by Evelyn Skye
“I don’t—” Another wave crested and smashed through the ceiling before she could finish.
But there wasn’t anything to say anyway. The sky had been clear this morning with no sign of storm. Had there been an earthquake somewhere that triggered a tsunami?
Whatever it was, the Council could not remain here. Glass Lady sprang to her feet, even as her entire body trembled. The next wave was already growing and looming overhead. “Evacuate to higher ground!”
The warriors sprinted for the doors.
Outside, the wind howled, toppling topiaries and ripping branches off the trees. The councilmembers began weaving their way through the flooded garden toward the highest point on the isle, Constellation Temple.
Another typhoon wave roared and crashed down on them. It knocked Glass Lady off her feet, sending her careening into a broken lamppost. Thick splinters from the wood beam pierced into her torso. Salt water swallowed her whole, and she struggled to surface while blood blossomed from her wound.
No. Despite being in her mid-sixties, she was still strong. She kicked frantically and pushed with her arms. Her lungs burned. She found the ground beneath her and shoved up, breaking the surface of the churning water and gasping for air. She’d deal with the injury to her side later.
The waves kept coming.
Finally, the taigas made it to Constellation Temple. Battered and soaked, the councilmembers tumbled into the temple and climbed the stairs quickly, straight to the observation pavilion at the top.
“Commander,” Strategist said, his gray beard looking like a drowned squirrel. “You’ve been wounded.”
Glass Lady glanced at shards of wood still protruding from her side. She waved him away. “Later. There are more important things right now.”
She turned to the ocean in the direction from which the waves came, expecting a wide swath of water that swelled and grew like a wall.
Instead, the waves came from a single point in the sea.
“It’s not a storm,” Glass Lady whispered.
“What do you mean?” Scythe asked.
Glass Lady squinted at the ocean. Was that a black spot on the water? “Someone find me a spyglass,” she said.
Strategist ran down the stairs into the temple. A minute later, he returned and placed a telescope in her hand.
She focused on the point from which the waves seemed to emanate.
“Daggers!” she cursed. “There’s a ship out there.”
“They’ll never survive the typhoon,” Bullfrog said. “Should we attempt to rescue them?”
Another wave rose to monstrous heights and sped toward the island. It slammed into where the dining hall had been.
Gods help us. That was no Imperial Navy ship out there, nor was it a merchant or even pirates. It was nothing Glass Lady knew how to handle.
She turned to the councilmembers and shook her head. “There’s no way we could save that ship. Besides, they don’t need rescuing. They’re causing the waves.”
“What? How?” Strategist asked.
She tried the spyglass again, but visibility was poor. “I don’t know. But the waves are originating from that ship. We have to get out of here. Whoever and whatever that is out there, this is an attack, and we have no way to fight it. We’ll cast sailfish spells on ourselves and swim from Haven Cove.”
It was the most direct path from Isle of the Moon to the shores of Kichona, even though the waters would be rough.
“Rough” was an understatement.
Glass Lady kept an eye on the mysterious ship as the taigas evacuated. But she couldn’t see much through the typhoon. The wind was so violent, it was hurling water high into the sky. And the massive waves kept growing and coming for the island.
“Commander?” Strategist said. “We need to go.”
She hesitated for a moment, paralyzed by not knowing what it was they faced.
“Commander. Now.”
She blinked. Nodded. They sprinted for the cove.
When they arrived, Bullfrog turned to her. “What are we going to do about this? How do we fight a threat we don’t even understand?”
“Just focus on swimming right now.” She gave him a stern look, even though he was also a councilmember. As if acting unafraid would actually make it true.
Bullfrog either didn’t pick up on Glass Lady’s fear or he was too well trained to question her. He put both fists over his heart. “Yes, Commander.”
The Council cast their sailfish spells to help them hold their breath longer underwater and swim faster. Glass Lady forced herself not to look back at the ship. And they dove into the vicious, frigid sea.
Chapter Six
Kichona’s empress was up late, perusing a report on the projected wheat and rice harvests, when a messenger rushed into her study.
“Your Majesty,” he said, huffing to catch his breath, “the commander of the taigas is here to see you.”
“What? Why?” Aki rose from her desk, alarmed. Glass Lady was a meticulous planner. She had come to Rose Palace unannounced on only one occasion before.
“All I know is it’s an emergency,” the messenger said.
“Have her brought to the throne room. I’ll be there soon.”
He nodded and ran off to carry out her orders.
Aki hurried out of her study. As she stepped into the corridor, Imperial Guards surrounded her and strode with her.
They reached the throne room, and Aki settled into the velvet cushions that had once belonged to her father. The moonlight sparkled brightly here, focused through the crystalline prism of the ceiling like a celestial beam upon the empress’s head. Sometimes, the effect was a reassurance, reminding Aki her reign was blessed by Sola, the sun goddess. Other times, she felt unworthy of the spotlight, as if she were an imposter. It was her father who was supposed to be sitting on this throne.
Aki shifted uncomfortably. But she didn’t have time for self-doubt, for the commander of the taigas entered the room.
Glass Lady was completely disheveled. Her hair—usually pinned with great precision—stuck to her face, stiff from the salt of the sea. Mud streaked her uniform. Her boots squelched as she moved. Aki gasped.
Despite her appearance, the commander was as poised as ever. She dropped gracefully to her knees and laid herself prostrate on the marble floor. “Your Majesty, I apologize for interrupting your night.”
Aki rose shakily from her throne. “What happened?”
“A typhoon hit Isle of the Moon this evening, and the Council had to evacuate,” Glass Lady said as she stood up.
It was then that Aki saw the sticky dark red that covered the left side of the commander’s uniform. It had been camouflaged by the wetness of the fabric. “You’ve been injured!”
The commander waved at her to sit down. “I’m fine; I’ll have a doctor look at it when I return to the Citadel. It’s much more important that I finish my report to you first.”
Aki had the distinct sensation that she was swimming in deceptively calm waters but about to be carried out to sea by a riptide. She didn’t want to sit down. But the commander gave her a firm look, like a tutor scolding her student. Aki obediently sat.
“Um, please continue,” she said, trying to regain her authority as empress.
“It’s not typhoon season,” Glass Lady said. “What struck us today was not a storm. It was a calculated attack, using magic we’ve never seen before.”
“I . . . I don’t understand,” Aki said.
“There was a ship in the distance, launching the wind and waves at the isle. We don’t know how. But whoever or whatever that was, I’m certain this will not be their only attempt at Kichona. They must have known the Council would be there. It’s possible they wanted to wipe us out because we run the Society of Taigas.”
The whole room seemed to pitch. Aki gripped the armrest of her chair. The last time Kichona had pitted magic against magic—the Blood Rift—was still raw in her memory. Aki had barely won that time, and she’d known it w
as coming because it was her brother she’d faced. But now? She couldn’t prevail if she didn’t know her enemy or what they were capable of.
“Which of the nearby kingdoms is attacking?” she asked. “And why?” Other than its tiger pearls, there was nothing special about Kichona, and it hadn’t bothered anyone in decades. The kingdom traded pleasantly with countries on the mainland but otherwise minded its own business—wasn’t that enough to have everyone else in the world leave Kichona alone? Aki’s breath hitched as if the riptide were swirling around her, testing its grip. “What do we do?”
“All squadrons will be immediately dispatched back to their posts around the kingdom,” Glass Lady said. “We don’t know who the enemy are or what they want, but when they attack again, they will most likely hit close to where we saw their ship. For that reason, we will send additional taiga warriors to reinforce the squadrons already based in the cities in the north.”
“And what of their magic?” Aki asked.
“Our best scholars will research day and night until we figure out what sort of magic can control the elements, and how we can defeat it,” Glass Lady said. “They will sleep in the library if they have to.”
The fact that the commander seemed confident was like a life preserver thrown to Aki. This is the Society’s job, she reminded herself. I am empress, but I don’t have to solve all the problems alone. She exhaled, even though she still drummed her fingers on the cushion of her chair.
“I think we should keep the knowledge of this attack within the Society,” Aki said, “until we have a better understanding of what or who it is out there. I don’t want the citizens to panic.”
Glass Lady dipped her head. “I agree that is wise.”
“What do you need me to do in the meantime?” Aki asked. “Anything the Society needs, it’s yours.”
Glass Lady closed her eyes and exhaled deeply before she opened them again and spoke. “You only need to stay safe, Your Majesty. And pray.”
Chapter Seven
If the Imperial City was the eye of the tiger of Kichona, Takish Gorge was part of the tiger’s tail. For the last part of their Autumn Festival break, Sora and Daemon left Samara Mountain and rode south, through sparsely populated farmland and rice paddies to land not populated at all.
Now they raced through towering cypress trees atop the edge of a canyon, their horses pushing through dense green ground cover and soft soil. It was also a good thirty degrees cooler here, as if winter were creeping in early on the Kichonan autumn’s reign.
Daemon gasped as he looked up at the delicate, feathery pink clouds above.
Sora glanced up and smiled. It was as if the gods had cast an ethereal lace in the sky. “Welcome home,” she said.
He simply sighed. She heard the actual sigh as well as felt the echo of it in their gemina bond, the wisp of contentment like a shadow trailing behind the original.
Daemon closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath. Sora followed suit. The air here smelled evergreen, as though it had been kissing the dew on the trees for millennia. Breathing it in was Daemon and Sora’s ritual each autumn when they returned, a marker to the start of another school year together. And this breath felt more significant, because it was their final year before graduating.
They sat still on their horses for a few minutes, simply breathing.
When Daemon cleared his throat, Sora opened her eyes. He smiled at her, recharged, and it seemed almost as if the air around him buzzed with his renewed energy.
“Let’s climb some trees,” he said.
She laughed. “You know, sometimes I think you belong in the sky, not on the ground with the rest of us.”
Every night at the Citadel, Daemon climbed out his window and onto the boys’ dormitory rooftop to lie under the stars. He said there was something about the sky’s vastness—its possibility and infinity—that comforted him. There were too many limits imposed down on the earth.
Sora dismounted and tied her horse to a tree. “Shall we climb?”
“Yes, please. I’m itching for height.”
They hiked into the woodland. After a few minutes, he picked a tree, cast a squirrel spell, and quickly scaled the trunk, into the branches. Sora followed, and the crisp smell of the evergreens greeted her again. She watched as Daemon inhaled deeply before he pushed off and jumped into the next tree. He bounded from bough to bough, working his way farther down the canyon but higher into the treetops. Sora leaped from tree to tree in a path parallel to his.
Eventually, she landed on the tallest cypress in the area and climbed up until she was on the highest, thickest branch that would support her weight. She wrapped her legs firmly around the trunk and stood up, opening her arms and tossing her head back toward the sky. The wind blew her back and forth, as if she were a mere dandelion swaying in the breeze. Contentment washed through her.
“You see?” Daemon shouted from where he had also found himself a cypress towering into the sky. “This is why I love being up high.”
A raptor soared above her and let out a shrill whistle. Sora whistled back.
The bird jerked in flight and steered away from her, as if offended by Sora’s birdcall.
Daemon laughed.
“Oh, shut up,” Sora said.
She looked over in his direction. A waterfall came into view, crashing hundreds of feet to the whitewater pools below. And then, beyond that, the trees cleared, and she could see straight down into the bottom of the gorge.
What in Luna’s name—?
She leaped through the trees until she was beside Daemon. “I think there’s an Autumn Festival celebration going on down there.”
He squinted. “Really?”
Sora formed her hands into tapered oval shapes and chanted, “Eyes like a hawk. Eyes like a hawk.”
The skin around her eyes tightened, and her long-distance vision sharpened. She homed in on the canyon floor.
“Whoa,” Sora said. “There’s an entire encampment of red tents, with long yellow-and-green banners whipping in the wind. Thirty or forty people are dancing around a fire.”
Daemon tried to cast a hawkeye spell too, but a few seconds later, he muttered a string of half-intelligible curses under his breath. “Stupid mrphrk bumbling grffff magic never works . . .”
“I think we should sneak in and join the party,” Sora said.
“I don’t know. . . . It’s weird that there’s a celebration in Takish Gorge. No one ever comes out here. This is wolf and bear territory.”
He was right about that. Takish Gorge was far from civilization; Paro Village was the closest town, and because it was already one of the remotest parts of Kichona, its residents wanted to go into the heart of the kingdom when they traveled, not farther away. The canyon was also known for its unfettered wildness, home to a dense population of wolves, bears, cougars, and poisonous, camouflaged snakes. Takish Gorge was not the kind of place most people wanted to go, especially for a celebration known for its carefree, gluttonous, and drunken excess.
“Besides,” Daemon said, “I thought we just decided to get serious. Would the heroes in your mother’s stories crash a party?”
Sora paused to think about it. But then she grinned. Being mischievous and being renowned weren’t mutually exclusive. “The most legendary figures did all sorts of outlandish things. It’s part of what makes their tales worth retelling. So yes, if there’s a once-in-a-lifetime event in the middle of nowhere, I think it would be part of Kichonan lore. And we should definitely go.”
As they got close, though, Sora frowned. A wall of wood surrounded the camp, looming eight feet high above them. She’d seen it from far away, but Sora had been so focused on the party inside, she hadn’t registered that the beams were actually spiky protrusions, more like fortifications to protect from enemies.
“That’s . . . strange,” Daemon said.
Sora nodded. But then she shrugged. “Like you said, Takish Gorge is full of wolves and bears and other predators. It would really ruin
a party if any of those got inside.” She walked right up to the logs and began to study them, figuring out the best way to get inside.
Daemon hung back a moment. “This isn’t an ordinary Autumn Festival celebration. Maybe we should rethink going in.”
“Nope. We already agreed that we should definitely go in if it’s not an ordinary Autumn Festival celebration.”
He chewed on his lip, then sighed. “All right. But let’s cast moth spells on ourselves before we go in.” It would mute their whispers to an ultrasonic level inaudible to the human ear, but which they could use to communicate while in the camp.
Sora laughed. “You really want there to be a hidden conspiracy so we can report something interesting to the Council, don’t you?”
Daemon looked so mortified, though, that Sora shut up. She shouldn’t have said that. They quickly formed finger-fluttering mudras and chanted the moth spell. Sora’s voice box tingled as the enchantment took hold. Daemon needed a few tries before his spell worked.
They slinked up to the edge of the camp and hoisted themselves over the wall of logs. Sora landed on the ground as quietly as a ghost—her near-soundless movement, after all, was why she’d been given the taiga name Spirit.
Daemon lowered himself from a nearby section of the perimeter wall, tugging on a wire that trailed him. He’d secured one end to a tree outside the wall and planned to tie off this end inside the camp. It would be easier to leave via tightrope on their way out than scrambling over these slippery logs again.
Lanterns on posts cast a dim red glow over everything. Sora and Daemon crept through the spaces between the tents, sticking, as always, to the shadows. After a few minutes, she found a tree they could climb to get a better view.
She glanced over her shoulder to confirm they were still alone before she wriggled her fingers in a mudra and whispered: “I am a spider, I am a spider, I am a spider.” Immediately, her fingertips felt fuzzy, as if there were hundreds of thousands of tiny hairs to help her climb and grip.
Then she jumped to the tree. Her hands and feet made quiet contact with the bark, and the spider spell adhered her to the trunk. She scuttled up the tree, limber and arachnid quick. Daemon followed, although he didn’t need a spell. He’d been climbing trees since he could crawl.