Circle of Shadows (Circle of Shadows, #1)(55)
Prince Gin yanked his fingers away as suddenly as he’d started.
Sora rubbed at her eyes. When she opened them, she gasped.
Emerald particles floated everywhere, tumbling through the air and sprinkling down on her like colored sugar. She cried out in wonder. And then she stuck out her tongue. It tasted sweeter than apple sidra, than cherry ice cream, than golden empress cakes. She sighed with a deep-seated happiness as the ryuu magic twinkled all around her, the sweetest of snowflakes.
Prince Gin turned to Hana, his expression harder than before. “You asked for her, Virtuoso. She’s your responsibility. Train her and show me that I didn’t make a mistake in letting your emotions get the better of you.”
Hana paled. But then she squared her shoulders. “Yes, Your Highness. I won’t fail you.”
Sora should have been worried, both for herself and Hana. It was unknown whether she would be able to command magic the way it was implied that her sister could. And yet Sora was too entranced by the emerald dust to register rational feeling. Even though it was hardly dusk, the world was lit up like it was made of emerald galaxies. Everywhere she turned, the air sparkled. Even the Dragon Prince’s mutilated face looked handsomer amid the glitter, as if he were a fairy prince come to bless the kingdom with beauty like nothing anyone had ever seen before. Sora’s mouth dropped open as she continued to spin around, drinking it all in.
Prince Gin’s forehead wrinkled a little. “Can you already see the magic?” he asked.
Sora nodded. “It’s magnificent. It’s as if the entire universe has come to earth.”
“Maybe something does run in the Teira family blood,” Prince Gin said.
He watched both Sora and Hana as if something else were occurring to him.
Prince Gin turned his focus to Sora. “One more thing, Spirit. Pull up your mental ramparts. You are a ryuu now, and you have your sister back. You won’t need your gemina.”
Sora frowned. Her gemina connection yawned, as if telling her it wanted to stay open.
But the reassuring warmth of Prince Gin’s smile encouraged her. He wouldn’t tell her to do something if it wasn’t right. She nodded and followed his orders. With a slam, she blocked off her gemina bond.
I am a ryuu now, she thought, her happiness at being on the same team as her sister buoying her spirits as if she were floating on a balloon. I don’t need Daemon anymore.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Afterward, Hana stood at the bow of the ship, ostensibly watching the final approach to Tiger’s Belly, but really, thinking about her sister’s unexpected return.
She had known there was a good chance that she and Sora would cross paths as the ryuu swept through Kichona, since Prince Gin intended to hypnotize every tenderfoot, apprentice, and warrior in the Society to make them his. But she’d thought she had long ago buried all the emotions that came with thinking about her family. If there was to be a reunion with her sister, it was supposed to come later, at the Citadel, where apprentices were based. Instead, Hana had run into Sora sooner than expected—too soon—and she wasn’t prepared.
In the distance, the lights of Tiger’s Belly’s harbor twinkled, reflecting in the water much like the thousands of candles that were lit around the lake at the Citadel during All Spirits’ Eve. Tenderfoots were not allowed to partake in the midnight festivities because it was much too late for them to be awake. But each year, Hana had longed to stay up to watch the skit where the older apprentices dressed up in costumes like the mythological animal constellations from the sky, and the music played into the early hours of the morning, and the teachers drank too much sake and fell asleep on the benches of the amphitheater underneath the stars. So when Hana was five years old, Sora had “borrowed” the joey part of the kangaroo constellation costume, put Hana inside, and carried her around all evening, pretending she was just an inanimate stuffed toy. That’s how she’d gotten to see the All Spirits’ Eve celebrations.
Hana almost smiled now. But then she remembered that it was also the only All Spirits’ Eve festival she’d ever witnessed, because after that, she’d been whisked away from Kichona during the Blood Rift, and Sora and the Society had done nothing about it.
“I hate you, Sora,” Hana said in an attempt to remind herself how to feel.
But the wind swallowed her declaration and stole it away.
Prince Gin walked up to the bow of the ship. He stood silently beside her for a few minutes, looking out at their next target.
Finally, he spoke. “Family reunions aren’t always pleasant. You think blood is strong enough to bind you, but the truth is, sometimes those bonds are shattered irreparably. In the end, it’s better to choose your family than to remain prisoner to what you were born into. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Hana nodded. The prince was sharing his own experience, and she realized how much that sliver of vulnerability was worth. Most of the original ryuu saw him only as their passionate leader, who would stop at nothing to bring to Kichona the glory it deserved. It was not a bad thing at all for the Dragon Prince to be regarded this way; it’s why the original ryuu had fought with him during the Blood Rift, willing to give their lives for their prince and his noble cause. They didn’t need to be hypnotized to follow him to the ends of the earth.
She herself had been a little harder to convince. She’d only been a child when she was taken from Kichona, and at first she was frightened and cried to go home to the Society. But the warriors had taken care of her, and when Prince Gin recovered from his Blood Rift injuries, he recognized that she had more talent for magic than anyone else. He took her under his wing, and she felt like she was home again.