was true, but the man needed hope, so that’s what Daemon gave.
He left the office and sprinted into Tiger’s Belly. Like Paro Village, the citizens wandered around with blissful, if slightly blank, looks on their faces. The stone streets were littered with the detritus of the ryuu’s hasty and violent search for taigas—overturned carts, shopwindows blasted into shards, a trampled stuffed toy lying muddy in the gutter—but the townspeople didn’t seem to care.
And because the residents of Tiger’s Belly avoided him, Daemon made quick progress to the grain silos. They bordered the edge of town and the farmland, rising like a forest of cylindrical towers from the ground. Amazingly, the silos were largely untouched by the ryuu. Perhaps because they didn’t think taigas would be hiding inside.
The Society’s local command post, however, was a different matter. It was a manor made of black stone, large enough to house the majority of the taigas who were stationed in this region, although there were probably some smaller safe houses farther out in the country for warriors when they were on rotation there. The manor had probably been impressive a few hours ago, but now its black rice paper windows were blown out from the force of ryuu-controlled wind, and the wooden roof had been torn off unceremoniously, like a toupee ripped rudely off a gentleman’s head. Daemon winced at the humiliation of the once grand building.
But this was not why he was here. Even though all the taiga warriors were gone, their dragonfly messengers were hopefully still alive. If they were, Daemon could send a missive to the Citadel to let them know what had happened and where the Dragon Prince planned to hit next.
Daemon stepped through the space where the front door had been, careful to tiptoe around the debris. He was 99 percent sure the ryuu were gone, but he’d be quiet, just in case.
He slipped through the entryway. Upstairs and in the back of the manor, there would be living quarters, but here on the ground floor, Daemon passed by meeting rooms where the sliding doors had been torn off their tracks, meditation spaces with the reed mats wrenched from the floors, and a dining room where the tables had splintered when they were hurled against the walls.
Finally, he found the communications office. There ought to have been terrariums full of dragonflies here, trained to deliver taiga messages throughout the kingdom. This was how the command posts throughout Kichona communicated with the Citadel every morning, and vice versa.
Unfortunately, the ryuu were not stupid. As with the previous posts, all the terrarium tanks before Daemon lay in pieces on the floor, the glass slivers interspersed with charred dragonfly bodies.
“Daggers,” he swore. Had it really been necessary to incinerate helpless insects? He growled under his breath. Growing up with wolves meant he was particularly sensitive to the treatment of animals, dragonflies included. Daemon kicked at the lone desk in the room, throwing quiet caution out the window. There was nothing here but destruction anyway.
He let out a long, frustrated exhale. He was trying his best, yet it still wasn’t enough.
Daemon couldn’t stay in the communications office. Not with the dragonfly corpses all over the floor. He stormed out into the hall.
But now what? How would he get in touch with the Citadel? It would take too long to find a horse and ride it all the way back to the capital. By then Prince Gin would have taken at least another target or two, and the size of his army would near the critical mass needed to overwhelm the Society.
If only a single dragonfly had survived.
“I’m an idiot!” Daemon tore through the manor and into the kitchen. Broomstick had told him a while ago that there were always backup dragonflies kept in a separate location at every post, in case disease or heat stroke or something else happened to the squadron in the communications office. It was not common knowledge—only those who worked on receiving and dispatching messages knew—but a small contingent of dragonflies were kept in a frozen, suspended state inside a special icebox in the kitchen.
Daemon threw himself into the walk-in icebox. His teeth chattered within seconds, but he methodically searched each shelf and drawer. There were hunks of frozen beef still in crates. Tubs of peach ice cream, probably made from fresh fruit and milk from Tiger’s Belly farms. And giant, frost-dusted blocks of ice. But no dragonflies.
The hair on his arms now frozen stiff, Daemon stumbled out