of Gin’s will.
“This isn’t simply the Rift all over again, is it?” Aki said.
“No, Your Majesty. You won’t win against Prince Gin this time, unless—”
“We think and fight differently.”
Spirit nodded. Her jaw set with a determination that reminded Aki of herself when she was young and fighting for the kingdom.
“My brother is almost here?” Aki asked.
“Yes.”
Aki touched the locket at her throat. He was coming. The man who used to be just a boy, her other half. The brother who used to play pirates versus taigas with her. Her partner in crime, sneaking into the palace kitchen together to steal peach pies.
The man who’d also torched the Imperial City, who was obsessed with the Evermore, and who would bring blood and destruction to Kichona again.
She inhaled deeply and waved her hand toward the hill outside her window. “You have my permission to do whatever you need to Rose Palace.”
“Really?” Spirit’s eyes widened, like a child who wasn’t sure if she’d truly been given free reign to do the one thing she’d never been allowed to do.
“Yes. You have my permission on one condition . . .” Aki stood. “You let me come with you. If we are to do things differently, then I want to be an active part of this. I will not sit in a gilded room while the taigas fight for me.”
Spirit’s eyes grew wider, if that was possible. “It would be an honor, Your Majesty.”
“Let me change into something more practical,” Aki said, gesturing at the gown sweeping at her feet and heading toward her bedroom. “But let’s be clear about this mission to dismantle my palace—it is also an honor for me to be able to join you.”
Chapter Sixty-Three
The gray of night still had a tenuous hold on the sky when Sora and Empress Aki slipped out the rear gates of the Citadel. It may have been Prince Gin who was the sibling blessed with magic, but now the empress was in a taiga uniform, and with her hair pulled back in a simple bun, a knife on her belt, and her commanding stride, she really could have passed as a young warrior.
Empress Aki had also found Sora a taiga uniform to wear. Sora stretched an arm out in front of her. It felt good to see a sleeve without the ryuu’s green whorls embroidered there.
I can wield their magic, but I am still a taiga, and I always will be.
Instead of heading up the winding road to Rose Palace, though, Empress Aki turned toward the Field of Illusions guarding the Citadel’s western fortress walls.
Sora hesitated. “Where are we going?”
“A secret that only the Imperial Guard and I know. And now you.” The empress winked.
She sprinted onto the sand, which immediately began to shift beneath her, in front of her, all around her.
In a matter of seconds, the empress was already fifty yards into the illusions. How was she so fast?
“Wait!” Sora ran after her. “Your Highness, you need a taiga guide or else—”
“Or else this will happen?” Empress Aki stopped abruptly in the middle of a black-and-white spiral of sand that swirled and made the ground look like a three-dimensional vortex that would swallow them whole.
And then it did swallow her.
“No!” Sora shouted.
But the empress’s laugh came from deep beneath the sand. “Spirit, stand in the middle. Follow me.”
Sora rushed into the spiral to the spot where Empress Aki had just been. She jerked herself backward at the last second when she realized there was a hole there. Her toe almost slipped down.
“It’s all right, Spirit,” Empress Aki said from below. “There’s a soft landing down here.”
Sora looked around to see if anyone was watching. She took a breath and stepped into the hole.
She let out a small cry as she plummeted. But as the empress had promised, she landed on her feet on a thick mat. Not unlike the ones the Society used for training.
“Is that—?” Sora began to ask.
“A sparring mat?” Empress Aki said. “Yes. I have many. Are you surprised?”
“I . . . I shouldn’t be.” It made sense now why the empress could run so fast. How could Sora have thought that the ruler of their kingdom would just sit around in her throne room? Especially since she’d grown up with a twin brother who trained as a taiga; she couldn’t command magic, but there was no reason she wouldn’t have learned the other drills for physical conditioning and fighting. And Empress Aki had fought the Blood Rift—and won—when she