The brief relief Sora had felt disappeared. The Evermore. That’s what had nagged her when she saw Prince Gin in Takish Gorge. It’s why he’d come back. She’d just been in too much shock that he was still alive to think it all through.
The Evermore was a story in Mama’s most famous books, the Kichonan Tales, a collection of the kingdom’s legends, written before Sora was born. It was common knowledge that, as a child, Prince Gin had spent hours poring over the volume known as The Book of Sorrow—stories about lakes that consumed people with nightmares, of days when the sky rained not water but blood, of an era when men prayed not for wisdom and compassion but for riches and power and glory.
Prince Gin’s favorite story had been “The Evermore.” Every tenderfoot, including Sora, studied it as a cautionary fable against greed. But sometimes, avaricious souls like the Dragon Prince read the story as truth rather than myth.
As a prophecy, rather than a warning.
It was Prince Gin’s quest for the Evermore that had caused the Blood Rift. The burning of the Citadel. The murder of Hana and the tenderfoots.
The dread in Sora’s stomach returned. The Dragon Prince had returned to finish what he started.
Chapter Nine
I don’t know why you like that story,” Aki had said when they were ten years old. They were lying on the carpet of Gin’s bedroom and reading together, albeit from different volumes of the Kichonan Tales. She had volume one open, The Book of Tranquility. Her brother had volume three, as usual, The Book of Sorrow. “It’s bloody, and it gives me nightmares.”
Gin had shrugged. “That’s because you’re reading it wrong. There’s a paradise at the end of it, and immortality. That’s a happy ending.”
“There’s a cult devoted to that story. That’s how you know it’s crazy. And Father would be upset if he knew how obsessed you were. You should stop reading it.”
“But it’s not just a story!” Gin slammed the book closed, and Aki jumped. His scarred face had gone red. “Why is it that some stories of the gods are accepted as true—like Sola blessing our family and Luna gifting the taigas with magic—while others, like the Evermore, are said to be myth?”
Aki rolled over on the carpet and put her hand on her brother’s cheek. He hated his skin, but she always told him it made his outside as unique as his inside, and whenever she touched him, it helped calm him down.
But this time, it didn’t. He ripped her hand away. “The only reason the Evermore is called a myth is because we don’t already have it,” Gin said, seething. He turned away from his sister and clutched the book to his chest. “People don’t have enough faith to believe in something they can’t see.”
The Evermore
As retold by Mina Teira
In Celestae, the gods’ floating island in the heavens, fruit is so sweet, its mere scent drips syrup from the stars. Beauty is so pure, it bestows joy from miles away. And youth is eternal, such that muscles never grow weak, nor minds, feeble with age. This is the paradise of the gods, a playground of power and immortality and bliss in the sky.
But when Kichona was a young kingdom, its emperor Mareo decided he wanted a version of Celestae on earth. He appealed to Sola, who ignored his summons. He called to Luna, but she did not reply. The gods, it seemed, were too far away to notice or care.
There was one deity, however, who had chosen to live on earth. Zomuri, god of glory, lived in sulfurous caverns in the center of Kichona. And so Mareo embarked on the long and treacherous journey there.
When he finally found the god’s home, he was on the cusp of death. Still, Emperor Mareo laid out many offerings for the god. There was gold. There was silk. And mounds of tiger pearls. Zomuri hoarded riches.
On the eighth day, Zomuri appeared. He was a giant wearing an elegant silk robe decorated with embroidered flames. He stroked his long beard with a ten-fingered hand, then picked up the gold and the silk and the spears in turn.
Emperor Mareo looked up through muddied strands of hair. “Great Zomuri, I—”
The god waved at him. The gesture choked off the emperor’s voice.
“I know what you want,” Zomuri said, scoffing. His breath smelled powerfully of spoiled eggs. “Did you think that gold and silk would be enough to buy you paradise?”
Emperor Mareo shook his head furiously. Through sheer force of will, his voice broke through the god’s magic. “This was merely an offering. But I am willing to pay whatever it takes.”
Zomuri eyed him now with an inkling of curiosity. It was nearly impossible to break through a god’s spell. And yet Mareo had managed to speak.
“If it were possible to grant you paradise on earth,” Zomuri said slowly, “what would you do to achieve it?”
Mareo swiped the grimy hair from his face and looked eagerly at the giant. “I have my entire life to give. I have my entire soul to dedicate to you.”
The god considered this. It would be quite a coup to have an emperor worship him rather than Sola. But then Zomuri shook his head. “Your life and your soul are not enough.”
Emperor Mareo hesitated. But he pulled back his shoulders and said, “I promise all the lives it shall take. All the people I conquer shall worship you. All I kill shall die in your name.”
Zomuri smiled. “Do what I bid of you, and you shall have your paradise on earth. You shall have the Evermore.”
The curse was made.
Emperor Mareo’s legs buckled beneath him from exhaustion, and he hit the ground. He wept, but out of gratitude rather than pain. “Thank you, my lord. Thank you.”
Zomuri picked him up by the scruff of his neck and stood him back on his wobbling legs. “Do not thank me yet. There is much work to be done. You will broaden Kichona’s borders as far as the eye can see. You will convert the people of the lands you conquer to our faith and make them worship me. And you will pay your tithe to me in blood.”
The emperor quivered under the burden with which he’d been bestowed. But he had asked for it. And he wanted the Evermore.
“The first tithe you owe comes due to me as soon as you return home. You shall find Kichonans aged one to one hundred, a male and female each, and sacrifice their lives to me in the Ceremony of Two Hundred Hearts. Only then will I grant you the right to seek the Evermore.”
Emperor Mareo’s jaw hung open. “You want me to kill two hundred of my own people? Babies? Old women?”
Zomuri huffed, and a cloud of sulfurous air billowed from his nose. “The Evermore is the greatest prize of them all. Blood must be shed to make Kichona into the empire I want. Therefore, the first step is a ritual to prove to me that no life is too precious for you to spare, whether young or old, Kichonan or not.”
The emperor stood in the cavern, knees quaking. It was unspeakable, what Zomuri asked.
But it was also a small price to pay to bring paradise to the rest of the kingdom.
With this mission bestowed upon him, Emperor Mareo returned to his palace. He called for volunteers throughout the kingdom, a male and a female for each age between one and one hundred, promising them glory. And then, away from curious eyes, he slaughtered them, offering their hearts to Zomuri.
After that, Mareo’s armies massacred tens of thousands overseas, and he pursued his goal to the end of his days.