Sora frowned and shook her head. The sunny awe the Dragon Prince made her feel couldn’t possibly be a lie. It ran too deep, as though it was woven into the fiber of her being.
Oh . . . Maybe Prince Gin had rejected Daemon. Maybe he was angry because he was upset. Sad or embarrassed or jealous to be left behind again. . . .
“If the prince said you couldn’t join him, I’ll talk to him,” Sora said. “I’ll tell him you’re great, and I’m sure—”
“I don’t want to join him!” Daemon said, pushing Sora into the wall again. “Listen to me. The Dragon Prince does not want what’s best for Kichona. He wants to raise an army of taigas—or ryuu, whatever—to go out like mindless pawns and conquer other countries to expand our kingdom. But if he does that, do you think our people will get to continue leading their peaceful lives with Autumn Festival celebrations and apple harvests and quiet, lazy mornings of fishing?
“No,” he continued. “If the prince gets what he wants and starts attacking other countries, they won’t sit back and let him take them. They will attack Kichona. They will storm our coastal cities. Torch the crops and the countryside. Pillage towns, rape women, kill children. Empress Aki has preserved Kichona’s stability, prosperity, and peace. But Prince Gin will bleed other kingdoms to conquer them, chasing that stupid Evermore legend, and in turn other armies will come to Kichona and burn our country to the ground.
“So just . . . please,” Daemon said, the anger in his voice suddenly giving way to desperation. “Please snap out of it. I can’t do this without you. I can’t save the whole gods-damn kingdom on my own.”
A sharp electric shock zapped through their gemina bond, and Sora jumped. It fried the pride and sense of purpose Prince Gin had inspired, and the literal jolt Daemon had sent through their connection jostled her brain awake. For a minute, all she could see was bright blue light, bursting like sparklers and engulfing everything in its brilliant determination to set her free. Even her nerves vibrated.
When the blue light faded, the remnants of the spell were gone, and horror set in. “Stars, Daemon, I’m sorry,” she said. “He got into my head. If it weren’t for you, I’d be . . .” She couldn’t bear to finish the sentence.
Daemon narrowed his eyes. “Is this a trick? How do I know you’ve really come back to your senses?”
“I don’t know. . . .”
But then she did. She let the shame she felt flood through their gemina bond. It was like waking up in sewer water.
“Oh, Sora. There was nothing you could have done.” He released his hold on her throat, lowered his knife, and embraced her.
That sent a surge of a different kind of spark through their bond, this one gentler. Soft, like a lullaby.
She relaxed into it.
When she released him, though, she asked the obvious question. “If there was nothing I could have done to resist Prince Gin’s magic, how did you escape it? And how did you break me free?”
“I-I don’t know.” He worried his lower lip. “All around me, you and the taigas toppled like dominoes to the Dragon Prince’s words. But I didn’t feel any different. I don’t know how he charmed all of you and why it didn’t affect me.”
“Maybe that’s the superpower you’ve been waiting for,” she said.
He let out a short laugh. “Right. I’m terrible at magic, except I can resist one random thing.”
“It’s a pretty good thing to be able to resist.”
“I suppose so.” He grew solemn. “You know what this means, right? Prince Gin can force everyone to love him.”
Sora’s insides clenched violently, like she’d eaten spoiled fish. “Crow’s eye. The woman in Paro Village who told us she had been chosen as a Heart . . . He’s not only hypnotizing an army of taigas but also ordinary people. He’ll turn Kichona into a kingdom of bewitched puppets.”
Daemon nodded. “They’ll march overseas with him and give up their lives, just because he asked them to. And he could do it to anyone. Our friends. The people in your hometown. Your parents.”
Sora had to lean against the wall to support herself. The Dragon Prince had already hurt her family once by murdering her sister. She wouldn’t let him do it again, not to her family or any other.
Her fingers went to the small leather pouch on her belt. Fairy’s satchel of deadly powders.
“We can’t let them leave the harbor without us,” Sora said. “We need to get on the Dragon Prince’s ship.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Most of the ryuu had gone either into town with Prince Gin to help him herd together the citizens and charm them or to raid the captain’s quarters of the other boats in the harbor in search of wine and other spirits. The new recruits, however, gathered in the front of the caravan of wagons that carried their supplies to begin loading the ship Prince Gin had decided to help himself to.
The rest of the caravan, though, was unattended. Still, Sora’s nerves jostled with every step as she and Daemon sneaked among the wagon wheels to find places to hide.
The last cart was full of tents. Too risky. The ryuu probably wouldn’t load the entire cart but, rather, just the tents themselves. There was no way for a person to hide in the canvas without falling out as soon as the tents were separated from the pile.
They slinked up to the next wagon. Sora opened the doors. This one was packed with large rattan trunks. She hopped silently into the flatbed and opened the lid on one of them.
“Uniforms,” she whispered to Daemon as she looked down at stacks of neatly folded black tunics.
Daemon climbed into the wagon, and together they riffled through the trunks to find tunics and trousers the right sizes. They should disguise themselves as ryuu if they were going to stow away on board. Just in case they were seen.
The ryuu uniforms were similar to taiga ones, except there was a green belt, and Luna’s triplicate whorls on the cuffs were embroidered in green, rather than the Society’s silver.
They turned away from each other and changed quickly into their new clothes. When they were finished, Daemon looked at the trunk again. “If we got rid of some of those uniforms, we could fit in there.”
Sora looked it over. “You’re right. Let’s empty it out a bit and then I’ll stack some clothes on top of you for cover. I’ll dispose of the extra uniforms before I find a different place to hide.”
“Wait.” His eyes went wide. “You’re going to hide somewhere else?”
“I wasn’t planning to climb into the same trunk as you.” As soon as Sora said it, Daemon’s face went red.
“Gods,” Sora said, “I didn’t mean to suggest anything untoward. Obviously I don’t think about you like that. We’re geminas.”
He nodded quickly. “Obviously. And, um, good.”
“Anyway,” Sora said, “I don’t think it’s smart to hide in the same place. But once we’re on board and it’s safe, let’s meet in the cargo hold at the bottom of the ship.”
“And if it’s never safe?” Daemon asked. He couldn’t look at her.
Sora knew how he felt. Not just because she could feel his anxiety through their gemina bond but because . . . well, yes. Because of their gemina bond, but in a different way. She wouldn’t know what to do if Daemon weren’t on the other side of it.