Page 32 of Circle of Shadows
They secured their horses to a nearby post and crossed over a mossy bridge to the main street where most of the shops were concentrated. Even here in the center of town, the forest was so thick that they had to elbow their way through the greenery. Sora almost shoved her arm into someone’s face accidentally as she was pushing through some vines.
“I’m sorry!” she said.
The woman laughed pleasantly. She was short and red-nosed from the cold. “It’s all right. It’s a part of life here. Are you a tourist?”
“Not really. We’re looking for the taiga outpost.”
“Oh, of course, silly me.” She nodded at Sora’s and Daemon’s uniforms. “But I’m afraid there are no taigas here, Your Honor.”
Daemon frowned. “What do you mean, no taigas? There’s a Society post here. We received a message from them a few days ago.”
“They went with Prince Gin, to make him emperor! He is so very kind.” She smiled blissfully.
The color drained from Sora’s face. The Dragon Prince had been here.
But the Paro Village taigas wouldn’t support him, let alone leave this outpost unguarded in order to go with Prince Gin. That made no sense. Those who’d fought for him during the Blood Rift were either dead or gone. The taigas who remained in Kichona were on Empress Aki’s side.
Daemon cleared his throat. “You realize that Prince Gin’s sister is still the empress, right?”
The woman shrugged and looked entirely unconcerned. “Prince Gin has picked many here in this village as his Hearts! Including me.”
Sora choked on a breath. “His Hearts?”
The woman beamed and nodded. “Yes! We are to go to the Imperial City soon as special guests for his coronation.”
Sora grabbed Daemon’s arm. “You know what that’s a reference to, don’t you?” she whispered.
“The legend of the Evermore?”
“Yes. And the Ceremony of Two Hundred Hearts.” Sorafought the dizzying sensation of the ground giving way beneath her feet. Prince Gin was tapping people to become his blood sacrifices to Zomuri, so that he would be granted the right to pursue the Evermore. Two hundred men, women, and children, who would cut out their own hearts and offer them to the god, all in the name of glory.
Sora grabbed onto a nearby vine to steady herself.
The woman blinked at them, as if she’d forgotten what Sora and Daemon had been asking her about. “Hey-o, did you say you were tourists? You really should visit the Paro Bakery. They have the most divine persimmon twists, especially if you can get them straight out of the fryer. I think I might go see the baker right now. Would you like to join me?”
“Um, no thank you,” Sora said.
The woman smiled vacantly and drifted off like dandelion seed in the wind, murmuring to herself about persimmon twists.
“Should we try to figure out who all the ‘Hearts’ are here and tie them up or something?” Daemon asked.
Sora shook her head. “We don’t have time. We need to get to the Society outpost to see if the taigas really are gone, and to send a message to the Citadel.”
A man with an ax pushed through the vines on the other side of the street and began crossing the road toward them. But as soon as he saw Sora’s and Daemon’s uniforms, he veered back to the other side of the street and disappeared behind the flower curtain through which he’d come.
The hairs on Sora’s arm stood up. “I don’t like the feeling of this,” she said.
“We’ll find the Society outpost ourselves,” Daemon said. “Paro Village is small. A black building can’t be hardto find among all this green.”
They made their way through town, practically swimming as they pushed aside armfuls of vine. They almost collided with several more people, but again, as soon as their uniforms came into view, the people quickly changed direction.
Sora and Daemon reached the end of the main street and nudged their way through a particularly dense curtain of vines. There was nothing but steep mountain ahead of them.
“I guess the Society building isn’t as easy to find as I thought,” Daemon said, kicking at the rocks at his feet.
But Sora reached over and touched his arm. “Look up.”
Above them, platforms spanned the arms of half a dozen trees. A series of black buildings with black thatched roofs traversed them.
