A cruel smile twisted Tidepool’s lips. “I’ll send a pair of ryuu right away, Your Majesty.” She bowed and left to dispatch the order.

Gin sat back in his chair, arms clasped behind his head, and exhaled.

Thoma was his, and Tsarina Austine’s heart would soon belong to Zomuri.

Chapter Forty-One

Sora hadn’t been able to sleep, so she left the mining shack and went for a walk as the sun began to rise.

Back in Paro Village, she had sworn to herself that she’d do anything to save her sister, her friends, and Kichona, but at the moment, it seemed like her promise was just a lot of hot air. She had a plan to get to Dera Falls to rescue Empress Aki, but what if Sora was wrong and the empress wasn’t there? And then there was the goal of reuniting the soul pearl with Prince Gin so they could kill him . . . but how in the world was Sora going to get close enough to him to get the pearl into his body?

Am I going to spoon-feed it to him and not expect any resistance?

Stars, these weren’t feasible plans. They were just wishful fancies, the kind that tenderfoots made up when they daydreamed about saving the world.

She felt sorry for Kichona that the entire kingdom was relying on her brains.

Sora sighed. Of course, it was also possible that all her ideas seemed pathetic right now since she was so sleep deprived. Her emotions had been up and down ever since Daemon told her that her soul was damned, veering from fear-induced confidence to helpless despair.

At the moment, she was clearly wading in a pool of doubt.

Eventually, Sora headed back toward the mining shack and spotted Fairy outside doing some warm-up exercises in the dawn light. This made Sora smile a little—it was good to see her roommate up and about, feeling well enough to practice fighting stances.

“Hey.” Fairy jogged over to her.

“Morning,” Sora said. “You’re moving pretty well.”

“Thanks. The thistledoon is helping a lot. But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Sora stopped to give her her full attention. “What’s going on?”

“It’s Broomstick.” Fairy gestured toward the shack. “He won’t get out of bed. He keeps telling me about what he saw in the lake, and I know he’d never do those things, but no matter what I say, he refuses to believe me.”

“I don’t know if there’s anything we can do without the gods,” Sora said.

“But we have to try. I mean, we don’t even know for sure that there’s lake water in him. It’s like something in him broke, and as his gemina, I have to try to fix it. I just don’t know how.”