Gods dammit, he missed her. There was something about the way Sora made him feel—how thinking of their shared past made Daemon smile so broadly, it could illuminate the forest—that he didn’t have with anyone else.
He turned his head and looked at Fairy. She was focused on her own gemina bond with Broomstick, her nose scrunched as she concentrated. Her intensity and courage put an additional glow on her beauty.
And yet Daemon’s attraction to her didn’t feel nearly as strong as his connection with Sora; it was like a string compared to a thick nautical rope. Would it always be this way?
Our relationship will deepen, Daemon thought. He couldn’t compare it to his and Sora’s, because they were geminas and knew each other inside and out. He and Fairy hadn’t had the chance yet to develop the depth that he and Sora had. But it was nothing to worry over. He and Fairy just needed time.
Foggy confusion—not his own—spilled through Daemon’s gemina bond.
Sora.
He tossed his other thoughts aside and sent her the feel of another memory—of when they were twelve and he couldn’t sleep, and she broke curfew to join him on the roof of the boys’ dormitory so he could be closer to the night sky. Daemon could still feel how she’d lain next to him to keep warm, how her head fit right into the crook of his neck like Luna had always known they were a matching pair, and how Sora had nuzzled closer to him when the sky filled with shooting stars.
“You can do this, Sora,” Daemon said, even though she couldn’t hear him. “If anyone can steal from a god and get away with it, it’s you.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The water was unnaturally frigid, frosting against Sora’s skin as soon as she plunged into the lake. She opened her mouth in shock and almost gasped out the precious air she needed to conserve for the dive down; her whale spell would help only if there was oxygen in her lungs.
Daemon launched a dose of calm through their bond, and not a moment too soon. Like when she’d gone diving with the eagle rays, Daemon’s presence helped Sora come to her senses, and she clamped her mouth shut, swallowing the air back where it belonged. She’d swum herself upside down in the pain of the freezing water, but now she settled back into position to swim toward the trap door.
Sora kicked downward. She would need to blow open the door, find the golden soul pearl, replace it with a decoy, and get out of there, all before her air ran out.
But as she pushed deeper into the lake, her vision began to turn milky white at the edges. Am I low on air already? The whale spell was supposed to give her about twenty minutes underwater, though, and it had only been two, maybe three. Panic rose in the back of her throat.
The milkiness in her vision persisted, oozing in like a spilled bottle of cream until she could see nothing else. Sora rubbed at her eyes with the heels of her palms. It didn’t change a thing.
A sharp tang, like vinegar, suddenly filled her nose, which made no sense, since she wasn’t breathing in. And the water seemed to thicken like jelly. The muscles in her arms and legs strained as she tried to keep swimming.
Oh gods . . . I’m really going to die in here.
Then, all of a sudden, the milkiness in her vision and the vinegary smell cleared. The thick gel of the lake was gone, too, replaced with solid ground.
What in all hells?
Sora looked down. She stood on top of a pile of dead soldiers wearing uniforms that belonged neither to the taigas nor the ryuu but to a foreign army. All around her, a battlefield was littered with corpses, and the air was tinged with the smells of steel and blood.
But instead of fear or horror, pride inexplicably swelled in Sora’s chest.
She took in the scene around her, and the drunken heat of victory began to course through every vein in her body, filling her with delight. All this death was my work, my power! A flagstaff suddenly appeared in her right hand, and she impaled its sharpened end through the bodies at her feet. Another wave of satisfaction surged through her as the pole pierced through lifeless flesh.
“Well done, sister,” a voice said from behind her. Sora turned to face Hana.
“Is this the future?” Sora asked, part of her still conscious that the battlefield wasn’t reality, that her body was somewhere else . . . although she couldn’t remember where.
“Yes,” Hana said. “This is us, destroying the Faleese army.”
“So this is Fale Po Tair.” Sora looked past the battlefield to get a glimpse of the kingdom, but it was just a flat expanse with a mountain in the distance and seagulls hovering over the ocean.
Hana laughed, and it was like iron nails on crystal. Sora cringed.
“Fale Po Tair? No, sister. This is Kichona. Look more closely at the mountain. I think you’ll recognize it.”
Sora squinted at the distance, and this being a prophecy not governed by the ordinary rules of the world, the mountain came into sharp focus. It was purplish-blue against the sea, its scraggly trees clinging to the steep cliff faces, a tiny building halfway up the switchback passes. Sora gasped. “Is that Mama and Papa’s house?”
“It was,” Hana said without emotion. “They’ve been dead since the first attack on Kichona by the Southern Alliance.”
Sora’s giddiness from standing on a pile of vanquished enemies petered out. “The Southern Alliance?” She was afraid to ask, but she had to.
“The united armies and navies of Fale Po Tair, Xerlinis, and Vyratta. But don’t worry. You’ve slaughtered thousands. Including that ex-gemina of yours.”
Oh gods. Daemon?
Horror shuddered through Sora’s body. Her consciousness was fighting back now, reminding her that she was actually swimming in an underground lake in Naimo Ice Caves, not here on a battlefield in the future. But that also meant she was beginning to process what this all meant—that she would become part of the Dragon Prince’s bloody pursuit of the Evermore. That Kichona would be razed by the Southern Alliance. That Sora would kill Daemon.
“This can’t be true,” she said.
“But it is,” Hana said with a smile. “Aren’t you happy we’ve been successful together?”
“Yes. I mean, no!” Sora shook her head to try to get her thoughts straight.
Something shot through the back of her mind like a spear and hurtled to the forefront. It pierced Sora’s consciousness, and a sensation of unbreakable connection washed over her, as if she were tethered by the rope on a harpoon.
Daemon!
He sent surges of confidence to her, and she held fast to their bond, feeling him tugging to extricate her from this so-called prophecy.
She remembered clearly now that she was swimming in the Lake of Nightmares.
Sora grabbed hold of their gemina bond and hauled herself out of the vision, hand over hand as if climbing a rope. Future Hana scowled at her. But Hana was already blurring, and milky white poured out from the center of the scene until it filled all of Sora’s vision again.
She blinked, hard, and the cloudiness dissipated. The vision of the battlefield disappeared, and Sora saw the water again. She was twenty feet down from the surface, still another thirty or so to go to the trap door at the bottom.
Sora clung fiercely to her gemina bond as if it were a lifeline so she didn’t lose her mind.
Daemon Daemon Daemon.