Sora and Daemon stepped into the chestnut grove in Jade Forest.
Cold, sharp steel immediately pressed to their throats. “Don’t move.”
Nines, Sora swore to herself as she stilled. The ryuu had found them.
“We don’t have anything valuable on us,” Sora said, in case the knife at her throat belonged to a thief.
“Oh, thank the gods, it’s you,” Fairy said. She dropped the blade.
Sora exhaled. Thank the gods indeed.
“Sorry it took us so long,” Daemon said as he rubbed his neck where Broomstick’s knife had pressed.
“Yeah,” Sora said. “Daemon had to carry me on his back both ways so I could keep us invisible. I slowed him down.”
“You can make other people invisible?” Broomstick asked. “Why didn’t you do that to us while we were crossing the Field of Illusions or when Fairy and I were in the Citadel?”
“It takes a lot of concentration for me to cast that kind of magic on someone else,” Sora said. “I needed my wits to cross the shifting sand, and I couldn’t think that hard while also making all four of us invisible. Maybe with more practice, I’ll be able to.”
They settled beneath the dense canopy of the chestnut trees. Fairy handed out thick, woolen cloaks—she and Broomstick had had the foresight to grab fresh clothes, sleeping mats, weapons, and food for everyone—and they huddled together around a campfire.
“I assume, since we’re all here and the mood isn’t celebratory, that none of us managed to find the empress or kill Prince Gin?” Broomstick asked.
Everyone shook their heads.
“Damn,” Fairy mumbled. She proceeded to tell them about Mariko’s murder.
Everyone was silent as that sank in.
“Mariko was always so nice to us,” Daemon said. “She shouldn’t have been at risk. She wasn’t a soldier, just an ordinary person trying to do her job.”
“Yeah . . . ,” Fairy said.
Sora wrapped her arms around her knees, as if that would help settle her. She’d been so focused on the Evermore as the ultimate evil that she hadn’t really thought about why it was atrocious.
It wasn’t the striving for paradise on earth that was inherently bad. It was every ruthless thing that would be done in order to get it. This war wasn’t just about conquering the mainland. It was a war on Kichona itself. Prince Gin and the ryuu were the invading horde, and the people were their targets. The terrible irony was, if the prince murdered and brainwashed enough and Zomuri made the Evermore a reality, there would be no Kichonans left to enjoy it.
But this was why Sora had to fight back. She took a deep breath to compose herself, then turned to Broomstick. “Please tell me you have a better report.”
He shook his head. “What I saw was just as horrible, in a different way.” He looked a little green as he reported watching Blade, Quicksand, Philosopher, and other apprentices they knew training with ryuu magic.
“Stars, even the kids like Quicksand?” Daemon asked. “Did you see any of our mentees?”
Broomstick nodded sadly. “Yours. I didn’t see Fairy’s or Spirit’s, but that doesn’t mean they’re not being trained. Anyone who was a taiga apprentice is learning ryuu magic. That means kids as young as seven. Who knows? Maybe even the little tenderfoots in the nursery.”
Daemon punched the tree nearest him.
“I also spent some time in Warrior Meeting Hall.” Broomstick recounted what he’d seen there.
Sora curled into herself even more. And yet she couldn’t stay like that for long, because then it was her turn to tell Fairy and Broomstick what she and Daemon had discovered in the castle.
“Do you want to give them the bad news, or should I?” Sora asked Daemon.
Fairy let out an involuntary cry. “How can it get worse?”
“The Dragon Prince gave up his soul,” Daemon said, cutting quickly to the point.
“What do you mean?” Broomstick said, his deep voice cracking.
“He struck a deal with Zomuri,” Sora said. “He gave up his soul in exchange for being invincible.”
Fairy opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Broomstick was equally speechless.
“Don’t resign yourself,” Sora said. “This isn’t over until we say it is.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Daemon said. He picked up a twig from the ground and speared it through a hapless mushroom.
“It isn’t over yet.” Sora glared at him and sent a stab of displeasure through their gemina bond.
He cringed but didn’t retract his dismay.
She needed to do whatever it took to get her head in order. Those who’d lost their lives in the Ceremony of Two Hundred Hearts should not have died in vain. And Sora had to stop this war before it began, or her fellow taigas and too many citizens of Kichona would die under Prince Gin’s command. Her kingdom needed her.
If stashing the soul pearl in Zomuri’s treasure vault kept the Dragon Prince safe, Sora would have to change that.
“Listen,” Sora said gently, trying to change tack to persuade Daemon, Fairy, and Broomstick that they still had a fighting chance. “We’re going to find Zomuri’s vault to retrieve the soul pearl. If we can reunite it with Prince Gin’s body, he won’t be invincible anymore, and we can kill him. It’s the only way to stop this madness.”
“I’m sorry,” Daemon said. “Did you just say we’re going to steal from a god?”
Sora flushed. “Um, yeah.”
He jabbed his twig at more mushrooms near his feet. “Tell me, assuming we could pull off a theft like that, how do we even find the soul pearl? Where does a god stash his treasure?”
“I . . . don’t know.” Sora deflated. She hadn’t gotten that far yet in her plans.
“This is not a good idea, Sora,” Daemon said.
Fairy perked up. “Is there anything you remember from your mother’s books?” Mina Teira was one of Kichona’s most famous authors, known especially for her volumes on the kingdom’s myths and legends.
Sora shook her head. “I thought about it the whole trek here from the castle. But nothing jumps out at me.”
Broomstick picked up some chestnuts that had fallen from the tree. He started throwing them one by one in frustration.
Daemon growled. “That’s not helping.”
“Oh, because the sound of a few nuts is distracting you from a brilliant revelation?” He chucked one at Daemon’s head.
“Guys—” Sora began.
“What the hells,” Daemon said. He grabbed a chestnut from the ground and hurled it. But Broomstick rolled out of the way, and it smacked into Fairy instead.
“Stop it, both of you!” She scowled at Daemon and whacked Broomstick on the back of his head. “If this is what the last hope for Kichona looks like, I might as well start writing my tombstone now.”
“Sorry,” the boys mumbled under their breaths.
“I didn’t hear that,” she said.
“We’re sorry, Fairy,” Daemon and Broomstick both said.
“Damn right you are. Now sit with your hands folded in your laps and do something useful.”
In other circumstances, Sora would have laughed at the two boys sitting with legs crossed beneath them and heads bowed like chastised tenderfoots.