by Evelyn Skye
Dedication
To Tom—
the best gemina I could ever dream of
Map
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Map
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Chapter Seventy
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Books by Evelyn Skye
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Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter One
There are two possibilities after this stunt—we’ll be the empress’s favorite taigas or we’ll get expelled and taken away in chains,” Daemon said. His broad shoulders hunched as he bent down to talk to Sora. She was tall, but he was much taller—six foot two, officially, but six foot five when he styled his hair like this, stuck up in thick wild tufts of black.
“They won’t kick us out of the apprentice program.” Sora grinned. “I’m an expert at skirting the boundary between what’s technically allowed and what’s not, remember?”
Daemon made a face but still laughed. The slash of scars on his cheek danced, souvenirs from a fight with a wolf cub when he was two. “Trust me, no one knows better than I do how good you are at almost-but-not-quite breaking the rules.” He was Sora’s best friend, as well as her partner—her gemina—and that meant they were inseparable, through triumph and trouble.
With Sora, there were ample amounts of both.
They stood with their fellow students in the courtyard of Rose Palace, a majestic castle hewn entirely of dusty-pink crystal that filtered moonlight through its walls and shone like a prismatic beacon at the highest point of the island. Tonight, the Level 12 taiga apprentices had the honor of touring Rose Palace and performing an exhibition match before Empress Aki. Sora bounced on her toes in excitement.
She looked around the vast courtyard. Her hair, cut short along her jawline and dyed dark—as most taigas did—so she could better hide in the shadows, wisped across her face as she spun to take everything in. The palace walls were flawless and clear, soaring four stories up toward the open sky. There, the pink crystal had been cut like gems, their many facets sparkling and casting winking moonlight onto Sora’s formal uniform—flowing trousers and robes made of black silk, embroidered with the moon goddess Luna’s triplicate whorls in silver thread.
Beside Sora, Daemon gaped in disbelief. Rose Palace was even more stunning than they could have imagined. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “Are we sure we want to do this tonight?”
She wrinkled her nose at him. They had spent the entire summer plotting a surprise to be revealed during the exhibition match, and tonight was supposed to be the culmination of their hard work. “You, of all people, are getting cold feet?”
Daemon shrugged. “Maybe there are some places too sacrosanct for us to mess around with.”
“Those are exactly the sorts of places that need us,” Sora said. The Rose Palace invitation was an annual ritual, both to recognize young taigas in their final year before graduation and to instill in them a sense of pride at being a part of Kichona’s proud and fierce history. “Everything is beautiful here, but too serious. Besides, the empress has seen too many exhibition matches that follow the same formula. I think she’ll appreciate a little change. You know my motto. Work hard—”
“Mischief harder.” Daemon shook his head but smiled. “The taiga warriors are going to be really mad.”
Sora glanced over at the teachers who had accompanied them to Rose Palace. Their ordinarily stern faces were even sterner than usual. And they definitely had their eyes on Sora. She and her friends had a reputation for causing trouble—at the end of every term, her report cards inevitably said she was “talented but had difficulty following rules.”
They can’t really blame me, though, Sora thought. If the warriors would stop being so rigid, I wouldn’t have to break their rules. Just because things had been done a certain way for centuries didn’t mean it should continue being done that way forever.
Besides, Sora liked to think that the trouble she caused was the fun sort of trouble.
She grinned at Daemon. “The warriors are going to be more than mad. And I’m looking forward to it.”
Suddenly, the chatter among the apprentices extinguished, and a hush fell like a down blanket across the courtyard. Four members of the Imperial Guard—the elite warriors assigned to the empress—had marched in. Imperial Guards also appeared above, around the entire upper perimeter of the courtyard, eyes focused and weapons at the ready should they be needed.
A moment later, a young woman swept elegantly into the courtyard. Despite being just five feet tall, she could command the attention of the whole kingdom even if she were completely still. All eyes were on her now as she moved, the ten different shades of blue on her chiffon gown undulating like waves, her skirt swirling around her feet as if she were being carried in by the sea. The light from the crystal prisms above played with the gold in her hair. Empress Aki didn’t need a crown; members of the Ora family were born with the gleaming color of royalty already upon their heads.
Sora and the other apprentices fell to their knees and bowed, completely prostrate to the ground. “Your Majesty,” they said in unison.
“I welcome you to Rose Palace,” the empress said. “And I wish you a happy Autumn Festival.”
The apprentices bowed again, then rose to their feet as the empress settled into the only chair in the courtyard. The chair was surprisingly simple, made of unadorned wood. It didn’t ev
en have a cushion. The only thing that marked it as the empress’s seat was the Ora imperial crest etched into the crystal wall behind it, a crowned tiger standing proudly beneath the sun and the moon, surrounded by the words “Dignity. Benevolence. Loyalty.”
Then again, perhaps the simplicity wasn’t so surprising. The palace may have been grand, but that was the doing of past rulers. Empress Aki was known for spending only what was necessary on herself, preferring instead to use Kichona’s coffers for the good of its people. In her ten years of rule, she’d ordered all the old schools in the countryside rebuilt, and new books for every child across the island. She invested in farms and agricultural research, and thus improved harvests, making sure no citizen went hungry. The kingdom had also grown wealthier than ever, thanks to her edicts that made trading with the countries on the mainland easier, stoking appetite abroad for Kichona’s colorful silks and delicate jewelry.
And then there was the constant stream of smaller details, like her frequent surprise visits to villages that had never had a member of the imperial family set foot on their soil before, or the fact that she paid for the Autumn Festival feasts throughout the kingdom. Empress Aki wasn’t known as “the Benevolent One” for nothing. Sora—and pretty much everyone in the kingdom—loved her.
“Your Majesty,” one of the taiga warriors said. “I am pleased to introduce you to this year’s Level Twelves. It is an honor for us to be here, and they have a gift for you as a token of their gratitude.” He nodded to Sora to step forward with the present, but his eyes narrowed, warning Sora not to do anything to embarrass the warriors.
She wouldn’t. Yet.
Sora reached into a hidden pocket in her sleeve. Usually, she stashed a knife there—there were many such places for weapons in the taiga uniforms—but tonight she retrieved a small velvet pouch. She wasn’t the teachers’ favorite pupil, but that had the opposite effect on her classmates, and Sora had been elected first chair, which meant she had the traditional honor of representing Level 12 before the empress tonight.
“Your Majesty,” Sora said, bowing again, “if I may, I would like to present to you a gift from our class.”
Empress Aki smiled kindly, and although she was only twenty-five—a mere seven years older than Sora—she had the gravitas of someone twice her age. “What is your name?” the empress asked.
“I am called Spirit.” It was the name the Society had given her at age seven, when she’d graduated from the nursery and become a taiga apprentice. No one called her Sora anymore except Daemon—also known as Wolf—who’d insisted on continuing to use their birth names so they’d have something special between them.
“Come forward, Spirit,” Empress Aki said.
With the permission of the Imperial Guards who stood on each side of the empress, Sora approached and placed the pouch into the empress’s delicate hands.
Empress Aki opened the drawstrings and let out a gasp of delight. A string of tiger pearls—black-and-orange-striped jewels that could be found only in the deep, underwater coves off Kichona’s southwestern shore—tumbled into her palm. Daemon had rallied everyone in Level 12 to contribute more to the gift than any class before them had managed to raise. Sora could feel his joy, warm as a campfire, beaming through their gemina bond. She smiled.
“It’s beautiful, thank you,” Empress Aki said, fastening the pearls around her neck, right next to an abalone shell locket. “Of course, there is also something else I am looking forward to before we tour the palace. I believe you’ve prepared an exhibition match?”
Sora’s nerves twinged. Fighting and magic were things she had no reason to be anxious about, but this would also be when she and her friends would reveal their surprise. It’s what Sora had been waiting for.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” she said, finding a smile. “It would be our pleasure to perform for you.”
She strode back to where Daemon waited. “Are you ready?” she asked.
“Never been readier.” Daemon rested a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “And so are you.”
The apprentices who were not participating in the exhibition moved to the back of the courtyard. Sora, Daemon, and the other Level 12s who remained stripped off their formal robes, revealing the taigas’ usual black tunics and trousers, charmed with an armadillo spell to create a thin layer of flexible armor, as soft as cotton but as strong as steel. They slid helmets made of similar armored fabric over their heads, covering everything but their eyes. And each apprentice was armed with plenty of knives, as well as their weapon of choice, which for Sora was throwing stars and darts, strapped into a leather band across her chest.
The apprentice serving as narrator began to speak, his deep voice carrying across the courtyard. “Many centuries ago, the kingdom of Kichona was born. Sola, goddess of the sun, blessed our island with wise leaders, from our first emperor, Dei the Silvertongued, to Empress Aki Ora today.”
The empress dipped her head in appreciation.
The narrator continued. “Luna, goddess of the moon and Sola’s sister, was tasked with protecting the imperial family and the kingdom. To do so, she blessed Emperor Dei’s fledgling army with the ability to summon the powers of Kichona’s animals in order to enhance the warriors’ own skill.
“By casting a cheetah spell, taigas could outrun ordinary men.”
A pair of apprentices sprinted across the courtyard in a blur.
“With a grasshopper spell,” the narrator said, “taigas could jump two stories in the air or leap across flooded rivers.”
A group of six apprentices vaulted across the courtyard, executing quadruple somersaults in midair before landing on the parapet above.
“And with a panther spell, taigas could sneak silently through the night. With Sola-blessed rulers on the throne and Luna-touched warriors protecting its shores, no invaders could match them, and Kichona thrived.”
There was an ominous pause before the narrator continued.
“Sometimes, however, the most dangerous threats come from within.”
The Imperial Guards on the wall above the courtyard drew a black tarp over the open roof, casting the space into darkness. There was only a narrow hole in the center of the tarp that allowed in a small amount of moonlight. Of course, the taigas didn’t need this to see; they could cast owl spells to enhance their night vision. But Empress Aki could not use magic and would need a hint of light to watch the rest of the show.
Beside Sora, her roommate pulled out a stiletto blade. She was known as Fairy because she’d always been petite, and her face was soft, with rose-kissed cheeks like a cherub. But many apprentices had figured out the hard way during sparring practice that Fairy didn’t battle like a dainty pixie. Made purely of muscle and pluck, she fought fast and dirty, and she made fun of the vanquished afterward.
Sora and Fairy were playing the heroes in the exhibition, and the two girls stepped into the center of the courtyard, Sora near the back and Fairy closer to where the empress sat. A large glass shield had been erected in front of Empress Aki to protect her. The apprentices were using practice weapons made of wood, but even those could hurt someone if they accidentally flew astray.
“Such danger came calling upon Kichona on an evening just a decade ago,” the narrator said. “It is always calm before a storm, and in that silence, Prince Gin and his soldiers sprang.”
Sora’s stomach clenched. She’d been only eight years old during the Blood Rift, but its mention still had a visceral effect on her.
Then-emperor Kenzo Ora had died unexpectedly of an aneurysm. Afterward, his children could not agree on how to rule the kingdom. Princess Aki wanted to continue their family’s legacy of peaceful prosperity, the foundation of Kichona’s happiness. However, her twin brother, Gin, belonged to the Cult of the Evermore, which believed that Zomuri, god of glory, would grant them paradise on earth if enough blood was shed in his name. Prince Gin wanted to utilize the taigas’ magic to build Kichona’s military might, to wage war and conquer neighboring lands.
Because the princess was nine minutes older than her brother, she was first in line for the throne. But nine is an unlucky number, according to Kichonan superstition. Prince Gin would not back down, not when the future of the kingdom was at stake. Taiga warriors took sides, and a brief but vicious civil war was fought. Prince Gin’s taigas battled cruelly in their attempted coup, decapitating soldiers and leaving their heads on spikes, gutting them alive, and forcing them to watch the murder of their friends.
But perhaps the most barbaric part of the Blood Rift—and what Sora remembered most vividly—was Prince Gin’s warriors setting the Citadel on fire. The inferno burned down many buildings, including the nursery, where Sora’s little sister and others perished.
The terror of that night shivered through Sora now.
Daemon reached through their gemina bond to soothe her, projecting the sensation of a placid lake. As the “leader” of the enemy, he was off to the side of the courtyard, but he could still sense Sora’s unease through their connection. It was as if he were saying, Remember, this is pretend. It’s only an exhibition.
Sora swallowed hard. Right. This wasn’t real.
Besides, Sora thought, if Empress Aki has no problem with the Level 12s commemorating the Blood Rift victory every year, then I should be able to deal with it. After all, the empress had had to battle against her own brother. That could not be an easy memory to bear.
Sora curled the fourth fingers on both hands so that they touched her thumbs and formed circles. “Sight like an owl,” she chanted softly three times.
The rims of Sora’s eyes tingled, and her vision sharpened just as Daemon and the other apprentices—“Prince Gin’s warriors”—began to creep out of the darkness in front of her. On the other side of the courtyard, they did the same to Fairy.
Sora crouched into a defensive stance, throwing stars already poised at her fingertips.
Prince Gin’s soldiers attacked, shouting, “For the future emperor!”
Sora unleashed a flurry of stars at the enemy. Two of them ducked, and one fell, feigning death.
Another wave of them came at her. She hurled more stars and darts, and then some more.
Sora spun away from an oncoming soldier, then threw a star behind her back at her attacker. It met the base of his skull. He stumbled, then fell as if dead.