by Evelyn Skye
Chapter Eighteen
Sora and Daemon emerged from the unfettered wildness of Takish Gorge only to be greeted by the different sort of wildness of Paro Village. They rode into town, their horses pushing through curtains of flowering vines every few feet. It was difficult to see where they were going.
“This is the strangest-looking town I’ve ever been in,” Sora said. “It’s like they cleared the land a long time ago to build the village, but then the forest came back with a vengeance, and the people didn’t bother to fight back.”
“Maybe we should leave the horses,” Daemon said. “It might be easier on foot.”
They secured their horses to a nearby post and crossed over a mossy bridge to the main street where most of the shops were concentrated. Even here in the center of town, the forest was so thick that they had to elbow their way through the greenery. Sora almost shoved her arm into someone’s face accidentally as she was pushing through some vines.
“I’m sorry!” she said.
The woman laughed pleasantly. She was short and red-nosed from the cold. “It’s all right. It’s a part of life here. Are you a tourist?”
“Not really. We’re looking for the taiga outpost.”
“Oh, of course, silly me.” She nodded at Sora’s and Daemon’s uniforms. “But I’m afraid there are no taigas here, Your Honor.”
Daemon frowned. “What do you mean, no taigas? There’s a Society post here. We received a message from them a few days ago.”
“They went with Prince Gin, to make him emperor! He is so very kind.” She smiled blissfully.
The color drained from Sora’s face. The Dragon Prince had been here.
But the Paro Village taigas wouldn’t support him, let alone leave this outpost unguarded in order to go with Prince Gin. That made no sense. Those who’d fought for him during the Blood Rift were either dead or gone. The taigas who remained in Kichona were on Empress Aki’s side.
Daemon cleared his throat. “You realize that Prince Gin’s sister is still the empress, right?”
The woman shrugged and looked entirely unconcerned. “Prince Gin has picked many here in this village as his Hearts! Including me.”
Sora choked on a breath. “His Hearts?”
The woman beamed and nodded. “Yes! We are to go to the Imperial City soon as special guests for his coronation.”
Sora grabbed Daemon’s arm. “You know what that’s a reference to, don’t you?” she whispered.
“The legend of the Evermore?”
“Yes. And the Ceremony of Two Hundred Hearts.” Sora fought the dizzying sensation of the ground giving way beneath her feet. Prince Gin was tapping people to become his blood sacrifices to Zomuri, so that he would be granted the right to pursue the Evermore. Two hundred men, women, and children, who would cut out their own hearts and offer them to the god, all in the name of glory.
Sora grabbed onto a nearby vine to steady herself.
The woman blinked at them, as if she’d forgotten what Sora and Daemon had been asking her about. “Hey-o, did you say you were tourists? You really should visit the Paro Bakery. They have the most divine persimmon twists, especially if you can get them straight out of the fryer. I think I might go see the baker right now. Would you like to join me?”
“Um, no thank you,” Sora said.
The woman smiled vacantly and drifted off like dandelion seed in the wind, murmuring to herself about persimmon twists.
“Should we try to figure out who all the ‘Hearts’ are here and tie them up or something?” Daemon asked.
Sora shook her head. “We don’t have time. We need to get to the Society outpost to see if the taigas really are gone, and to send a message to the Citadel.”
A man with an ax pushed through the vines on the other side of the street and began crossing the road toward them. But as soon as he saw Sora’s and Daemon’s uniforms, he veered back to the other side of the street and disappeared behind the flower curtain through which he’d come.
The hairs on Sora’s arm stood up. “I don’t like the feeling of this,” she said.
“We’ll find the Society outpost ourselves,” Daemon said. “Paro Village is small. A black building can’t be hard to find among all this green.”
They made their way through town, practically swimming as they pushed aside armfuls of vine. They almost collided with several more people, but again, as soon as their uniforms came into view, the people quickly changed direction.
Sora and Daemon reached the end of the main street and nudged their way through a particularly dense curtain of vines. There was nothing but steep mountain ahead of them.
“I guess the Society building isn’t as easy to find as I thought,” Daemon said, kicking at the rocks at his feet.
But Sora reached over and touched his arm. “Look up.”
Above them, platforms spanned the arms of half a dozen trees. A series of black buildings with black thatched roofs traversed them.
“It’s a tenderfoot’s dream post,” Daemon said, staring in wonder at what was essentially a giant treehouse. A very well-constructed one. The Society outpost here was as unique as the rest of Paro Village.
At that moment, a little face popped up in one of the open windows. “Oh no, it’s the enemy!” he cried out. “Sound the alarm!”
A handful of other children peeked out from various windows. They were just boys and girls playing. Real tenderfoots all lived and trained at the Citadel. But where were the taiga warriors who were supposed to be here? They wouldn’t have let their post be overrun like this.
“Attack!” one of the children yelled.
Acorns hailed down at Sora and Daemon. “Stop!” Sora shouted. “We’re taigas!”
“It’s the enemy! Empress Aki’s taigas are here!” the first boy cried. “Show no mercy!”
The enemy?
More acorns.
“Stand down!” Daemon yelled. “We must speak to the taiga warriors and send a message to the Citadel.”
“The dragonflies are all dead!” a girl from the highest platform shouted. She whirled to the other children. “Keep fighting, everybody!”
A storm of rocks pummeled down from the treehouse this time. They were a lot harder than acorns.
“This is ridiculous,” Sora said, as she ran for cover. Daemon was right behind her. They plowed through the curtain of greenery that had initially blocked their view of the outpost.
When they were shielded from the acorns and rocks, Daemon said, “What in all hells is going on here?”
Sora’s skin crawled as if there were ants beneath the surface. Where had the Paro Village taigas gone in the short span of days between when they sent the dragonfly to the Citadel and now? And why were the people here so fiercely dedicated to Prince Gin?
Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be a way to get any of that information from here.
“Come on,” Sora said, heading back toward their horses.
“Where are we going?” Daemon asked, falling into step beside her.
“Kaede City.” It was south, on the tiger’s leg of Kichona. They’d be able to send off a message to the Citadel. Sand Mine was technically the closer Society outpost, but it was difficult to get to. So Sora chose Kaede City. “Hopefully Prince Gin hasn’t been there already too.”
Chapter Nineteen
What do you think Fairy and Broomstick are up to right now?” Sora asked as they rode along a dirt road. They were halfway to Kaede City and a long way from the Citadel. She was really beginning to miss their friends.
“Fairy has probably accidentally gassed the girls’ dormitory a couple times with experiments gone awry, and Broomstick might have blown another hole in the wall of his room.”
Sora smiled, but then grew serious again. “Do you think they’re worried about us?”
Daemon went serious too. “Yeah. I’m sure they’re worried sick and trying to keep themselves occupied so they don’t have to think about it. But we’ll—”
“
Shh.” Sora stuck out her arm to stop him and his horse. There were voices in the distance, and hooves. Lots of them. “Quick, into the woods,” she said.
They yanked their horses into the trees just in time. A caravan of a hundred or so people appeared on the dirt road coming from somewhere inland.
While Daemon hid the horses farther in the forest, Sora crept back out close to the road, staying hidden in the low shrubbery. She lay on her belly as she pulled out a spyglass.
“Is that them?” Daemon asked, when he crawled up beside her.
Sora trained her glass on the banners above the wagons. They were the yellow-and-green flags they’d spied last time at the Takish Gorge camp. Red canvas peeked out from the carts, possibly tents.
“Yes,” Sora said. “It’s them.”
She moved her spyglass to the people then, part of her hoping to see mere dancers, prancing around as if celebrating by a fire. But instead, she saw actual fire. A sphere of it, nearly eight feet tall, rolling at the head of the caravan.
Her mouth hung open. “Gods . . .”
“What is it?”
Sora let her arm drop and held the spyglass limply to Daemon.
He took it and focused on what she’d been looking at.
“Daggers,” he swore in disbelief. “Are those flames?”
“Unless our eyes are both deceiving us.” It turned out Daemon hadn’t misheard the wolves about enormous spheres of fire.
“There’s . . . a person inside.”
“What?” Sora grabbed the spyglass and peered through it.
Inside the orb, a silhouette marched. Occasionally, the flames parted, and Sora saw the actual woman inside. She was propelling the entire sphere forward.
Holy heavens. What was this magic? It was nothing like what the taigas could do. Every muscle in Sora’s body tensed. “The fire doesn’t even hurt her; it just obeys her. I’m afraid to look at what else is over there.”
“Me too.”
And yet a hard determination crystallized between them. It was a fragile bravery, like thin ice in a pond full of dread. But it was courage nonetheless.
Sora took a deep breath. Then she raised the spyglass to her eye again and scanned the rest of the column of people in the caravan.
Crow’s eye.
A snowball ten feet in diameter rolled after the fire orb, freezing the scorched ground as soon as it touched the dirt and leaving a trail of frost behind.
A small tornado followed the snowball, sucking up the frost. Like with the sphere of flames, there was a person visible inside. He collected the frost and occasionally hurled the snowflakes back out like icy throwing stars.
Never in any of Sora’s studies or even in the myths and legends her mother wrote had Sora heard of magic like this.
Her spyglass focused on a boy gliding on a platform of something wriggling. Sora gagged.
“What is it?” Daemon asked.
She coughed and pointed the spyglass in the direction of the caravan. “Insects,” she said hoarsely. “There’s a boy being carried by a moving platform made of insects. Just like the wolves said.”
Daemon’s eyes widened, and his skin shaded green, as if his body was warring between the shock of disbelief and the desire to throw up.
And at the very end of the procession, two massive, muscled horses carried the last of the mysterious group. Both wore dark green cloaks with hoods that hid their faces from view, but there was a sternness to them that hammered another crack into Sora’s courage.
“Maybe we should go back to the Citadel,” Daemon said. “This isn’t just harmless magic. It’s too big for you and me.”
Sora shivered, but she shook her head. “We already lost them once when we reported back to the Citadel. We can’t lose them again. There’s too much at stake. After what we saw at Paro Village, there’s definitely something bad going on.”
“Then what do you propose we do?”
She lowered the spyglass. “Stick to our plan. Follow them, learn what we can, and then I’m going to kill Prince Gin.”
Sora and Daemon waited for the caravan to pass, then followed as if they were ghosts, disappearing into trees and melting into the shadows. As the sun reached its afternoon peak, they arrived at a fork in the road. One path went farther inland into farm country, the other, out toward the coast. The fire orb at the front of the procession chose the road toward the sea.
“They’re heading to Kaede City,” Daemon said. “How convenient for us.”
Sora nodded. Maybe they could sneak past the caravan once they got closer to the city and report to the taiga outpost.
An hour and a half later, the smell of the ocean blew in from the coast, tingeing the air with brine. Kaede City was a short distance away, a small harbor town with roots in fishing and seafaring.
The caravan stopped in the sparse forest just outside the city. Sora and Daemon ducked behind a cluster of mossy boulders.
One of the cloaked figures rode up from the back of the line.
He removed his hood. The reptilian scars were undeniable.
The man who had burned down the Citadel. Who killed Sora’s sister. Who wouldn’t stop at battlefields soaked in blood in his quest to achieve the Evermore.
A furious cocktail of fear, hatred, and a hunger for vengeance swirled inside Sora. It was so potent, Daemon actually gasped as the feeling shot through their bond.
Prince Gin faced the soldiers who had gathered around him.
“My formidable ryuu,” he said, his voice low and gravelly. “I’m so proud of where we have been, how hard you’ve worked to come this far, and where we’re all headed together.”
Sora gripped Daemon’s shoulder. “What are ryuu?” she whispered.
“I think that’s what they call themselves,” he said.
The sound of the word sat like a lump of lead in Sora’s gut.
The other cloaked figure rode up beside Prince Gin. “May I say a few words?”
It was a girl’s voice. A little raspy, but definitely a girl.
“Before we enter our next target,” the cloaked ryuu said, “let me remind you that we are embarking on a course of action that will not only bring glory upon each and every one of you but also usher Kichona into a new age. Too long have the abilities granted to us by the gods lay dormant. Taigas shouldn’t just be police; we can be so much more than that. And with our new power, we’ll unleash our potential. We will make Prince Gin emperor, and we will build a new kingdom worthy of the people of Kichona and the gods.”
“Huzzah!” the soldiers shouted, as they stamped their feet.
Fear shivered through Sora’s veins.
But then, as she remembered what the prince had done to Hana, what he’d done to the Society, anger blazed through her like flames on an oil-soaked wick. Her grip on Daemon’s shoulder tightened like a vise. “The Dragon Prince as emperor?” Sora whispered. “He staged a coup, murdered taigas, and tried to kill his sister. He’ll be emperor over my dead body.”
“Well, like I said before, I’d rather we didn’t die quite yet,” Daemon said.
“Good, because I don’t plan on him becoming emperor, ever,” Sora said, grabbing Daemon’s hand and pulling him into the woods. “Come on. We’re going to beat them into Kaede City to warn the taigas and transmit the information to the Council and Empress Aki. They need to know that, without a doubt, the Dragon Prince is back.”
Chapter Twenty
The market was in full swing as Sora and Daemon entered Kaede City, looking for the taigas’ command post. The open-stall market covered several square blocks in the center of town, and it was a cacophony of activity as housekeepers, kitchen maids, and page boys hurried around, running errands.
A butcher unloaded fresh cuts of beef to display at his stall. A hawker shouted about the hot noodle soup he had for the afternoon special. And a fishmonger huffed by with crates laden with mackerel and ice, shoving past a page who was in his way.
Daemon walked up to a stall selling silk
scarves and hair combs carved from abalone shells to ask for directions to the taigas’ post. The girl who worked there wore a heavy quilted coat that looked as if it had been made from every color of fabric ever invented. She had an equal rainbow of ribbons tied through the braids in her hair.
“Good afternoon,” she said in a south Kichonan accent, one that lilted softly like the ripples of a lake. “Are you looking for a gift for your girlfriend?” She tilted her chin at Sora.
“I’m not his girlfriend,” Sora said brusquely.
Her quick response was like a little stab in Daemon’s chest. But he smiled through it.
“I’m sorry,” the girl said, casting her eyes downward in a manner that was demure yet slightly flirtatious at the same time. “I just assumed.”
He cleared his throat. “Right. Well, um, I was actually wondering if you could direct us toward the Society of Taigas’ command center here?”
The girl’s mouth twisted a little in confusion. Then Daemon remembered he was in civilian clothes, that hideous turquoise-and-coral shirt again. After the Paro Village incident, he and Sora had decided to switch to “normal” clothes so it wouldn’t be obvious that they were taigas. But that made it so this girl didn’t understand why he’d need to find the Society post.
He laughed as if embarrassed. “I’m just coming through Kaede City, and I heard there was a taiga outpost here. I’ve always wanted to see a real live taiga in person.”
She smiled then. “Boys. My little brother is obsessed with the taigas too. But I didn’t expect it of you. You’re so . . . strapping. And handsome.” She twirled one of her ribboned braids around her finger.
Daemon could feel Sora’s amusement through their gemina bond, the hop and skip of a smirk.
“Er, thank you,” he said, tracing the tines of a comb decorated with tiny seashells that looked like lemon drops so he wouldn’t have to watch the girl ogling him. “Do you know where the Society’s post is?”
She nodded eagerly. “By the harbor. There’s a tall wooden building, all black. You can’t miss it.”
“Thank you,” Daemon said.
“Anytime,” the girl said. “What are you doing tonight? I finish work at four o’clock. . . .”