by Evelyn Skye
“Zomuri’s treasure . . . What if it’s not here on earth but up in Celestae?” Sora looked fearfully at the sky. “I’m an idiot for assuming the vault was somewhere we could find. But if it’s up there, we can’t get to it.”
“Maybe Wolf could fly,” Broomstick suggested earnestly.
Daemon shot him a black look. “How? By flapping my arms?”
“Calm down; he wasn’t trying to insult you.” Fairy physically inserted herself between them before they started throwing chestnuts again. Or actually fighting.
“But what if . . .” Fairy’s brow furrowed as she thought. “What if we could help you fly? Then you really would be able to take us to Celestae.”
“You’re saying we should work on Daemon’s powers?” Sora asked. She still had the same concern as before—they weren’t even sure what it was Daemon could do, let alone how to summon or control it. Figuring it out could take weeks or months. “We don’t have the time to do that.”
“Oh. Right.” Fairy’s shoulders drooped.
But Sora’s mind raced as if finishing the last pieces of the puzzle. Prince Gin had given his soul pearl to a god. It might be hidden in Celestae, the home of the gods. Or it might be here on earth, in a hiding spot chosen by a god. The common denominator in all of this was . . . a god.
She bolted upright. “I’ve got it.”
Broomstick and Fairy both looked at her expectantly. Daemon continued beating up the mushrooms.
“Who would know best where a god might hide his treasure?” Sora asked.
“Um, the god who hid it in the first place?” Broomstick said.
“Besides him.”
Fairy scrunched her nose as she thought. “Someone who knows how gods think.”
“Another god,” Broomstick said.
“Exactly,” Sora said. “And we might have a connection to another god if Daemon is the demigod constellation we think he is.”
“What are you suggesting?” Fairy asked.
Sora looked up at the sky. “We should try to summon Vespre, Daemon’s dad.”
Chapter Eleven
Daemon thought he might keel over. All his life, he’d wondered where he came from and who his parents were. Will Vespre answer our summons? Will he be happy to see me? Can he tell me who my mother is?
But then he thought of another question. Why hadn’t Vespre reached out to him sometime in the past eighteen years? If he really was Daemon’s father . . .
Their imagined reunion suddenly didn’t seem so sweet.
“Maybe I’m not his son,” Daemon whispered.
“What?” Sora said.
He felt so cold. “Maybe we’re wrong and I’m not a demigod, just a freak of nature or a fluke. Maybe I’m not as special as you think.”
She seized their gemina bond and shook it hard. “You turned into a flying wolf that protected us from the Dragon Prince’s mind control. You’re special. Face it.”
Daemon just crossed his arms.
“Hey,” Sora said softly. She reached out and actually touched him.
Goose bumps immediately rose on every inch of his skin. Daemon slammed his mental ramparts up so that Sora didn’t feel his reaction through their gemina bond, and he jerked away.
He was with Fairy now. Shouldn’t that have cured him of his feelings for Sora?
Unfortunately, emotions didn’t vanish just because another one showed up and tried to take its place.
Sora didn’t know why Daemon had pulled away, though, and hurt made little spots of red blossom on her cheeks. He wanted to brush his fingers over her face and soothe the blotches away.
Instead, he scooted farther back.
“I’m sorry,” Daemon said. “I’m going through . . . a lot.” He didn’t elaborate. It was better for everyone if Sora thought it was solely about all this demigod business. Besides, he really liked Fairy, who was brilliant and brave and gorgeous, just in different ways from Sora. And that was all right. It didn’t make him a bad person to fall out of love and into another love at the same time. He was only human.
Maybe.
“I know all this wolf stuff is overwhelming,” Sora said. “And you’ve been working so hard; you need a break. We’ll start turning this site into a mini temple to pray to Vespre. Why don’t you go for a walk in the woods? Or climb a tree? You always feel better when you’re up high.”
Daemon sighed. Why did she have to be so amazing? He’d been petulant and cynical these past couple days, but she was still there for him.
But he only said, “I don’t want to leave you guys to do everything.”
“We don’t mind, I promise,” Sora said. “Go.”
He nodded slowly and got to his feet. “All right. Thanks.” It actually would be helpful to have a break. He needed to get his head on straight.
Daemon hiked a ways into the woods, closed his eyes, and listened to the forest. There was the soft rustle of leaves in the breeze, like silk fans in late-autumn heat. The murmur of the river, slowing down as it prepared for winter to take it. The silence in distant parts of the woods, where tigers and other predators hunted.
What he didn’t hear, however, was the call of the sky. He didn’t feel the tug that he used to, the insistent need to climb as high as he could go. Nothing made sense anymore.
“Are you all right?”
Daemon opened his eyes. Fairy had followed him.
“Oh. Hi.” He forced himself to smile.
“Do you want company? Or did you want to be alone?” There was no flirtation in her voice, just genuine concern.
“Um, I was trying to clear my head.”
“I’ll give you space, then.” Fairy began to turn to go back to the chestnut grove.
But the moonlight illuminated her, and she looked almost angelic.
“Wait,” he said. “Come with me. I’m going to climb up closer to the sky.”
“I’m right behind you,” Fairy said without asking why.
He found a tall cypress nearby, with a thick trunk and long branches spread out like open arms. The majestic tree must have been a couple thousand years old. Daemon scaled the tree easily, climbing the trunk and then leaping from branch to branch. He checked to see if Fairy needed any help, but she’d cast a squirrel spell and was almost as nimble as he was. He stopped at one of the sturdier branches, not quite at the top but high enough, and a few seconds later, she landed without a sound next to him.
“What are we—?”
“Shh,” he said.
He waited for the familiar feeling to come—the sensation like a part of him had been missing but now, so far from the ground, the sky could pour into him, fill the emptiness, and make him whole. But there was nothing. He closed his eyes and puffed out his chest, as if inviting the sky in.
Nothing.
“It’s not working,” he muttered.
“What’s not?” Fairy asked.
“I don’t feel a thing.”
She moved closer to him. His eyes were still closed, but he sensed the slight shift in weight on the branch beneath his feet.
“Tell me if this helps you feel,” she whispered.
Then her mouth was on him, soft but insistent, for the first time since he’d kissed her in the Citadel infirmary. She smelled of plums—how did she do that, after being on the road for days?—and her lips told him that the incident in the dining hall on Isle of the Moon when she’d jumped away from him hadn’t been rejection, that she still wanted him.
Another surge of heat flooded his body, and while it wasn’t the same as the sky pouring into him, he couldn’t care less right now.
Her lips parted his, and their tongues found each other. Daemon circled Fairy’s waist and lifted her. She threw her arms around his neck and wrapped her legs around him. He moved closer to the center of the tree and pushed her back against the trunk.
She kissed his neck and toyed with his collar. His hand slid under the hem of her tunic, to bare skin like satin.
“The things I want to do to
you,” she purred.
Oh gods. It was as if he were on fire, inside and out. His temperature spiked. Sparks flew.
“Wolf,” Fairy said, and hearing her call out his taiga name with her voice husky from desire made him burn even more.
But then she shoved away from him. “Wolf!”
“Did I do something wrong?” Daemon said, flustered.
Fairy’s mouth, which only a second ago had been expertly working against his, now hung open, useless. She blinked rapidly and pointed at him. “Y-you. Wolf.”
Daemon shook his head. But then he followed her finger and looked down at himself.
He was a wolf again, covered in blue fur, and the sparks he’d felt between them were literal sparks, like blue lightning buzzing and zapping all around him. His cloak and other clothes had fallen onto the branches.
“Gods dammit,” he said. “Really? Right now?”
Meanwhile, Fairy was pinching at her tongue, pulling out strands of fur.
If Daemon could possibly feel any hotter, the embarrassment did it. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
She held up a hand. He stopped talking.
She spat out one last piece of fur and started laughing.
“What?” Daemon asked. He failed to see what was funny about this situation.
“Look on the bright side,” Fairy said.
“I can give you a ride to Celestae now?” Daemon grimaced.
“Yep,” she said.
“Other than that, are you completely repulsed that I’m a wolf?” Part of him didn’t want to know the answer.
Fairy shrugged. “I’m only going to kiss the boy version of you. And besides, it’s not like you’re actually an animal. You’re a demigod. And that, like I said before, is very sexy.”
He smiled a little. But it vanished quickly, because he remembered that they only thought he was the missing wolf constellation from the sky. They didn’t know for sure. “What if it turns out I’m not a demigod?”
With that self-doubt, there was a blinding burst of blue light. When Daemon looked down, he was a boy once more. And naked. Again.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” He grabbed at the cloak and wrapped it around his waist. “Nines, I hate my life.”
“I don’t hate mine,” Fairy said, openly ogling his shirtless torso. “And hey, think of it like this. Now you definitely know that what happened to you during the battle at the Citadel wasn’t a fluke. Turning into an electric wolf twice is no accident.”
Daemon sighed. He made Fairy turn around as he put his clothes back on.
She had a point, though. Transforming into an enormous flying wolf once was like a dream he could be woken from. But twice was the beginning of something real.
“All right, fine, you win,” he said when he was fully dressed. “Maybe I’m a little special. Let’s go summon Vespre. He can settle this once and for all.”
Chapter Twelve
Sora had only ever prayed to the gods inside proper temples, like the black pagoda in the Citadel. Here in Jade Forest, though, they didn’t even have incense sticks to make smoke for carrying their words up to Celestae. She had no idea if this would work.
There was also the question of whether these summons would cost them anything. Emperors and empresses had to give up a year of their life every time they called upon Sola. Would Vespre demand something like that, too? It was impossible to know, since gods didn’t usually appear to humans outside of the imperial family.
But if the god of night does require something, it will be worth it, Sora thought. Because if they couldn’t reach Vespre, there was no hope for the four of them and Kichona anway.
Sora and Broomstick did what they could to prepare a templelike space, clearing the ground in the chestnut grove and setting up a makeshift temple, with rolled-up sleeping mats as kneeling cushions and twigs to light in place of incense.
When Daemon and Fairy returned, Sora didn’t need to look at them to know something had happened up there in the trees. Daemon had shut his mental ramparts, and Broomstick said Fairy had, too.
It’s a good thing, Sora thought, although as before, it took work to convince herself. Fairy had been able to help Daemon when Sora couldn’t. I shouldn’t be upset about that.
And really, Sora wasn’t mad at Fairy at all. She just wished she was in Fairy’s place.
But since she wasn’t, Sora forced a smile as they approached.
“Welcome back,” she said, holding out a handful of twigs. “Here.”
“What are these?” Daemon asked.
“Incense sticks. Sort of. When one twig burns down, light another, and keep the entreaties constant,” Sora said.
He and Fairy each took a bundle.
“This is already kind of a gamble,” Sora said, “so I think we should all focus on our strengths to maximize the chance that Vespre will not only hear us but actually respond.”
“What do you mean?” Fairy asked.
Sora pointed at Broomstick, who was finishing up stacking a huge pile of sticks. “Broomstick is Mr. Charisma, so he’s going to pray with the equivalent of his blinding smile. Instead of boring entreaties, he should appeal to Vespre’s fascination with humans, like inviting him to hang out on earth.”
Daemon twisted his mouth. “We’re trying to be drinking buddies with my father?”
“If he brings me the alcohol of the gods,” Broomstick hollered from the other side of the chestnut grove, “I’ll not only be his drinking buddy, I’ll be his best friend.”
“I thought the myths only mention Vespre’s interest in earth’s female population,” Daemon said.
“That’s it!” Fairy’s eyes lit up. “I’m good with guys. I’ll try to tempt Vespre to visit us.”
“Absolutely not!” Daemon said.
“Ew, not like that!” Fairy waved him off. “I just meant that I’m good at getting boys to do things for me, like grabbing the best knives when a new weapons shipment comes in or saving me a good seat in class.”
Daemon crossed his arms.
“Present company excepted,” Fairy said. “I promise I don’t manipulate you at all.”
Broomstick jogged over, snickering. “You manipulate everyone at least a little. You can’t help it. You’re just so little and cute, and they can’t resist you.” He pinched her cheek.
“Shut up.” She swatted him away and made a face, the two of them as usual teasing each other.
Meanwhile, Sora had been contemplating Fairy’s suggestion. “Tempting a god sounds like trouble,” Sora said.
“I know what I’m doing,” Fairy said. “You just have to trust that I can take care of myself. You do, don’t you?” She looked at Daemon.
He grumbled but gave in. “I trust you.”
Fairy hugged him and, at the same time, gave him her best puppy-eyed look.
“All right,” Sora said. “That leaves me and Daemon. I’ll try the earnest approach with Vespre, laying out what’s at stake and why we need him. And Daemon—”
“I know,” he said. “Tap into the fact that he’s my dad. Well, might be.”
“Only if you’re comfortable with it,” Sora said. “If you need to sit out—”
“I’m fine. But what if this doesn’t work?”
“Then we’ll try again tomorrow night,” Sora said. “Getting Vespre to help us is our best hope right now.”
They were quiet as they set up their prayer stations, because they knew what she’d said wasn’t entirely true. The god of night was not just their best hope; he was their only one. They couldn’t find the soul pearl without Vespre’s knowledge; if Zomuri’s vault was in Celestae, they would even need to ask Vespre to get it for them or take them there. And without the soul pearl, they had no path forward. There was no way a novice ryuu, a sometime-wolf/sometime-boy, and two taiga apprentices could defeat the Dragon Prince and an entire army of ryuu.
This had to work.
Sora lit a twig and put it in the small pile of sand in front of her. It
burned more quickly than an actual incense stick, and she rushed to kneel on the sleeping mat so she could get a prayer off before the twig incinerated completely.
Vespre, my lord, please hear us, Sora thought. I’m here with a boy who I believe is your son, the constellation wolf, and we need your help. Our beloved kingdom is under siege. Gin Ora has usurped the throne and pledged himself to Zomuri. Prince Gin has already murdered innocents in the Ceremony of Two Hundred Hearts, taken over the entire Society of Taigas, and is on the brink of beginning a world war. We need to know where Zomuri’s vault is because there is something in there that could prevent the destruction of Kichona. Please, please help. Our kingdom needs you. Your son needs you.
The twig fell over, engulfed in flames, just as she finished her plea. This was going to be harder than she thought. The sticks were really nothing like incense.
But Sora lit another twig, planted it in the sand, and repeated her prayer. Over and over and over again. Nearby, Daemon, Fairy, and Broomstick whispered to Vespre as well.
Five hours later, their knees ached and their stomachs gnawed at them. The smoke of so many sticks clouded the air in the chestnut grove, as if the path to Celestae was blocked and the smoke had nowhere to go. Sora’s eyes watered from it, and she was beginning to feel dizzy. Broomstick coughed in the polluted air.
“We need to rest,” Fairy said.
“No,” Daemon said, suddenly the most fervent of the group, when earlier he’d had only enough enthusiasm to poke at mushrooms. “We have to keep going.”
“Our prayers are stuck under the canopy,” she said, waving at the smoke. It was thick enough that seeing through it was a bit difficult. “We can at least wait until this clears out before we send more pleas.”
“No!” Daemon said, clutching a fresh twig to his chest.
A swirl of bitter and sweet, like chicory steeped in cloying syrup, flooded through Sora’s bond with him. It was so powerful, she could almost taste Daemon’s longing, his wish that Vespre would not only be able to help with the pearl but also confirm his parentage.
Sora picked up another stick. What Daemon needed was equally important to her as stopping Prince Gin. And that was urgent. Every hour that ticked by was another hour that Empress Aki could be killed. Another hour closer to Prince Gin launching a war against one of the mainland kingdoms, and their hypnotized friends dying in the fight. Sora shuddered at the possibility.