Circle of Shadows (Circle of Shadows, #1)(62)

Sora struggled with her arms clamped by her sides. The mat pressed in on her, almost crushing her ribs. She could manage only shallow breaths.

With her arms pinned, she couldn’t use a knife to slice her way out. She tried to command ryuu particles to retrieve her knife for her, but even they couldn’t do it, because her blades were stashed in various pockets and sleeves, which were also smashed tightly against her inside the mat.

“Nines,” she cursed between quick breaths.

She wiggled her feet, the only parts of her that were really free, but that didn’t do any good.

Think, Sora, think.

Wait. Her eyes lit up as an idea came to her. Maybe she could untie herself.

She searched for the ryuu particles again, needing only a few seconds for her vision to shift to ryuu reality. The narrow space inside her rolled mat sparkled green.

Let me out, she commanded the particles. She envisioned the magic flowing in a stream of green at the string that wove the reeds together, unraveling through the threads, and setting her free.

But instead of following her command as she’d imagined it, the particles flew around in a chaotic swirl. Then they rushed forward, into the reeds themselves, as if the magic had been absorbed. The reeds turned from brown to a bright shade of glowing green.

“Oh no. What’s happening?”

The mat unrolled, then disappeared, and Sora again slammed to the floor.

“What in all hells?” Sora looked again, but it wasn’t as if she could miss it. The mat had been right there, all around her. And now it was gone.

The magic had done her bidding. She’d asked it to free her from the mat. It just hadn’t done it in the way she’d imagined.

She gasped and looked at Hana. There really was something about sharing the same blood.

Sora rose and began to walk toward her sister, but not two steps later, she tripped on something and fell. She swore, as she stumbled and tumbled to the shrine floor for the third time.

Yet she was an inch off the actual floor, even though she wasn’t asking the ryuu particles to help her levitate. What was going on?

She ran her fingers over the air beneath her. It wasn’t air. It was a reed mat. Invisible, but there.

“Gods,” Sora said, as she ran her fingers over it again.

Like how Hana hadn’t truly vanished, she realized. During the scrimmage, the visible part of her sister had just been camouflaged, but her physical body still existed in the ordinary world. The same had happened with the reed mat—it was both here and not.

Hana had told her to focus on basic firsts. But Sora never had been one to follow the rules.

“I’m going to make myself invisible too,” she declared.

Her sister’s veil of disdain lifted, as if Hana had forgotten she wanted to dislike Sora. It was replaced by a cautious curiosity. “Try,” Hana said, her mouth parting into a small O as she watched.

Sora located the emerald dust. Make me invisible, she willed it.

Her hand trembled, but nothing happened.

Try again. Make me invisible.

Again, nothing.

She thought about what had happened with the reed mat. The magic had swirled around and then the reeds had soaked them in.

Sora smiled. She rose to her feet. Instead of asking the ryuu particles to come to her, she would go to them.

The emerald particles flurried before her. She hurled herself into them, as if diving into a pool.

Stars! They absorbed her, or she absorbed them, and they were cool and hot at the same time, on her skin, in every blood cell, penetrating all the way to her core. She inhaled sharply. This wasn’t just the sauna-like feel of the magic before. Sora lit up from within. The ability to make herself invisible was a thousand Autumn Festival sparklers inside of her, and she laughed, spinning in a circle with arms out, intoxicated by the power.

Hana made herself invisible too, but she appeared to Sora as if shimmering, like the form of her sister but composed entirely of green jewels. Sora looked down at her hand. It was delightfully the same.

“We’re made of emeralds,” she said.

“I can’t believe you figured out how to do this so quickly.” There was nothing but wonder in Hana’s voice.

“I’m learning as fast as I can for you,” Sora said, her belly filling with warmth, as if she’d just eaten the most delicious, hearty stew. Being a part of Prince Gin’s ryuu made her feel as if nothing could go wrong. Fate had put her here, in this time and place, to be a ryuu. With Hana. “I want us to be able to do things together. I want to share your ambitions. I want to be your sister again.”

Hana frowned, her defenses going back up a little. “You’re doing this for Prince Gin. It’s because of his vision for Kichona that we’re all here.”

Sora shrugged. “Yes, for Prince Gin. But also for us. We’d get to fight together, Hana. We can forge a new path for Kichona, make history and be part of building a kingdom together. I know it’s hard to have me here all of a sudden, but you have to believe when I say I love you and always have, and I would have come after you a decade ago if I could. But I was eight.”

Hana tensed.

That was the wrong thing for me to say, Sora realized. Because no excuse was good enough, not when you were as scared and lost and hurt as tenderfoot Hana must have been. All she’d wanted was her sister, and Sora hadn’t been there.