Circle of Shadows (Circle of Shadows, #1)(10)
Daemon spun to meet the lone man standing, who was advancing faster now. The slashing of his knife grew quicker but also sloppier, driven by rage and likely several ounces of fear.
So predictable, Daemon thought.
He lunged forward and slammed a fist to the man’s throat while simultaneously grabbing and twisting the knife arm. He locked the arm, kneed the man in the ribs, and stripped him of his knife.
Only now did Daemon unsheathe a short sword from the scabbard strapped to his calf, hidden beneath his trouser leg. He brandished it at the five men on the ground.
“I’ll give you one last chance to get out of here with your limbs and innards intact,” Daemon said.
They glared at him, pride severely wounded. But all five of them—excluding the one already thrown to the exit—hustled out of the tavern without any further threat.
The iz erupted into hoots and applause.
Daemon nodded his head in a small gesture of acknowledgment and went back to his table, where Sora waited.
She was smiling. “You really are art in motion when you fight.”
He flushed from the tips of his ears down to his neck.
Luckily, he was saved by the bartender, who set another carafe of sake on the table. “You two are taiga apprentices, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Daemon said, beaming proudly. “You could tell?”
The bartender chuckled. “Normal people don’t fight like that, and they aren’t as honorable. Thank you for keeping the peace.”
“It was my pleasure,” Daemon said, his cheeks beginning to hurt from smiling so hard. “And thank you for the sake.”
Chapter Four
Finished with their mission and officially on Autumn Festival break, Sora and Daemon rode all the next day to Samara Mountain, and then up dusty switchbacks, passing only a handful of people with their mules, and even fewer houses. The mountain sliced into the cerulean sky like jagged shards of slate, its crooked pines tucked into crevices and clinging to the steep rock. It was always with mixed emotion that Sora returned here. She loved her parents, but she’d spent her whole life with the Society of Taigas, and after eighteen years, the Citadel felt more like home than this place where she’d been born.
Across Kichona, the other taiga apprentices were also home to celebrate the Autumn Festival. They would light lanterns with their families and hang them over their doorways. There would be feasts to pay homage to the major gods—steamed whole fish to honor Nauti, god of the sea; bowls overflowing with noodles for Silva, goddess of wealth; platters of sautéed morning glory stalks for Sola, goddess of the sun; and a variety of stewed vegetables on beds of rice for Emmer, god of the harvest.
Daemon had come home with her because he didn’t have family to return to. Unlike the other apprentices, he hadn’t been brought to the Citadel by adoring parents and dedicated to service to the kingdom. Rather, until age five, Daemon had lived in Takish Gorge, a remote, uninhabited part of Kichona, with a family of wolves, eating, hunting, and playing in the forest with his lupine brothers and sisters. The trapper who found Daemon would have left him in the canyon—ferocious as he was, with his snapping teeth and his nails grown out long and sharpened like claws—if not for Luna’s silver triplicate whorls on the small of his back, a mark that glittered even when the sun was gone.
Daemon was well aware that this sounded like a fairy-tale trope. But he wore the badge with amused pride, at least outwardly. Only Sora knew that he hated not knowing who his parents were, why they’d left him, and how he’d come to be raised by wolves.
Nevertheless—or perhaps because of this—Sora and Daemon spent the second half of their Autumn Festival break in Takish Gorge every year, visiting the only place he knew as his. And if he wanted to find his parents this year, Sora would help him.
As the sun began to set, they reached a solitary wooden home perched on a ridge, as if the house had grown like a bonsai out of the stone. It overlooked the turquoise waters of the sea, which surrounded the kingdom, a natural barrier from the rest of the world. The colors of dusk settled into the sky like the inside of an abalone shell, a muted iridescence no less stunning than a daylight rainbow despite its subtlety.
A small woman in a long red-and-blue-striped skirt and a blouse as yellow as the sun swept the stone path in front of the house. Her pale blond hair—the same almost-platinum shade as Sora’s beneath the black taiga dye—was tied back neatly in a bun, and she wore no jewelry except a single golden pearl at her throat. As she worked, she hummed a lilting melody, like wind chimes on All Spirits’ Eve. The aroma of braised fish and bamboo shoots, cooking on the outdoor stove, mingled with the mountain air.
Because taigas tread lightly, it wasn’t until Sora and Daemon stood with their mud-spattered boots halfway down the path that her mother noticed them. Her mother looked up, up, up at the tall girl and the even taller boy in front of her. She took in the Society uniforms that Sora and Daemon wore now—black tunics, loose trousers, and the thin, cloth-covered armor—as well as the throwing stars strapped on the leather band across their chests, the knives on their belts, and the sword and bo staff on their backs. There were more weapons, tucked into the secret pockets of sleeves and other folds of fabric, of course, but Sora’s mother didn’t see those.
“Your Honors,” she said, bowing.
Sora blushed and took her mother’s hands, pulling her upright. “Please, Mama, how many times have I asked you to just call me Sora?”