“I’ll touch each of your eyes,” Prince Gin said. “When you open them again, look for the green particles that float all around you. That is magic.”
Oh. Daemon’s hope sank. There wasn’t a simple solution. A taiga couldn’t simply start using ryuu magic by virtue of knowing it existed. There was still some special Sight that Prince Gin had to give them.
A solemn silence swept across the rooftop as he approached the first taiga to touch her eyes.
Then there was a loud, long gasp, like the sound a branding iron makes on sizzling skin. It tapered off to a quiet chill, like the steam that rises off the surface of snow.
The same sound repeated itself, starting hot and ending cold, over and over until the Dragon Prince had touched all fifty-four taiga warriors.
Daemon shivered and held tight to the wall.
“Now,” Prince Gin said, “step to the front edge of the roof, and we’ll finish your initiation.”
Daemon frowned. What else could be involved in transforming a taiga to a ryuu?
He glanced over at Sora. Her body sagged away from the wall, but her hands and feet still held on. Assured that she was all right, Daemon climbed his way toward the front of the building until he was at the corner.
“I think the quickest way to help you see the emerald dust,” Prince Gin said to the recruits, “is to make it a life-or-death situation.”
“What do you mean, Your Highness?” one of them said.
“My ryuu will show you,” the prince said. “Now.”
With that, they shoved the taiga warriors off the rooftop.
No!
There was a chorus of surprised cries. The closest taiga hurtled far enough away from the building for Daemon to see.
He almost lunged to try to save her, stopping himself at the last moment.
What was the Dragon Prince doing? Did he toy with them, bringing them to his side just for fun, before he killed them?
“Look for the magic!” Prince Gin shouted.
There was a split second of flailing taiga arms and legs, the same fear Daemon was feeling.
But then stoicism graced the recruits’ faces as they pulled themselves together and focused.
The taiga closest to Daemon grabbed at the air. Her hands closed around something. Like a rope, it jerked her to a stop in midair, then swung her back to safety along the front of the Society building.
Sight, Daemon realized. She somehow must have seen the ryuu magic.
At the same time, the other taigas snatched at the invisible ropes in the air. Once their feet touched the wall, they climbed back up to the roof.
They all cheered.
Daemon clung to his side of the building, paralyzed. He’d watched that taiga near him plunge to certain death. But then she hadn’t. How? What, exactly, was this ryuu magic that seemed to manifest itself in so many different ways? Something consistent had saved all the recruits, but outside that, he had already witnessed Prince Gin conduct mass hypnosis, a boy command all manner of insects, and a serpent made of mist biting through the sky.
He had a sinking feeling that this was only the beginning. The ryuu hadn’t even begun to show off what they could do.
Prince Gin clapped from the rooftop and said, “Welcome to the ryuu. Now, let’s get ourselves a new ship and be on our way. We have more taigas to recruit.”
They leaped off the roof fearlessly and ran to the harbor.
Daemon’s stomach swan dived even more deeply as clarity hit him.
The Dragon Prince was going to rebuild his army by ransacking the Society. He could lure taigas at other outposts like he just did here. That was probably what he did at Paro Village, why there were no warriors left there.
If taking the throne from Empress Aki was the extent of it, that would be bad enough. But Prince Gin wanted the Evermore. The stakes were much, much higher.
First, innocents like the woman in Paro Village would be slaughtered in the Ceremony of Two Hundred Hearts. Then the taigas and the rest of Kichona would become mindless pawns under the Dragon Prince’s hypnosis, carrying out his will. Prince Gin would declare war on all of the kingdoms on the mainland, murdering people abroad and bringing bloodshed to Kichona’s shores when their enemies stormed the island in retaliation.
So many lives lost. Taigas and ordinary Kichonans, conscripted as infantry. Helpless children, both here and overseas, with an ocean of blood between them. All in pursuit of the Evermore, a promise that might not be more than fable.
Daemon shuddered.
He had to learn more about Prince Gin. Not just how to free oneself from the Dragon Prince’s charm but also how ryuu magic worked in general. Whether it could be used by taigas without becoming ryuu. Whether it had any weaknesses the taigas could exploit.
Whether Kichona, as Daemon knew it, had a chance at all.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sora woke to the world jostling. Or was it her body? She couldn’t quite tell, because all the blood was in her head, and when she opened her eyes, the ground was up and the sky was down.
“Whass happenig?” she slurred.
“I’m saving you from yourself,” Daemon said.
She blinked several times before she understood that he was carrying her over his shoulder, balanced like a precarious sack of taro root, while he climbed down the side of the taiga command post’s wall.
Sora jolted upright.
“Holy heavens!” Daemon cried out as he slammed himself and Sora’s lower half into the wall. “What are you doing? You almost hurled both of us to the ground!”
But what he was saying only partly registered. Now that Sora was awake again, she resumed basking in the sunshine-like warmth of Prince Gin’s promises.
“Are we going to the Dragon Prince?” Sora asked. “Did he make us ryuu?”
“I swear on Luna’s name, I’m going to knock you unconscious again if you don’t shut up about the traitor,” Daemon said. He secured Sora over his shoulder and began his descent again. He couldn’t go as quickly as usual with her as cargo, but she was starting to get the feeling that he wouldn’t want to let her climb down on her own.
“Daemon . . .” she said slowly, “do you not want to become a ryuu?”
“No, Sora, I do not.”
She frowned. “But why wouldn’t you want to join in Prince Gin’s cause? He wants what’s best for the kingdom. Plus, he’s going to teach us incredible magic. You would love being good at magic, wouldn’t you?”
She felt him flinch. Perhaps that wasn’t the best thing to say to someone who was sensitive about his abilities.
“I mean, also, I want to be the best taiga ever,” she said, attempting to cover up her flub. “With ryuu magic, we could be better than anything we could do with just taiga magic. I mean, you saw what the ryuu could do with fire and wind and . . .” She trailed off because she couldn’t remember what else they’d done.
But I’m sure it was incredible.
Daemon reached the ground and smashed Sora against the wall. He had a hand around her throat and a knife pressed under her rib cage. “He did something to you.”
“What are you—? Who did something to me?” Sora’s pulse quickened, but at the same time, she analyzed their position for ways she could escape.
“Prince Gin. He magically brainwashed everyone to convince them to switch allegiances. It must be the new magic he learned while he was exiled, because he certainly wasn’t able to persuade taigas that easily during the Blood Rift.”