was only fifteen.
“Good. Because sparring mats are the least of my surprises.”
It was only then that Sora really took in where they were. It was an underground room. The floor was striped in black and white, as if the Field of Illusions had been beaten into submission and the sand packed tight as stone. Cypress beams held up the ceiling. And the walls were covered in ceramic tiles, some blue, some gold, and some with the Ora tiger crest painted on them.
“Is this some kind of safe room?” Sora asked, still gaping.
“You’ll see,” Empress Aki said.
“Does the commander know about it?”
“Like I said, only me, the Imperial Guards, and you.”
Despite the fact that they were on the brink of war with Prince Gin, Sora grinned. She had stepped up to her potential. And now someone was taking her seriously, letting her in on a part of history almost nobody else knew.
Empress Aki produced a necklace with a locket on it and pressed the locket into one of the tiger tiles.
A dusty corner of the floor began to sink down into the ground, revealing a stairway.
“What in all h—” Sora stopped before she cursed in front of the empress.
“Do you think you could use some of my brother’s fancy magic to light the way in an underground tunnel?” Empress Aki asked. “There are lanterns around here, but it would be faster if you were able to—”
Sora shook herself out of her shock and conjured an orb of light in her hands, and then several more. They floated in the air around her.
“Well, then,” the empress said, “that takes care of that.”
They descended into the cool earth, into a tunnel that ran through the mountain. It went under the Citadel, up beneath the winding road, under the crystal waters of the moat, to the palace. Every thousand yards, a solid iron door sealed and separated the next section of the tunnel from the previous one, and each door was secured by a tiger tile that required the locket medallion to be pressed into it—sometimes it was the tile on the upper right of the left wall, sometimes in the middle of the right wall, sometimes on a spot halfway from the center to the bottom left corner, et cetera. Sora watched in awe as Empress Aki unlocked each door without a moment’s hesitation, the solution to each one memorized.
On the way to the palace, Sora had explained to the empress what she wanted to do with the crystal. Now they emerged from the tunnels through a panel in the floor of the courtyard where Sora and the other Level 12s had performed their exhibition match.
“I thought you could use that slab of crystal,” Empress Aki said, pointing to where her chair had been that night. It was the part of the courtyard wall etched with the imperial family’s crowned tiger and the motto “Dignity. Benevolence. Loyalty.”
“It’s a good size,” Sora said. “But are you sure? I could break down a piece of less significance.”
Empress Aki looked right at the crest. “No. This one sends the right message.”
Yes, it does, Sora thought. She’d already known that these principles were the underpinnings of the kingdom. But now Sora also understood that they were the foundation on which she herself had been made. Dignity, benevolence, and loyalty had molded her and her friends, and if they adhered to them, these same principles would guide them into who they were going to be—people as noble and selfless and good as Empress Aki. Hopefully.
Sora nodded at the crystal wall. “The facets of the etching will also make the light sparkle more, be more unpredictable to the ryuu.”
Four Imperial Guards arrived. They seemed unsurprised to find that the empress had returned to the palace, as if she’d told them it was a possibility all along.
“You should take cover, Your Majesty,” Sora said. “This could get messy.”
“I’ll wait in the tunnel.” She pressed her locket medallion into the secret panel and descended into the courtyard floor. Her Imperial Guards went with her.
Sora stood alone before the wall. She hadn’t mentioned to the empress that she wasn’t sure how or even if she could break off a piece of the palace.
What is the best way to do this?
The fire ryuu had told a story about melting the edges of an iceberg before, but that was no help. Sora wasn’t a master at fire magic, and crystal wouldn’t melt at the kind of temperatures she could manage.
She could try to command