabbed one of the starchy white tops and buttoned it over her black tunic and pulled a matching white apron over it. Now she looked just like Mariko and the other girls.
Fairy emerged into the main part of the kitchen, next to a counter lined with baskets of rolls ready to be set on the long rows of tables in the mess hall. The rolls were shaped like triplicate whorls, the symbol the goddess Luna used to mark those she blessed as taigas. Fairy clenched her jaw. How dare the ryuu use the taigas’ symbol! She had half a mind to poison their meal, and she began to reach for the satchel on her belt.
But then she stopped. If she poisoned the food, she’d kill not only Prince Gin’s ryuu but also the innocent taigas who’d been hypnotized.
Gods dammit.
She left her satchel alone but grabbed a roll and crammed it into her mouth. The buttery dough seemed to melt on her tongue, and she almost moaned aloud, catching herself at the last moment. She gobbled up three more rolls to silence herself. Then she found an empty rice sack next to the counter and upended a couple baskets of bread into the bag to bring to her friends.
“Hello, servants,” a gruff voice said from the entryway to the kitchen.
Fairy looked up to see three ryuu—a man and two women. She didn’t recognize them.
“Master Ram,” the head chef said, bowing and fawning. “And Masters Quill and Edgewood. How can we be of service?”
They stormed into the kitchen and began snatching dumplings out of pans and sticking their fingers in bowls of sauce to taste them. “We want snacks in the sparring arena in five minutes,” Quill barked.
Fairy seethed. When the taigas had been in charge here, they were always respectful and grateful to the staff.
Mariko and a handful of girls hurried over to the stove to transfer the dumplings from the pans to platters.
“Those are disgusting,” Ram said, spitting out the chewed-up remnants of a dumpling he’d pilfered. “There are consequences for serving garbage to the Dragon Prince and the most powerful army in the world..”
He glanced at a handful of knives on the counter next to him. One leaped into the air, as if of its own accord, and flew across the room.
It hit Mariko directly in the forehead.
“No!” Fairy shouted.
Blood dribbled around the blade. Mariko’s body and the platter of dumplings she’d been holding toppled to the floor.
But strangely, the kitchen didn’t erupt into chaos. None of the servants ran shrieking for cover.
Ram stared at Fairy.
Oh, gods help me, she thought as she realized why she’d been the only one to shout—everyone in here was hypnotized. Like with the people who sacrificed themselves during the Ceremony of Two Hundred Hearts, there would never be any panic, just continual devotion to whatever the Dragon Prince needed and wanted done. But Fairy had screamed and, therefore, stood out. . . .
“The dumplings!” she cried, throwing her arms up as if she were concerned solely for the food that had spilled when Ram killed Mariko, rather than being upset over the girl herself. Fairy threw her
self on the ground near Mariko and began frantically collecting pot stickers off the kitchen floor.
She felt the eyes of the three ryuu still on her.
But then finally, Quill shouted, “You heard Ram. Snacks in the sparring arena in five minutes—actually, three minutes now.” Then they turned and left.
The kitchen servants sprang back into action, as if one of their own hadn’t just been killed. Fairy fought back tears as she dragged Mariko to the side of the kitchen, out of the way of the commotion. The bread Fairy had eaten threatened to come up.
She couldn’t collapse here, though, not right now. She had to continue on her mission in order to save all of Kichona, including the Citadel’s staff.
Fairy looked around the room at the frenzied kitchen girls. She forced herself to memorize their faces, as well as Mariko’s lifeless body on the floor.
I am Fairy. I’m a taiga, and I still believe in the Society oath: Cloak of night. Heart of light.
Goodness could still prevail.
She would fight for everyone here who couldn’t fight for themselves, and she would make sure the rest of the kingdom didn’t succumb to their fate.
It was a promise.
Chapter Eight
Sora looked up at Prince Gin’s castle. It was a long way up the steep, winding road, and she wanted to make both her and Daemon invisible. But casting a spell on herself was one thing; doing it to someone else was another.
“What if I lose hold of the magic?” she asked. “Then they’ll see you.”
“Would it be easier if we moved as a single unit?” he asked.
“I don’t understand how that would help.”
“When I was a wolf and you were riding on my back, my magic was able to envelop all of us. What if that’s because we were all essentially one unit?”
The corner of Sora’s mouth quirked. “So you’re saying that if I rode piggyback on you, it would be easier to include you in my invisibility, instead of casting an entirely different spell for each of us. But it’s a lot of work for you.”
“Well, you could carry me, I suppose . . . ,” he said.
Sora sputtered.
Daemon laughed. “I’m just teasing. You need to focus all your energy on keeping us invisible, not hauling my deadweight up the mountain. Get on.”
She hit him for the joke, but as soon as she was on his back, all was forgiven. She wrapped herself around him and felt the strength of his muscles against her own. His hair brushed against her cheek, and she wanted to reach out and run her fingers through it. Sora swallowed a sigh that would give her away.
“Tell me when we’re invisible,” Daemon said.
She nodded into his shoulder.
Then Sora called to the ryuu magic. It was always there, everywhere, but it remained quietly in the background unless summoned. Now, at her beckoning, it appeared like emerald dust glimmering in the air, eagerly awaiting instructions.
Make us invisible.
The ryuu particles streamed into Sora’s body, the heat seeping through to her core, like a sponge greedily soaking in perfumed bathwater. She gave herself a second to revel in the feeling, despite the underlying guilt that the ryuu magic was a “gift” from her enemy.
But it was a gift she would use against him.
She looked down at Daemon. He was saturated with ryuu particles, too. “It worked,” she whispered into his ear. “You’re invisible, too.”
He didn’t move.
Gods, had something gone wrong with her spell? Sora tapped her hand on his chest. “Daemon? Are you all right? Answer me.”
His body trembled, and he shook his head as if waking. “I’m fine. That was just unexpected.”
“Did you feel it, too?”
“It’s like drinking a warm dose of joy. I didn’t feel it when you floated me over the Citadel walls earlier, but becoming invisible is . . . different.”
Sora smiled a little. There were plenty of reasons to hate ryuu magic, but the warmth that came with it wasn’t one of them.
They made their way up the winding mountain path. Daemon cast a cheetah spell on himself so they could cover the distance faster. Sora managed to keep them invisible, even after she got down from Daemon’s back. He just had to stay close by and be vigilant in case her magic dropped.
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—physically or emotionally—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.
They examined every room they passed for Empress Aki, listening for hollow spaces in the walls and floors where she could be imprisoned. They went up and down the other towers, too. But other than a locked room—which was totally silent—and a few ryuu here and there, the bloodstone castle seemed abandoned.
It was too quiet. The little hairs on Sora’s arms stood on end.
And too much time had passed already. “We need to get out of here soon,” Daemon said.
“One more passageway,” Sora said. There was a corridor up ahead that branched off from the others.
As they turned the corner, she took in a sharp breath.
If the rest of the castle was already eerie with its red-streaked, black stone walls, this dark hallway was the crown jewel. There were no windows, torches, or lanterns; the only light came from the sinister glow of what looked like giant dragon’s teeth, each taller than Sora and composed entirely of crimson crystals seemingly lit from within. It was like walking straight into a dragon’s jaws.
