Circle of Shadows (Circle of Shadows, #1)(89)

The remaining six ryuu pinpointed her location. They didn’t bother with fighting the invisible gags around their mouths anymore. Instead, they focused their efforts and surrounded Sora, drawing their blades. They began to rush forward, some swords held high, some low.

Another second, and Sora would be skewered half a dozen ways.

She called on the magic to buoy her, and she leaped into the air as the swords impaled the space she’d just occupied.

The warriors ran the blades straight through each other. For a horrified moment, they stood there, eyes wide as blood spilled from their bodies, soaking their uniforms. Then, with muffled cries, they toppled over.

Five of them had been new recruits from Paro Village, Kaede City, and Tiger’s Belly. Now they were just dead ryuu.

What have I done? Sora thought, landing on the ground beside them.

But this, as Prince Gin had pointed out, was the cost of war. No matter which side of right she was on, there would be inevitable wrongs.

Still, she staggered backward at the magnitude of what she’d done. She bumped into something and fell into the mud.

It was Fairy, her body still levitating but visible, pale and cold, defenseless and vulnerable. Her roommate’s face wrenched Sora from her shock. She had to pull herself together. Her friend’s life depended on it.

As did the lives of all the Hearts. And the entirety of Kichona’s future, actually.

Sora gritted her teeth and pulled herself up from the mud. She kept her eyes on Fairy—refusing to look at the dead ryuu anymore—and refocused herself.

Make her invisible again.

Emerald dust rushed into Fairy’s body and made her disappear.

Sora guided Fairy’s floating form through camp. She had to hurry, in case anyone decided to check on the guards by the empress’s cart. But she also had to be extra careful and quiet at the same time. Sora jumped whenever a ryuu turned in his sleep.

We’re invisible. They can’t see us. Keep going.

The horses were in the woods just outside camp. They were nearly there. They only had to get past Prince Gin’s tent.

But Sora hovered for a moment outside where her sister slept. If only she’d had longer with Hana. If only the fate of the kingdom weren’t hanging in the balance, with Sora being the sole taiga who could give Empress Aki and the Society a chance against the ryuu.

If Sora wanted enough time to report to the Council and put her plan into motion before the ryuu arrived at the Citadel, she had to leave now.

She looked at Hana’s tent once more, then pressed onward out of the camp, into the woods with Fairy’s body floating behind her.

Now, back to her friends, back to the Society. Back to the original point of her mission—bringing her knowledge about Prince Gin to the taigas, then stopping him before the Ceremony of Two Hundred Hearts set everything in bloodcurdling motion.

Sora chose a horse, secured Fairy on the saddle, and climbed on behind her. Sora willed the ryuu particles to show her the path between trees, and she rode hard, letting herself go, surrendering herself and trusting the magic to guide her. Sora’s horse bounded over logs and darted in and out between the gnarled, lichen-covered trunks. They moved so swiftly, the horse’s feet hardly touched the ground before they propelled onward and over the next creek, the next cluster of boulders, the next copse of trees.

After a while, the damp moss and thick foliage of Jade Forest gave way to the Field of Illusions. The black-and-white sands were a dizzying obstacle, their ever-changing patterns too disorienting for all but taigas who were trained to look beyond them.

Unfortunately, almost all the ryuu were former taigas. They would have no trouble getting across, especially since they could also rely on their magic to show them the clear green path forward.

Sora pushed her horse even faster. Every minute was going to be essential for the Society to prepare for this fight. She had to get back.

They charged through the Field of Illusions, the horse’s hooves spraying sand like fistfuls of scatter shot, the tiny metal pellets Daemon carried as throwing weapons. “Sorry for the bumps,” she said to Fairy, whose body bounced violently in front of Sora. “Almost there.”

The sand bit into their skin as they barreled forward. The patterns grew more frenzied. Staircases that looked like they descended straight down to the hells. Hills that crested then dropped off precipitously. Swirls that spun forward and backward at gut-churning speed.

Sora lost track of the emerald path, its particles blending in with the flurrying sand.

But they were almost there. She had to hold on to her focus.

Ignore the illusions. Keep an eye on the outline of the Citadel up ahead.

Concentrate on the ryuu path.

The emerald particles reappeared then, glittering brighter than before. Sora homed in on them, refusing to let go. Out of the corner of her eye, the towering, oil-slick fortress walls of the Citadel grew clearer, larger, as they sprinted closer.

The last illusion asserted itself. It became an ever-shifting set of tiny black-and-white rectangles, flashing so rapidly, it could induce seizures.

“Jump!” Sora shouted at the horse.

They leaped over the final stretch of sand.

Then it was over. Home loomed before them, ten stories of black fortifications and heavy, impenetrable gates. Sora exhaled and hugged Fairy. They’d made it. They had escaped Prince Gin and his ryuu.

And yet, the ache of killing those guards and of abandoning Hana didn’t lessen with distance. In fact, it pulled on Sora, as if part of her had been left behind and had stretched too tautly now. The pain might be a constant—a punishment and a reminder—that she would have to live with.