Hana couldn’t look at her, couldn’t face her disappointment. She stared instead at Mama’s bloody, lifeless body on the rocks, and Papa bent over her, rocking and wailing.

“Tidepool, go take stock of the situation on the rest of the island,” Hana said.

“But His Majesty tasked me with getting rid of that body.”

“I said, take stock of our positions!”

The ryuu bristled but saluted and marched off to follow orders.

Then Hana summoned ryuu particles to surround Sora, Fairy, and Daemon in orbs and floated them down into the waterfall. They would be safer in there as prisoners, for now, and then she’d get them out when she secured the situation out here on the island.

But first . . . Mama and Papa.

Chapter Forty-Eight

With her sister and friends gone, Hana walked over to Papa. She crouched beside him and touched his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

He turned on her, face red with rage, and grabbed both her shoulders. “Where have you been all these years? We thought you were dead. We mourned you. And then you reappear but on the side of that murderer, and you let him kill your mother. What is wrong with you? Why did you ever come back?” He shook Hana as if she were a rag doll.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean for any of this to happen!”

Papa sobbed and kept shaking her, although his effort grew weaker. “The Dragon Prince tore our kingdom apart once already and killed so many of your own taigas. How could you side with him?”

“I . . . I didn’t know any better. He was my family.”

“We are your family!” Papa collapsed against Hana and held her tightly.

Tears spilled over Hana’s cheeks. She’d been so young when she was abducted from the Citadel, but she still remembered some pieces of her childhood.

Whenever they had a school break like the Autumn Festival, she would ride together with Sora on a horse and Daemon would ride on a separate one, and they’d make the journey up the winding switchbacks of Samara Mountain together. Mama and Papa would rush out to greet them, Mama with tea and cake and Papa with a new ceramic trinket for Hana to take back to the Citadel.

They would spend the whole holiday together, packed into that tiny house, occasionally descending the mountain to the village for music and dancing and sweets. If it were All Spirits’ Eve, Mama would make paper-lantern kites for them to light and fly into the sky. And every evening, they’d retire to the living room and cozy up by the fire, while Mama told them one of her new stories. It was Hana’s favorite way to fall asleep.

She now looked over at Mama slumped and covered in blood. A new burst of tears wracked Hana’s body.