“Of course, Your Highness,” she said. “Spirit and I will go to Dassu Desert, kill your sister, and bring her body back to you.”
Chapter Forty-Four
A diver emerged from the sea, climbing onto the rocky shores with a heavy net full of oysters. Sora stood on the cliff above the Striped Coves, watching one of Kichona’s oldest trades. Pearl hunting was a family legacy, the expertise passed down from generation to generation. It took years of training to learn how to dive to depths of a hundred feet on a single breath alone, how to navigate the dark underwater caverns, how to identify the oysters with the most beautiful tiger pearls. She wondered how many centuries this diver’s family had been hunting for the orange-and-black-striped jewels, and how they’d discovered them in the first place.
The man sat on the slick rock for a minute, letting the sun warm him as he filled his lungs with precious oxygen. His nearly naked body shimmered, coated in coconut oil to keep him warm beneath the surface. But if he knew Sora was there, he didn’t care. Tourists often came to gawk at the process. One girl on the cliff wouldn’t bother him.
Soon, he upended his net and dumped the oysters onto the rock. In one deft motion, he inserted a small knife into the shell, slid it around the edge, and popped the oyster open. He pressed on the soft mollusk inside, and a second later, a large pearl slipped out into his fingers.
“It’s perfect,” Sora whispered. With her hawkeye spell, she could see the famed orange and black stripes on it, gleaming even though the jewel was unpolished. The pearl was round too, not oval or lopsided, but an exact sphere. And it was nearly an inch in diameter.
The diver nodded to himself, as if approving, set the pearl on top of a small silk pouch to dry, and moved on to the other oysters in his net.
Daemon had spearheaded the Level 12 fund-raiser to buy Empress Aki a string of tiger pearls during Autumn Festival.
Sora startled at the thought. She’d almost forgotten her gemina existed, which was a horribly disloyal thing, since they’d been best friends for ages. Mortified, Sora latched onto the memory.
But as soon as she tried to hold it, it wriggled away, like an eel. She lunged for it again, but it began to fade, the memory swimming into the murky depths of her mind.
This had happened before, hadn’t it? She’d remembered Daemon, but the thought had disappeared quickly, subsumed by something else.
She also felt strangely guilty for thinking about him. Or was it that cutting him off was wrong?
The diver shouted in alarm. Sora rushed to the edge of the cliff, her cloudy musings forgotten at the sound of someone needing help.
Three ryuu had suddenly appeared, riding on a wave. They were all women, and they surrounded him like sirens circling a stray sailor.
“Hello, handsome,” one of the ryuu said. “Did you find some good pearls?”
The diver tried to take a step back, but he bumped into another of the women.
“Hey,” she said, “Tidepool asked you a question. It’s rude not to answer.”
“W-what are you? Where did you come from?”
Tidepool smiled maliciously. “We’re your darkest fantasies come true. And your nightmares.”
The two other ryuu laughed and closed in on him. They put their hands on his chest and his back, holding him prisoner as they began to kiss his oiled skin.
“Stop!” Sora shouted from the cliff. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Leave them be,” Prince Gin said, approaching behind Sora.
She fell to her knees and bowed. “Your Highness.”
He gestured for her to rise. “The ryuu have been working hard. They deserve a little reward.”
Sora frowned. She wanted to believe him, to agree with his words that warmed her like sweet wine, but something felt wrong. “They’re forcing themselves on him.”
Prince Gin shrugged. “And they’ll kill him afterward. Those three have earned themselves the nickname ‘the Black Widows.’”
“No . . .” Sora shook her head. Again, that sensation that she wasn’t seeing the whole picture nagged at her. It was like that eel of Daemon’s memory, lurking in the muddy water just out of reach.
“The diver is one of our people,” Sora said. “I don’t understand. Aren’t we fighting so we can make all of Kichona happier?”
The ridges on Prince Gin’s face tightened as he pursed his lips together. Was he thinking? Was he considering what Sora had said?
A few moments later, he grunted and walked to the edge of the cliff. “Black Widows,” he said, “stop what you’re doing.” He didn’t have to yell. Somehow, his voice just carried on the wind down to them.
Tidepool pouted. “Why? You’ve always allowed us playthings.”
“That was in Shinowana. But this is our home country, and that diver is one of us. Save your appetites for the war abroad. Then you’ll have free rein to do what you want. It won’t be much longer that you have to wait.”
The women grumbled but backed off the diver. They rode off on a wave Tidepool commanded.
“As for you,” Prince Gin said to the diver, who stood shivering but immobile from his encounter with the Black Widows, “they didn’t hurt you. Everything is all right. Yes?”
The man looked up in wonder. A smile broke across his face, and his body stopped trembling. “Your Highness. You’ve come home.”
“I have.”
The man nodded. “Then yes, everything is all right.”
Prince Gin waved his hand, and the diver quickly gathered his oysters and pearls and dove back into the sea, swimming in the direction of home.
“Is that better?” the prince said, turning to Sora.
She saw him as if through a haze of heat. At the same time, a swell of ambition and purpose washed through her, and she couldn’t recall why she’d protested a minute ago. How silly to question the Dragon Prince. He knew what he was doing. He had Kichona’s best interests at heart.
She looked down at the sleeve of her uniform, where the green triplicate whorls of the ryuu reflected the sunlight off the surface of the water. She smiled and traced the embroidery. So beautiful. Like pride and power woven straight into the threads.
“Yes, everything is better,” Sora answered the prince.
“Good. Because I have a mission for you and Virtuoso.”
“A mission? For Hana and me?” Happiness bubbled up inside Sora, like a cauldron of sweet tapioca soup, overflowing. The Dragon Prince wanted her to do something for him. And with her sister. What an embarrassment of riches!
“That’s the kind of enthusiasm I like. You’ll have to pack quickly. I need you to leave within the hour.”
Sora didn’t care. She would have left yesterday if she could.
“What’s our mission?” she asked.
Prince Gin looked at the ground and kicked a rock over the cliff’s edge. “You’re going to assassinate the empress.”
Sora nodded. “It’s time the empress’s rule was put to an end.”
“This is the most important task right now,” he said. “Are you ready for it?”
She could hardly wait to run back to the ship, grab her things, and go. She had to put her palms on her legs to force herself to stand in place for just another minute, to have some dignity in front of the Dragon Prince.