A grim smile caught the corner of Daemon’s mouth. “Stubbornness really does run through your veins. All right, then, what’s the plan?”
Sora heaved a sigh of relief that he was willing to do this with her. Of course, she’d known, mostly, that he would—Daemon would be loyal to the end.
I just hope this isn’t the end, she thought.
She pointed at the alley next to the taiga command building. “We dart in there and use gecko spells to scale the wall. We’ll coordinate our timing to spring onto the roof. If we surprise the ryuu, it will buy us a little time to take more of them out and allow the taiga warriors to also join the fight.”
Daemon looked from where they stood against the harbormaster’s shanty to the alley. They’d be exposed while they ran across the docks to the alley. A moment later, he said, “All right.”
She nodded. They checked their weapons, making sure they were where they were supposed to be and easily accessible, and cast moth spells to dampen their whispers. Then they prepared to cross the pier to the alley.
Daemon watched the ryuu on the roof. Most were turned toward the taigas in the center, but a few patrolled the edges of the building. Sora waited impatiently, itching to sprint.
Suddenly, the wind began to shriek. Dust and rocks and leaves kicked up from the ground. Sora and Daemon shielded their eyes as the wind blew harder.
“All hail Prince Gin,” a voice like a frigid breeze said. Goose bumps prickled on Sora’s skin.
A moment later, a violent tornado tore down the length of the pier, ripping up boards and tearing out posts. A ryuu spun in the center, powering the storm.
But at the top, Prince Gin sat as calmly as if riding in a palanquin.
The tornado paused right in front of the Society building, then shot upward to the roof.
“Now!” Daemon said, lunging out toward the alley, using the noise and chaos of the dust storm for cover.
Sora didn’t wait to follow. She darted out behind him, and a few seconds later, she plastered herself against the black-walled side of the alley, along the taigas’ building.
“What in Luna’s name was that tornado?” Daemon whispered.
“Another ryuu. Come on, we need to climb.”
Sora splayed her fingers into a gecko mudra, with precisely five-eighths of an inch between each finger. She quietly chanted the spell that would allow her to stick to the wall as she climbed.
Next to her, Daemon did the same thing, although it took him several attempts at spreading his fingers, whispering the spell, shaking out his hands when he’d failed, and starting again. He got it on the fourth attempt. His embarrassment at his magical shortcomings again manifested itself like a cringe through their gemina bond, their connection actually contracting.
“We can do this,” Sora whispered. “I believe in you. In us.”
He sighed in frustration but nodded.
They began to scale the wall, the tips of their fingers like suction cups.
Before they reached the top, the noise and wind from the tornado disappeared as violently as it had come, its fury replaced by a sudden vacuum of movement and sound.
The taiga warriors above gasped.
“It can’t be,” a woman said. “You died during the Blood Rift.”
Prince Gin laughed, but it was joyful, not condescending at all. “I’m alive and well, and grateful for it,” he said. “My taiga brothers and sisters, how I have missed you and Kichona. Not a day has passed in ten years when I didn’t think of you. I can’t tell you how happy I am to be home.”
“I’m not sure we are as happy as you,” the same woman who’d spoken up before said. “What is the meaning of terrorizing the city and rounding us up like cattle?”
Prince Gin sighed. “I apologize that it was a bit . . . rough. But I needed to show you how things are different from a decade ago. I still believe that Kichona is destined for greatness, and that you—the taigas—are destined for greatness as well. We didn’t have the means to achieve that in the past, but we do now.”
Daemon glanced over at Sora. “Because of the new magic?” he whispered.
“I think so.”
They began climbing upward again.
Another taiga warrior spoke up. “How have things changed since the Blood Rift? Because other than some flashy circus tricks with firework snakes and rings of fire, it seems that your warriors’ tactics are the same as ever—destructive to the point of disregard for the very citizens we are meant to protect. Your Highness,” he added hastily, as if remembering to whom he spoke.
Sora frowned. Despite Prince Gin being a known traitor, he nevertheless commanded respect.
There was a contemplative moment of silence, and then Prince Gin said, “I appreciate your opinion, and again, I apologize for our unruly arrival. I love every citizen of this kingdom. I’ve come back because of them.”
“And what about us?” the first woman asked. “Will you murder us like you did our fellow warriors during the Rift?”
“Your Highness,” a raspy girl’s voice said. “I think it may be wise if you used your—”
The prince let out another sigh, but this one was colored with a hint of impatience. The ryuu who’d spoken up stopped talking.
The wind around the Society command building kicked up again. But though it should have been cold here, the breeze kissed Sora’s cheek like a woolen blanket, warm and soft from years of loving use. She closed her eyes for a moment, basking in the sensation of being fireside with her friends, telling each other stories and filling their bellies with butter cookies and rose-apple wine. She felt a lingering trace of tension, but she couldn’t remember why she’d been stressed a moment ago. All her worries melted with the warmth and trickled away.
“As I was saying,” Prince Gin said, “it is for the taigas and the people of Kichona that I’ve returned. I know you thought me dead, but I’ve only been in exile. Let me tell you about the past decade.”
“Yes, I want to know,” the previously confrontational woman said, her tone now the complete opposite, brimming with curiosity and subservience.
I want to know too, Sora thought. A pleasant buzz saturated her every cell, like she’d drunk a cup of spiked coffee.
Then she frowned. Why had she thought that?
Something was off. But she wasn’t quite sure what.
No, a feeling inside of her countered. Nothing is wrong. Prince Gin has only the best for Kichona in mind.
“It’s true,” Prince Gin said to the woman who’d spoken up earlier, “I was near death at the end of the Blood Rift. We fled across the ocean and lived in exile in the mountains of Shinowana. It took over a year to nurse me back to health. But one day, I woke up, and it was as if the gods had given me new eyes. Some people see light when they’re dying. I saw light when I began living again. It turned out to be a greater form of magic, and I believe the gods showed it to me for a reason.
“Now, I’ve come back to Kichona to bless all of the taigas with the ability to perform this ryuu magic. To unlock each of your potentials. To make this kingdom as great as Zomuri—and Sola and Luna, of course—deserve it to be.”
“You would teach us your magic?” one of the taigas asked.
“Yes,” Prince Gin said. “Do you want it? Do you want to become a ryuu and bring glory and paradise to Kichona?”
“Yes, Your Highness,” the taiga shouted.
“Yes, Your Highness,” Sora said.
The moth spell had kept her answer muted so the ryuu couldn’t hear, but Daemon crawled sideways over to her. His eyes were wide with alarm. “What do you think you’re doing?” he hissed into her ear.
“The prince is wonderful,” she said. “I like what he’s offering.”
“Gods, no.” Daemon stared at her for a second, as if not understanding the momentousness of Prince Gin’s return. Then he clamped one of his sticky hands over Sora’s mouth. “He’s got you under some kind of spell. You have to fight it.”
His panic was as sharp as a pike through their gemina bond. But Sora didn’t understand why. Everything was lovely.
She released one of her hands from the wall and pried his fingers off her face. “Prince Gin suffered exile for a decade but then had the generosity to come back to Kichona to share his new gift with us. He wants what is best for the kingdom. Just like we do.” She felt even happier now, explaining it to him. Her insides were all warm and mushy, like a vat of pudding just off the stove.
Daemon grabbed her and wrapped his left arm around Sora’s throat.
“What are you—?”
He jabbed his right thumb into a spot at the top of her head, a place that was soft in newborns but grew hard when the skull solidified. Hard, that is, unless you were trained in hidden pressure points.
Sora let out a strangled cry and writhed against Daemon’s grasp.
He tightened his hold against her windpipe.
She gasped.
And then she went slack.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sora was limp against Daemon. The dead weight of her body almost made him fall backward onto the ground.