Hana too.
“I’d love to,” Sora lied. “The emperor’s homecoming will be one Kichona will remember forever.”
While Sora and Hana had been gone, the ryuu had found where the citizens and remaining taigas of the Striped Coves were hiding, and Prince Gin had enchanted them all to return home. Now word of Empress Aki’s demise spread quickly through the city. Prince Gin gathered everyone into the main square and tailored the story to be one of a flaw in his sister’s heart like the one that had killed their father, a secret she’d kept from the people of Kichona.
“But there’s no reason to worry,” he’d said. “The gods could see our kingdom’s future, and they summoned me home just in time. I am blessed to be able to continue the Ora family line as your humble servant, and I’ll honor my sister’s life by ushering Kichona into a new era of greatness and prosperity.”
Every word he said was magicked as if dipped in rich caramel and chocolate. The people ate it up. “Long live the Emperor!”
But Sora was immune to his brainwashing because her gemina bond was open again, and this time, she knew to cling to her connection to Daemon. Back on the ship, she’d been so surprised to see her sister alive that she’d stopped paying attention to her bond with Daemon as he escaped. That had weakened his ability to help her fight off Prince Gin’s charm. Now, though, Sora held firmly to her connection, constantly sending and receiving emotion from Daemon. She still didn’t understand how he could resist the Dragon Prince’s spells, but whatever it was, she wasn’t going to let go of it.
With her sense of self intact, Sora watched the prince, horrified by how easily he could charm everyone.
He couldn’t be allowed to take over the Citadel. He couldn’t be allowed to conduct the Ceremony of Two Hundred Hearts. He couldn’t be allowed to wage war on the mainland, to pursue the Evermore. A glacial chill shivered through Sora’s spine.
By the time the ryuu mobilized for their journey to the capital the next morning, small shrines to Empress Aki lined the cobblestone streets, her painting surrounded by white chrysanthemums and mourning ribbons. But gracing every window were new banners—yellow and green, not the traditional Ora colors, but Prince Gin’s adopted ones for his ryuu army.
As they departed the Striped Coves and began to head inland, Sora’s thoughts turned to Fairy, Broomstick, and Daemon. As a survival mechanism, she hadn’t let herself think about them much since Copper Bluff. It was as if she could temporarily deny it had happened if she cordoned off that part of her brain.
Now, however, on horseback for a journey that would take several days, Sora had nowhere to hide from the guilt of leaving her friends. If something happened to them, she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself.
Did she give Fairy the right amount of the rira disk? Did Daemon and Broomstick get back to the Citadel safely? Would she ever be able to make it up to them, the fact that she’d tried to murder them in her hypnotic haze?
If only Sora could be in two places at once—here with her sister, and there with her friends and the Society, where she belonged.
That is, if the Society would have her back. Her gut twisted as she thought about how this looked. She’d started this by breaking the rules and sneaking off on a self-appointed mission. Then she’d gotten herself captured, ostensibly joined the ryuu, learned their magic, and used it in an assassination attempt against the empress. And Sora hadn’t gotten a chance to tell Daemon and Broomstick that Virtuoso was actually Hana, and that’s why she was staying behind.
Put that way, the facts looked bad. Very bad.
Sora’s horse stopped. The gelding ahead of her had lifted his tail. He let out an avalanche of dung.
Yeah, she thought. That’s how I feel.
The ryuu on the horse next to her laughed as he rode past. “I’d find a handkerchief to wrap around my nose and mouth if I were you. Shitstorm there lives up to his name. That is only the first of his many ‘gifts’ he’ll leave on the road in front of you.”
Nines.
She steered her horse around the steaming pile.
The army rode onward into the countryside, making good time. The rice paddies were green and flooded with water, and the terraces on the hills behind it were lined with what were probably sweet potato plants. The tiger