Sora curled the fourth fingers on both hands so that they touched her thumbs and formed circles. “Sight like an owl,” she chanted softly three times.
The rims of Sora’s eyes tingled, and her vision sharpened just as Daemon and the other apprentices—“Prince Gin’s warriors”—began to creep out of the darkness in front of her. On the other side of the courtyard, they did the same to Fairy.
Sora crouched into a defensive stance, throwing stars already poised at her fingertips.
Prince Gin’s soldiers attacked, shouting, “For the future emperor!”
Sora unleashed a flurry of stars at the enemy. Two of them ducked, and one fell, feigning death.
Another wave of them came at her. She hurled more stars and darts, and then some more.
Sora spun away from an oncoming soldier, then threw a star behind her back at her attacker. It met the base of his skull. He stumbled, then fell as if dead.
She reached for another star. Her fingers ran over the band across her chest, but all she touched was leather. “Crow’s eye!” she swore, as if surprised. “I’m out.”
She unsheathed her daggers, one in each hand.
Prince Gin’s soldiers fanned out in front of her, Daemon included. He leered as he turned his sword in his palm. “There are many dangers lurking in the night,” he said. His voice oozed. “A pretty girl like you ought to stay tucked in bed if she wants to remain safe.”
“I would say the same of you,” Sora quipped, “except you aren’t the least bit pretty.”
He laughed, falling out of character for just a second. Then he yelled, “Get her!”
The soldiers hurtled toward Sora, swords raised. She wouldn’t have time to use magic—it required the sacrifice of setting weapons aside in order to form mudras with her hands—but she could still take out two or three of the soldiers. Four, perhaps. Sora smiled as she flexed her fingers around her blades.
The knife in her right hand slashed the throat of the first soldier. The knife in her left plunged into the side of the second. She had the right one ready to fly as a third soldier came streaking through the air. It hit him in the chest before he landed on the ground. Thump.
Fairy fought her way to Sora’s side.
“What took you so long?” Sora yelled over the clashing of blade against blade.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Fairy said, sneaking in a sardonic curtsy as she avoided an incoming throwing star. “I was hosting a tea party for our visitors on the other side of the battlefield and we got rather carried away. Was I supposed to be here sooner?”
Sora smiled. In the next breath, she sliced a soldier’s throat.
The narrator began to speak. “The Blood Rift was a tragedy. Many lives were lost.”
Bodies littered the ground. Sora and Fairy pivoted in the center of the courtyard, backs to each other, weapons at the ready for any other enemy that dared approach.
“But after a long night,” the narrator said, “Princess Aki’s taigas prevailed. The prince was fatally wounded, and his warriors took his body as they fled the kingdom, never to be heard from again.”
Daemon and the apprentices who played the remnants of Prince Gin’s army dropped their weapons and ran to the back of the courtyard, as if boarding ships that would take them away from Kichona’s shores.
Sora and Fairy remained in fighting stance for a few moments longer. Then the black tarp above them was retracted, and the moon shone brightly once more, as if the goddess Luna herself were smiling down upon them.
All the apprentices who had participated in the exhibition match stepped back into the middle of the courtyard. This was supposed to be the end, the part where they bowed.
Instead, they looked to Sora.
She looked at Daemon.
He nodded, and that reassurance was all she needed.
Sora hurled a throwing star at the hair trigger she’d set up on the parapets. The Imperial Guards knew it was coming, because Fairy had convinced them it would be a good idea; she could be very persuasive when she turned on her charm.
As soon as the star hit the trigger, the roofline over the courtyard lit up with a hundred sparklers.
“Yes!” Sora pumped her fist.
Their teachers, however, shouted in alarm and immediately began to cast spells to prepare themselves for a fight. The ones closest to Empress Aki ran to protect her from what they thought was an attack. Others began trying to shepherd the apprentices to safety.
But the Imperial Guards around the empress simply stepped in closer to her, holding their hands up to stop the teachers from leaping to her aid. The teachers stopped in confusion, until one of them turned and growled, “Spirit—”
He was cut off by the sky exploding in fireworks. Small yellow flowers, stunning purple starbursts, and red rockets careening across the glowing moon.
And finally, the pièce de résistance—an enormous tiger, composed entirely of crackling blue fireworks, topped with a sparkling gold crown. It was something Fairy and her gemina, Broomstick, had invented, a perfect combination of her expertise with chemicals and his passion for explosives.
Sora smiled so hard, her cheeks were about to break. Daemon, Fairy, and Broomstick piled around Sora, jumping and cheering.
Their teachers stood around the edge of the courtyard, seething at the ruins of what was supposed to be a solemn exhibition.
Empress Aki, however, seemed pleased. “Bravo,” she said, clapping with abandon. “How different from past performances. It’s very exciting that you are the next generation of taiga warriors. Kichona is truly blessed.”
Sora almost burst from the pride swelling in her chest. She grinned, and the apprentices all bowed.
Chapter Two
The Imperial City was made up of three parts, with most of it carved into a mountain. At the top, Rose Palace perched on a cap of steep white quartzite, with sheer faces impossible to climb. A deep moat had been chiseled around the summit, another layer of protection for the rulers of the kingdom.
Below the moat, the face of the mountain shifted dramatically from white quartzite to dark granite, with only a winding, two-mile road etched into the rock, connecting Rose Palace to the world below. Sora and the Level 12s marched down that path now, heading back to the Citadel, the Society of Taigas’ headquarters on the lower third of the mountain.
Unlike the empress’s castle, the Citadel was a fortress where all the buildings were as dark as looming twilight. Black was the color of stealth and, hence, of the taigas, Kichona’s soldiers. The Citadel was the base of their operations, as well as where students like Sora trained. Its black outer walls were intimidating by design, severe and smooth, towering ten stories high. Inside the compound, everything was black too. Glorious, dark buildings covered in shiny, tiled rooftops as strong as armor. A black outdoor amphitheater sliced into the mountain. Even the temple to Luna was black from its pagoda roof to its wooden floors.
And then, the last part of the Imperial City was the Field of Illusions around the base of the mountain. But this was no ordinary field of grass; rather, it was a sea of black-and-white sand that shifted constantly in optical illusions, confusing and dizzying, such that the only people who could pass were taigas trained to filter out the hypnotic patterns, or those escorted by the warriors.
But tonight, Sora wouldn’t have to deal with that. They were approaching the Citadel from Rose Palace, so they’d be able to enter through the rear gates. Which was a good thing, because Sora was busy reveling over the fireworks she and her friends had pulled off, and she might not have been able to concentrate well enough on getting through the illusions. She probably would have found herself face-first in the sand.