Sora didn’t say anything as they started up the winding switchbacks. It hadn’t sunk in before that Prince Gin’s war machine could already have reached Samara Village, even though she knew what his goals were.
Then something else dawned on Sora. If this inexplicable wretchedness could affect the people in Samara Village, then it could reach up the mountain, too.
“Mama! Papa!” She started sprinting.
“Spirit, pace yourself,” Broomstick yelled from behind her. “Or at least let me get us some horses to help!” There was still a long way to go up the steep mountainside.
He had a point. But Sora couldn’t slow down. “I’m sorry, I have to go ahead. Meet me there!” She commanded the ryuu particles to lift her, and they whisked her up the switchbacks, leaving Broomstick behind in the dust.
Chapter Twenty
Her parents’ home perched on the cliffs above the glistening sea, serene and so removed from the smoke and noise of the village below it seemed possible that everything would be all right. The air was scented with damp cypress boughs, just as Sora remembered, and the steps leading up to the front door were swept clean. She made her way into the small courtyard, with its wooden path and well-tended garden of ferns and baby maple trees and river-polished pebbles, and paused outside the room to the right, Papa’s pottery studio.
He sat at his wheel, pumping the pedal steadily to keep the platform turning, oblivious to the fact that anyone was watching. He had clay on his mustache and a smear of paint across his cheek, and those details combined with the soothing rhythm of the pedal filled Sora’s chest with relief. All was well here. She’d been afraid for nothing.
“Hello, Papa,” Sora said softly.
His hands faltered at the sound of her voice, and the clay he’d been carefully working wobbled on the wheel, growing lopsided. He snapped up his head and glared at her.
Sora took a step back. Papa had never looked at her that way before. Both her parents doted on her but Papa more so. He was the one who always insisted on giving her the best bed when she came to visit. Who couldn’t stop smiling proudly at his taiga daughter when she and Daemon did their exercises in the mornings, keeping in shape on school breaks by sparring on the deck and jumping in the trees that clung to the cliffside. Scowling was so unfamiliar it seemed uncomfortable on his face.
“Look what you’ve done,” Papa said, grabbing the lopsided clay from the wheel and hurling it at the wall. It hit with a loud splat, and Sora jumped. “I suppose you expect that you can just drop in unannounced because you’re a taiga and that your mother will have food on the stove for you and a bath drawn to welcome Your Honor’s return? All hail Luna’s chosen one.”
Sora cringed at the acidic sarcasm with which he said the moon goddess’s name and the title “Your Honor.” It was the standard honorific for taigas, but she’d always insisted that her parents call her Sora. It had been their choice over the years to address her and Daemon as “Your Honor.” Papa had claimed it was a privilege to be able to do so, because not everyone got to have a child blessed by Luna with taiga magic.
“I—I’m sorry,” she said. “I happened to be passing through the area, and I wanted to check on you.”
Papa frowned. He stared at his pottery wheel as if he were deep in thought, then shook his head sharply. “Your Honor,” he said, with reverence this time. “I apologize. I don’t know what came over me. Of course you are welcome home anytime.” He rose, took off his apron, and approached Sora with arms outstretched to give her a hug.
She let him, but she was tense, not sure if this was real remorse or if he would lash out again.
It was a genuine embrace, though, and when he released her, Papa smiled in his familiar way, eyes glistening and crinkled at the corners.
What in the hells is going on? Sora thought.
He led her through the interior courtyard, into the main house. It was a small structure, but he hollered nevertheless. “Mina! Guess who surprised us with a visit!”
Mama burst out of her study, pencil still in hand. “Your Honor!” Her eyes brightened, and she bowed deeply.
Their joy made everything feel normal and right, if only for a moment. But then Sora remembered that she hadn’t seen them since she found out that Hana was still alive, and that she hadn’t been killed as a child during the Blood Rift.
Should I tell them?
They had a right to know. And yet, this didn’t seem the proper time. It would mean explaining not only that their younger daughter was alive but also that she was fighting for the wrong side. That Sora had tried to show her the error of following Prince Gin, but that Hana had turned her back and chosen the pursuits of blood and glory and the Evermore instead.
And then there was Prince Gin’s promise—that the next time Sora and Hana met, one of them would end up dead.
It was definitely better not to tell Mama and Papa about Hana now.
A second later, Mama whacked Papa with her pencil. “What kind of host are you? Have you offered our daughter something to drink? A place to sit? She must be exhausted.”
“How is this my fault?” he said. “You’re the rude one, holed up in your office and not greeting her properly.”
“I didn’t even know she was here!”
“Maybe if you paid better attention—”
“Whoa whoa whoa,” Sora said, horrified. “I’m fine. Don’t worry. Everything’s fine.”
Except it wasn’t. There was something wrong with her parents, just like something had been wrong with Mr. Zaki in the village. As if the sunlight that usually shone on their lives had been replaced with putrid green rot.
Sora gasped. Or like Sola’s brightness on our kingdom has been overshadowed by Zomuri’s selfish pettiness.
Could this be what that conversation Fairy overheard in the Citadel was about? Something about how Zomuri being the kingdom’s new patron god was influencing people? It certainly seemed as if his cruelty were dripping into Kichona, like a sickness falling over the people and the land.
Sora looked at Mama and Papa casting daggers of blame over an imagined problem. Their fury sliced into Sora, too, but in a different way—it pained her to see them like this.
This has to be stopped. Sora couldn’t let Mama and Papa stay this way forever.
For now, though, she needed to distract them from their argument. “Papa, I want to bring a gift back to my teachers,” she lied. “Would you be able to pick a sake set from your collection for me? They are always so impressed with your artistry. And Mama,” she said, “I have a mythology project for my literature class that involves the Lake of Nightmares. But I have no idea where to start. Have you come across this lake in your work, maybe in your research for the Kichonan Tales?”
They both blinked.
Papa nodded happily. “I would be honored to give a sake set to your teachers. I’ll look for something right away.” He hurried out of the house toward his studio, almost skipping as he went.
Mama, however, frowned. “You said your project was on the Lake of Nightmares? What an esoteric legend. There really isn’t much about it.”
“But you’ve heard of it?” Sora asked.
“Oh yes, of course I’ve come across it. Legend has it that Zomuri buried his treasure deep inside ice caverns, at the bottom of a lake enchanted to give anyone who touched its waters horrible nightmares. Those greedy enough to try to break into the god’s vault will see visions of the worst versions of themselves. The hallucinations are so vivid, people either drown as they get lost in them or drown themselves out of despair for who they think they’ll become in the future.”