Cloak of Night (Circle of Shadows #2) - Evelyn Skye Page 0,76
arrowhead? It’s an alligator tooth.”
Sora’s breath caught with the hope that it held answers to help both Broomstick and herself.
Broomstick hurried to Fairy’s side and helped her sit up properly. While he checked her knife wound, Daemon and Sora examined the arrow.
There was no obvious message on it, though. Sora untied the twine that held the tooth to the shaft. No paper rolled up around the arrow. No words written on the shaft itself.
“Are we supposed to do something to it?” she asked.
Daemon shook his head. “I have no clue.”
Sora held the pieces of the arrow up to her ear, shaking them to see if there was perhaps something stored inside.
Suddenly, Liga’s voice filled the air, as if he’d been waiting for them to hear his message rather than see it. Of course. Liga didn’t understand humans or the way they did things. An ordinary, written note probably hadn’t occurred to him.
“My apologies that I cannot come to earth right now,” he said, sounding as if he were standing right beside them. “I am working on a rather fascinating celestial project, and it is impossible to leave the sky.”
“What could be more important than helping us prevent the destruction of Kichona?” Daemon grumbled.
Liga’s message barreled onward. “To answer the question in Fairy’s prayer, if Broomstick has god magic in him, it will take god magic to undo it. I doubt Wolf or I is powerful enough.
“However, I have better news for Spirit—there is a purification ritual to remove the taint on her soul, although I do not know the details. You would have to appeal to an actual god—not a demigod—for the answers on how to perform it.”
They waited for more, but that was the abrupt end of the message, and the arrow’s components disintegrated into dust.
Sora looked up at the sky, both relieved that there was a possibility to save the souls of all the taigas, including her sister’s and her own, and disappointed that there were no instructions, nor a solution to Broomstick’s predicament. “Your brother has yet to understand the finer points of human conversation.”
Daemon grumbled. “And we’re even worse off now than when we started. We still have no idea where Empress Aki is, and based on that war council meeting that Fairy and I saw, the Dragon Prince is about to begin his attacks. On top of that, you’re contaminated by ryuu magic, and Broomstick is—”
“Evil,” he finished miserably.
“You’re not evil,” Sora said.
“I don’t believe you,” Broomstick said.
Fairy leaned her head on his shoulder. “Do you believe me?” she asked softly. They were geminas in the way Luna truly meant for them to be—sister and brother warrior, bonded forever.
Broomstick hesitated, but then he rested his head on Fairy’s. “Depends on what you say.”
“I’ve been connected to you since we were seven years old, and I know you inside and out. There’s not a mean cell in your entire body.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Why don’t you rest for a bit?” Sora said. “We’ve been through a lot. Maybe you’ll feel better after a nap.”
“Doubt it,” he said. “But it’s worth a shot.”
Fairy wanted a nap, too, so they went into the shack while Sora and Daemon stayed outside.
“What now?” Daemon asked.
Sora chewed on her lip. “I don’t know. Liga’s too hard to get answers from, and even when he does try to help, he’s confusing. So I guess that means it’s up to us to figure everything out—how to reunite this pearl with Prince Gin, how to kill him once he’s no longer invincible, how to reach the gods to get them to fix Broomstick’s confidence and purify me from the ryuu magic, how to find Empress Aki . . .” She slumped.
“It’s too much to ask of us,” Daemon said.
She scowled at him. “Don’t start again with how impossible this is and that we need to give up. We’re Kichona’s last hope. We’re my last hope. If we don’t step in, no one will. So don’t say that it’s too much—” Sora caught the slight lift of his mouth, a smirk attempting to hide. “Oh. You’re only pretending to be defeated in order to rile me up, aren’t you?”
He feigned shock and pressed his hands to his chest. “Who, me?”
Sora punched him in the arm. But his ploy had worked.
“So,” Daemon said, trying hard not to grin and show how pleased he was with himself, “I don’t have answers to the things we need to accomplish, but I do have the map that