could return to the Citadel knowing that there was no Prince Gin, that he was (still) dead, and they’d leave the Isle of the Moon attack to the Council and actual warriors to deal with.
Then again, if the hooded man really had been the Dragon Prince, Daemon and Sora could return to the Citadel as heroes for having uncovered it. Maybe they could even sneak into his camp and assassinate him. Daemon imagined riding triumphantly through the iron gates at the Citadel, the evil Dragon Prince’s body thrown over the back of his horse.
He let his mind wander to other versions of victory.
But eventually, he got up. His inexplicable need to see the stars nagged at him, tugging at him from up high. I need to clear my head.
Daemon found a tall pine nearby. He climbed quickly, and when he broke through the fog at the top, he cried out like a man in the desert who’d finally stumbled on an oasis of water. His cloak was cold and damp from the mist, and pine needles poked into his hair, but none of it mattered. There was sky, sky, sky, not the suffocating blanket of fog. There were stars and there was the moon, glowing fiercely into the night.
Why did he crave this so badly? Was it simply because he’d been raised in the wild? Or was there something else in his past that made him need the freedom he found at the tops of the trees? Maybe he’d spent his infancy in a mole tunnel or something.
But then Daemon closed his eyes, and he imagined not only the comforting, dark infinity of the sky around him but also the smell of leather and steel mixed with black currant and sandalwood. The curiously alluring scent of Sora’s weapons and her soap. Daemon breathed in deeply and let his mind wander, just a little, to Sora’s smile, the taut lines of muscle on her body, and to a recent sparring session when she’d pinned him to the dirt floor of the arena and straddled him, pressed her knife against his throat, and leaned forward to whisper, “It looks like I win.”
Daemon had grinned, though, because he’d felt he was the winner of that match. Not because of the fight itself, but because she’d been so close to him, her lips nearly grazing his ear, the razor edge of her hair skimming his cheek as she declared victory . . .
He exhaled.
Everything was going to be fine. It had to be.
Chapter Fifteen
Paro Village was a town swallowed by the forest. Trees draped in long sheets of flowering vines curtained the buildings, so thick that a traveler could easily pass the city by, if not for the fact that the gravel roads ended abruptly here, going no farther south. The shops and homes themselves were made of stone and covered in thick blankets of moss, as if they’d risen from the forest floor as part of the natural landscape. And a waterfall in the nearby cliffs kept the air thick with chill.
Gin stood in the village square—really, a grassy field in the middle of the town—as the citizens assembled. Even the people here seemed a part of the woods, preferring rough-spun clothing the color of bark, their hair untamed in the breeze that whistled through the trees. Shopkeepers stood in the doorways of their stores. Families brought the elderly and the young. Whether it was because they were curious or scared or both, everyone turned out to see the Dragon Prince.
On the edges of the crowd, the Paro Village taiga warriors stood at attention. Hypnotizing them had been Gin’s first order of business here. Since he’d failed to take control of the Council at Isle of the Moon, this was plan B—stealthily enchant as many taigas as possible to create an army, then march on the Imperial City and take the rest of the Society. Without the taigas guarding his sister, Gin could seize the throne.
But that wasn’t all he needed. In order to begin his quest for the Evermore, Gin would have to perform the Ceremony of Two Hundred Hearts. He needed to persuade ordinary Kichonans to give their lives to Zomuri.
A ripple of nausea rolled through Gin’s stomach, the warning of seasickness before a storm.
Am I really going to do this?
He looked over at his original taiga warriors, who had stood by him since the Blood Rift. He remembered how close to death he’d been, and how dedicated they’d been to