“I don’t know,” he said. “Probably the same reason they would have log fortifications. I told you something was off about this party.”
The easy, feline grace that had accompanied Sora now tensed. On alert, she was more panther than cat.
She pushed her way through the branches and climbed to the roof of the nearest tent. They hopped their way across the camp until they were just outside the circle of dancers and the bonfire.
A reedy melody weaseled itself through the air. It came from a long woodwind with a curved bell.
“What is that?” Daemon asked.
Sora had never seen nor heard that instrument before. “I don’t know,” she said. But the number of “I don’t knows” was beginning to heap up to an uncomfortable pile.
As the music intensified, the crowd of dancers stilled. It was then that Sora noticed their clothing.
“Daggers,” she swore. “Daemon—is it me, or are their tunics and trousers eerily similar to the taiga uniforms?”
He took a few seconds to study them. “Their belts are green; ours are black. Otherwise, they do look similar. But then again, how creative can you make a tunic and trousers? It’s not as if the Society owns the color black.”
“Maybe . . .”
At that moment, the flaps of a nearby tent parted, and a man in a hooded cloak stepped out. He folded his arms behind his back and walked casually to the dancers.
The fire flared. Then its flames changed from orange to green.
Sora gasped. How is this happening? Flames were yellow, orange, sometimes blue . . . but not green. Not like this.
The fire stretched taller. The tips of the flames rounded, and narrow eye slits formed in each one.
Fiery mouths yawned open and forked green tongues flicked at the sky. They looked like serpent heads.
Sora’s heart pounded like a taiko drum.
“What in all hells is happening?” Daemon whispered.
“I don’t know,” she said again.
“I think we should go before we get caught,” Daemon said. “We have enough to report to the Council.”
Sora glanced down at the bonfire and the cloaked man. They were not the fun sort of trouble.
The man let the hood fall away, and even from this distance, Sora could see how the light and shadows of the flames taunted the scalelike ridges of his face.
“Impossible,” Sora whispered.
But she knew who he was. All of Kichona did. This young man had been burned in a kitchen accident when he was a child, leaving half his skin covered in reptilian scars. Because of this, some called him the Dragon Prince.
Officially, however, he was known as Prince Gin.
Sora’s mouth fell open. Daemon’s shock reverberated through their gemina bond at the same time.
“He’s supposed to be dead,” Daemon whispered.
But here he was now, right in front of Sora. Her stomach lurched, not only because this traitorous, violent prince had returned, but also because he was the reason her sister was dead.
Ten years ago, as the Blood Rift was brewing, Sora and the other taiga apprentices had paid little attention. The politics surrounding Rose Palace had seemed too removed from them. On the same day the prince’s and princess’s factions prepared to fight, Sora had been preoccupied with much more interesting things.
“Is it Friday?” six-year-old Hana had asked earlier that afternoon. It was her last year as a tenderfoot—the rank of children marked by Luna but too young to be apprentices—so she lived and slept in the nursery. But on Fridays, she had a standing date to sleep over in Sora’s dormitory with the older girls, and she looked forward to it every week.
Sora had been eight then. “Yes, stinkbug, it’s Friday,” she’d said with a sigh. She loved her sister, but Friday evenings were when Daemon and her other apprentice friends began the weekend, and there was always mischievous fun to be had, like casting puffer fish spells on each other and then attempting to wrestle in the pool with ballooned bodies and useless limbs.
“You’ll come pick me up after dinner for our sleepover?” Hana asked.
Sora looked over her shoulder wistfully, toward the apprentice dormitories. She sighed again as she turned back to her sister. “I’ll be here at seven o’clock, as always.”
Except when seven o’clock neared and Sora was ready to go over to the nursery, Daemon and their friends burst into Sora and Fairy’s room.
“Are you coming for Cookies and Cards tonight, Spirit?” one of the apprentices asked.
“She can’t,” Daemon said. “Friday is her night with her sister.”
“Come, just once,” Fairy said. “We have empress cakes.”
Sora stopped and spun around. “You have what?” Her mouth watered. Empress cakes were rich little confections made of a thin, delicate pastry crust and filled with almond paste, quince, and goldenberries. Sora’s favorite.
“We’re leaving now,” Fairy said. “One of the Level Nines is going to take us up in the dirigible.”
Empress cakes and a ride in the taigas’ airship? The dirigible was usually reserved for upper-level apprentices and warriors. This was too good to be real. Sora looked at Daemon.
He nodded, almost apologetically, as if to say, Surprise. Fairy’s telling the truth.
Sora glanced in the direction of the nursery, but it was all the way on the other side of the Citadel.
Hana will be all right, she told herself. A little disappointed, but she’ll be all right.
Sora left with Daemon, Fairy, and the others.
But Hana was not all right. While Sora was eating empress cake in the dirigible, Prince Gin’s warriors launched their attack. The skirmish with Princess Aki’s soldiers lasted only two hours, but in that short amount of time, friends brutally killed friends. The prince’s warriors slaughtered innocent palace servants and decapitated taigas, leaving their heads on spears. They took the headless bodies and set them aflame on a pyre.
Then they set the Citadel on fire. The southern part of the headquarters burned to the ground. And the nursery—with Hana and many other tenderfoots inside—perished in the flames.
Eventually, Prince Gin was wounded gravely in the battle. Princess Aki’s taigas took advantage of that, and they forced the rebellious soldiers to retreat. They fled to the sea, casting the prince’s body into the waters in an ancient Kichonan funeral rite, and then never returned. The entire kingdom heaved a sigh of relief.
Except Sora. She’d never forgiven herself for that night. If she’d been with her sister, Hana might still be alive.
And now the Dragon Prince had returned, on the tenth anniversary of that horrific battle. Sora could practically feel the weight in the air, like humidity composed of blood.
Her knees buckled beneath her. Daemon caught her.
The men and women in the eerie, taiga-like uniforms bowed in unison to Prince Gin.
“We need to go,” Daemon said. “Now.”
Sora touched the pearl on her necklace and clung to the memory of Hana to help her summon strength. She climbed down from her perch. Moments later, Daemon appeared beside her, and they slinked between the tents. Behind them, the wordless music and dancing had started again.
Daemon scaled the cypress where their escape wire was tied. He slid off his belt, slung it across the wire, and zipped down it like a clothesline.