Circle of Shadows (Circle of Shadows, #1)(63)
“For what it’s worth,” Sora said, “if anything happened to you now, I would fight to the ends of the earth to save you.”
Hana blinked as if surprised. She opened her mouth to say something.
But then a horn sounded. The ryuu had rounded up all the taigas from the vast countryside in Tiger’s Belly. It was time to assemble them in the Society outpost building so that Prince Gin could speak with them.
Giddiness burst inside Sora like a geyser in Rae Springs, and the conversation with Hana was immediately forgotten. Sora jumped up. “Come on! Let’s go see the new recruits get initiated.” Prince Gin’s charisma was addicting, and she craved being in his presence some more.
She hurried toward the stairs that led down from the shrine’s tower. “I can’t wait to see His Highness honoring some of the citizens as Hearts too!”
Hana rolled her eyes. It was a typical little sister thing to do, though, and Sora shrugged it off. Also, Hana had probably seen enough of the Dragon Prince’s speeches that she wasn’t awed by them anymore. But that wouldn’t stop Sora from enjoying this. Or dragging her sister along.
“Please, Hana? I don’t want to miss any of it.”
Her sister rolled her eyes again—it was a wonder they were still inside her head—but then she said, “All right, all right.”
Sora grinned, and they ran down the stairs together.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The ryuu were gone by the time Daemon and the fishermen rowed into Tiger’s Belly. Daemon had known this would likely be the case. And yet the emptiness on the pier—the quiet berths and complete lack of sailors and merchants and the other men who usually populated the harbor—nearly brought Daemon to his knees. Prince Gin had come and gone through another outpost, stealing its taigas for his army, hypnotizing all the citizens, and likely selecting more Hearts for sacrifice. He was one step closer to the Ceremony, and Daemon was one step farther from stopping him.
And then there was the deafening silence in Daemon’s head. Nothing was coming through his gemina bond, and what he tried to send to Sora just bounced back. Was she safe? Had Prince Gin brainwashed her? Would Daemon ever get her back?
He hadn’t realized how much she completed him, until she was gone.
But Daemon couldn’t feel sorry for himself. Because if Sora was alive, she needed him. They were in this situation because she’d decided she wanted to do all that she could for Kichona, to be the best that she could be.
He had to follow suit.
“Thank you for your assistance,” Daemon said to the fishermen. “I’ll see to it that the Society knows of your good deeds.”
“It was our honor to help,” the eldest man said. They all bowed, then pushed off to return to their atoll.
Daemon hurried down the silent pier to the harbormaster’s office and pushed his way through the door.
“Agh!” a man shrieked from beneath the desk. “Please don’t kill me.”
Daemon jumped. He already had blades in his hands before he realized that the man had screamed in defense, not attack. He put away his knives. “Why do you think I want to kill you?”
The man wouldn’t come out from his hiding place. Daemon walked around the desk instead. “I promise you, sir, I don’t want to hurt you.”
A bespectacled fellow was sitting in a puddle of his own piss, and from the smell of it, it was likely he’d soiled himself in another way too. As soon as he saw Daemon, he started sobbing. “Please! I’m just the assistant to the harbormaster! I had nothing against your ship docking on the pier! Please don’t decapitate me.”
Apparently, the ryuu had cut off the harbormaster’s head. Daemon shuddered.
He looked down at himself and realized he was wearing a ryuu uniform. Not that a taiga uniform would have calmed the assistant down any. The man saw black clothing and weapons on Daemon’s back, and that’s all he needed to know to cry for his life.
“I know you’ve been frightened,” Daemon said as he kneeled by the man, “but I swear I’m not with the people who attacked Tiger’s Belly. I’m here to help, but I need to know where the Society’s command post is.”
The assistant peered up, his puffy eyes magnified through his glasses. He didn’t say anything.
“Can you tell me where the Society of Taigas’ command post is located?” Daemon asked again, making his voice as soft and patient as possible. It was quite an accomplishment, given that his blood rushed through him, urging him to run too. But he needed to know where to go.
The man nodded, his head seeming to bobble all over the place. “Th-the taiga post is on the outskirts of town, where the grain silos are.”
“Is the fastest way to cut through the city itself, or is there a better path?”
The harbormaster’s assistant just stared at Daemon. He pulled his knees up to his chest and started rocking back and forth in his puddle.
That was all Daemon would get out of him. He wished he had a spare pair of trousers to leave the fellow, but all he had were the wet clothes he wore and the weapons stashed within them. “The Citadel will send more help soon,” Daemon said. He didn’t know if it was true, but the man needed hope, so that’s what Daemon gave.
He left the office and sprinted into Tiger’s Belly. Like Paro Village, the citizens wandered around with blissful, if slightly blank, looks on their faces. The stone streets were littered with the detritus of the ryuu’s hasty and violent search for taigas—overturned carts, shopwindows blasted into shards, a trampled stuffed toy lying muddy in the gutter—but the townspeople didn’t seem to care.