Circle of Shadows (Circle of Shadows, #1)(18)

Sora had been eight then. “Yes, stinkbug, it’s Friday,” she’d said with a sigh. She loved her sister, but Friday evenings were when Daemon and her other apprentice friends began the weekend, and there was always mischievous fun to be had, like casting puffer fish spells on each other and then attempting to wrestle in the pool with ballooned bodies and useless limbs.

“You’ll come pick me up after dinner for our sleepover?” Hana asked.

Sora looked over her shoulder wistfully, toward the apprentice dormitories. She sighed again as she turned back to her sister. “I’ll be here at seven o’clock, as always.”

Except when seven o’clock neared and Sora was ready to go over to the nursery, Daemon and their friends burst into Sora and Fairy’s room.

“Are you coming for Cookies and Cards tonight, Spirit?” one of the apprentices asked.

“She can’t,” Daemon said. “Friday is her night with her sister.”

“Come, just once,” Fairy said. “We have empress cakes.”

Sora stopped and spun around. “You have what?” Her mouth watered. Empress cakes were rich little confections made of a thin, delicate pastry crust and filled with almond paste, quince, and goldenberries. Sora’s favorite.

“We’re leaving now,” Fairy said. “One of the Level Nines is going to take us up in the dirigible.”

Empress cakes and a ride in the taigas’ airship? The dirigible was usually reserved for upper-level apprentices and warriors. This was too good to be real. Sora looked at Daemon.

He nodded, almost apologetically, as if to say, Surprise. Fairy’s telling the truth.

Sora glanced in the direction of the nursery, but it was all the way on the other side of the Citadel.

Hana will be all right, she told herself. A little disappointed, but she’ll be all right.

Sora left with Daemon, Fairy, and the others.

But Hana was not all right. While Sora was eating empress cake in the dirigible, Prince Gin’s warriors launched their attack. The skirmish with Princess Aki’s soldiers lasted only two hours, but in that short amount of time, friends brutally killed friends. The prince’s warriors slaughtered innocent palace servants and decapitated taigas, leaving their heads on spears. They took the headless bodies and set them aflame on a pyre.

Then they set the Citadel on fire. The southern part of the headquarters burned to the ground. And the nursery—with Hana and many other tenderfoots inside—perished in the flames.

Eventually, Prince Gin was wounded gravely in the battle. Princess Aki’s taigas took advantage of that, and they forced the rebellious soldiers to retreat. They fled to the sea, casting the prince’s body into the waters in an ancient Kichonan funeral rite, and then never returned. The entire kingdom heaved a sigh of relief.

Except Sora. She’d never forgiven herself for that night. If she’d been with her sister, Hana might still be alive.

And now the Dragon Prince had returned, on the tenth anniversary of that horrific battle. Sora could practically feel the weight in the air, like humidity composed of blood.

Her knees buckled beneath her. Daemon caught her.

The men and women in the eerie, taiga-like uniforms bowed in unison to Prince Gin.

“We need to go,” Daemon said. “Now.”

Sora touched the pearl on her necklace and clung to the memory of Hana to help her summon strength. She climbed down from her perch. Moments later, Daemon appeared beside her, and they slinked between the tents. Behind them, the wordless music and dancing had started again.

Daemon scaled the cypress where their escape wire was tied. He slid off his belt, slung it across the wire, and zipped down it like a clothesline.

Sora climbed onto the wire, choosing to run it like a tightrope. She put one foot in front of the other, again and again, methodically making her way across.

Almost there. Almost there.

Across and over the log wall.

Before the line ended, Sora dropped fifteen feet to the ground. She took one more look at the camp behind them, the bonfire lighting up the night as though the hells had opened a rift from the canyon floor.

“We definitely have something to report to the Council now,” Sora said, trying to make a joke because she couldn’t fully process what they’d just seen.

But what she did know was that if Prince Gin was back, things were about to change for Kichona, in a really bad way.





Chapter Eight


Sora and Daemon raced back to the Citadel as fast as their horses could gallop. When they arrived three days later, they immediately ran toward Warrior Meeting Hall.

Sora heaved open the heavy black doors and burst into a dark corridor.

Broomstick, Fairy’s gemina, rounded the corner from the direction of the Council Room, where he helped with administrative tasks.

“Thank the gods you’re back,” he said. “Fairy and I were worried about you.”

Sora looked at him quizzically. “You already know what happened?”

Broomstick stared at her for a second, as if she were dense. “Um, yes . . . everyone knows about the attack on Isle of the Moon.”

Daemon gaped. “What? The Council was attacked?”

“Yes, although by whom or what, we don’t know,” Broomstick said. Then he paused. “Wait a minute. I thought you said you knew what happened.”