She had a really good point. “Why didn’t they?”
“Exactly! And that’s not even the most disconcerting part about any of this. They should have been helping us. Along with our instructors.”
Oh yeah. He hadn’t even thought about that until she mentioned it. Where had all the instructors gone? Why hadn’t the dragons helped?
Crap. It had to be a bad, bad sign. Like hide-your-tail-and-pray kind of bad.
“What do you think it means?” he asked.
She bit her lip. “Not sure. But if I had to guess... there’s a traitor in our midst. Someone who kept them all at bay and shielded the others from knowing we were being attacked.”
CHAPTERELEVEN
Haruki slowed as she approached the shimmering dark chamber where her master waited. How it galled her to know that while Ryukage had worshipped her twin sister, he held her in complete and utter contempt. No matter what she did or how hard she tried, he saw her as lesser.
It made no sense to her. While she might have different coloring, she looked exactly the same as her sister. She was far more powerful and even more loyal.
Yet it wasn’t enough.
How could he have loved her twin with such fiery passion yet treat her with such disdain? She would never understand it.
And with a sick lump in her throat, she entered and bowed low before him. “Master.”
Tall and well muscled, he turned to face her. His once-handsome face was now grim, with black veins running all over his flesh, as if his blood had turned black and his skin was just transparent enough to show every vein in his body. Dressed all in black, he wore his long hair in a tight ponytail that fell over his left shoulder. The only color came from the dragon mon embroidered in blood red.
But the eeriest part was that one of his eyes had turned as white as Haruki’s hair. No one knew why. It wasn’t as if he were blind. Nay, he could see all, with unerring vision.
Yet that disparity of one dark brown and one snow-white eye was so off-putting that it made it hard to look at him. Especially when he was angry.
Like now.
Unbidden, her gaze fell to the two black swords nestled at his waist. From experience, she knew he could draw those blades faster than anyone could blink, decapitate his target, and resheath them before his victim’s head hit the floor.
No one moved faster, or with a deadlier intent.
His gaze narrowed on her. “Where’s your companion?”
Too scared to venture anywhere near Ryukage. But she knew better than to tell him the truth about Kagi, as he would take his fury out on her. “He’s watching after your son.”
“You found him?” he asked hopefully and with a joy in his tone that she’d never heard before.
She inclined her head, grateful the news pleased her master for once. “Yes, my lord.”
“Then why isn’t he here?”
A chill raced down her spine at those growled angry words that took away his momentary happiness. “His powers are such that he’s not so easily taken.”
He scoffed. “Maybe not by you, witch.” Stepping back, he waved his hand at the wall beside him.
The dark shadows took form.
Haruki’s eyes widened as she saw them turn into komuso—traveling monks who wore baskets over their heads as a sign of modesty. Only in this case, she knew they wore them because they had no faces or heads to show.
Her master had already unleashed a similar group that had torn up the countryside.
She could only imagine why he was summoning more.
Ryukage gestured at them. “They’ll fetch my son to me.”
