force of her landing knocked over several of the marigold wreaths nearby.
Hana laughed. But when Sora looked at her, she smacked her hand over her mouth. All traces of amusement were wiped away in an instant, replaced by schoolteacher sternness. Or what Hana probably thought a teacher looked like when disciplining an apprentice. She’d never had a chance to be part of the taiga school.
“Make the particles lift you up again,” Hana said.
Sora obeyed, but not because she was scared into obedience. It was because the would-be-teacher look on Hana’s face reminded her how young her sister had been when she was kidnapped.
She used to be small enough to fit in Sora’s lap. Sora hadn’t been much bigger, but two years made a difference back then, and Hana would curl up against her, with a smile that could light up the Imperial City whenever Sora paid her any attention. On Friday night sleepovers, Hana would beg Sora to tell her myths from their mother’s books, stories Hana was still too young to read on her own, and Sora would recite fables about rich, greedy children who tried to steal the moon from Luna, legends of past taiga warriors who fought against monsters from the sea, and myths about girls riding on the backs of horses made of comets. Every time, Hana would murmur happily and curl tighter into Sora’s lap, and Sora would know the moment she fell asleep by the rhythm of her breath, the content slowing of the ins-and-outs as she drifted off to her own dreams full of brave warriors and mysterious storybook creatures.
Sora ached to have that again. Not exactly the same, because they were grown now, but she wanted her sister back. She wanted to bundle her up in her lap and keep her safe from the world, with the promise that when the monsters came, she and Hana would fight together, sister by sister, sword by sword.
And so she listened to Hana and commanded the ryuu particles to buoy her again.
Sora went up and down ten times, and by the last round, her control was much improved.
Satisfied that she’d mastered the spell, she released her command of the particles and landed back on the shrine floor as gracefully as if she were a flying carpet.
“You’re awfully smug for just making yourself go up and down,” Hana said. “Let’s see how smug you are after this.” She glanced at the reed mat beneath Sora. Its edges leaped to attention, flying up and lifting Sora into the air. It wrapped her inside. Then it squeezed itself, rolling more tightly, trapping her like a human spring roll.
Sora struggled with her arms clamped by her sides. The mat pressed in on her, almost crushing her ribs. She could manage only shallow breaths.
With her arms pinned, she couldn’t use a knife to slice her way out. She tried to command ryuu particles to retrieve her knife for her, but even they couldn’t do it, because her blades were stashed in various pockets and sleeves, which were also smashed tightly against her inside the mat.
“Nines,” she cursed between quick breaths.
She wiggled her feet, the only parts of her that were really free, but that didn’t do any good.
Think, Sora, think.
Wait. Her eyes lit up as an idea came to her. Maybe she could untie herself.
She searched for the ryuu particles again, needing only a few seconds for her vision to shift to ryuu reality. The narrow space inside her rolled mat sparkled green.
Let me out, she commanded the particles. She envisioned the magic flowing in a stream of green at the string that wove the reeds together, unraveling through the threads, and setting her free.
But instead of following her command as she’d imagined it, the particles flew around in a chaotic swirl. Then they rushed forward, into the reeds themselves, as if the magic had been absorbed. The reeds turned from brown to a bright shade of glowing green.
“Oh no. What’s happening?”
The mat unrolled, then disappeared, and Sora again slammed to the floor.
“What in all hells?” Sora looked again, but it wasn’t as if she could miss it. The mat had been right there, all around her. And now it was gone.
The magic had done her bidding. She’d asked it to free her from the mat. It just hadn’t done it in the way she’d imagined.
She gasped and looked at Hana. There really was something about sharing the same blood.
Sora rose and began to walk toward her sister, but not