Circle of Shadows (Circle of Shadows, #1)(58)

She pulled a knife from her sleeve, whirled, and pointed it in Sora’s direction. The ryuu parted as if they were actually in the blade’s path.

Sora found herself staring at the deathly tip.

“Step forward. It’s time for your training to begin.”

“But I don’t even know how to use the magic,” Sora said. She knew the ryuu particles were everywhere, like emerald dust glittering in the air, but she couldn’t see them right away as she had after Prince Gin granted her Sight. There had been a rush of power during the initiation ceremony, but since then, it had leveled off, and she had to concentrate to find the ryuu particles. Even when she did, she didn’t know what to do with the magic.

“Nothing better than a little public humiliation to get you started,” Hana said. There wasn’t a trace of humor in her words. “Now step forward.”

Sora swallowed hard. But she didn’t have a choice. Everyone was watching her. She was on a ship in the middle of the sea, traveling at sailfish speed. There was no way of getting out of this.

She walked through the path created when the ryuu had parted and met Hana in the scrimmage circle.

Hana vanished. Literally disappeared.

Sora gasped and whipped around.

Some of the ryuu in the crowd snickered.

So that was her little sister’s specialty. No wonder Prince Gin wanted Sora trained. Siblings had the same power, and invisibility would be an incredible advantage over any enemy. If the Dragon Prince could have two ryuu like that . . .

A swipe knocked Sora’s feet out from under her, and she slammed into the floor.

“Use your senses, Spirit!” Beetle shouted.

Sora lashed out to grab an ankle or a leg. Her fingertips touched only air. Hana laughed cruelly, already half the length of the ship away.

Sora jumped back onto her feet. She felt a slight shift in the air a split second before Hana’s head barreled straight into her stomach. Sora flew backward into a mast. It knocked the wind clear out of her lungs, and she crumpled onto the deck.

From the sails above, Hana said, “Get up. You’re an insult to the blood we share.”

So angry. But instead of hurting, the taunt stoked Sora’s competitiveness. I was using magic while you were still in diapers, she thought. Someone needs to put you back in your place.

That was part of the job of being an older sister, after all.

Sora gritted her teeth and pushed aside the ache of the already-forming bruises on her back, and she rose again.

“Find me!” Hana, still invisible, yelled. “Stop flailing like a Kira Lake fish and use the Sight that Prince Gin granted you!”

Sora squinted and remembered what the green particles looked like. A moment later, she saw them whirling in the air, as if a breeze were stirring the magic. Sora followed the disturbance. The specks parted as an unseen force ran through them, then halted at the highest point of the ship—the crow’s nest.

There. That’s where Hana perched.

Sora stared for a few seconds. It wasn’t possible, was it? Had she really found Hana?

But then it began to sink in that she was a ryuu, and that meant she could do ryuu things. Sora grinned, then leaped up the mast, several stories high. It was a movement unimaginable to a taiga, but now it was surprisingly effortless, as if the magic that floated everywhere existed simply to buoy her up and extend her trajectory. Sora reveled in the feeling of being tossed upward, like her legs were made of springs. All she’d done was think about jumping up the mast, and it had happened.

This is incredible. It was the same magic the taigas called up with their mudras and chants, but the ryuu could do so much more with it. How could it be that this power had been there all along, but the Society hadn’t fully understood it?

Because the taigas are limited by their mudras and chants, Sora realized.

She found solid grips and footing on the mast. She looked for Hana but saw nobody.

There was a shout from the crow’s nest above, and suddenly, Hana slammed into her.

Sora plowed into the mast, the wood scraping the entire left side of her face, blood spattering onto her tunic. She rebounded out of the crow’s nest.

She got caught in a sail on the way down, slowing her rapid fall. It was the only way she didn’t die when she hit the deck. Still, the impact slammed every bit of oxygen out of her body.

“Spirit! Are you okay?” Beetle ran up to the edge of the scrimmage ring. She’d nearly forgotten she had an audience. But of course she did. This was, as Hana had put it, a public humiliation.

“I’m all right.” Sora wiped a smear of blood from her cheek. Hopefully it made her look fiercer than she felt, like war paint instead of defeat.

And she would not be humiliated. Not by her little sister. Sora got to her feet.

The last time she and Hana were in the same place, Hana had been so resentful. Sora didn’t want to see that in her sister’s eyes anymore. She wanted both Prince Gin and Hana to be proud of her.

Sora was supposed to have the same power as her sister. But even if Sora didn’t know how to make herself invisible yet, it might still be possible for her to see how Hana did it.

“You’re still thinking like a taiga.” Hana’s voice came from somewhere else on the deck, that now-familiar corrosive condescension returning to burn the edges of her otherwise youthful voice. Sora’s ears were still ringing from the fall and she couldn’t quite place the source. “Magic is like another reality,” Hana continued. “Or rather, one layered on top of the world that ordinary people—and taigas—see.”