Circle of Shadows (Circle of Shadows, #1)(43)
The goddess glanced at the handkerchief in her hand. She traced a finger across the silk, ending at the embroidered Ora tiger. “You don’t need me to tell you. You already know.”
She released the handkerchief and let it flutter to the ground, landing in front of where Aki lay prostrate at the foot of the shrine.
Suddenly, flames shot through the center of the silk in a violent, thin line, precisely where Sola’s finger had traced. Aki jumped backward as the handkerchief flew in the air.
The fire extinguished a moment later. The incense stick snuffed itself out. The temperature in the temple dropped back to normal.
Sola was gone.
Aki collapsed back onto her hands and knees, sweat dripping from her forehead. The handkerchief lay on the floor, cleanly singed and split down the center. Half of the Ora tiger had fallen to Aki’s left, and the other half, to her right.
Her heart nearly stopped.
She had learned how to hold herself up like a proper empress over the past ten years, to deal elegantly with whatever challenges presented themselves, but this . . .
Aki could make excuses about interpretations. She could come up with ways to explain away what Sola had meant.
But it wouldn’t change what was right in front of her—the Ora tiger, torn in two.
Could it be?
Aki pulled on a chain around her neck, freeing an abalone shell locket from beneath her collar. Inside were two portraits, side by side, of a gold-haired little girl and her twin brother, the pictures done in profile so it looked as if they were smiling at each other.
She ran her finger over the boy’s portrait. They had been inseparable once. That is, until he began training as a taiga. Because he was royalty, he was taught privately in Rose Palace, rather than with the other apprentices at the Citadel. But being a magical warrior in the making went to her brother’s head, especially since Aki was not blessed with Luna’s magic. Arrogance and avarice moved in between the siblings. Gin gained a taste for power. Aki lost her best friend.
She didn’t want to breathe. Her brother could be alive. How many nights had she lain awake in bed, dreaming that she hadn’t stood up to Gin back then, imagining a world where the Blood Rift hadn’t happened and she’d let him wear the crown instead of fighting him for it. A world where she still had a brother, a twin.
“Is it really you, Gin?”
But then she remembered what happened when those fantasies intersected with reality: if Gin were on the throne, he would chase Zomuri’s legend. He’d use the Society to attack and colonize other kingdoms, and this peaceful, steady life established by their father and the Ora rulers before him would cease to exist. War was not conducted in a vacuum. Bloodshed on the shores of other kingdoms meant bloodshed on Kichona’s shores in return.
So if this split handkerchief meant what Aki thought it meant, then what was coming wasn’t just a reunion between brother and sister. If Gin was the one who possessed the new magic, he’d have a chance to get what he always wanted—the throne, Kichona, and the Evermore.
Aki pressed the locket to her chest.
Her brother would destroy everything.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Daemon sat with his knees to his chest in a dark corner of the ship, behind several wooden boxes in the cargo hold. The air was dank and heavy down here, since there was no ventilation. It stank of stale water and damp rope and old, rotted wood; even if the sailors who’d previously manned this ship pumped the extra water out of the bilge every morning, it was still impossible to get rid of all of it, and years of seafaring seeped into the groaning planks, infusing the ship with every algae-and salt-water-soaked journey in its history.
In spite of the stench and the unsteady rocking of the ship, though, Daemon’s stomach growled. He hadn’t had anything to eat other than a handful of rice crackers and dried fish, before they arrived at Kaede City.
You’re going to have to wait, Daemon thought to his stomach, even if you have to eat yourself. There was no way he was leaving this part of the ship until Sora arrived.
The passing of each minute was excruciating, as if the wheel of time needed oiling and had slowed to a creaking, halting pace. He clenched his teeth as he waited for her.
Don’t be ridiculous, he chastised himself. There’s no panic coming through the bond. Sora’s fine.
But still, Daemon gound his teeth some more.
Forty-five torturous minutes later, Sora dropped down from the ladder and snuck into the cargo hold. The tension in Daemon’s neck and shoulders released as soon as he saw her, but he remained in his corner, tucked away in the shadows, watching as Sora darted around boxes and coils of rope that cluttered the floor. Her movements were fluid yet precise. She was a beautiful, deadly weapon. He never got the chance to simply admire her, and this rare opportunity might never come up again.
When she made it close to his hiding place, he finally stood. Sora smiled when she saw him.
Daemon grinned. “What took you so long?”
She punched him on the shoulder. “I had to wait until foot traffic died down in the hold I was in. It was busier up there.”
“I bet it smelled better, though.” The humid potpourri of mildewed rope and fetid water momentarily overpowered him again.
Sora wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, it did.” She began to explore the hold, looking for a place they could hide more permanently. “Anyway, before I got on the ship, I overheard a girl called Virtuoso teaching one of the new ryuu how to use their magic.”