“Huh?”
“Your eyes got all dreamy for a minute.”
“I’m . . . fine. More than fine.” The pastry warmth still floated through her head. Maybe the cookie sandwich Beetle was eating had something to do with it too.
“So you were about to tell me why you were in layman’s clothes in Kaede City?” he said.
“Oh, right,” Sora said. “I was trying to spy on your army. But that was before I heard Prince Gin speak. Now I understand how naive I was. I’m thrilled to join the ryuu.”
Beetle grinned more broadly before he took a big bite of his cookies. “Yesh,” he said with his mouth full. “We’re really lucky to get to use this magic and fight for the prince.”
Two warriors—a man and a woman—stepped into the scrimmage ring.
“Oooh, this one’s gonna be good,” Beetle said. He was so intensely focused, he forgot to finish chewing.
Sora leaned forward too.
“Ready?” the ryuu serving as judge called out. “Three-two-one, scrimmage!”
The man began to circle.
The woman simply sat cross-legged in the middle of the ring.
What in Luna’s name?
A moment later, a rumbling came from the cargo hold below. Oranges rolled up the ladders, in neat but hurried lines. They rushed to the scrimmage ring and piled atop themselves to form an enormous citrus gorilla. The gorilla towered over the ryuu, its broad orange chest heaving, as if it were really alive. Then it bent down and opened its hand. The woman stepped onto its palm, and it lifted her twenty feet up into the sky.
The entire spell took a span of ten seconds.
Sora gawked. Who would have thought a bunch of oranges could be so imposing? It was phenomenal. A gushy sense of pride bloomed inside of her, just by virtue of being part of the ryuu.
The crowd broke out into hollers and applause. Beetle cheered with his mouth full, flinging his arms up, cookie crumbs tossed into the air like sloppy, sweet confetti.
“Are there limits to what we can do?” Sora asked Beetle over the noise.
He shrugged. “Sort of. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. But I think it’s like anything else. Some people are really good at math, and others stop at algebra. Same with magic.”
Fascinating. Sora grinned so hard, she knew she must look a little stupid, but she couldn’t help it. Everything about being a ryuu was new and intriguing. There’d been this whole other world, right beneath the taigas’ noses, and they’d never known. But now Sora would get to be a part of it.
“It seems like all ryuu are geniuses with magic,” she said.
“Nah,” Beetle said. “Smart, maybe, but not geniuses. Except Prince Gin. And Virtuoso. That’s why she got her name. While most of the ryuu took a while to learn what they could really do with the magic, she was a natural from the start.”
The other warrior in the ring looked up at the gorilla. He nodded, as if acknowledging its grandeur. Then he puckered his lips and whistled. A keening, high-pitched noise sliced through the air. Sora and everyone around her smashed their hands over their ears.
Seemingly out of nowhere, hordes of bats filled the sky, blotting out the moon for a moment.
“Fruit bats,” Sora said as she realized what they were.
The man raised his hand, ready to give the signal for his bats to descend on the orange gorilla. To devour it.
“Halt!”
Someone whispered, “Virtuoso!” and the warning floated through the air like a winter ghost. Every ryuu on deck froze, afraid to move. If there was anything soft left inside of Hana, she didn’t show it to the other warriors.
Hana strode to the center of the scrimmage ring and smacked the man upside the head. “Menagerie, you will not have your bats eat all our oranges. Think before you act. We need those.”
He set his jaw, angry that she’d stopped him before his grand finale. But then he said, “You’re right, Virtuoso,” and whistled to call off his bats.
“I declare this scrimmage a draw,” Hana said. The ryuu who was supposed to be judge didn’t try to protest.
The gorilla crumbled, oranges cascading gently downward and bringing with them the woman on her platform. She landed quietly on deck as the last of the oranges rolled away, back down the ladders and, presumably, into their drums.
Hana paced the ring, examining every ryuu who stood around it.
“Personally,” she said, “I think these duels encourage idleness and speculation.” She glared at a place in the crowd where money was changing hands. The truing up of bets ceased immediately. “But His Highness sanctions them, believing them to be good practice for you. So then, let us make this a worthwhile exercise.”
She pulled a knife from her sleeve, whirled, and pointed it in Sora’s direction. The ryuu parted as if they were actually in the blade’s path.
Sora found herself staring at the deathly tip.
“Step forward. It’s time for your training to begin.”
“But I don’t even know how to use the magic,” Sora said. She knew the ryuu particles were everywhere, like emerald dust glittering in the air, but she couldn’t see them right away as she had after Prince Gin granted her Sight. There had been a rush of power during the initiation ceremony, but since then, it had leveled off, and she had to concentrate to find the ryuu particles. Even when she did, she didn’t know what to do with the magic.
“Nothing better than a little public humiliation to get you started,” Hana said. There wasn’t a trace of humor in her words. “Now step forward.”
Sora swallowed hard. But she didn’t have a choice. Everyone was watching her. She was on a ship in the middle of the sea, traveling at sailfish speed. There was no way of getting out of this.
She walked through the path created when the ryuu had parted and met Hana in the scrimmage circle.
Hana vanished. Literally disappeared.
Sora gasped and whipped around.
Some of the ryuu in the crowd snickered.
So that was her little sister’s specialty. No wonder Prince Gin wanted Sora trained. Siblings had the same power, and invisibility would be an incredible advantage over any enemy. If the Dragon Prince could have two ryuu like that . . .
A swipe knocked Sora’s feet out from under her, and she slammed into the floor.
“Use your senses, Spirit!” Beetle shouted.
Sora lashed out to grab an ankle or a leg. Her fingertips touched only air. Hana laughed cruelly, already half the length of the ship away.
Sora jumped back onto her feet. She felt a slight shift in the air a split second before Hana’s head barreled straight into her stomach. Sora flew backward into a mast. It knocked the wind clear out of her lungs, and she crumpled onto the deck.
From the sails above, Hana said, “Get up. You’re an insult to the blood we share.”
So angry. But instead of hurting, the taunt stoked Sora’s competitiveness. I was using magic while you were still in diapers, she thought. Someone needs to put you back in your place.
That was part of the job of being an older sister, after all.
Sora gritted her teeth and pushed aside the ache of the already-forming bruises on her back, and she rose again.
“Find me!” Hana, still invisible, yelled. “Stop flailing like a Kira Lake fish and use the Sight that Prince Gin granted you!”
Sora squinted and remembered what the green particles looked like. A moment later, she saw them whirling in the air, as if a breeze were stirring the magic. Sora followed the disturbance. The specks parted as an unseen force ran through them, then halted at the highest point of the ship—the crow’s nest.
There. That’s where Hana perched.
Sora stared for a few seconds. It wasn’t possible, was it? Had she really found Hana?
But then it began to sink in that she was a ryuu, and that meant she could do ryuu things. Sora grinned, then leaped up the mast, several stories high. It was a movement unimaginable to a taiga, but now it was surprisingly effortless, as if the magic that floated everywhere existed simply to buoy her up and extend her trajectory. Sora reveled in the feeling of being tossed upward, like her legs were made of springs. All she’d done was think about jumping up the mast, and it had happened.
This is incredible. It was the same magic the taigas called up with their mudras and chants, but the ryuu could do so much more with it. How could it be that this power had been there all along, but the Society hadn’t fully understood it?
Because the taigas are limited by their mudras and chants, Sora realized.
She found solid grips and footing on the mast. She looked for Hana but saw nobody.
There was a shout from the crow’s nest above, and suddenly, Hana slammed into her.
Sora plowed into the mast, the wood scraping the entire left side of her face, blood spattering onto her tunic. She rebounded out of the crow’s nest.