Cloak of Night (Circle of Shadows #2) - Evelyn Skye Page 0,87

that she wasn’t the right girl for you. I tried to get more out of her, but she wouldn’t—”

His ears relaxed, and he exhaled. “It’s probably better that we don’t know.”

He seemed strangely relieved. Sora frowned. “But I don’t get it. You guys seemed happy. Don’t you want to know what went wrong? Maybe you can fix it.”

Daemon shook her hand off his back and bared his teeth. “I can’t. She doesn’t want to be with me, all right? Now, do you want to go to Dera Falls tonight or not?”

Sora stopped talking after that. She’d only wanted to help, but she’d clearly pushed too hard.

And she had to be careful, too, because there was that whisper just beneath the surface of her skin that wanted him for herself. Which was not what anyone needed right now.

Probably the best thing was to bother Daemon as little as possible and let him heal.

Of course, he had to carry her, Fairy, and Broomstick while he flew to the islands of the tiger’s paw, a trip filled with as much tension as one would expect. Broomstick tried to keep the mood light by rambling about inconsequential topics, like what kind of polish was best for keeping swords shiny, but his chatter backfired because every time Fairy said something, Daemon stiffened below them, and everyone could feel it against their legs. The conversation eventually died off, and they finished the flight in silence.

As soon as they landed on the white cliffs of one of the tiger’s-paw islands, Fairy and Broomstick practically leaped off Daemon’s back.

“We’ll go scout down on the shore,” Fairy said, heading away before Sora even had a chance to acknowledge her plan. Broomstick hurried off with his gemina.

Daemon didn’t look as they left. “I’ll do a few flyovers of Dera Falls.” He snuffed out the sparks in his fur and jumped off the cliff into the air.

“I guess I’ll stay here,” Sora mumbled to herself. Which is how she ended up crawling on her stomach to the edge of the cliffs, where she could get a better look at the island that she suspected was Empress Aki’s prison.

But what would they find when they got there? An empress, beaten down and tortured? Or one whose mind was stripped, who might look and act like the empress but was really the Dragon Prince’s puppet?

Sora seethed. Not that long ago, Prince Gin had stolen her mind, too, filling her with a bloodcurdling greed for the Evermore and the will to do whatever was required to get there. She’d walked and talked like herself, but otherwise, she hadn’t been Sora. She’d abandoned her friends because of Prince Gin, and almost killed Empress Aki. If it weren’t for Daemon, Sora would already be well on her way to becoming the murderous general in her Lake of Nightmares vision.

I won’t let anything like that happen to the empress, Sora thought, fingers tightening over the hilt of one of her swords.

But first, she had to find Empress Aki. Sora took a deep breath, then let go of the sword and instead pulled out a spyglass.

For a minute, she couldn’t see much, because the moon was blocked by a thick blanket of clouds. There weren’t any fires or signs of a soldier encampment over on the island, and her stomach knotted up. Maybe Sora had been wrong about the empress being here. Come to think of it, there were no ships either. Had she read the map wrong? Was Empress Aki elsewhere?

But the soul pearl stirred in Sora’s collar. The Dragon Prince’s magic was near.

She could use ryuu particles to fine-tune the focus on the spyglass. But Sora hesitated to touch that magic, the very thing that had damned her. Casting a ryuu spell would be like soaking her skin with pure evil.

But the magic itself isn’t bad, she argued with herself. After all, it was the same magic used by taigas—the only difference was Sight, the ability to see the particles and use the magic in even more powerful ways. And Sight had come from the afterlife, where it was supposed to be a gift to taigas for a life well lived. It was only the act of stealing that had cast a wicked pall on the magic.

Besides, she would be using the ryuu particles to protect Kichona, the very thing taigas were supposed to do.

Sora made her decision and called to the emerald dust.

It infused the spyglass, sharpening its focus and allowing her to better scan