by Evelyn Skye
And then Daemon and Sora could kill him.
“Shifting forms is easy,” Liga said. He changed himself from human to giant blue alligator and back again.
“You can’t just do it and not explain it,” Daemon said, frowning.
“Ah, right. The way to transform is . . .” Liga leaned against one of the chestnut trees as he thought through the process.
Fairy busied herself nearby on a set of boulders, which she’d converted into a temporary botanicals lab. Since waking up, she’d already distilled five new potions and was in the process of sun-drying several types of wild herbs.
Liga didn’t move a muscle for a good five minutes. Daemon kept watching him, expecting some explanation on how to manage the shift. But it apparently wasn’t forthcoming.
“You know,” Fairy finally said as she poured black liquid into a vial of red powder, “when humans start sentences, they usually finish them. Within a few seconds.”
Liga looked at her and smiled as if this were fascinating. “Really?”
“Um, yes?” She sneaked a look over at Daemon and mouthed, Are we sure about him?
Daemon smirked. Still, he liked Liga. His brother was a little . . . different, but what did they expect? Unlike Sola, Luna, Vespre, and Zomuri, Liga had never been on earth before. All he knew of mortals were stories he’d been told in Celestae. It also explained why his speech was so odd—deities didn’t speak human languages in the heavens, so talking to Daemon and Fairy like this was a completely new experience for Liga.
“So about the shift?” Daemon prompted.
“You need more conviction,” Liga said.
“Which means?”
“Embrace your identity, and show us who you really are.”
Daemon sighed. Typical Liga, trying to be helpful but coming out nonsensically cryptic instead.
“Wolf, you did it the other day,” Fairy said.
“By accident. I’m terrible at magic—taiga and demigod.”
“I have faith in you,” Fairy said.
“That’s it precisely,” Liga said. “Wolf, you haven’t been able to shift forms at will because you haven’t believed in yourself.”
Daemon grumbled. “To be fair, I haven’t known I was a demigod for that long.”
“A valid point,” Liga said, pacing like one of the Society teachers would in front of a classroom. “But from what I’ve gathered, you’ve not believed in yourself for much longer than that. It’s time you accepted who you are and everything you can do.”
“Maybe that’s the problem. I don’t know what I can do.”
Liga nodded thoughtfully. “Let me show you.” He leaped into the air and hovered there, as if a current kept him buoyed. “All demigods can fly, as well as conjure small things.” He snapped his fingers, and the sound of lutes filled the chestnut grove.
“We are stronger, faster, and more agile than taigas and ryuu could ever dream of.” Liga zipped through the trees in a blur, so quickly that Daemon swore he could still see the silhouette of an alligator between the branches even after Liga had already returned to where he started. “We’re not immortal, but we can heal ourselves if given the chance.” He sliced his skin with a talon. Fairy gasped, but his flesh melded itself together before their eyes.
“On top of that,” Liga continued, landing on the forest floor, “all of Vespre’s children have powers related to the stars or night sky. Some, like me, can dim light.” He looked up at the sky, and it shifted from bright morning sun to the purpled gray of dusk and back again to daylight. “Others can ride electricity like comets. And you—when you were still a constellation in Celestae—were able to manipulate gravitational pull, as stars and black holes do.”
“I could do what?” Daemon’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“You could play with gravity.”
Daemon’s jaw dropped. “I can’t believe I had all of that once, and I gave it up.”
Liga smiled. “You can still have it. You just have to try. Starting with the basics.”
Just try. Daemon took a deep breath, shook out his limbs, and prepared to shift.
“I am an electric wolf,” he said.
Nope. He was a boy.
“I am an electric wolf.”
Still a boy.
“Say it with more feeling,” Liga said.
“I am an electric wolf!” Daemon shouted.
Nothing, gods dammit!
Fairy wrinkled her nose.
“What?” Daemon said, a little more harshly than he meant to.
“Nothing.”
“Sorry, I’m frustrated.” He took a deep breath. “Do you have a suggestion?” he asked slowly so that he didn’t snarl the question.
“It’s just that . . .” She waved a fern frond in the air as she figured out the best way to say it. “I don’t think yelling equates with believing in yourself. It might actually be the opposite.”
Daemon kicked a tree, and chestnuts rained down on him. “Ugh! I’ll never be able to do this.”
“Do you want to take a break from practicing?” she asked. “We need to go into the Imperial City anyway.”
Before Sora and Broomstick had left, they’d agreed that Daemon and Fairy would return to the Citadel and bloodstone palace every day to keep looking for clues to Empress Aki’s whereabouts and to try to put a wrench into whatever the Dragon Prince’s plans were. Sora had created several dozen dragonflies made from ryuu particles and enchanted them to be able to find her. That way, Daemon and Fairy would be able to send daily messages to her and Broomstick and vice versa, on top of communicating emotions through their gemina bonds.
“I don’t think we should go into the Imperial City until it’s dark,” Daemon said, wiping sweat from his brow.
“That’s probably wise,” Fairy said. “Keep practicing, then.”
Liga had been studying Daemon. He snapped his fingers, and blue sparks appeared, hovering in the air and forming themselves into a three-dimensional wolf made of stardust. “Perhaps if you envisioned the end state,” Liga said.
Daemon looked at the illusion dubiously. It wasn’t the easiest advice to follow, since being a constellation was so new. Or rather, he supposed, it was old knowledge, but Vespre had hidden it from Daemon when he left the sky and was reincarnated as a newborn baby. The memories were still inside Daemon, but buried deep, as his other powers had been.
“Wait, I have an idea,” Fairy said. She set down the plant she was dissecting and bounded over to Daemon. “This worked last time to give you some confidence.”
Before he knew what she was doing, she stood on the tips of her toes and kissed his neck softly. Then another, her lips like warm silk. He turned to putty.
“Liga, go for a walk, please,” Daemon said, his voice gruff.
His brother chuckled. “I’ll give you ten minutes, but then we have to get back to work.” He turned away and disappeared into the woods.
Daemon’s mouth was on Fairy’s in an instant, his days’-old stubble against her smooth skin. Their bodies smashed together, too, and the force sent them tumbling to the ground, scattering dried leaves and chestnuts everywhere.
Holy heavens, he’d been stupid to wait so many years for something like this.
Fairy lay on top of Daemon and turned her attention to his neck again. He moaned and wove his hands through her hair.
“You’re going to leave a mark,” he said.
“No, I’m not. It’ll disappear as soon as you change into a wolf.”
“What if I can’t shift?”
“Then your neck will be marred forever.” Fairy flashed a wicked grin.
“You’re going to pay for that.”
“Oh, really? How?”
“Like this.” Daemon wrapped his arms around her back and rolled so he was on top. She shrieked in surprise.
He wanted her perfect little mouth again. Their lips parted, and their tongues danced slowly with each other. Daemon pressed his body against Fairy’s, and she arched her back and hip
s to meet him. The only thing between them was a few layers of clothing. Damn the late-autumn chill for all these clothes!
Fairy reached up to unfasten his cloak but only made it through one button.
“Why are you stopping?” Daemon asked.
“The sky is darkening like a storm’s coming.”
“It didn’t look like rain earlier.”
She smiled regretfully and refastened his cloak. “I don’t think it’s a real storm. I think it’s Liga giving us a warning that our ten minutes are up.”
Daemon sighed heavily. “And here I always thought I’d love having a sibling.” He rolled off Fairy.
She kissed him one last time, then climbed to her feet and offered him a hand up. “Do you feel a little better about yourself now?”
He couldn’t help but laugh. “It’d be impossible not to. The way you want me . . . it makes me feel like a god. Well, a demigod.”
“Good. I’m here for reassurance whenever you need it.” Fairy winked. “Although eventually, it would probably be good if you could shift forms without me having to kiss you. Not that I don’t want to, but it might be difficult if, say, we were in the middle of a battle.”
“Are you two decent?” Liga called from nearby. The sky cleared back to its normal morning brightness.
“You didn’t give us enough time to be otherwise,” Daemon said.
Liga emerged from the woods. “My apologies, brother. But I need to return to Celestae soon, so I must teach you what I can quickly.”
Daemon bit his lip, but he crossed his arms over his chest and stood tall. “I’m ready.”
“Remember,” Liga said. “You are not merely a boy. You are a son of Vespre and grandson of Luna. You are the wolf of the stars and a master of gravity. Embrace who you truly are.”
Daemon closed his eyes for a moment and imagined himself as all those things.
Not just a boy.
Wolf of the stars.
Descended from gods.
Daemon’s skin buzzed, lightly at first, then strong enough that his skin vibrated. Heat prickled in his veins, and when he opened his eyes, he saw the tiny sparks bursting around him creating a faint blue aura.
“He’s doing it,” Fairy said, but her voice was almost lost in the noise of the electricity.
It felt different this time. In the past, he hadn’t noticed the subtle changes that happened before he turned into a wolf. Maybe he did now, though, because he was asking for the shift, coaxing the magic to transform him.
Daemon could tell when the shift really began to take hold, because the power of the sky filled his lungs, his heart, and his entire being to their limits. He was suddenly bigger than he’d ever been, not just physically but intangibly, too, as if his existence had expanded. Every sound was sharper, every color more saturated. He thought if he tried, he’d be able to see around to the other side of the world.
Liga’s clapping brought him back from his awe. “Well done, brother.”
Daemon looked at his thick blue fur, at his paws, at the tail behind him. He was solid, and yet he understood that this was what it meant to be a constellation—just not the way humans thought of it, not mere stars connected by empty space and drawn-in lines. Sparks danced around Daemon like stardust, and he could feel the pull of earth’s gravity at his mind, almost inviting him to play.
He started to reach for it.
The chestnut trees creaked, as if whimpering, and began to bow toward him.
“Halt!” Liga said.
Fairy was crouched on the ground, arms over her head to protect her from falling trees.
Liga wagged a taloned finger. “First you need to practice transitioning back and forth from wolf to human and back again. It’ll give you a better feel for your magic. Then you’ll be able to reacquaint yourself with your gravitational power without inadvertently damaging anything.”
“Spoilsport,” Daemon grumbled.
The trees eased gratefully back into their normal positions. Sorry, he thought to them.
“How do I turn back into a boy?” he asked.
“The same way you shifted into a wolf,” Liga said.
Daemon nodded. It had really been as simple as knowing he could do it and then thinking about the end state. He began to concentrate on his human form again. Until he remembered that he’d be naked when he shifted. His clothes were jumbled in a pile nearby, but that wasn’t the same as covering him the moment he turned into a boy.
“Uh, do you two mind turning away?”
Fairy let out a fake indignant huff. But then she winked and spun around.
Despite currently being a wolf, Daemon flushed.
Liga pointed at him with an alligator claw. “Focus, brother. Once you have better control of your magic, you’ll be able to conjure clothes to cover yourself simultaneously with your shift.” Then Liga also averted his gaze.
Daemon glanced down at his furry paws. He flicked his tail in the air. And then he imagined those gone, replaced instead by the version of himself he’d known for eighteen years.
The buzzing and blue light came faster this time, as did the transformation.
He’d hardly taken a breath, and he was a boy again.
Chapter Nineteen
Two days after they’d left Jade Forest, Sora and Broomstick arrived in Samara Village at the base of the mountain where her parents lived. It was on the way south toward Naimo Ice Caves, and Sora wanted to look through her mother’s research to see if there was anything in there about the Lake of Nightmares. What Liga said didn’t seem right—that Zomuri wouldn’t bother protecting his vault from mortals. They might not have god magic, but there was still treasure in there, and greed was a well-known human flaw. Retrieving the Dragon Prince’s soul was too important for Sora to skip a quick detour for whatever information she could find.
Sora smiled, though, as she led Broomstick into the village. Shops with colorful wooden doors lined the streets, the smell of morning frost filled the air, and birds chirped from the rooftops. Broomstick had never been here before—he always went home to his own family during school holidays—and Sora could hardly wait to show him around her cheerful little village and take him up to her house on the cliffs.
“Come this way,” she said, leading him toward the main square. “There’s always a rainbow of lanterns strung up this time of year. And musicians take turns playing in the plaza at all hours. Oh, and you have to see the huge fountain where Daemon, Hana, and I used to play during Autumn Festival breaks. . . .”
Sora caught herself at the casual mention of Hana. It poked like a splinter beneath her skin.
But she didn’t want to feel sad or worried right now, not when Samara Village was home to so many good memories. Sora squeezed her eyes shut to wring out the disquieting thoughts and focused back on the heartwarming ones.
“You know what else you’ll love?” she said to Broomstick, slapping a smile back on her face. “There’s a dumpling shop that makes all their wrappers by hand for the perfect texture. They’re usually not open this early, but I know the owner, so we might be able to pop in the back door to see what he’s cooking up today and steal a bite—”
Sora stopped short as they entered the square. Instead of brightly painted shop doors and rainbows of flags and kites flying from the eaves, the plaza was gray with smoke. Sparks from at least two dozen anvils and the steady pounding of metal—swords being forged—filled the air with an ominous rhythm.
“Wh-where’s my fountain?” Sora said.
Broomstick’s mouth set in a grim line. “Replaced by a weapons forge for the Dragon Prince.”
She spun around. The doors to the stores, once painted with lively pictures of what was sold inside, were all covered in soot and ash. Sora ran to the back entrance of the dumpling shop and pounded on it.
“Mr. Zaki! Are you there? It’s Sora Teira. Please open up!”
The door opened a crack. Kind Mr. Zaki peered out, his wrinkles like a shar-pei’s, his hands covered in flour.
He must have been in the middle of making dumpling wrappers.
“What do you want?” he spat.
Stunned at his meanness, Sora stuttered as she tried to speak. “I-it’s me. Um, Mina and Jiro Teira’s daughter.”
“Do you think my memory’s gone just because I’m old? I don’t have time for this.” He began to slam the door shut.
Sora stuck her foot in the small opening just in time, wincing at the impact.
What had happened to him, though? She’d never heard Mr. Zaki utter an unkind word before. He always had a smile ready for every customer, and at the end of each night, he put out leftover dumplings in a dish behind his store so the stray cats would have something to eat.
“Mr. Zaki,” she said carefully, “are you all right? Is something going on?” Sora lowered her voice to a whisper. “Has Prince Gin made things difficult for you with this weapons forge in the square?”
“How dare you speak about our sovereign with such disrespect!” Mr. Zaki’s eyes went wide with outrage. “Get out before I report you for being disloyal to the crown!” He grabbed a metal spatula and lunged toward Sora.
She gasped and jumped back.
He slammed the door shut.
Tears welled and threatened to spill over. Broomstick, who had witnessed everything, wrapped his arm around her.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “Prince Gin couldn’t have already made it here to hypnotize everyone. He and the ryuu have been busy in the Imperial City.” They hurried out of the main square and to the outskirts of town, toward the mountain. “There’s something bigger than us going on here.”
“You can say that again,” Sora said weakly.
Broomstick steered Sora out of the village. “Come on, let’s get you to your parents. I’m sure you’ll feel better once you’re home.”
Sora didn’t say anything as they started up the winding switchbacks. It hadn’t sunk in before that Prince Gin’s war machine could already have reached Samara Village, even though she knew what his goals were.
Then something else dawned on Sora. If this inexplicable wretchedness could affect the people in Samara Village, then it could reach up the mountain, too.