by Evelyn Skye
Why wasn’t Emperor Gin controlling their minds, though?
“You can keep your shield against my powers of persuasion . . . for now,” the emperor said, shrugging. “You’ll tire eventually, and then I’ll have you.”
That blue glow around Daemon must be protecting them, even if it didn’t know how to break through Emperor Gin’s shackles.
“Weren’t there more of you?” the emperor asked. “Where is the fourth?”
Hana looked around. Where was Broomstick?
Fairy gave Sora a pointed look that the emperor didn’t catch, but Hana did. Fairy must have already alerted Broomstick through their bond. Hana exhaled in relief, and in that instant, she knew for sure which side she was on.
“My gemina is dead,” Fairy said to Emperor Gin, managing to bring false tears to her eyes. “Your barbaric skeletons murdered him.”
“At least they did something right,” the emperor said to Tidepool.
He pressed the blades against Mama and Papa’s skin again, and this time, he drew blood.
“What are you doing?” Sora said. “We surrendered. You have to let my parents go.”
Emperor Gin clucked his tongue. “The Society raised you naive, too. Glass Lady really was a weak commander.”
All the blood drained from Hana’s face. She materialized and stretched her hand toward him. “Your Majesty, stop!”
But the emperor was already slashing his knife across Mama’s throat.
“No!” Hana fell to her knees.
Mama’s eyes went still with the shock. Blood gushed from her neck.
Sora lunged for her, but the chains jerked her violently back into place.
“I love you . . . ,” Mama choked out, sounding like herself again, as if the blow of the knife had sliced away Zomuri’s influence.
Then her gaze turned desperate, searching for something important in the mere seconds she knew she had left.
Her eyes settled on Hana.
“My daughter,” she whispered, blood gurgling over the words. “My lost love.”
It was the last thing Mama said. Her body stilled, soaked in its own blood.
Hana’s hands flew to her mouth. “Oh gods. Mama . . .”
“Mina!” Papa cried. Whether it was irrationality caused by Zomuri’s influence or Papa’s own state of shock, he grabbed the blade at his throat with his bare hands and wrenched himself free. Emperor Gin merely laughed. Papa fell over Mama’s body, oblivious to his bloodied hands. He cradled her in his arms and wept hysterically. “My darling, my darling, my darling . . .”
Sora crumpled, and this time, the chains allowed it. She fell in a heap on the ground.
Daemon let out a plaintive howl. Fairy clutched his fur, real tears brimming over now.
“I didn’t know you were here,” the emperor said to Hana. “I’m sorry you had to see this. But you understand, don’t you?”
Hana didn’t respond. She teetered where she stood.
“Virtuoso!”
Her head snapped up.
“Did you hear me, or do I need to compel you?” Emperor Gin asked. “I’m sorry you had to see this, but I need you to look me in the eye and let me know you’re still with me. This storyteller was your mother by blood only, but I raised you and made you who you are.”
Hana trembled, unable to tear her eyes away from Mama’s lifeless body.
The emperor grabbed Hana by the collar of her tunic. “This woman was only one person, and one person is nothing compared to the greatness we are going to achieve for the kingdom. Do you understand? Are you with me?”
She looked at him with blank eyes. Yes, she understood. She knew now that his goals of bringing the Evermore to Kichona had always been driven by greed, by his need for glory, rather than wanting what was truly best for the people. Because if he had cared about his subjects, he wouldn’t have been willing to throw their lives away so wantonly.
Hana was guilty, too. She had deceived herself as much as he had deceived her.
But she could still try to fix it. She could fight back, in the way her sister had taught her—with all her spirit and stealth. From the inside.
And so Hana nodded. She would pretend she was his loyal soldier, but she would destroy him from within his own ranks. “Yes, Your Majesty. I—I’m with you.”
“That’s what I like to hear. Tidepool, take care of this body. Virtuoso, show the rest of them to their new prison.”
“Why don’t you just kill us now?” Sora said through a sob.
Does Sora not care about her soul being damned? Hana wondered. Mama’s death must have been the final straw.
I’ll care enough for both of us, Hana thought.
Emperor Gin looked at Sora with disdain. “Because even though you’re a piteous mess of snot, you are more valuable to me alive than dead. I could always use more ryuu, especially one with the power of invisibility, as well as whatever magic your pet has. And at some point, your wolf will give up and drop that shield. Then I’ll have you.” He turned to Hana. “Virtuoso?”
Whatever emotion she’d felt at Mama’s execution, Hana had smothered it, at least on the surface. She smiled with steely coldness again. “I’ll take care of everything, Your Majesty.”
“Good girl. I have an appointment with the tsarina of Thoma.”
“I hate you,” Sora spat at Hana.
It was like a spear through Hana’s heart. But she deserved it. She had to earn back Sora’s love and trust, and she would have to take the abuse for now, until she could prove herself.
Daemon glared at Emperor Gin. “You won’t defeat the Thomasians easily.”
“Oh, but I already have,” the prince said. “Did you think poking some holes in my ships would stop the ryuu for long? The tsarina is a prisoner aboard my ship. Now that I have dealt with you pests, I’m taking her back to my castle, where I’ll summon Zomuri and offer him her heart. One monarch down, only six to go.”
“No . . . ,” Daemon whispered.
With that, Emperor Gin strode off to the other side of the island, where his ship awaited.
But Sora didn’t seem to care about the emperor or the tsarina right now. She cared only for what was right in front of her, and she glared through her tears at Hana. “How could you?”
Hana couldn’t look at her, couldn’t face her disappointment. She stared instead at Mama’s bloody, lifeless body on the rocks, and Papa bent over her, rocking and wailing.
“Tidepool, go take stock of the situation on the rest of the island,” Hana said.
“But His Majesty tasked me with getting rid of that body.”
“I said, take stock of our positions!”
The ryuu bristled but saluted and marched off to follow orders.
Then Hana summoned ryuu particles to surround Sora, Fairy, and Daemon in orbs and floated them down into the waterfall. They would be safer in there as prisoners, for now, and then she’d get them out when she secured the situation out here on the island.
But first . . . Mama and Papa.
Chapter Forty-Eight
With her sister and friends gone, Hana walked over to Papa. She crouched beside him and touched his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly.
He turned on her, face red with rage, and grabbed both her shoulders. “Where have you been all these years? We thought you were dead. We mourned you. And then you reappear but on the side of that murderer, and you let him kill your mother. What is wrong with you? Why did you ever come back?” He shook Hana as if she were a rag doll.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean for any of this to happen!”
Papa sobbed and kept shaking her, although his effort grew weaker. “The Dragon Prince tore our kingdom apart once already and killed so many of your own taigas. How could you side with him?”
“I . . . I didn’t know any better. He was my family.”
“We are your family!” Papa collapsed against Hana and held her tightly.
Tears spilled over Hana’s cheeks. She�
��d been so young when she was abducted from the Citadel, but she still remembered some pieces of her childhood.
Whenever they had a school break like the Autumn Festival, she would ride together with Sora on a horse and Daemon would ride on a separate one, and they’d make the journey up the winding switchbacks of Samara Mountain together. Mama and Papa would rush out to greet them, Mama with tea and cake and Papa with a new ceramic trinket for Hana to take back to the Citadel.
They would spend the whole holiday together, packed into that tiny house, occasionally descending the mountain to the village for music and dancing and sweets. If it were All Spirits’ Eve, Mama would make paper-lantern kites for them to light and fly into the sky. And every evening, they’d retire to the living room and cozy up by the fire, while Mama told them one of her new stories. It was Hana’s favorite way to fall asleep.
She now looked over at Mama slumped and covered in blood. A new burst of tears wracked Hana’s body.
“I’m not worthy of being her daughter,” she said between gasps for air.
Papa tightened his embrace on Hana, as if wanting to strangle her and hug her forever at the same time. She buried her face into his shoulder.
“We have to give Mama a proper burial,” Hana said. Her tears slowed with the prospect of being able to atone, even if just a little.
“Mina loved the sea,” Papa said.
Hana nodded. Her parents’ home overlooked the ocean, and Mama ate every meal out on that deck except when it rained or snowed. Sometimes even then. She could never be close enough to the water.
“Then we’ll cremate her and scatter her ashes into the sea,” Hana said. There was no way she was going to just dump her mother’s body like Emperor Gin intended.
“You would do that?” Papa asked, looking up with red eyes.
“I’ve been wrong for too long,” Hana said. “Now I need to do what’s right.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
The chains shackling Fairy disappeared as her orb descended the waterfall. She rubbed at her ankles and wrists, watching her surroundings warily. Had Hana released them from Prince Gin’s chains? But why? Fairy prepared herself for another awful surprise to come.
The waterfall ended, but her orb kept plummeting deeper. She couldn’t see Wolf or Spirit through the churn of the water. Maybe she’d be imprisoned in this sphere beneath the surface forever.
Slowly, however, the orb began to rise. It arrived in a grotto, hidden from the outside by the waterfall, and the sphere floated to shore, where it opened.
Fairy stepped out.
A greasy voice welcomed her. “Hello there.”
She spun with a pair of stiletto blades out.
A ryuu stepped into the dim light. He was flanked by two skeletons and a corpse.
It had to be Skullcrusher’s brother, Skeleton.
Fairy had to disable his Sight.
Skeleton looked at her knives and chuckled. “Very amusing.”
His magic knocked the blades away, and he advanced, grabbing her waist and drawing her up against his body.
But Fairy had slipped another dagger out of her sleeve, and she rammed it into his right eye.
He screamed.
“That’s what you get for underestimating me,” she said. “What kind of idiot thinks a girl carries only two knives?”
Skeleton held his hand over the gushing blood. “You’ll pay for that.”
He sent the corpse woman at Fairy. It wore an Imperial Guard uniform and lurched forward, circling its rotting hands around Fairy’s throat.
Fairy tried desperately to breathe. The corpse’s grip was too strong. Fairy tried swiping with yet another knife, but even though she plunged it into the body, it had no effect, because the dead couldn’t feel any pain.
“You had to make this difficult, didn’t you?” Skeleton said. “But you’re pretty. I might lighten your punishment if you give me a kiss.”
Good, Fairy thought. Come closer. Because I have one more trick up my sleeve. She pried at one of the corpse’s fingers that was mostly bone, not flesh, and snapped it off.
Skeleton stalked over to Fairy and bent down, face close to hers. He wasn’t worried about her fighting back this time. The corpse had her prisoner.
Fairy used her last bits of energy and breath to stab him with the corpse’s finger bone in his uninjured eye.
Skeleton howled in pain. “You bitch!”
Without vision, his command on ryuu magic vanished. The corpse released Fairy, and they both tumbled to the ground. The two skeleton warriors collapsed into piles of bones.
Fairy wheezed and swallowed air, doubling over until her vision cleared.
But Skeleton wouldn’t give up that easily. He drew a sword. He’d still be able to fight. Like Fairy, he was trained for hand-to-hand combat in the dark, where vision wasn’t required.
“No, you don’t.” Fairy drew a stout knife from her pants leg and threw it into the artery in his throat. Skeleton cursed but kept advancing.
She scuttled to where he’d confiscated her stilettos and threw each of those into other major arteries.
Skeleton staggered forward.
Then he stilled and toppled to the ground, right on top of his corpse warrior.
Fairy fell to her knees, overcome with relief.
Daemon’s orb surfaced from the grotto pool. His eyes were wide as his sphere opened.
“Did you do that?” he asked.
Fairy blinked at Skeleton, the corpse, and the piles of bones. Then she nodded.
“He tried to kiss me,” Fairy said. “But this is what happens when you go around touching girls without their permission.”
Chapter Fifty
Sora was curled into a ball in the bottom of her orb, sobbing so hard she threw herself into coughing fits that left her gasping. Tears and snot dripped down her face, and she didn’t care that her orb was passing through a waterfall. She didn’t notice that their spheres carried them through a deep pool. She didn’t try to get up when the orb opened onto the shore of a damp grotto.
Mama was dead, and Hana had Papa as a prisoner.
Strong arms slipped beneath Sora and lifted her. She couldn’t uncurl her body to see who it was. The only thing holding her together was the ferocity with which she tucked into herself.
“I’m here,” Daemon said, cradling Sora to his chest as he carried her out of the orb. “Whatever you need, I’m here.”
Sora cried even harder.
He held her closer and didn’t let go.
Chapter Fifty-One
Tink, tink, tink.
Aki hit her metal spoon against the rock wall at the end of her tunnel.
Clank, clank, clank, something—or someone—answered in return.
She held her breath. It was possible she was imagining things. Or that there really was someone outside, perhaps another ryuu or skeleton, and this was a trap.
Still, she had to try again, because she didn’t know when she’d have another chance. Gin had paid her a visit not long ago to remind her that he had every intention of keeping her alive and suffering in this prison. But then there’d been a commotion as Gin and the two non-ryuu he’d brought—were they ordinary Kichonans? What was their significance?—hurried out of the waterfall and up to the surface. Aki had used the excuse of being emotionally overwhelmed and needing a nap to retire to her little cell in the grotto walls. Her skeleton captors had been all too willing to believe her fragility in the face of their mighty emperor.
But instead of resting, Aki crawled down her tunnel. She hadn’t known what she could do, since the solid rock still blocked her escape, but maybe she could dig in a different direction. She started scraping at the clay with her spoon, but each time, the metal had hit the wall. Until she’d gotten that clanking response.
Was it someone come to rescue her? Is that why Gin had left in such a hurry?
Aki was about to try again when a keening like an injured animal pierced the air. She jumped. The sound had come from t
he far end of the tunnel. What was happening out there? Aki had to hide the entrance to this route before the ryuu barged into her cell and she was discovered.
She hit her spoon against the rock wall rapidly, like an alarm, in case whoever was on the other side was here to help, and then she scurried down the tunnel back to her cell.
Aki exhaled in relief as she climbed out from beneath her mattress pallet and found no one in her room. She squeezed herself through the narrow passageway that led to the grotto opening, cautiously sticking out her head to see what had made the painful animal wail.
The awful ryuu Skeleton and his minions lay dead—truly dead—on the ground. Aki’s heart skipped as she saw Fairy standing over the bodies.
But then she saw another taiga apprentice—Wolf, she recalled from her time at the Citadel—holding a hysterical girl in his arms. This was the source of the cry Aki had heard.
She pushed out of the passageway and ran to their sides. Oh gods, the girl was Spirit. “What happened?” Aki cried.
“Your brother murdered her mother,” Fairy said, coming up behind her.
Aki took in a sharp breath. That’s who that couple was. Gin had been using them as bait. Or vengeance.
Spirit let out a desperate sob. “And Papa . . .”
“What happened to her father?” Aki asked, not wanting to hear the answer.
“Hana—Virtuoso—has him,” Wolf said with a snarl.
Aki shook her head. She had hoped she could still find some strand of goodness in her brother somewhere, but after the Ceremony of Two Hundred Hearts, the acid torture he’d intended for her, and now this, it was clear that there was no trace of the boy she used to consider her best friend. Perhaps because he was literally soulless, or perhaps he’d lost his conscience long before that. Either way, her twin brother was gone.
She looked at Spirit, the once fearless leader of this mischievous crew, crumpled like a wet handkerchief. “Mama . . . Papa . . . We have to save him . . . ,” Spirit whispered between sobs.
“You’re prisoners, too,” Aki said, understanding.
