The ryuu shrieked as they were blinded. Some shielded their eyes. Others clawed at them, as if they could rip away the brightness of the light.
“Attack!” Glass Lady shouted.
Taigas swarmed over the fortress walls, climbing up and over like an army of fire ants. They rained down on the ryuu below, throwing stars and darts tipped in genka. The goal was not to kill them—most of the ryuu were taigas who had recently been hypnotized by Prince Gin—but to blind them, knock them out, and then imprison them until the Society could figure out how to undo the Dragon Prince’s spell. Sora kept turning the magnifying glass in the sky, varying the rays of sunlight unpredictably, so that any direction a ryuu looked for their emerald dust, they’d immediately be confronted with more of the blinding light. But her trick with the magnifying glass would handicap the ryuu for only a minute, maybe less, before they figured out a way to avoid looking at it. The taigas needed to incapacitate the ryuu quickly.
Hana roared, her anger audible even through the chaos of the fight.
The stone stairs her ryuu had been building were only six stories high, still four stories from the top of the fortress walls. But four floors wasn’t impossible for a ryuu to jump.
“Watch out for Virtuoso!” Sora said.
Hana shielded her eyes from the flashing light above and sprinted up the stones. She pushed off the last one and leaped up.
Others began to follow her lead. Beetle—Sora’s friend—kept his gaze to the earth, where cicadas, centipedes, and thousands of other antennaed things crawled out of the dirt. They climbed on top of each other and created a moving platform to carry him and a few others up. At the same time, the fire ryuu doubled her efforts on the gates, their lower bars red-hot, while another ryuu who could work with metal coaxed it to bend. Another minute or two, and they would have a hole large enough to let themselves through.
Hana landed on the top of the fortress wall. Sora glanced over, and her stomach curdled at the way her sister’s face twisted, her eyes narrowed, and that cute button nose now scrunched, nostrils flared in anger. Sora’s spell on the magnifying glass almost slipped.
Taiga officers began to shout new commands to the different squadrons.
“Stay up on the wall and continue shooting any ryuu you can with genka darts!”
“Drop down to the ground and draw your weapons!”
“Remember—if they can’t see, they can only fight like we can, and we outnumber them. Go!”
Grasshopper spells were cast. Taigas jumped down from the ten-story fortress walls, into the melee below. They drew swords and sickles and chains, also dipped with genka.
Some taigas and ryuu would die. The Society would try to spare as many as they could, but stopping Prince Gin’s army was the priority.
In the meantime, Beetle, Firebrand, and other ryuu were making progress on the wall.
Sora trembled under the concentration required to keep the piece of Rose Palace in the air. Sweat soaked her entire uniform. Her eyes were beginning to cross.
But she held on.
Fairy and Broomstick ran past her to fight the ryuu who were landing at the top of the wall.
“Be careful!” Sora yelled after them.
“‘Careful’ isn’t part of the League of Rogues’ motto,” Fairy shouted back.
League of Rogues. Sora liked the sound of that.
But she didn’t have time to respond. Beetle and his insects lunged at Fairy and Broomstick. Hana smirked at Sora.
“You won’t be needing that anymore,” Hana said, as she commanded green particles to wrench the magnifying glass from Sora’s magic’s grip.
It wasn’t even a fight. Sora was already exhausted, and her hold slipped as soon as Hana’s stronger one snatched at the crystal.
The beautiful piece of Rose Palace smashed on the ground inside the Citadel, flattening six taiga apprentices who had been running toward the gates to provide reinforcements. The remnants of the etched Ora crest shattered.
Sora stared at it in horror.
But Bullfrog and the other councilmembers leaped into action.
“Shoot for their eyes!”
“Kill if you have to!”
Stars, no. The new ryuu were just taigas beneath their enchantment. And the original ryuu . . . they were misguided in their beliefs, but they were still Luna’s soldiers. Kichonans.
Sisters.
Hana stalked toward Glass Lady.
“I’m relieving you of command, old lady,” she said.
“Over my dead body,” the commander said.
That only made Hana smile. “Watch me.”
She faded from view and laughed.
Glass Lady gaped, paralyzed for a moment. She didn’t know how to fight something she couldn’t see.
Behind them, Beetle’s insect horde dove down for attack.
“Fairy!” Broomstick shouted. “Now!”
She flung a vial of something into the air. Broomstick hurled a small, liquid-filled sphere at it.
The two collided. The glass of both the vial and sphere shattered, and whatever was inside reacted to the other and hissed before it exploded.
Beetle’s buzzing army dropped dead instantaneously.
He screamed, then drew his sword and charged at Fairy.
Meanwhile, Hana was running at Glass Lady.
“She’s on your left!” Sora yelled at the commander. Sora was the only one who could see where her sister was.
But it was too late. Hana reappeared, whipped out a stiletto blade from her sleeve, and said to Glass Lady, “I told you I’d take command over your dead body.” She slashed it across the commander’s neck and pushed her over the edge of the fortress wall.
At the same moment, Beetle ran right into Broomstick’s sword.
“No!” Sora shouted.
Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Glass Lady’s jaw dropped as her throat split open, spilling her life in crimson rivulets. Beetle held Broomstick’s blade in his hands, looking down at his impaled stomach in disbelief.
Then Glass Lady and Beetle both fell, ten stories to the ground. Their bodies smashed into the dirt, bouncing at the impact.
Sora screamed.
The ryuu below were fighting back with the full force of their magic. Balls of fire, burning taigas like meat on a spit. Storms of icicles, shot straight through like spears.
The Society was not relenting either. They had numbers on their side. They regrouped in squadrons, each one targeting a single ryuu, and charged. Blades flashed. Darts and throwing stars gleamed as they flew.
Bodies fell.
Hana looked down at them without emotion, her face now a cruelly placid mask. When she turned to Sora, she was equally collected. The eyes that had lit up at seeing Sora perform ryuu magic were now flat, as if she felt nothing for her sister.
“Hana—”
“I don’t have anything to say to you.” She stalked toward Sora, spinning her sword in her palm.
Daemon dispatched the ryuu beside him and came to Sora’s side. He growled, sounding more like a wolf than she’d ever heard before. “If you lay a finger on her,” he said, “you’ll pay for it.” Fairy and Broomstick came up behind him.
“No,” Sora said. “Back away, Daemon. All of you. You won’t see her coming if she turns herself invisible again.”
“We’re not going to—”
“Back away!” Sora shouted. “If I die, the League of Rogues has to continue the fight. Kichona needs you.”
Daemon, Fairy, and Broomstick stood still. Hana watched them, amused.
“Aren’t you going to listen to her?” she taunted. “You’re like a litter of puppies, still following my sister around like when we were kids. Nothing about you taigas has changed.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Sora said. “But I’d rather not change than become a tool for Prince Gin to use.”
“He’s not using me.”
“He is, Hana.”
“Stop calling me that! And the emperor isn’t using me. He trusts me and respects me! Which is more than I can say about you. It was a shame I even gave you a second chance.”
No, Sora thought. I refuse for this to be the end of me and Hana.
It was only a postponement. It had to be. Sora needed to save Kichona first, but then she’d make a third chance for her and Hana. Somehow.
No matter what happened next, as long as Sora was alive, she’d come back for her sister. Hells, even if Sora died, her ghost would devote itself to Hana. It would be a fitting afterlife for a taiga named Spirit.
“Now that Prince Gin is the emperor—” Hana was saying.
Fairy stepped forward. “I hate to break it to you, but he’s not. His sister is still very much alive.”
Hana smirked. Which was much more dangerous than a glare.
Sora froze.