Right. Hunting often didn’t go as planned. A nearby bird could startle and set the prey on alert that something was amiss. Or there might be more raccoons than anticipated. Daemon could handle this.
He puffed out his chest and acted confident. “I was just about to ask the captain what he’d like for dinner.”
The ryuu took several steps closer. “You’re one of the new recruits? Aren’t you supposed to be training with the rest of them on the main deck?”
Daemon smiled. “I was, and it was incredible. I can’t believe what we can do with this new magic, and I was disappointed when I was ordered to head down to the galley to begin cooking dinner. Hey, do you think you could take my galley shift instead, so that I could go back to training?”
The ryuu snorted but also retreated toward the ladder. “One of the benefits of having fresh blood is that recruits like you can take over cleaning the head and sweating in that cramped galley, so the rest of us don’t have to anymore. But you won’t be able to get the prince’s dinner order right now. He’s a deck up, examining the weapons we collected from Kaede City and brought on board.”
“Oh, thank you,” Daemon said. “Otherwise, I’d be standing here knocking for ages like a fool.”
The ryuu snorted again, then climbed down the ladder, going below to wherever he’d been headed in the first place.
Stars, that was close. Daemon leaned against the wall and took several long breaths until his heart dislodged from his throat and slid back where it belonged in his chest.
The good news, however, was that Prince Gin wasn’t in the captain’s quarters. Daemon slipped inside.
Flickering, palm-sized spheres floated near the ceiling, lighting the room with their soft glow. A spartan futon took up one of the far corners of the room, its sheets crisp, as if untouched since they were laundered, and a thin blanket—folded at precise angles—lay at the foot of the bed. Daemon chewed on his lip, disappointed. He’d thought that a man claiming to be the rightful emperor would have more luxurious quarters.
There was also nothing that looked like they might be plans. No notebooks or scrolls, only a desk with a completely bare surface. Double disappointment.
Then Daemon noticed the lock on the front of the desk, and he grinned. “I bet you I know what I’ll find in there.”
He pulled a series of small, slender tools from one of the hidden pockets in his tunic. There were two essentials that taigas never left home without: weapons and lock picks. It didn’t matter that he was wearing a ryuu uniform. Daemon had made sure to transfer his throwing stars, knives, and picks as soon as he’d tied on the green ryuu belt.
It took him only a second to assess the lock and another second to slip the necessary tools into the keyhole. He listened carefully as he shifted the curtain pick and moved each of the tumblers one by one.
There was a click and a satisfying give. Daemon didn’t smile, though. Being able to break into a lock like this was expected of apprentices as early as Level 4.
He opened the drawer and . . . there was nothing in it.
Daemon ran his fingers over the bottom of the drawer, but it was perfectly smooth. He slid his hands into the back corners of the drawer, feeling for anything out of the ordinary but finding only wood and an abandoned stopper to an inkwell that had dried up and been discarded long ago.
Hmm. It was possible that it really was empty. But why would Prince Gin bother locking his desk then?
No, there had to be something inside. Daemon knelt down so the drawer was at eye level. He retrieved a small metal pellet—scatter shot, a new, discreet kind of throwing weapon that one of the taiga weapon masters was testing—and placed it on the right side of the drawer. It rolled toward the front.
But the ship was rocking from side to side.
If there was a false bottom on the drawer, its contents could be pushing up on the panel unevenly, hence the pellet rolling forward. Since there was no obvious release switch, though, maybe this one was pressure-mounted.
Daemon placed his palms flat against the bottom of the drawer and pushed down gently.
It gave a little, then lifted up with a tidy pop.
Cheers to me, he thought.
There was, indeed, a pile of papers tall enough to cause the unevenness in the false bottom of the drawer. Daemon flipped through them. They appeared to be profiles of each ryuu: height, weight, age, and most important, details about their “specialty.”
Tidepool could command the sea.
Insects responded to Beetle.
Firebrand was the orb of flames.
For all that is good and holy . . . Daemon felt ill and had to hold on to the desk for a minute, but it wasn’t from seasickness. Skimming ryuu profile after ryuu profile hammered home the fact that if the Dragon Prince were allowed to build his army even bigger, they would be virtually invincible.
A warrior who could grow ice.
One whose hands became powerful magnets to attract away enemy weapons.
Two who could break bones, just with their minds. Even when the bones were still inside a living person.
How did the taigas stand a chance?
Stay calm, Daemon thought. The Society needs this information, and I’m the only one that can get it to them. He couldn’t steal them right now, though. If Prince Gin checked—which he might, because he would have profiles to add for the new recruits—it would be too obvious if they were all gone.
But Daemon would come back later to get them. Sometime, somehow.
He set the profiles back into the desk and was about to replace the false bottom when his fingers grazed a ribbon on the underside of the panel. Puzzled, he flipped it over.
There was a large map of Kichona. Colored dots marked various points around the kingdom, each connected by a green ribbon, beginning at Isle of the Moon, then Paro Village, Sand Mine, Kaede City, and onward.
Were those Prince Gin’s targets?
He touched the map. Each colored dot had a corresponding number written on it.
Isle of the Moon, 5
Paro Village, 26
Sand Mine, 30
Kaede City, 54
Tiger’s Belly, 200
Striped Coves, 300
Lionshead Pass, 622
Gorudo Hills, 1,100
Red Harbor, 1,810
Toredo, 2,000
They were cities and other landmarks throughout Kichona, but what did the numbers mean? Daemon studied them some more.
He gasped. There had been five councilmembers at Isle of the Moon over Autumn Festival, when the typhoon hit. Twenty-six taigas had come from Paro Village. And he and Sora had seen fifty-some taigas hypnotized at Kaede City.
These must be the number of taigas posted at each target. The number of new ryuu that Prince Gin plans to recruit.
It dawned on Daemon that if the prince had been successful at Isle of the Moon, the rest of this list might have been moot. The Dragon Prince would have captured Glass Lady and the other councilmembers and made them his puppets. They would have been able to command the Society to overthrow Empress Aki, and then Prince Gin could seize the throne.
Daemon felt a wisp of relief.
But that quickly passed, because it only meant that Prince Gin had been forced to a backup plan—all these other targets around Kichona. It looked like he was starting at smaller outposts, which he could easily overwhelm with his existing ryuu. Then, as the ryuu ranks swelled, he would begin to take on bigger targets to grow his army and collection of Hearts even faster.