by Evelyn Skye
And the very real, muscled arms that held her tightly.
“You’re back.” Wolf exhaled but didn’t loosen his grip.
“I’m back.”
“I thought I lost you.”
Fairy leaned back against him and smiled weakly. “I’m not that easy to kill.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Hana returned to the Citadel, feeling as if a few chinks were missing from her armor. Fairy’s mention of Sora had caught her off guard. She’d thought she was over her sister wanting to recruit her. Hells, they had literally been at each other’s throats during the last battle. Why did hearing about Sora get to her now?
Maybe because Hana had never before questioned her own loyalty to Emperor Gin. His beliefs and his promises had been the moral guideposts for most of her life. But now . . .
“We should report our failure to His Majesty,” Firebrand said as they passed through the fortress gates. Hana had told them that Wolf showed up and used his strange magic to help him and Fairy escape.
“Go away,” Hana grumbled at Firebrand.
“But the mission—”
“I’ll take care of it later,” she said with more force this time.
“Virtuoso,” Menagerie chimed in, “with all due respect, we’re supposed to report mission outcomes immediately.”
“Fine! Tell him whatever you want!” Hana’s magic hurled Firebrand and Menagerie across the courtyard, slamming them into the walls of the nearest building.
The ryuu gaped at her, but they didn’t try to approach her again.
Hana glared once more, then marched away.
What to do? How to feel?
Fairy had promised to share how to undo the damning of souls if they discovered it. But that was dependent on them not only finding it but also surviving long enough to get the information to Hana. And what if Hana did join them? Emperor Gin would crush them. Why did her sister and her friends find it so appealing to die for the losing side of history?
If Hana stayed with the ryuu, however, there was a chance she would live long enough to see the Evermore. Then the damnation would be moot.
Of course, there was the possibility that in the many forthcoming years of war with the mainland, Hana would be killed. And in death, she’d be trapped in the hells forever.
She tore at her hair as she stomped through the Citadel. The other ryuu who saw the storm clouds in her expression darted out of her way.
What to do?
The best way to handle this, Hana thought, is to lie low for now. Continue fighting for Emperor Gin, because maybe he was right and this would all be worth it. But she’d keep an eye on Sora and her friends, in case they figured out how to undo the ryuu’s damnation.
And what about how to feel?
“The best thing to feel right now,” Hana said quietly to herself, “is nothing.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Sora had used ryuu magic to carry Broomstick out of Naimo Ice Caves, but as soon as they emerged from the caverns, he’d woken up, and she didn’t have the heart to knock him out again. Plus, she realized she couldn’t keep up the effort of using magic to carry him all the way to Paro Village.
Unfortunately, he was still convinced it would be better for Kichona—and all the kingdoms on the mainland—if he remained buried deep inside the Lake of Nightmares. So Sora had tied him up with invisible rope and laid him across his horse’s saddle, carried like a prisoner. Undignified but necessary. And maybe the bouncing of the horse would jolt the rest of the water out of his lungs, if that was, in fact, what was ailing him. That wouldn’t be a bad thing. Sora’s most immediate priority was fixing Broomstick. But she also had to get them back to the Imperial City soon. The soul pearl in her pocket needed to be reunited with Prince Gin.
Late the next day, they reached Paro Village. Even though she’d been here before, it still struck her as such an oddity. The little hamlet was so deeply buried in dense forest that Sora wondered how sunlight managed to reach it. Thick curtains of flowering vines draped heavily everywhere—around the perimeter of town, in between the shops and homes, even in the middle of its main street. The thick perfume and dampness of foliage weighted the air, and it took a little more effort than normal to breathe.
She released the rope that bound Broomstick. It was too far for him to run back to the ice caves now.
Sora really didn’t want to go into the village, though. After seeing her parents, she and Broomstick had avoided people. If she’d had her choice, they would have headed straight to Jade Forest. But Broomstick needed a place to recover, and hopefully her messenger had gotten to Daemon and Fairy, and they’d be on their way with Liga soon.
“Let’s skip the village and go around to the Society of Taigas outpost,” she said. “There will be beds there and maybe food, if those feral little kids didn’t eat it all.”
“Feral kids?” Broomstick asked. He hated and feared himself, but otherwise he still functioned normally. The key, Sora thought, was to keep conversations away from Prince Gin and Zomuri.
Not an easy task, given the circumstances.
Still, she took what she could get in the moment. “When Daemon and I were here last time, a bunch of children had overtaken the outpost, playing at being taigas. They pelted us with acorns and rocks. I’m kind of looking forward to seeing the Little Ferals again.”
Broomstick’s smile vanished.
She understood immediately. He was worried what he might do to the kids, how he might accidentally charm them, then hurt them.
Sora had another worry, though: the possibility that the kids had been tainted by Zomuri, too.
They pushed through the final curtain of flowers and emerged into a clearing.
“Where’s the Society outpost?” Broomstick asked, confused that there was nothing but trampled undergrowth and mossy boulders in front of them.
“Look up,” Sora said.
He craned his neck upward. “Daggers,” he said. The Society post was a sprawling black structure with black thatched roofs that spanned across half a dozen trees, camouflaged into the shadows of the thick canopy of leaves. Octagonal platforms were interspersed through branches around the tree house, places where taiga warriors could hide and launch weapons in case of attack. And then there were the non-fighting elements of the post, like the hammocks swinging between boughs and the sundeck overlooking a small lake behind the treehouse. Paro Village may have been one of the most remote outposts in the kingdom, but it would not be a bad place to serve the Society.
Twenty or so tiny smudged faces popped up around the tree house, in windows, doorways, and even from the thatched roof.
“Hey-o, fierce taigas of Kichona!” Sora shouted. “We are weary warriors from the north, come to see the great fort of Paro Village. Will you allow us to enter your fortress?” Her phrasing was a bit stilted, but from her prior experience with the children here, they liked playacting. Sora thought the theatrical formality might predispose them to liking her better, instead of pelting her like they had before. Broomstick hung back and watched, keeping himself out of the way.
A girl, about ten years old, stepped forward. Her hair stood in every direction, and it was tangled with branches. Little Feral, indeed.
“Why should we let you in?” she said.
“Are you the commander?” Sora asked, continuing to play their game.
“Yes. I’m Rilyko— I mean, I’m Whiplash.” The girl put her hands on her hips and stood taller. It was cute.
But Sora pretended to take her very seriously. “Commander Whiplash, we are on our way to a secret mission for Emperor Gin. And we need your help.”
“A secret mission?” Her eyes lit up. Kichonans looked up to taigas but the children especially. Sora’s life was their fantasy.
“Yes,” she said solemnly. “I can’t tell you what it is exactly, but it involves spying and blowing up our enemies.”
“Sharp Ax!” Whiplash called to a boy, probably five or six years old, who must have given
himself the adorable, if awkward, taiga name. “Let them in.”
The boy hurried to unroll a rope ladder. After tugging to make sure it was securely tied above, Sora climbed up.
“Well?” Sharp Ax asked, tapping his little foot as he scowled at Broomstick. “Are you coming up? Or are you chicken?”
Broomstick flushed. But he couldn’t resist the boy, who looked a lot like the tenderfoots in the Citadel mentoring program. Broomstick climbed up the rope ladder. Still, when he reached the top, he kept his distance from everyone.
In the meantime, the soul pearl seemed to stir in the hidden pocket in Sora’s collar, and she flinched. It was as if the pearl had been asleep but had now awakened, if that were possible. It strained against the thick cloth of the tunic, like an iron pellet attracted to a magnet. The movement was faint enough that it wasn’t visible, but it was alarming, and Sora pressed her hand against her chest in an attempt to stop it.
Why was it moving now, when it had been dormant before?
The little commander strode up to Sora and Broomstick, brandishing a switchblade. “Both of you, lift the backs of your tunics.”
“Excuse me?” Sora, surprised at the child’s brashness, momentarily forgot about the pearl.
“If you’re really a taiga,” the girl said, “the mark of the silver triplicate whorls will be there on the small of your back. If not, I’ll slice your throat from ear to ear.”
Sora didn’t know what to say. First off, there was a child threatening her with a knife, which was both amusing and alarming, because some of the most dangerous people were the ones who thought they knew how to use weapons but didn’t. And second of all, Sora couldn’t let the kids undress her just because they wanted proof of who she and Broomstick were. That was not how this power dynamic was supposed to work, even if Sora was playing along that Whiplash was in charge.
“How about this instead?” Sora pulled a throwing star off the leather strap on her chest, twirled it in her fingers a few times, then sent it flying into a nearby tree.
Whiplash screwed up her face. “Any normal person could do that.”
But Sora wasn’t dissuaded. “Do normal people walk around with cases full of explosives?” She gestured at Broomstick.
He hesitated, but eventually he opened one of his bags and slid out a slim metal box. He flipped the lid open to reveal almost a dozen small bombs nestled in individually cushioned pockets.
“Whoooa,” Whiplash said, suddenly an awestruck child. “Okay, you’re good.” She put away her switchblade. “We’re excited to have you here. We can show you all the progress we’re making, and when you go back north, you can report on our work to His Majesty.”
Broomstick’s forehead wrinkled at the mention of the Dragon Prince. “Your progress?”
Whiplash marched ahead as if she really were a commander. “When the emperor was here, he asked everyone in Paro Village to begin preparations not only for his coronation but also for pursuing the Evermore.” She checked to make sure Sora and Broomstick were following, then continued down the hall.
The pearl in Sora’s collar strained in the same direction. Is it attracted to Whiplash for some reason?
Meanwhile, the little commander kept talking. “The grown-ups are busy chopping down the forest for wood so Emperor Gin can build ships to cross the ocean. Obviously, we kids aren’t big enough to do that, so we’ve been working nonstop on other things, like stitching together sails.” They arrived at a large room, probably the taiga warriors’ main gathering hall. There were two dozen children spread across the floor, huddled over large swaths of canvas, needles and thread in hand, sewing edges of fabric together.
The soul pearl started rolling in the small space of Sora’s collar pocket, pulling to the right, then switching to the left, then forward, as if it wanted to go in all directions and couldn’t decide.
It’s the kids, Sora realized. Not just Whiplash in particular—she’d just happened to be the closest at first. But what was it about the Little Ferals that the pearl was attracted to?
Sora watched them for only a few seconds before she noticed something besides how diligently they worked. She leaned over to Broomstick. “They’re scrawny. And filthy.”
“It’s like they’re literally working nonstop, without breaks for food or baths,” he said. “Why would they do that?”
Sora looked around the room again, but before she could answer, Whiplash ushered them out to a deck that overlooked a lake.
“What’s going on here?” Broomstick asked. There was another dozen children out there, some wading in the brackish water, some sitting on the pier with fishing poles. Despite the late autumn chill, some of the boys had their shirts off. Sora could see their ribs beneath their mud-crusted skin.
At the presence of more children, the pearl began pushing against her collar pocket again, this time as if trying to get into the lake.
“We’re catching frogs and fish to help feed the emperor’s navy,” Whiplash said. “And only a handful of us have drowned so far,” she added proudly, pointing to four lifeless bodies on the far shore.
“What?” Sora rushed to the edge of the deck in alarm. “Kids have died? You have to stop. How are the adults letting this happen? You’re just children!”
“We are not just children!” the little commander shouted. “We have sworn our lives to His Majesty, and we won’t rest until he has what he wants!”
All the blood drained from Broomstick’s face. “Um . . . Commander Whiplash, do you mind if I have a moment in private with my colleague?”
The girl eyed him suspiciously.
“To explain to her why what you’re doing is important,” he lied, turning on his easy smile so Whiplash would feel like they were on the same side.
She scrutinized him, as if she could see whether he was telling the truth.
“Permission granted,” she said. “But only for a minute.”
When she’d gone inside, Broomstick stepped up to the deck’s edge next to Sora. “When you and Wolf were in Paro Village before, Prince Gin had already been here, hadn’t he?”
She nodded, still staring in shock at the corpses of the Little Ferals who’d drowned. “This was the first place he came to gather Hearts.”
“So these villagers—the grown-ups and the kids—were hypnotized?”
“Yes.”
“I think that’s why they’re so devoted to sewing sails and catching fish,” Broomstick said. “Prince Gin brainwashed them into absolute loyalty. It’s different from how Zomuri’s influence made your parents and the dumpling maker irritable. This is actual hypnosis, like what Prince Gin did to the taigas, which means the citizens of Paro Village will do whatever he needs. But unlike adults, the kids don’t know how to balance that with taking care of themselves.”
Sora tore her gaze away from the lake. She couldn’t look anymore. “Stars. The kids would rather starve or die than stop working because of the Dragon Prince’s magic.”
That’s when it hit her. The pearl moved toward the Little Ferals not because they were children but because Prince Gin’s magic had touched them. His soul was attracted to his magic, to traces of him. Which made sense—a body and soul were meant to be together while on earth, and the soul was trying to get back to the Dragon Prince. Right now, these kids, with his magic in them, were the closest thing to the man himself.
But Sora had also been touched by Prince Gin’s powers—she had Sight and the use of ryuu particles. Why hadn’t the pearl reacted to her?
Maybe it had. She thought back to when she’d opened the jewelry box in Zomuri’s vault. The pearl had rolled off the green satin pillow right into Sora’s hands. And come to think of it, her chest felt a little tender where the soul pearl’s pocket was, as if it had been burrowing against the collar to get as close to her as possible. Only now, surrounded by other traces of the Dragon Prince’s magic, had it started moving toward them.
She pressed her hand to her collar again. The pearl was still moving,
but her pocket was secure; the soul shouldn’t be able to escape unless Sora let it out.
But this could serve as an excellent warning system if any ryuu came near.
Broomstick was still staring at the Little Ferals. “We need to convince them to take care of themselves.”
Sora shook her head sadly. “If it were that simple, we could have talked sense into the other taigas after Prince Gin took their minds. We wouldn’t be the only ones left fighting him.”
“What about your ryuu magic?” Broomstick said, pacing the deck. He waved his arms in the directions of the kids at the lake and inside the tree house. “You can’t cast some kind of counterspell? They’re all going to work themselves to death soon.”
“There’s nothing I can do to alter Prince Gin’s magic,” Sora said, “other than kill him to release all those under his spell. That was our ultimate goal. It still is our goal. I’m just waiting for Daemon and Fairy and Liga to show up. They’ll help you feel one hundred percent like yourself again, and then we’ll go put an end to Prince Gin and find Empress Aki.”
Broomstick glanced at the lake where, with a maniacal fervor, the children gutted frogs and strung fish up to dry. He looked inside the outpost, where Whiplash yelled at another child over a mistake in the sails.
“What if you’re wrong? What if there’s no turning back from this?”
“I refuse to accept that,” Sora said. “For their sake, for my parents’, and for yours.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
How’s your wound?” Daemon asked as he knelt next to Fairy. The pear trees shielded them from the direct sun, but even so, he tried to provide her with more shade as he brought his fingers gingerly to the blood-soaked fabric on her side.
Even at so light a touch, Fairy winced. “You were worse off than me,” she said.
Daemon’s fingers went instinctively to his stomach. He lifted his tunic. There were only scars now where he’d been stabbed. “Holy heavens.”
“It’s unfair that you can heal so fast. But my wound is worth it,” she said, still weak from just coming back from the brink of death but already with a lilt of humor in her voice. “Hana came, and I got to talk to her.”
