Circle of Shadows

by Evelyn Skye

  He stared intensely at her for another moment as he processed this.

  “Broomstick, I promise I’m telling the truth. I love Fairy. I love you and Daemon too. And . . . if we don’t believe in each other, what do we have left?”

  He flinched. “That’s what Wolf said to me too.” His fists began to unclench.

  But then he let out a barrage of new questions. “What happened at Copper Bluff? Why did you spare us? Why did you go back to Prince Gin, and then turn around and leave them again? I don’t get it.” He looked pointedly at her uniform.

  Sora was suddenly very aware of her green belt and the green triplicate whorls on the cuffs of her tunic. She looked like a ryuu, and she’d actually been one for some time—she’d nearly killed her friends. She tried to shake off the guilt, because she hadn’t been herself, but it clung to her like a parasite.

  “I know I did a lot of bad things . . . but I will make it up to you. I swear.” To avoid Broomstick’s scrutiny of her and her uniform, Sora looked down at Daemon. “Let me try to explain while we hide him. I think the closet would be a good place.”

  She called on the ryuu particles to make Daemon quiet for as long as the genka had hold of him. Broomstick stepped forward and began to pick up Daemon’s feet, as if they were going to hoist him up. But Sora commanded the emerald dust to lift his slumbering body.

  Broomstick took in a sharp breath. “Stars. How did you—? Oh, right,” he said, as if he’d suddenly remembered Sora levitating Fairy’s body inside the tent at Copper Bluff. “Ryuu magic.”

  Sora nodded apologetically.

  “S-sorry. I just . . .” He composed himself, still wary of her, but listening. “Go on.”

  “My sister is alive,” Sora said. “Hana didn’t die during the Blood Rift. Prince Gin’s warriors actually kidnapped some of the tenderfoots to train as the next generation of their army, for when he would return to Kichona. Hana was one of them. She goes by Virtuoso.”

  “What?” Broomstick cocked his head, as if he’d heard Sora wrong. In the meantime, the emerald particles floated Daemon into the closet and lowered him onto some spare bedding. The doors slid gently shut.

  Without something else to do, Sora faced Broomstick now. “She’s been raised by a power-hungry, vengeful prince, and she doesn’t remember anything else. Her whole world is shaped by the Dragon Prince’s story. She’s a ryuu through and through. But she’s my baby sister, Broomstick. I couldn’t abandon her. I was making progress reconnecting with her. So I had to go back with her after Copper Bluff. I wanted to get through to her and show her how wrong Prince Gin is. I wanted to bring her back to our side.”

  Broomstick sank down into one of Bullfrog’s chairs, an elegant piece of black wood and soft black leather. “Stars, Spirit. Here I was whining about putting myself out there one time, while you’ve been working undercover with the gods-damn Dragon Prince, risking your life every second you’re there, and simultaneously wrestling with the discovery that your little sister is still alive and beguiled by the enemy. I am a sorry excuse for a taiga for ever doubting you.”

  Sora kneeled beside him. “It’s perfectly understandable. I know that what I’ve done doesn’t look good on its face.”

  “But still. I know you. My loyalty shouldn’t have wavered. I should’ve been more like Wolf.”

  She thought of how Daemon looked whenever he climbed to the top of a tree, smiling as if the heavens replenished him. How he’d become wild again in Takish Gorge, speaking with the alpha wolf. And how he’d somehow jolted her from the Dragon Prince’s hold, through sheer determination in their gemina bond.

  In a sky littered with asteroids, he was the North Star.

  Sora’s stomach fluttered, as if it were full of dragonflies. It was a new feeling that she didn’t quite understand, but what she did know was this: “No one is like Wolf.”

  Broomstick nodded solemnly.

  “You two made a bold move by saving me,” Sora said. “Now let me make it worth it. I have a plan, but I need you to convince the Council and spread the word to the other taigas. They won’t believe it, coming from me.”

  “Tell me what I need to do.”

  Sora pulled up another chair. “I assume Wolf explained how ryuu magic works?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Now, there’s no way the taigas are going to be able to match the ryuu in a fight. Prince Gin and his army are on the edge of Jade Forest; they’ll be here within hours, and even if I could teach everyone how to command ryuu magic, there simply isn’t enough time for them to learn and master it.”

  Broomstick’s knuckles whitened as he squeezed the armrest on his chair. “This doesn’t sound too promising.”

  “Exactly,” Sora said. “That’s why we can’t actually fight. We have to stop the battle before it ever begins, before they can overwhelm us and conduct the Ceremony of Two Hundred Hearts. We have to undermine the ryuu’s Sight.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Sora held her hand in front of her. “Right now, there is emerald-colored dust swirling in the air. The ryuu have to be able to see it in order to command it to do things. But if we blind them, they won’t have magic. However, we will. Or, worst case, we fight hand to hand, and the odds are even. Better for us, actually, because we outnumber them.”

  Broomstick relaxed his hold on the armrest and leaned forward. “So how do we blind all of them? We can’t just poke out the ryuu’s eyes individually when they march on the main gates. I have a feeling the Dragon Prince won’t take well to that kind of welcome.”

  She stood from her chair and walked over to the window, which had a view of Rose Palace on the top of the hill. It glimmered as if it were the crown of all of Kichona. “I do have something in mind, if I can get it to work. It involves breaking off a huge chunk of crystal, floating it to the gates of the Citadel, and raising it at just the right angle in the sun when the ryuu arrive.”

  “You’re going to tear apart Empress Aki’s castle to use it as a giant magnifying glass?” His eyes were wide.

  “If I can control the magic,” Sora said. “I have no idea if I’m strong enough. But yes, that’s the plan.”

  Broomstick chuckled despite himself. “If anyone can pull this off, it’s you, Spirit.”

  She didn’t laugh, though. She kept her gaze on Rose Palace. “Yes, well . . . Let’s hope that’s true.”

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Fairy startled awake and sat straight up. Her mouth tasted like sand. And everything was too bright.

  She squinted at all the white around her. Where am I?

  Everything that had happened at Copper Bluff came rushing back to her. The invisible ryuu putting her in a headlock. Wolf breaking Prince Gin’s spell. Spirit, giving her rira and promising she would be all right.

  That must mean she was somewhere safe, right? Because Spirit had been bad but then she was good. She must have been, if Fairy was still alive.

  She frowned. She was so confused.

  Am I back at the Citadel? But no, it was white here, and everything at the Citadel was black.

  Except the infirmary. The inside of the Society infirmary was white. But how would she have gotten back here?

  Fairy shoved aside the thin blanket that covered her. She threw her legs over the cot and stood up.

  Rather, she tried to stand up. But her muscles were as wobbly as yuzu jelly. She grabbed for the rails on the side of the cot, missed, and fell to the ground with a crash.

  No one ran to her aid. No doctors. No nurses.

  But also, no ryuu.

  She didn’t know whether to be relieved or upset that she’d been left all alone.

  And where was Broomstick? Or Wolf? Had they made it out of Copper Bluff?

  Fairy began to cry.

  She hated it. But she couldn’t stop the tears.

  Five minutes later, though, Broomstick burst through the infirmary doors. “Fairy?” he shouted as he tore down the corridor.

  “Broomstick!” she
shouted. She sobbed at the sound of his voice.

  Stop crying, she reprimanded herself. You’re a taiga, for gods’ sake.

  The confusion began to clear in her head, and she could feel their gemina bond light up. Broomstick’s relief and happiness flooded in.

  She reached up for the cot’s rails again, and this time, she managed to pull herself up. Her arms and legs prickled with pins and needles, but it was a vast improvement from being composed of jelly. The rira had worn off her brain first, and now it was wearing off the rest of her body.

  Broomstick careened around the corner, into the room. He helped her sit on the cot, then threw his arms around her and held her tight. “You’re alive. You’re alive and you’re all right.”

  “I’ll only be alive if you don’t squeeze me to death,” Fairy said, gasping.

  “Oh, sorry.” He released her but kept grinning and shaking his head, as if the fact that she was awake hadn’t quite sunk in.

  She was still working on believing it too. As all the feeling returned to her limbs, though, she was able to smile. No more stupid tears.

  “How long was I out?” Fairy asked. “And where is everyone? I fell and made a racket, but no one came.”

  Broomstick let out a long exhale. “Do you remember what happened in the desert?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well . . .” He quickly caught her up, from how her body had been taken as evidence of the empress’s death to this very moment, when Spirit was on her way to demolish Rose Palace, Wolf was delirious from gemina-transferred genka, and Broomstick was supposed to alert the Council of the plan to blind the ryuu when they arrived. Which was a matter of hours.

  Fairy blinked at him. “You’re saying I didn’t miss much while I was unconscious.”

  Broomstick shook his head and laughed. “Something like that.”

  “Well, I guess since it’s been incredibly boring in the past few days, we’d better go out there and make something interesting happen, huh?” Fairy scooted off the cot. She wasn’t feeling disoriented or sleepy anymore; the shock of all that had happened dispelled it.

  And she’d been out of action for too long. Time to get back into it. “Go do what you need to do to spread word of Spirit’s plan. I’m going to grab my potions from my room. I might be able to mix together an antidote to genka for Wolf.”

  “It might not work, since he didn’t actually get shot with genka,” Broomstick said. “Spirit is the one with the genka in her system. Wolf only has the effects.”

  Fairy frowned. “It’s still worth trying. If we’re going to battle the ryuu, we’re going to need all the taigas we can get, and Wolf is one of our best fighters.”

  Broomstick put his fist over his heart. “Cloak of night.”

  She shook her head. “Wrong salute.”

  “You’re right.” He pounded his fists to his chest again. “Work hard.”

  “Mischief harder.”

  Fairy let herself look at her gemina for a few more seconds, while at the same time basking in the fierce, brotherly love Broomstick sent through their connection. Heavens, it felt good to be back.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Your Majesty,” one of the Imperial Guards said, “I’m sorry to bother you in these early hours, but there is an apprentice here to see you. She’s not on your schedule, but she insisted it was urgent. She has news of Prince Gin.”

  Aki rose from the meditation cushion. “Who is this apprentice?” she asked.

  “She says her name is Spirit.”

  “The one the Council arrested? Interesting.” Aki nodded. Spirit was the chief rogue, the one who’d plotted the fireworks at the palace. Some of the councilmembers thought she might be a traitor, but Aki thought they were shortsighted, limited by how they understood the world. Spirit saw and did things differently than tradition dictated. It was precisely what Aki needed, and she’d judge for herself whether Spirit was loyal or not. “Please send her in.”

  Spirit entered the room and laid herself on the ground in the requisite bow. When she rose, she said, “Your Majesty, thank you for meeting with me. I don’t have much time. I came to ask permission to break off part of your palace. It’s the only way to defeat the ryuu.”

  Both of Aki’s brows shot straight up. “I knew that you were creative, but this was more than I imagined.”

  “I know I’m asking a lot. More than a lot. You don’t even know who I am, and—”

  “You are asking for a great deal, but you’re wrong about one thing: I do know who you are.”

  “Oh.” Spirit looked around nervously, as if anticipating guards jumping at her.

  “Some of the Council believe you’re working for my brother,” Aki said. “But I don’t. If you were, I’d already be dead, wouldn’t I?”

  Spirit nodded carefully. It must be strange—scary, even—for the empress to talk about assassination. “Yes, Your Majesty. If I were a ryuu sent to kill you, you wouldn’t have even known I was here.”

  “All right,” Aki said, settling back onto her meditation cushion and surprised even at herself for feeling so calm and sure about Spirit. But now was the time for action, not overthinking. “Explain to me why I should let you demolish part of my palace. The Council has a battle plan. How is yours better?”

  She didn’t say anything. Instead, Spirit held her arms out in front of her. Almost immediately, they disappeared from view, as if they’d been sliced off at the elbow.

  Aki gasped. “How . . . ? What did you do?”

  “I can make myself invisible,” she said, her arms reappearing. “I’m not the only ryuu who can. There are others who can make blood boil. They can form hurricanes. Cloud the sky with an army of locusts. Bend steel to their will. The Council doesn’t comprehend the full power of the ryuu. But I’ve trained with them. I know what they can do, and we don’t stand a chance fighting them the old way.”

  The old way, Aki thought. That was, indeed, how Glass Lady and the others at the Citadel had been operating. In the busy lead-up to confronting Gin, she’d forgotten her frustration with the Council. But it was because of their inability to adapt, their sticking to traditional methods of warfare, that Aki had taken matters into her own hands and asked Fairy and Broomstick to go to Copper Bluff.

  If it was true what Spirit said about the ryuu, then following the Council’s strategy of simply fighting Gin’s warriors head-on was a prescription for death. Not only for the soldiers themselves, but also for Kichona. Once the Ceremony of Two Hundred Hearts was completed, Gin would turn their peaceful kingdom into a war machine. Tiger pearls and whispering maple leaves would be replaced with blood and destruction. And the people would no longer be themselves at all once he hypnotized them. They’d just be extensions of Gin’s will.

  “This isn’t simply the Rift all over again, is it?” Aki said.

  “No, Your Majesty. You won’t win against Prince Gin this time, unless—”

  “We think and fight differently.”

  Spirit nodded. Her jaw set with a determination that reminded Aki of herself when she was young and fighting for the kingdom.

  “My brother is almost here?” Aki asked.

  “Yes.”

  Aki touched the locket at her throat. He was coming. The man who used to be just a boy, her other half. The brother who used to play pirates versus taigas with her. Her partner in crime, sneaking into the palace kitchen together to steal peach pies.

  The man who’d also torched the Imperial City, who was obsessed with the Evermore, and who would bring blood and destruction to Kichona again.

  She inhaled deeply and waved her hand toward the hill outside her window. “You have my permission to do whatever you need to Rose Palace.”

  “Really?” Spirit’s eyes widened, like a child who wasn’t sure if she’d truly been given free reign to do the one thing she’d never been allowed to do.

  “Yes. You have my permission on one condition . . .” Aki stood. “You let me come with you. If we are to do things differentl
y, then I want to be an active part of this. I will not sit in a gilded room while the taigas fight for me.”

  Spirit’s eyes grew wider, if that was possible. “It would be an honor, Your Majesty.”

  “Let me change into something more practical,” Aki said, gesturing at the gown sweeping at her feet and heading toward her bedroom. “But let’s be clear about this mission to dismantle my palace—it is also an honor for me to be able to join you.”

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  The gray of night still had a tenuous hold on the sky when Sora and Empress Aki slipped out the rear gates of the Citadel. It may have been Prince Gin who was the sibling blessed with magic, but now the empress was in a taiga uniform, and with her hair pulled back in a simple bun, a knife on her belt, and her commanding stride, she really could have passed as a young warrior.

  Empress Aki had also found Sora a taiga uniform to wear. Sora stretched an arm out in front of her. It felt good to see a sleeve without the ryuu’s green whorls embroidered there.

  I can wield their magic, but I am still a taiga, and I always will be.

  Instead of heading up the winding road to Rose Palace, though, Empress Aki turned toward the Field of Illusions guarding the Citadel’s western fortress walls.

  Sora hesitated. “Where are we going?”

  “A secret that only the Imperial Guard and I know. And now you.” The empress winked.

  She sprinted onto the sand, which immediately began to shift beneath her, in front of her, all around her.

  In a matter of seconds, the empress was already fifty yards into the illusions. How was she so fast?

  “Wait!” Sora ran after her. “Your Highness, you need a taiga guide or else—”

  “Or else this will happen?” Empress Aki stopped abruptly in the middle of a black-and-white spiral of sand that swirled and made the ground look like a three-dimensional vortex that would swallow them whole.

  And then it did swallow her.