Her reverie, however, was interrupted by Fairy, who broke ranks from farther back in the formation and jogged up to Sora and Daemon.
“What are your plans before everyone goes home for Autumn Festival?” Fairy asked.
“You mean, other than packing?” Sora said as she continued marching.
Fairy skipped alongside her. “That will take you all of five minutes.”
Daemon inched closer to join the conversation. “We were going to get in one last spar if we had the time.”
“Oooh, you have a wrestling date?” Fairy raised her eyebrows suggestively.
Sora laughed. Her roommate collected boys like some girls collected seashells. “You know, the male apprentices are more than just things to kiss.”
“I actually prefer to think of them as fresh meat to devour. Although Wolfie here can be pretty ferocious. Maybe he’ll devour me, which would be nice for a change. . . .”
Daemon shook his head, smiling.
“Fairy,” Sora said, laughing, “you keep fishing, but it’s not going to happen.”
Her roommate smacked her hand sarcastically to her heart and stepped backward, nearly jostling the next apprentice in line. “Spirit! You’ve mortally wounded me with your cruelty!”
“I think she’s broken,” Sora said to Daemon. “She keeps yammering at full speed. It’s like—”
“She put a cheetah spell on her mouth instead of her feet,” Daemon finished.
“Hey.” Fairy scrunched up her face. “I can hear you, you know.”
Daemon gave her a crooked smile. “We’re just teasing.”
She batted her eyelashes. “I like when you tease me, Wolf.”
Daemon laughed, and it blossomed through his and Sora’s gemina connection like a field of golden poppies.
Sora smiled. He’d let Fairy flirt with him, but she knew he wasn’t tempted. They’d all been friends for too long. And Sora was glad for that. Not that she wanted Daemon for herself. Society Code didn’t allow geminas to be together, because it could get in the way of their ability to serve the kingdom.
“Anyway,” Sora said to Fairy, “what did you run up here for?”
She shrugged. “Oh, nothing important. I just heard that the Council is going to give the Level Twelves their scouting missions today.”
“What?” Sora stopped.
The apprentice behind her bumped into her. “Hey!”
“Sorry,” she said and resumed marching. She turned her attention back to Fairy.
A scouting mission. The true marker of the final apprentice year. The Council—the Society of Taigas’ governing body—would be watching the Level 12s constantly this year, observing and ultimately deciding where to assign each gemina pair for their first post after graduating to full taiga-warrior status. The scouting missions were tests to show how each apprentice did in the field. The first mission would set the tone.
And yet Sora wasn’t sure whether to believe Fairy. Her roommate was a monstrous gossip, and only 20 percent of what she said was true. The other 80 percent . . . who knew what she was thinking?
“How do you know the Council is handing out missions tonight?” Sora asked. “They usually wait until after Autumn Festival.”
“My gemina works in their office, remember?”
Right. Broomstick—who’d been given the name because he’d been scrawny as a child—assisted the Council with administrative work, which, not so coincidentally, was the source of the 20 percent of Fairy’s gossip that was actually true.
“The Council decided to give us our assignments now,” Fairy said, “so we can go straight from the holiday break if we wanted to, rather than having to come all the way back here.” She shrugged. “Makes sense to me.”
“Wow,” Daemon said. “Our first mission.”
Sora nodded, unable to form words. She and Daemon had been looking forward to the first mission for different reasons—Daemon, for a chance to prove himself; Sora, for a glimpse into the future, when she wouldn’t be constricted by school rules—but they were propelled forward by the same pure anticipation.
Pleased with herself for breaking the news, Fairy grinned and spun away to return to her place in the formation. As they approached the tall iron gates at the rear entrance to the Society of Taigas’ headquarters, the glistening black walls of the fortress greeted them solemnly, surrounded by soaring, thick-trunked cypress trees older than the kingdom itself. The moon seemed to beam more brightly at the home of its chosen warriors.
Sora and Daemon straightened.
A chorus of voices shouted as the taiga warriors who guarded the gates surrounded the apprentices. They dropped from the roofs of the watch towers, from the trees, from the beams behind the massive gate. They were nowhere and everywhere, all at once.
The taigas always were.
Sora and the others fell immediately to their knees and splayed their empty hands on the dirt in front of them to show that their weapons remained stowed away. They touched their foreheads, too, to the ground.
“Cloak of night,” one of the guards at the gate said.
“Heart of light,” the apprentices recited in unison, finishing the Society’s motto.
“Welcome back, Level Twelves,” the gate guard said as Sora and her classmates rose to their feet. “The Council would like to see each gemina pair, in the order of your formation.” He met eyes with Sora and Daemon. “That means you’re going first.”
Anxious yet eager, Sora reached through her gemina bond for Daemon. He was nervous too—their connection vibrated like a guitar string that had just been plucked—but her presence met his, and they stilled each other. A little.
The iron gates of the fortress swept open on silent hinges.
“Shall we?” she asked.
He looked over at her and smiled. “We shall.”
Like all the buildings at the Citadel, Warrior Meeting Hall was styled in the taigas’ colors—black roof tiles, black wooden frames, black rice paper windows, with just a touch of gold in places like door handles and the stitching at the edges of the black reed mats on the floors. Black paper lanterns hung on the walls, their light muted yet not at all weak. Rather, there was a refined confidence to their understatedness.
The Council Room in Warrior Meeting Hall was the black heart of the Society. Glass Lady, the stout, unsmiling commander of the taigas, presided at the head of a table made of an impossibly large black stone dredged from the bottom of Kira Lake, fully formed, polished, and flawless. The lantern behind Glass Lady cast her long and sharp silhouette over the table, black on top of more black.
Two councilmembers—Scythe and Bullfrog, both in their fifties and therefore a good decade younger than Glass Lady—sat to her right. Strategist and Renegade, who were in their sixties, sat to her left.
“Commander.” Sora and Daemon bowed together as they stepped into the room. “Honorable Councilmembers.” They bowed again, to the left and the right. Then they stood before the Council table, their arms straight at their sides, palms forward and fingers open in a symbol of respect.
“Welcome, Spirit,” Glass Lady said. “And, of course, Wolf.”
Sora felt Daemon flinch through their gemina bond. Glass Lady had addressed Sora first, and Daemon as an afterthought. It happened fairly often, and he noticed every time.