She had known there was a good chance that she and Sora would cross paths as the ryuu swept through Kichona, since Prince Gin intended to hypnotize every tenderfoot, apprentice, and warrior in the Society to make them his. But she’d thought she had long ago buried all the emotions that came with thinking about her family. If there was to be a reunion with her sister, it was supposed to come later, at the Citadel, where apprentices were based. Instead, Hana had run into Sora sooner than expected—too soon—and she wasn’t prepared.
In the distance, the lights of Tiger’s Belly’s harbor twinkled, reflecting in the water much like the thousands of candles that were lit around the lake at the Citadel during All Spirits’ Eve. Tenderfoots were not allowed to partake in the midnight festivities because it was much too late for them to be awake. But each year, Hana had longed to stay up to watch the skit where the older apprentices dressed up in costumes like the mythological animal constellations from the sky, and the music played into the early hours of the morning, and the teachers drank too much sake and fell asleep on the benches of the amphitheater underneath the stars. So when Hana was five years old, Sora had “borrowed” the joey part of the kangaroo constellation costume, put Hana inside, and carried her around all evening, pretending she was just an inanimate stuffed toy. That’s how she’d gotten to see the All Spirits’ Eve celebrations.
Hana almost smiled now. But then she remembered that it was also the only All Spirits’ Eve festival she’d ever witnessed, because after that, she’d been whisked away from Kichona during the Blood Rift, and Sora and the Society had done nothing about it.
“I hate you, Sora,” Hana said in an attempt to remind herself how to feel.
But the wind swallowed her declaration and stole it away.
Prince Gin walked up to the bow of the ship. He stood silently beside her for a few minutes, looking out at their next target.
Finally, he spoke. “Family reunions aren’t always pleasant. You think blood is strong enough to bind you, but the truth is, sometimes those bonds are shattered irreparably. In the end, it’s better to choose your family than to remain prisoner to what you were born into. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Hana nodded. The prince was sharing his own experience, and she realized how much that sliver of vulnerability was worth. Most of the original ryuu saw him only as their passionate leader, who would stop at nothing to bring to Kichona the glory it deserved. It was not a bad thing at all for the Dragon Prince to be regarded this way; it’s why the original ryuu had fought with him during the Blood Rift, willing to give their lives for their prince and his noble cause. They didn’t need to be hypnotized to follow him to the ends of the earth.
She herself had been a little harder to convince. She’d only been a child when she was taken from Kichona, and at first she was frightened and cried to go home to the Society. But the warriors had taken care of her, and when Prince Gin recovered from his Blood Rift injuries, he recognized that she had more talent for magic than anyone else. He took her under his wing, and she felt like she was home again.
Of course, he would often try to break her during training, expecting more of Hana than he did any other soldier. But he also mended her afterward with moments like this one now. Advice to make her stronger. She appreciated the tough love, that he recognized she could handle it. That it made her better.
“I’m going to take you off the duty of training our new recruits and give that responsibility to Firebrand,” Prince Gin said.
She took a step back, caught off guard. “Why? I should be the one training the new ryuu.”
“Because you need to focus one hundred percent of your energy on whipping Spirit into shape. Our army will reach critical mass before we know it, and then we’ll march on the Imperial City. If your theory is correct that your sister harbors the same talent in her veins as you do, I want her ready. You’re my secret weapon. But if I can have two such weapons when we face Aki and the Society stronghold at the Citadel, then I want you and Spirit both ready and at full power. You can do this for me, can’t you?”
Hana’s stomach twisted. When she was little, it had been her dream to fight by Sora’s side. But her sister hadn’t turned out to be who Hana had held aloft; by abandoning Hana, Sora had shown herself as helpless and ordinary. And then Hana had gone on to prove that she was actually the extraordinary one, that she could rise above the taigas and every single ryuu except the prince himself.
I’m supposed to be his most valued soldier. But what if Sora ended up better than her?
“Virtuoso,” Prince Gin said. “Did you hear me? Treat Spirit as you would any other recruit. Or harder. I want her as ferocious as you promised me. And soon.”
“Of course, Your Highness. I’ll be merciless in her training.”
She bowed and retreated a bit to give Prince Gin space. He liked his solitary moments at the bow, like a small meditation with the sea before reaching land.
She didn’t feel calm, however. The thought of being able to punish Sora—to force her to spar until her legs were too weak to stand upon, to deny her sleep as she practiced magic, to push her until she threw up and then push her some more—should have made Hana happy. It was payback for her sister abandoning her all those years ago.
But instead, Hana’s hard exterior cracked, like the desert floor after a decade of drought.
No, she thought, as she gritted her teeth. I will not feel sorry for Sora. She left me on my own, and this is who I’ve become. I am immune to sentimentality.
It was a lie, and Hana knew it. But she held on to it anyway.
Chapter Thirty-Six
On the main deck, away from the bow, the ryuu were preparing for their arrival at Tiger’s Belly with a scrimmage, which seemed to Sora to be a combination between magical sparring and a rally to get their adrenaline pumping. The scrimmages were duels where two ryuu cast spells, and the others judged which was more impressive. A scrimmage ring had been set up in the middle of the deck, and ryuu surrounded it, shouting and laughing and placing bets on the next two warriors to fight. It was fascinating—a look at the kind of power she would soon have once she practiced—and Sora wanted to get closer.
She found a spot against a post to lean on. The bug boy popped up beside her, grinning as he took a bite from the dessert sandwich he held in his hands. It was made of two soft sugar cookies, filled with chocolate and sliced pear.
“This is your first scrimmage, huh?” he said. “It’s exciting stuff. We haven’t met yet. I’m Beetle.” He stuck his hand out for Sora to shake. His fingers were smeared with chocolate.
But Sora didn’t take it, because she was too busy staring at him. How had she not noticed before how young he was? He was barely a teenager, his cheeks still holding on to some baby fat, just the faintest hint of down on his upper lip.
He must have been one of the tenderfoots who was kidnapped with Hana, she realized. Instinctively, she stepped back, anticipating his wrath that the Society had not come to his rescue.
But the boy kept smiling. There was no resentment, as there had been with Hana.
Maybe he was too young when he was taken to remember anything about the Citadel and the Society, Sora thought. Hana had been six during the Blood Rift. But the boy would have been two or three. He had no fond memories of the taigas, and no hopes or expectations that they would come to his aid.
Sora shook his sticky hand. “We’ve met, sort of. I saw you in the marketplace at Kaede City.”
He was about to take another bite of cookie but stopped before it reached his mouth. “You did? But I didn’t come across any taigas.”
“I was disguised in layman’s clothing,” Sora said.
Suddenly, a memory of turquoise flashed through her mind. And coral pink. She scrunched her nose as she turned the colors over in her head. They were insistent, poking at her like real, sharp coral in a shallow lagoon, as if they were trying to tell her something. Where had they come from? What did they mean?
She focused on the colors more intently, and they began to take shape into something familiar—Daemon’s hideous shirt from Tanoshi and Kaede City.
Oh. Sora frowned. She hadn’t thought of him in a while. How long? An hour? Two or three? But now, as she remembered him, she felt a slight pressure on her gemina bond. There was something not quite right about it, similar to the sensation of diving too deep in the sea and forgetting to clear her ears.
Where was Daemon? Why wasn’t his presence in her head?
Instinctively, Sora reached out toward her gemina connection. She hit a wall.
Huh? Why was it closed? On her side?
And then she remembered. Prince Gin had asked her to close her mental ramparts.
Everything was fine. He wouldn’t lead her astray.
He loves his warriors. He loves his people. He loves his kingdom.
She smiled. Just thinking of the Dragon Prince filled Sora’s head with a warm cloud of contentment, like walking into a bakery and breathing in the aromas of cranberry tarts and hazelnut cookies coming out of the oven and pots of chrysanthemum tea on the counter.
What was I thinking about before that? She shook her head but couldn’t remember.
Probably wasn’t important.
Beetle was sitting in front of her, though, looking at her with his head cocked sideways. “You still there?”