“Is that—?” Sora began to ask.
“A sparring mat?” Empress Aki said. “Yes. I have many. Are you surprised?”
“I . . . I shouldn’t be.” It made sense now why the empress could run so fast. How could Sora have thought that the ruler of their kingdom would just sit around in her throne room? Especially since she’d grown up with a twin brother who trained as a taiga; she couldn’t command magic, but there was no reason she wouldn’t have learned the other drills for physical conditioning and fighting. And Empress Aki had fought the Blood Rift—and won—when she was only fifteen.
“Good. Because sparring mats are the least of my surprises.”
It was only then that Sora really took in where they were. It was an underground room. The floor was striped in black and white, as if the Field of Illusions had been beaten into submission and the sand packed tight as stone. Cypress beams held up the ceiling. And the walls were covered in ceramic tiles, some blue, some gold, and some with the Ora tiger crest painted on them.
“Is this some kind of safe room?” Sora asked, still gaping.
“You’ll see,” Empress Aki said.
“Does the commander know about it?”
“Like I said, only me, the Imperial Guards, and you.”
Despite the fact that they were on the brink of war with Prince Gin, Sora grinned. She had stepped up to her potential. And now someone was taking her seriously, letting her in on a part of history almost nobody else knew.
Empress Aki produced a necklace with a locket on it and pressed the locket into one of the tiger tiles.
A dusty corner of the floor began to sink down into the ground, revealing a stairway.
“What in all h—” Sora stopped before she cursed in front of the empress.
“Do you think you could use some of my brother’s fancy magic to light the way in an underground tunnel?” Empress Aki asked. “There are lanterns around here, but it would be faster if you were able to—”
Sora shook herself out of her shock and conjured an orb of light in her hands, and then several more. They floated in the air around her.
“Well, then,” the empress said, “that takes care of that.”
They descended into the cool earth, into a tunnel that ran through the mountain. It went under the Citadel, up beneath the winding road, under the crystal waters of the moat, to the palace. Every thousand yards, a solid iron door sealed and separated the next section of the tunnel from the previous one, and each door was secured by a tiger tile that required the locket medallion to be pressed into it—sometimes it was the tile on the upper right of the left wall, sometimes in the middle of the right wall, sometimes on a spot halfway from the center to the bottom left corner, et cetera. Sora watched in awe as Empress Aki unlocked each door without a moment’s hesitation, the solution to each one memorized.
On the way to the palace, Sora had explained to the empress what she wanted to do with the crystal. Now they emerged from the tunnels through a panel in the floor of the courtyard where Sora and the other Level 12s had performed their exhibition match.
“I thought you could use that slab of crystal,” Empress Aki said, pointing to where her chair had been that night. It was the part of the courtyard wall etched with the imperial family’s crowned tiger and the motto “Dignity. Benevolence. Loyalty.”
“It’s a good size,” Sora said. “But are you sure? I could break down a piece of less significance.”
Empress Aki looked right at the crest. “No. This one sends the right message.”
Yes, it does, Sora thought. She’d already known that these principles were the underpinnings of the kingdom. But now Sora also understood that they were the foundation on which she herself had been made. Dignity, benevolence, and loyalty had molded her and her friends, and if they adhered to them, these same principles would guide them into who they were going to be—people as noble and selfless and good as Empress Aki. Hopefully.
Sora nodded at the crystal wall. “The facets of the etching will also make the light sparkle more, be more unpredictable to the ryuu.”
Four Imperial Guards arrived. They seemed unsurprised to find that the empress had returned to the palace, as if she’d told them it was a possibility all along.
“You should take cover, Your Majesty,” Sora said. “This could get messy.”
“I’ll wait in the tunnel.” She pressed her locket medallion into the secret panel and descended into the courtyard floor. Her Imperial Guards went with her.
Sora stood alone before the wall. She hadn’t mentioned to the empress that she wasn’t sure how or even if she could break off a piece of the palace.
What is the best way to do this?
The fire ryuu had told a story about melting the edges of an iceberg before, but that was no help. Sora wasn’t a master at fire magic, and crystal wouldn’t melt at the kind of temperatures she could manage.
She could try to command the magic to form giant hands and wrench the wall away, but that might cause irreparable damage to the rest of the palace. Sora shuddered thinking of all the cracks she’d create, and how they’d spread, shattering the rest of Rose Palace because of the fractures.
Okay. No wrenching the wall.
What she needed was a clean break.
“A saw.”
Actually, several saws. The kind used to cut diamonds. Gods, please let my imagination be enough to guide the magic to do what I need it to do.
Sora looked for the emerald particles. She called for as many of them as possible, and they rushed in from all over, sparkling streaks through the sky and into the courtyard. She willed the magic into long, sharp, steady blades. She directed them to the top of the wall, one enormous green saw poised over the right side, the other on the left.
Cut, she thought.
They began to slide back and forth, slowly, as if sawing through wood, and spewing splinters as if they were sawing through wood as well. Except these splinters were made of crystal. Sharp crystal.
Sora leaped as far as she could and covered her head under the shower of needles. Stop! she commanded the saws.
They ceased their motion. But some of the particles started to dissipate as she lost control over them, because she was looking at the blood seeping into her uniform from the many places her skin had been pierced.
Deal with the wounds later, she told herself. They’re just splinters.
A hundred or so of them, but still. Just splinters.
Sora turned back to the saws and yelped as she saw them disintegrating back into the air, the particles wandering off because she wasn’t paying attention to them.
No! Back into formation.
The magic hesitated, as if momentarily confused. Then most of the particles began to drift back into the shape of their saws.
She exhaled.
All right. Cutting back and forth on crystal was dangerous. Perhaps she had to approach this more like chopping vegetables.
Slice straight down, she willed the magic.
At first, she couldn’t see anything happening. But then she noticed a thin line appear on either side of the wall where it was separating from the rest of the palace. Her green knives worked slowly but steadily.
The floor panel on the far side of the courtyard opened. Empress Aki stuck out her head. “Everything all right?”
“It is now,” Sora said. “You can come out from the tunnel, although you should probably stay on that side of the courtyard, just in case.”