I dashed off before she could finish. By now, I knew my stepmother’s schedule by heart, and she’d be in her garden. Perfect, since I knew all the ways to slip inside unnoticed.
I didn’t venture deep; I was too daunted by the snakes. Sometimes I heard Father’s chancellors gossiping about them, how the vipers were poisonous, some of them so deadly that a touch could kill. The memory of their scales against my skin still made me shudder.
Carefully, I toed off my slippers and held them under my arm as I waded into the shallowest part of Raikama’s pond. There I hid under the rock bridge, crouching so long that my knees quivered, and the fish, thinking I was a lily pad, came to nibble at my toes.
After what felt like an eternity, Raikama arrived.
As soon as the guards closed the garden gate, she removed a ball of scarlet thread from within her robes. It looked almost like a red sun, except for the leaves clinging to its fibers.
I expected her to start talking to the snakes lounging on the footbridge near the wisteria trees, as she always did, or tending to her prized plot of moon orchids—the picture of which she often embroidered on her fans and shawls. Instead, she lifted her skirts to her knees and raised the thread above her head.
“Take me to the Tears of Emuri’en,” she commanded.
The ball trembled, emitting a wash of reddish light as it bounced out of her hand into the pond.
Raikama waited at the edge of the pond. Its water had begun spinning furiously, parting to reveal a path at the center and a staircase below. Swiftly my stepmother descended.
I started after her, but serpents hissed, dropping from the trees and rising to block me.
Alarm washed over me, and I gasped, freezing midstep. They were everywhere, some in dazzling colors I’d never seen before: turquoise and violet and sapphire. Others were black as night with scarlet stripes or ivory with brown speckles. But their fangs were all the same, curved like tiny daggers, their pupils menacing slivers.
They surrounded me, the same way they had all those years ago.
Shiori!Kiki called from the stairs.If you don’t hurry, we’ll lose her.
The water was starting to rush back over the stairs, but I’d still have to cross the snakes lingering on them.
Fear is just a game, Shiori,I reminded myself.You win by playing.
I tugged my slippers back on and charged toward the stairs. More snakes dropped from the trees, plopping into the water, but I didn’t look back. Darkness caved over me, and I followed the glimmer of light down the stairs until I emerged on the other side.
It had to be magic that brought me out into the woods, far beyond the palace gardens. In fact, I couldn’t even see the palace—only the Holy Mountains, so close they obscured the sky. If I was truly in one of the mountain forests, I was far from home indeed. But how I would get back was the least of my concerns.
Kiki tore into the trees, her fragile paper wings dancing in an invisible gust of summer wind. Far ahead, I could see the ball of thread bouncing through the thickets, its brilliant light painting the trees red. I ran as fast as I could, following Raikama deeper and deeper into the forest—until, abruptly, she stopped.
Kiki bit my hair, pulling me behind a tree.
The ball had come to a dirt hole, full of twigs and leaves. It no longer trembled or glowed.
My stepmother set aside her sandals and removed the brass pin that held her hair in its signature coil. As her raven tresses tumbled down her back, she rubbed her temples. A streak of white hair appeared.
I frowned. That had never been there before. Not on the ageless queen.
Kneeling beside the dirt hole, she rolled up her sleeves and slowly loosened the layers of her robes until her shoulders were bare.
A light shone in her chest, dim at first; then it grew brighter until I had to shield my eyes. In Raikama’s heart gleamed a broken orb, fractured in the center, like a moon cleaved in two. It was beautiful regardless, its surface dark as the night sky, yet its light as dazzling as dawn unfolding over the ocean. Mesmerizing to behold.
“That’s it,” I breathed. “The source of her magic.”
Wonderful. Now let’s leave,Kiki pleaded.We’ve seen enough.
“Not yet,” I whispered, waving her away as I started to climb the tree. I needed to see more.
Water bubbled up from the center of the hole. A minute ago, it had been dry. Where was the water coming from?
I leaned closer, riveted. Thiswasno ordinary pool—the water was opaque and held no reflection. Could it truly be the Tears of Emuri’en—the tears that the goddess of fate was said to have shed as she fell from the heavens to earth? The gods had destroyed all such pools.
My golden sash lay over Raikama’s arm, its slender cord undone. As she steeped it in the water, she spoke in a language I did not recognize. It was more rhythmic, the words lilting and round. Her voice sounded gentler, and for some reason, that made goose bumps rise on my skin.
