She set him down carefully on the battlement. “Everyone all right?” Sora asked.
“Yes and no,” Broomstick said.
Daemon crept up to where his friend was peering through the crenellations at the Citadel below.
“Daggers,” Daemon cursed. The ryuu weren’t up at the castle anymore, as they had been after the battle. They were swarming here at the Society’s headquarters, at least a thousand of them taking it over as though the Citadel was theirs. Sharpening swords in the armory courtyard. Training in the sparring arena. Meeting in the outdoor amphitheater. They just hadn’t been guarding the entrance because there was no one—other than Daemon, Sora, Fairy, and Broomstick—to attack.
And the ryuu seemed more organized than Sora had accounted for.
“We need to split up now,” Sora said. “Rendezvous in Jade Forest in three hours. But whoever finds Empress Aki first, don’t wait. Grab her and get out. All right?”
“All right,” Fairy said.
“And remember, if you can kill Prince Gin, do it. His death ends everything.”
They huddled for a moment, each knowing—but not saying—that this could be the last time they were together. The grimness was like a knife at Daemon’s throat.
“We’ve got this.” Sora stacked her fists over her heart. “Work hard. Mischief harder.”
Daemon took a deep breath. Then he pumped his fists to his chest, too. He was here. He was a part of this, whether he liked it or not. And hells if he was going to let his friends down.
“Good luck, League of Rogues,” Daemon said. “We’ll see you on the other side.”
Chapter Six
As Spirit and Wolf took off to make their way up the mountain to the castle, Broomstick and Fairy surveyed what had once been their home. The Citadel had always been a dark place—black was the color of the Society of Taigas, so all the buildings were black—but there was something else now that seemed like an eclipse over the headquarters, a bleakness that swallowed everything the Society stood for. All Broomstick’s nerves stood on end, and he had to steady himself against the battlement wall.
“I suppose it’s time we split up, too,” he said to Fairy, nervously tapping his fingers on the nearest crenellation. Spirit had suggested it because Broomstick knew the warrior side of the fortress better. He had worked in the administration offices in Warrior Meeting Hall, and he and Wolf spent lots of time after hours in the nearby sparring arena doing extra drills.
Fairy would search the student part of campus. She knew all the best places for hiding. Plus, she could fit in passageways that Broomstick couldn’t.
“I don’t want to split up either,” Fairy said. “But Spirit’s right that it’s smarter for us to divide and conquer.”
He pinched his lips but agreed. “Keep our gemina bond open. I suppose we should get going. Time’s ticking.”
“Yeah,” she said, although she didn’t move. Their connection vibrated with an anticipation that was half hope they would succeed in finding Empress Aki and ending this nightmare now and half fear that they’d discover something even worse than what they already knew.
Fairy went first, giving Broomstick a short nod before disappearing over the fortress wall, climbing down the handholds placed on the interior of the wall to allow taigas to defend the Citadel from invaders. He watched until she melted into the darkness like a shadow. Then he made his way down and headed to his first destination—the Society’s training arena.
Broomstick crouched in the stands and stared wide eyed at the sparring below, full of new recruits freshly hypnotized by the Dragon Prince. A short distance away, Blade, a girl who had lived down the hall from Fairy and Spirit, summoned gravel from the arena floor and formed it into giant axes and battering rams. Her hold on ryuu magic faltered every now and then, and the weapons would disintegrate into gravel again, but she kept at it, sweat dripping in rivulets down her face.
Near her, eleven-year-old Quicksand was enhancing typical taiga spells to make them better.
“Gods, no,” Broomstick whispered. He was Quicksand’s mentor in the school’s Exemplar Program, which paired young students with older ones they could look up to. Broomstick had known Quicksand when he was a tenderfoot still called Wyato, because he was too young for a taiga name.
Now Quicksand was learning to be one of Prince Gin’s foot soldiers, sprinting back and forth from one side of the arena to the other like a cheetah spell sped up by a factor of ten. Broomstick barely managed to keep himself concealed because he wanted to jump out and grab the boy, to try to shake the mind control out of his head and save him from the ryuu.
Then Broomstick saw Philosopher, his lab partner from physics class, working on digging tunnels in the ground without the use of mudras or chants. And Summer, the girl who worked at the desk next to Broomstick’s in the Society’s administrative offices, held her hands out in front of her as two small tornados appeared in her palms.
Outrage rose in Broomstick’s belly. These were their friends, students Broomstick had spent his entire life with, who had played with blocks with him when they were tenderfoots, who’d tried to ski down the Citadel rooftops in winter when they were Level 7s, and who stayed up late helping each other study every spring for final exams. They had lived and breathed the Society of Taigas’ centuries-old commitment to defend all that was good about Kichona, just like Broomstick did. Yet here they were, practicing a magic that would destroy the very kingdom they’d sworn to protect.
How dare Prince Gin steal their friends like this? And he was going to send them to war, to die for a cause they didn’t believe in and weren’t even aware they were a part of.
Broomstick sank against the bleachers.
The boy, Quicksand, tripped and skidded several yards in the gravel. Philosopher stopped the tunnel she was working on and ran over to help him up. “Are you all right?” she asked as she extended her hand.
Embarrassed, he nodded but didn’t look at her.
Philosopher brushed the gravel off his uniform. “Don’t worry,” she said. “Magic takes practice, and all of us have fallen face-first in this arena many, many times. Just remember that we’re training to make Kichona great, that Emperor Gin expects us to do the best we can. That means we have to make mistakes, but it’ll be worth it.”
Broomstick wrinkled his forehead as he listened to the conversation. He’d expected the hypnotized taigas to be mindless pawns. But Philosopher seemed to be the same sweet girl he knew, an actual person rather than a witless weapon. The main difference was her devotion to the Dragon Prince and his pursuit of the Evermore. It was a confusing mix of traits that Broomstick tried to wrap his head around.
In a twisted way, though, it gave him hope. The real taigas were still in those minds and bodies. They’d had part of their brains hijacked, but there was something worth saving.
There was nothing more to see here, though. Before watching his friends, Broomstick had searched the sparring arena’s storage spaces and back rooms, and there was no sign of Empress Aki. However, this new understanding of how the taigas operated could come in handy. Maybe he’d be able to get some information out of them just like he had in the past, by chatting up his coworkers in Warrior Meeting Hall. He’d have to pretend he was a ryuu, though.