by Evelyn Skye
She squeezed tighter. Gin grappled at her arms, trying to loosen her hold. He gasped for air. His legs kicked.
Suddenly, someone appeared out of thin air. It wasn’t Sola.
It was a girl. A ryuu.
“Enough,” she said.
Aki went flying across the temple. She slammed into the crystal wall and crashed down into the incense as she landed on Sola’s shrine. Ash and rice poured out of the pot, onto her bloody handkerchief, snuffing out the smoke and smothering her entreaties to Sola to intervene and save the kingdom.
She gasped, the wind knocked out of her. What just happened? Where had that girl come from?
Gin glowered as he rose to his feet. He rubbed his throat. “That wasn’t very nice of you to attack me, Aki. I came here and tried to have a polite conversation with you, and this is what I get?”
She crawled backward through the ash and rice, but there was nowhere else she could go. She was trapped. She found her voice, though, because gods dammit, she was an empress, and she would not be bullied.
“It wasn’t exactly a polite conversation, Gin.”
“Only because you’re so stubborn. But I did try while you still possessed your own mind.”
Aki paled. She crossed her arms in front of her face, as if that would stop him from hypnotizing her. “No. Gin, don’t. We can talk. We can think of a solution. We can—”
“It’s too late.” He looked at her intently, and her mouth smacked shut.
She tore at her lips with her fingers, but they wouldn’t budge.
Gin kneeled before her, an ivory-handled dagger in his hands. “I was going to kill you, but I’ve changed my mind. I have a better idea.”
“Mrrr!” Her pulse pounded in her ears as panic grew.
He spun the knife’s handle. “All of Kichona already thinks you’re dead. You made sure of that, thank you very much. I simply have to ask you to abdicate the throne, and then make you disappear. You should suffer in exile, like I had to all those years.”
Aki’s heart didn’t slow at learning that she wasn’t going to die. What really mattered was not letting Gin become emperor.
But he smiled like a dragon, and she knew she was lost.
A moment later, warmth like a summer breeze enveloped her. It reminded her of birthday parties as a little girl, playing hide-and-seek in the palace with Gin, and their father scooping them both up and twirling them until they all fell dizzy to the floor with laughter.
“Everything is wonderful, isn’t it?” Gin said.
Aki nodded. The red light in the temple, which had seemed ominous before, now took on a dark beauty, like sitting inside a hummingbird feeder full of the sweetest nectar.
“And you agree that abdicating in my favor is what is best for Kichona?” Gin asked.
“I do,” Aki said. She didn’t know why she hadn’t seen his perspective before. But then again, he always had been a visionary. She was the twin who saw what was before them. He was the twin who saw what was possible.
“Then make it official,” Gin said, reaching out and holding her hand. “Give me the throne.”
She smiled at his touch. It was just like when they were children, holding hands as they splashed through fountains and searched the gardens for dandelions to make wishes on. “I don’t want to be empress anymore,” she said. “I abdicate. I give you the throne.”
Gin’s grip on her hand tightened. His eyes glistened, but Aki didn’t understand why. Were they happy tears? And yet, he frowned.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Aki just grinned at him.
He squeezed her hand once more, then released it and turned away without looking at her.
“Virtuoso,” he said to the ryuu who’d been standing behind him at attention. “You know what to do.”
The girl nodded. She looked at Aki and narrowed her eyes.
It happened in an instant. Aki had no clue what had happened, but she gasped. Everything around her seemed tinted, as if a green haze had descended upon the world.
“What did you do?” she asked, gaping at the temple around her. A second ago, the walls had seemed like rubies. Now they were unpolished emeralds.
“You’re camouflaged to the rest of the world,” Virtuoso said. “You still exist, but . . . you don’t.”
Gin, still looking in the other direction, let out a long sigh. The warmth and contentment Aki had felt vanished, replaced by deep chill.
He’d released her from his spell.
“Oh gods, what have you done?” Aki asked.
“I didn’t want it to be this way,” Gin said. “But I have to put the kingdom first.” He glanced over his shoulder at Virtuoso. “Take my sister away and stash her somewhere no one will ever find her.”
“With pleasure, Your Majesty.” Virtuoso produced a length of rope and a gag.
“No,” Aki said, backing up against the temple wall, everything still green. “Gin, don’t.”
“I’ll take care of our kingdom, Aki. I promise. I’ll make our family and all the gods proud.”
“Gin!” Aki screamed.
Virtuoso grabbed her, sinking her fingernails into the skin on her neck, and tied the gag roughly around her neck.
“See you later, princess,” she said. Then she slammed the heel of her hand into the back of Aki’s head, and all the green in the world went black.
Chapter Seventy
Sora and Daemon flew through the air in a bright blue blur. The electricity around him tingled on Sora’s skin, and while ryuu power had felt like sparklers inside her, now she and Daemon literally cast off sparks, and the energy he generated blazed through their gemina bond, powering them with more adrenaline than she’d ever felt in her life.
But the thrill was extinguished as they arrived at the base of the quartzite hill that led up to Rose Palace. The dusty-pink crystal wasn’t there to greet them.
The palace was gone. Mounds of shattered crystal lay in its place.
“Holy heavens,” Daemon growled, as he stopped in midair. He landed on the ground, and they gaped at the destruction in front of them.
Rose Palace had been a part of Kichona’s Imperial City for a millennium. And now it was just a pile of debris.
Sora gasped. “The empress is inside. We have to get up there!”
The ground began to vibrate. The crystal remnants of the palace clinked against each other as the earth shook. Daemon froze, and Sora held on to his fur more tightly.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
Suddenly, spires of bloodstone pierced through the top of the hill, sending rose crystal flying like daggers everywhere.
Sora threw out some ryuu particles. They arced around them like a shimmering, emerald shield, forming a barrier in the air.
The shards of crystal struck with vicious speed.
She inhaled sharply and held on to her magic.
The shield remained steady and caught the crystal spears. They quivered, their momentum cut short.
Daemon let out a long breath.
The hill whimpered. Then there was a deafening crack, as more bloodstone shot out of the ground, like dark fangs puncturing the rocky hill. The moat around it, once clear as ice, now bubbled, thick and murky and green. And the black stone streaked with red kept rising from the bowels of the earth.
A new castle.
Sora’s and Daemon’s jaws dropped. Behind them, the taiga army arrived.
“Gods help us,” Renegade, one of the councilmembers, said of the growing castle. He wasn’t even fazed by the fact that Sora was sitting on a giant, electric blue wolf. After the displays of ryuu magic at the Citadel, the appearance of a magical wolf and a new, black palace were just two more unfathomable additions to the morning.
As they watched, flags unfurled at the top of the bloodstone towers. Most were long banners, yellow and green like Sora had first seen at the Takish Gorge camp. They flicked their forked tongues in the wind. But on the highest towers, a new flag was raised. Instead of the Ora
tiger wearing a crown—the symbol that had flown over Kichona for hundreds of years—an emerald dragon held the crown in its claws.
Sora’s stomach pitted.
At the top of the castle walls, the ryuu army emerged. Their numbers had been reduced, but they still peered down the hill at the taigas as if they were the ones with the advantage.
They were.
“Long live Emperor Gin, ruler of all Kichona!” they chanted.
Sora snapped out of her horrified stupor. She whirled to Renegade and the three other councilmembers who’d come to the front line. “The empress! She was in Rose Palace when it collapsed. We have to save her.”
“If she was in the palace, she’s probably dead,” Renegade said.
Sora shook her head, aghast. “But there’s a chance she’s alive.”
Scythe stepped forward. “If Prince Gin wanted her dead, then she’s already dead. If he wanted to keep her alive, then he will for some time. He won’t have spared her life just to kill her right away. Either way, it would do the kingdom harm if we tried to attack them now. The ryuu have their powers back, and we can’t lead the taigas straight to Prince Gin. He’ll use his magicked charm to convert most of us, even if we try to resist.”
“So we just retreat?” Sora looked from the councilmembers to the castle and back again. She couldn’t believe what they were saying. Beneath her, Daemon’s muscles tensed, and he sparked brighter blue.
Bullfrog, the councilmember who had arrested and drugged her earlier, approached them. “Spirit, I didn’t listen to you before, and I was wrong. I’m sorry. But now we’re operating on the advice you gave us—the taigas cannot win against the ryuu when they have the full force of their magic. Therefore, we have to retreat, temporarily, to regroup.”
“And do what?” she asked.
“Learn to see the world in a new way,” he said, looking directly at Daemon’s wolf form. “There is magic we never thought possible. We need to understand it and harness it. Only then will we have a chance.”
“But we’re not giving up,” Sora said, beginning to understand.
“We are not giving up,” Renegade confirmed.
Sora looked forlornly at the castle. She had left the empress up there, unprotected, and now the empress might be dead. Prince Gin had claimed the throne, and soon he would declare war on their neighboring kingdoms. And whatever she had managed to mend with Hana during their time together was now ruined, shattered like rose crystal.
“You did the best you could, Spirit,” Bullfrog said softly, the usual croak in his voice barely audible. “You did better than the rest of us. It’s time for us to catch up. Don’t worry. The Society has protected Kichona for a millennium. You don’t get that far without adapting and learning new tricks.”
“I was naive to think we could beat the Dragon Prince that easily,” Sora said.
“No,” Daemon said. “You weren’t naive. You were optimistic and daring, and that’s exactly what the Society needed. Without you, we’d all be conscripted to Prince Gin’s army already.”
“But instead, you’re a magic wolf,” she said glumly.
Daemon laughed, though, and it shook his shoulders and almost knocked Sora off his back. She had to grab a handful of fur so she didn’t slide off. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said, “I’d like to figure out sooner rather than later how to change back into human form, but I’m not all that upset.”
“You’re not?”
“No. I’ve finally got magic now.”
That made Sora smile. A little.
Meanwhile, Renegade turned to the taigas behind them and shouted, “Retreat!”
The army turned and began marching. They would have to leave the Imperial City. Until they came up with a stronger plan, it wouldn’t be safe to stay so close to Prince Gin and his ryuu.
Not all the taigas retreated, though. From the far end of the army, Fairy and Broomstick pushed their way up the road to Sora and Daemon.
“Spirit, are you okay?” Fairy asked, shoving aside the last of the taigas, despite their appalled scowls that she would blatantly ignore the councilmembers’ orders to retreat. “We thought you were going to die when you and Virtuoso fell off the Citadel’s wall. And, Wolf, you’re . . . a wolf.”
Daemon laughed so deeply, it vibrated through his body and through Sora’s. She held more tightly to his fur.
“What, exactly, happened?” Broomstick asked.
“I think he’s the missing wolf from the sky,” Sora said.
Fairy ran her fingers through the fur behind Daemon’s ears. “A demigod, huh? Sexy.”
He leaned into her touch and growled in a content, low rumble.
Sora flinched. But then she reminded herself that she didn’t have a claim on Daemon, not like that. And she never would. They were geminas.
Because of that, she tried to act like everything between them was the same as it had always been, though it felt like wading upriver in a storm. “Wow,” Sora said, rolling her eyes affectionately at Fairy. “You’re still a flirt, even in the middle of a war.”
“It’s evidence of good character that I’m consistent,” she said.
Daemon nudged Fairy playfully with his nose.
Sora looked away. She had to think about something else. “Come on, we should probably catch up with the rest of the taigas.”
But then a voice boomed from the top of the hill. “Did you think it would be that easy to walk away from me?”
“Prince Gin.” Sora paled.
Suddenly, the road beneath them roiled and broke open. It roared as more spears of bloodstone shot out of the ground, like thousands of dragon talons. One of the claws knocked Daemon into the air. Sora screamed and clung to his back.
He righted himself before they hit the ground, and they darted into the sky.
Beneath them, the path that had once led to Rose Palace continued to rip itself asunder. More talons pierced through the earth. Some speared straight through unfortunate taigas. Others closed around them and lifted them ten stories off the ground, trapping the soldiers in prisons of stone dragon claws. Those who were trapped tried fruitlessly to smash the claws or pry them apart as the talons curled together, the spaces between narrowing to close the prisoners in.
“Wolf! Help!” Fairy teetered at the top of one of the talons. She held Broomstick by the back of his tunic, but the fabric was slipping. If she lost her grip, he would fall into the stone claws’ clutches.
“Hang on,” Daemon shouted.
Sora pressed herself flat onto his neck and clamped her legs to his sides. They dove straight down. Blue light streaked behind them. The wind shrieked in Sora’s ears.
As they descended, new claws shot out of the ground and tried to snatch them from the air. Daemon swerved.
“Crow’s eye!” Sora clung to his fur as they dodged in and out.
“I can’t hold Broomstick much longer!” Fairy shouted. The talon she perched on began to close toward the others, threatening to impale her on another claw.
“Go now!” Sora yelled into Daemon’s ear.
He darted out of reach of another stone claw and streaked toward Fairy and Broomstick again.
Sora held out her hand.
Broomstick reached.
Their fingers met and locked. “Let go!” Sora said to Fairy.
She released Broomstick, and Sora swung him up onto Daemon’s back. They flew up and away from the claws.
“Are you all right?” Sora asked.
Broomstick nodded, securing himself into Daemon’s blue fur. “We have to go back for Fairy.”
“Already on it.” Daemon looped around and dove down again.
“My dear taigas,” Prince Gin’s voice projected from his bloodstone castle to the soldiers captured below. “Your empress is dead. I am the ruler of Kichona now, which means the Society answers to me.”
“Hurry!” Sora said. “He’s going to hypnotize everyone!”
Daemon growled and flew faster. Sparks flew in Sora’s face
, briefly burning as they bounced off her skin.
They neared the dragon’s claw. Sora stretched her arm out again, and Broomstick held her waist to help keep her on Daemon’s back.
“Fairy! Give me your hand!”
Fairy climbed up onto the talon, trying to keep her balance as it shook her, attempting to jostle her into the cage of taiga prisoners in its palm below.
Daemon swooped down. Sora reached. Fairy jumped.
Another stone claw shot up out of nowhere. “Stars!” Daemon jerked out of the way at the last second, changing their trajectory.
Fairy was left with no one to catch her.
“Wolf!” she screamed. She began to fall toward the ground.
The blue light around him exploded, sparking and buzzing so brightly, Sora and Broomstick had to shield their eyes.
He flew at the speed of lightning, sound falling behind them, and snatched Fairy out of the air with his teeth.
It wasn’t until they were high up in the sky, out of the reach of the stone claws, that Sora realized they were all safe.
“Oh gods,” Fairy said, her breaths fast and shallow.
“Literally,” Sora said of Daemon. She reached down for her roommate, and together, she and Broomstick pulled Fairy onto Daemon’s back.
Below them, Prince Gin’s voice rumbled as he continued to address the taigas. “Bow to your new emperor.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Daemon growled. The blue around him flashed like an electric storm.
In the stone claws, though, a hush rolled through the taiga ranks, like a tumbleweed blowing through a deserted town. One by one, the soldiers inside the talon prisons fell to their knees, stretched their arms forward, and lay prostrate on the stone floor. “Long live Emperor Gin, ruler of all of Kichona!”
Sora braced herself for the warm, campfire comfort of Prince Gin’s hypnosis. She watched Fairy and Broomstick too for that familiar, contented glaze in their eyes that infected everyone under the Dragon Prince’s spell.
But it didn’t get to them. Daemon’s electricity sparked ferociously blue around them like a shield. It was similar to the orbs some of the ryuu had used, but even better—this was the magic of a demigod.
Still, it didn’t help the others. “The Society is gone,” Broomstick said sadly. “There’s only the four of us left.”