Circle of Shadows (Circle of Shadows, #1)(111)

“Long live Emperor Gin!”

“Long live Kichona!”

“To the Evermore!”

Then two hundred men, women, boys, and girls filed out onto the balcony where Prince Gin stood.

Daemon snarled. “The Ceremony of Two Hundred Hearts.”

Sora’s own heart plummeted as if off the highest spire of the bloodstone castle.

“If we don’t stop him,” Fairy said, “he’ll declare war on the world?”

“Yes,” Sora said. “And the world will declare war on us. Kichona as we know it will be gone.”

“What do we do?” Daemon asked.

Bullfrog and the other councilmembers had been wrong. The taigas couldn’t retreat. They had to try to stop this now.

Sora looked down at the two hundred people below. “We have to take out Prince Gin.”

Daemon flew an arc in the sky to line himself up with the tower.

Hana stepped onto the balcony.

At first, relief lifted the tension off Sora’s shoulders. Her sister was alive.

But the relief was quickly followed by a dizzying dread, as Hana turned her eyes up toward Sora and her friends. She raised her hand, as if commanding them to stop.

The fur on Daemon’s back bristled, a ridge of midnight blue. He prepared to dive at Prince Gin.

“No,” Sora said. “We can’t.”

“What? I thought we were going after him?”

But Sora could see something none of the others could. “My sister . . . She has Empress Aki.”

“How? Prince Gin announced that she was dead.”

Sora shook her head. Hana had infused the empress with ryuu particles and made her invisible. Empress Aki was bound and unconscious, and Hana held her by the back of her taiga uniform collar.

Satisfied that Sora had seen her, Hana unsheathed a sword and pressed it to the empress’s throat.

“Hana, please!” Sora shouted. “Don’t do it!”

“Come any closer, and her death is on you,” Hana said.

“We have to stop,” Sora told Daemon.

He growled, but they hovered in the sky, neither approaching nor retreating. Sora squeezed her eyes shut and pressed herself against Daemon’s neck. How had it come to this?

When she looked up again, Prince Gin was nodding his approval at Hana. Then he began to pace in front of his assembled Hearts.

“I’ve chosen each of you to make history for our kingdom. You give your lives today, but great honor will be bestowed upon your families, and your names will live on for eternity.”

A murmur of happiness rippled through the Hearts.

“My lord Zomuri,” Prince Gin shouted, his voice echoing like a funeral gong, “I sacrifice these two hundred Hearts for you, as a symbol of my dedication to your glory.”

He waved his arm at the people assembled before him. In unison, they pulled out short, stout daggers and positioned them over the center of their chests.

“No.” Sora gasped.

“I can’t watch,” Broomstick said. He and Fairy buried their faces in Daemon’s fur.

But Sora couldn’t tear her eyes away from the horror, and Daemon, ever her gemina, forced himself to look too. He sent waves of calm to her through their bond, like the sensation of lying in a meadow under the summer sun, even as he tremored beneath Sora, trying to stay strong.

She loved him a little more for it.

The Hearts began to shout.

“Long live Emperor Gin!”

“Long live Kichona!”

“To the Evermore!”

All at once, the two hundred sacrifices stabbed themselves with their knives. And then, possessed by Gin’s magic, they resisted going into shock, and they sawed through their own flesh, plunged their hands in, and wrenched out their own, still-beating hearts, holding them up to the sky.

The hardest to watch were the small children, their chests a mangled mess because they were too uncoordinated to slice out their hearts cleanly. And the worst part was, they didn’t cry. Possessed, they just kept stabbing at themselves as blood and chunks of flesh smacked onto their tiny feet, until finally, they’d gashed themselves open entirely, and their little hearts spilled out onto the tower floor.

Then suddenly, the sacrifices dropped their knives and toppled over, one on top of another. Finally dead.

Tears streamed down Sora’s cheeks, and matching ones matted the fur on Daemon’s face. A violent sob racked Sora’s body. Horror and grief weighed down their gemina bond, as if it had been filled with sand.

“Is it over?” Fairy whispered from where her face was still buried.

“Yes,” Sora choked. “But don’t look. Whatever you do, don’t look.”

For a long moment, everything was eerily quiet.

Then a deep, low rumble began to emanate from the ground, distant at first, as if it came from the center of the earth. It grew louder as it came closer, like thunder surfacing. Suddenly, a giant burst out of the ground. His otherworldly laugh shook the entire Imperial City.

Sora could only stare, jaw open.

Zomuri swooped down and began tossing hearts in a sack, as if they were potatoes.

“How can he do that?” Fairy whispered. She’d abandoned not looking and, like Sora, now couldn’t stop.

“I think he eats them,” Sora said weakly. Like potatoes.