by Evelyn Skye
“I don’t know. But most fruit bats don’t have tails. Sora saw them before, after I’d left Prince Gin’s ship. Another ryuu battled Menagerie in a duel by drawing the bats away with fruit.”
“My persimmons!” Fairy said.
“Exactly what I was thinking.”
Wolf swooped, swinging Menagerie beneath him. The ryuu cursed as his grip slipped farther down the rope.
Fairy stretched over Wolf’s side for one of their supply packs. She flipped open the top, grabbed the first persimmon she could, and threw.
At first, the bats in that part of the formation scattered. But then one of them realized what had been fired at them, and it broke off to chase the falling fruit. Several others, catching on, also dove off to pursue.
She pumped her fist. “Taigas: one; flying rats: zero.”
“Don’t get too cocky,” Wolf said.
“No such thing,” Fairy said.
She threw another persimmon. More bats peeled off to chase the food.
Fairy began a full-on assault, igniting a feeding frenzy. The bats’ neat formation fell apart as more of them got distracted by the prospect of dinner.
Meanwhile, Wolf flew faster and swerved from side to side to slow Menagerie’s progress. He was halfway up the rope, only five or so feet away now. But Wolf’s erratic flying made the ryuu pause his ascent just to hold on.
“Fly south to the pear orchards outside Tanoshi,” Fairy said, leaning closer to his ear. “We can lose the last of the bats there.”
Wolf veered southwest.
Menagerie flung a dagger into his belly.
“Agh!” Wolf lost altitude just as they reached the outskirts of the orchards, and Fairy screamed at the sudden dip.
Menagerie launched another knife at him.
“You bastard!” Fairy unstrapped herself from the harness.
“What are you doing?” Wolf shouted. But there was a quiver in his voice, and his words were almost carried away with the wind.
“I’m taking care of him,” she said. “You just get us into those orchards.” Half the bats were still on their tail.
She looped her arms around Wolf’s neck, then swung to the underside. She looked straight down at Menagerie, and dropped.
“What in the hells—” Menagerie shouted as Fairy smacked into him.
Fairy latched on to Menagerie, holding on for dear life. Wolf dove into the trees. The branches were laden with fruit, and their perfume filled the air.
The bats chirped in surprised delight. Within seconds, they dispersed every which way, each finding their own pear tree on which to gorge.
“Lower!” Fairy said. From here, she could see the knife handles protruding from Wolf’s belly and the blood flowing out like sadistic ribbons.
He obeyed and flew nearer to the ground. She and Menagerie crashed into it, and Fairy wrestled him from the invisible rope. They tumbled away together as Wolf flew on, carried forward by momentum.
Menagerie stabbed her in the side.
Fairy gasped but held on to him tightly.
The buzzard swooped down, this time carrying Hana. She leaped off.
“Retreat to Firebrand,” she ordered Menagerie. “I’ll finish these two.”
Menagerie freed himself from Fairy’s weakening grip and scrambled to his feet. “I didn’t get the map yet, Virtuoso,” he said.
“Don’t worry about it,” Hana said. “I’ll find it.”
“I can stay—”
“I want a private word with Fairy.” Hana said her name with disgust. “Now go!”
Menagerie remained for a second but then jogged over to the buzzard. “Enjoy your slow and painful death,” Menagerie said to Fairy. Then the buzzard lifted off with a wicked cry, taking Menagerie away.
Fairy shuddered but pulled a long, slender stiletto blade from her sleeve as Hana stalked closer.
“Stay back,” Fairy said.
Hana frowned but stopped.
She called on her ryuu magic and had it tear the knife loose from Fairy’s grip. The blade flew into Hana’s hand instead.
Fairy gasped at her own empty palm.
“You’re a fool if you think you can defeat a ryuu with a knife like this,” Hana said.
“We’re not trying to defeat you, you idiot,” Fairy said, exasperated. “We’re trying to save you. That Dragon Prince of yours might have damned you.”
Hana shot her a nasty glare. “I know.”
“Wait, what? You know, and you’re still serving him?” Fairy winced as more blood poured from the knife wound Menagerie had inflicted.
“I was in the study when you and Wolf read ‘Kitari and the Curse,’” Hana said, closing the distance between them. “Emperor Gin confirmed that it’s true the ryuu are damned. But you and Wolf said there might be a way that the gods can forgive us. I need to know more.”
“Then why are you here instead of in a library, researching?” Fairy tried to inch farther from Hana, but it was hard to move with a knife in her side. She didn’t want to pull it out, though, because then she’d bleed so much she might pass out. Fairy very much needed to be conscious right now.
Hana’s breath seemed to speed up, as if she was working hard to keep her composure. Or maybe she was just getting madder. “I’m here because I thought you and Wolf might have more information than I have.”
“And you thought that attacking us was a good way to get us to share what we know? Prince Gin really did a poor job of teaching you social skills.”
“I’m getting impatient.” Hana twirled Fairy’s stiletto blade between her fingers.
“You know,” Fairy said, still scooting slowly away on the dirt, “Spirit still wants you to join us.”
Hana’s entire body visibly tensed. “I already told her no.”
“So you’re still loyal to the Dragon Prince?”
Hana hesitated. It was only half a breath, but Fairy caught it.
“I am a ryuu warrior,” Hana said, her face growing hard again. She took a stride forward and erased all the progress Fairy had made in inching away. “Tell me what you know about undoing the damnation.”
Fairy laughed without humor. “Why, so you can destroy Kichona but redeem your soul right before you die? No, thank you, I’ll pass.”
Hana darted around Fairy and pushed the tip of the blade against the nape of her neck. “Tell me, or I’ll kill you.”
“Lucky for me, then, I don’t have anything to tell,” Fairy said. She’d been close to death so many times in the recent past it was surprisingly easy to remain calm. “Wolf and I don’t know anything yet, but we’re going to figure it out, somehow. And when we do . . . we’ll tell you.”
“You will?” Hana let the knife point slip.
“Of course,” Fairy said. “If you join us.”
“You’re just as infuriating as my sister!” Hana slashed the back of Fairy’s neck.
Fairy inhaled sharply. She didn’t dare to slap her free hand over it with Hana right there behind her, but Fairy could feel the blood beginning to trickle down her neck and onto her collar.
“Hana—”
“My name is Virtuoso!”
“No, you’re always going to be that tenderfoot I knew before you were ever given a taiga name. You’re Hana, who loved her sister and loved the Society. I know who you are deep inside, and Spirit does, too.”
Hana was silent behind Fairy. Was she going to strike her again? Or was she considering it?
“Tell me we have a deal,” Fairy said, trying again. At the same time, she tucked herself into a ball and somersaulted between two pear trees, getting away from Hana.
But when Fairy rolled and sprang to her feet, there was no one there with her.
“Where did you—?”
The wind rustled through the orchard. A few seconds later, the giant buzzard from earlier swooped down, paused as if picking up a passenger, then flew away.
Hana was gone. Fairy wasn’t sure what that meant, but what she did know was that Hana could very
easily have killed her, but she hadn’t. That was . . . something.
For now, though, Fairy needed to tend to these wounds. She had a powder made of dried thistledoon leaves that acted as a coagulant. But it wasn’t in the little satchel she kept on her belt; it was in one of the bags on Wolf’s harness. If she could find him, maybe she could stop both their bleeding.
Fairy held on to her side and the back of her neck and slowly rose to her knees.
“Wolf!” she shouted. “Where are you?” The effort sent searing pain through her rib cage.
He didn’t answer. But how far could he have gone? He’d probably crashed soon after she and Menagerie hit the ground.
“Wolf!”
Please be all right. Gods dammit, everyone was going down. Maybe they were fools for thinking they could fight the ryuu, for believing they had a chance against the Dragon Prince.
“Wolf!” Fairy sucked in a sob as the knife shifted inside her. The slice in the back of her neck didn’t seem too bad, but her side was in bad shape. She could pull out the knife, but then there’d be nothing to stop the bleeding. Her tunic and the left side of her trousers were already soaked as it was.
A short distance away in the orchard, in the opposite direction from where the buzzard had retrieved Hana, there was a weak howl.
“He’s alive,” Fairy whispered, barely holding it together as she started to run. She pressed her side, wincing as the blade stabbed her insides with every bouncing stride, but she didn’t slow down. Not until she reached Wolf, collapsed at the base of a pear tree in a puddle of blood.
“I’m here,” she said, forgetting her own wound for the moment and scrambling to the bag that held the vial of powdered thistledoon.
Wolf looked at her but didn’t seem to really see her. He just whimpered “Sora?” and then his eyes rolled to the back of his head.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Fairy knelt next to Wolf, frozen.
“What did you say?”
Of course there was no response. He was unconscious, and “Sora” hung in the air like the last, off-key note of a song.
The throb of the knife flared in Fairy’s side, and at the same time, Wolf’s entire body shuddered.
Get yourself together, Fairy thought.
Besides, there must be an explanation. Maybe he could feel Spirit through their gemina bond and that was why he called her name. Regardless, Fairy was made of stuff too strong to be taken down by boyfriend problems. She could deal with it later. Right now, she had lives to save, his and her own.
Fairy pressed a hand to Wolf’s belly and grasped one of the knives with her other. “This is going to hurt,” she said. “But it has to come out. I’m sorry.”
She took a deep breath, then pulled the blade out, feeling the flesh try to hold on to it for a moment before letting go. Blood started to gush immediately, and she smashed her palm against the wound while she discarded the knife and reached for her vial of thistledoon.
To apply the powder to the wound, Fairy had to let go of Wolf for a second so she could pour the thistledoon into her hand. She moved away from his stomach and tilted the vial.
When she looked back, though, his blood had already congealed. “How . . . ?”
Liga had shown them that demigods could heal faster than humans. Could that be what was happening?
Fairy funneled the thistledoon powder back into the vial and moved her hands to the other knife in Wolf’s belly. I hope I’m right about this. She extracted the blade, and the same stomach-turning sensation of metal sliding from bloody flesh reverberated through her fingers.
This time, though, she didn’t look away. And as she watched, Wolf’s bleeding slowed. His skin melded together, smooth like molten rock, where there had, only seconds ago, been a vicious cut. It still looked angrily red and raw, but it was no longer an open wound.
“Holy heavens,” Fairy said.
Her own wound stung then, and she remembered that Menagerie had also left her a sharp souvenir.
Fairy didn’t want to pull it out. What if she fainted? Or died? Then there would be no one to take care of Wolf. But if she left it in, it would only make the damage worse, and she might faint anyway from the shock of the foreign object jammed into her ribs and the inevitable infection for leaving a wound exposed like this.
She poured the powdered thistledoon into her hand again, then clenched her teeth and slid the knife out of her side, gasping. Stars blinded her vision.
“Fairy?” Wolf asked, his voice like sandpaper.
It was enough to remind her where she was, what she had to do. She smacked her palm against her side and smeared thistledoon into the wound, painting her skin with blood in the process. She bit her knuckle as the thistledoon did its work, stinging like salt against her raw flesh. The pain was almost enough to push her over the brink to unconsciousness.
She held her side and curled into Wolf, tucking herself into the space against his chest, away from his healing belly. “Wolf,” she whispered, answering him. “We’re okay. We’re going to be okay. Just . . . rest.” Her eyes fluttered, tempted to close.
Something shimmery darted through the trees. Fairy sat up, as excruciating as the movement was. At first, she thought it was a beetle, but then it landed right in front of them.
“One of Spirit’s messenger rays,” she said.
Wolf stirred beside her, but he didn’t say anything. She didn’t know if he was still awake.
Fairy’s hands shook. Would the message explain why her gemina bond had gone dark? What if it was a distress call? She fumbled with the tiny paper and only managed to get it open after four tries.
Fairy read aloud, in case Wolf was listening. “‘We have Prince Gin’s soul. But Broomstick fell in the Lake of Nightmares, and he’s not quite himself.’”
It was suddenly hard to breathe, and she didn’t know if it was this news about Broomstick or the knife wound in her side. Or both.
She forced herself to keep reading Sora’s message. “‘We’re going to Paro Village to recover. If you can fly, please meet us there, and bring Liga. Maybe he’ll know how to help.’”
Fairy collapsed against Wolf’s chest. The swell of relief and distress, combined with the pain of her wounds, was too much. Broomstick was alive, thank the gods. But what had happened to him in the Lake of Nightmares? No wonder Fairy’s gemina bond had gone blank.
Wolf shifted and stretched his leg to wrap around her. “We’ll go . . . soon,” he said.
She wanted to believe it. But she also knew things could end badly if they tried to travel while hurt like this. “We’re no good to them, no good to Kichona, if we’re dead.”
“Sleep, then,” he said. “When we wake up, we’ll . . .”
Wolf didn’t finish what he was going to say. And it didn’t matter anyway because Fairy could barely hold on to consciousness either. The pain of her wound and her anxiety over Broomstick conspired against her, and like weighted curtains, her eyelids fell closed.
At first Fairy thought it was a dream, because the space around her was a vacuum. No colors or sounds. Neither hot nor cold. Just a black abyss, sucking Fairy deeper and deeper into its depths.
Until suddenly, her bare feet touched sand. Or what seemed like sand, soft and cool between her toes. Everything remained black, but Fairy reached her arms around her. Her fingertips landed on smooth walls.
A moment later, beautiful emerald light appeared a short distance away, sparkling to reveal the tunnel she stood in.
“Where am I?”
A whisper beckoned from the end of the tunnel. Come, young apprentice. You did not get to be a warrior in life, but as a reward for your service to Luna, you can play with more powerful magic in death.
“Oh gods.” Panic fluttered in Fairy’s throat. This wasn’t a dream. “I’m dead.”
Except . . . wait.
The Dragon Prince had said he stole Sight from the afterlife without actually dying. So Fairy wasn’t dead yet, not until she stepped across to th
e light.
The green glitter was mesmerizing, sparkling like millions of shards of emeralds. Warmth blossomed from the end of the tunnel, and the magic smelled of all of Fairy’s favorite things—crushed lavender and rose water and rock sugar—like the most perfect bubble bath ever to be drawn.
Fairy walked slowly toward it, stopping on the threshold.
The promise of otherworldly joy sang to her, and she leaned hungrily toward it. Maybe this was why Prince Gin was so obsessed with bringing the Evermore to Kichona. He knew there were things much greater than ordinary life, and he wanted them. Just like Fairy wanted to luxuriate in that green light now.
Do not be afraid, the afterlife whispered. Those you loved in life will follow you in death when their time comes.
But another voice in the back of her head called to her. “Fairy, it’s not your time yet. . . .”
The sensation of a pair of arms latched on to her as if in an embrace. Was it Wolf from the other side, his demigodness somehow allowing his voice to follow her here? Fairy’s heart pounded so fiercely it echoed into the afterlife.
She remembered that she was still needed in the world of the living.
An idea flickered in Fairy’s head. She could steal the knowledge of Sight and return as a ryuu. Then both she and Spirit would have these powers, plus Wolf with his demigod ones. It would help the odds in their fight to save Kichona.
But Fairy quickly killed the notion, because she remembered that taking the ability to see the magic like that would doom her, just like it had Prince Gin. She closed her eyes and purged her memory of how the emerald particles looked. I leave that knowledge here, where it belongs.
Then Fairy stepped back, away from the end of the tunnel. “I’m not going to die,” she said to the afterlife. “Not yet.”
The tunnel sighed, almost as though disappointed. But Fairy’s will was strong, and after another whine, the green and the tunnel imploded, as if sucked into a single point. A shock of bright white blinded her vision.
Fairy jolted where she lay on the ground in the orchard, but she couldn’t move. Her eyes flew open, and she saw not green dust but everything else as she’d known it. The blue of the sky above. The gnarled brown of the tree branches.
