Hana steered them into a familiar dark corridor made to look like the maw of a dragon. Inside lay Prince Gin’s throne room.

Still on the ceiling, they snuck up to the heavy wooden double doors. Sora pressed her ear against one of them.

Instead of the Dragon Prince’s deep voice, though, there was only a reedy whimper.

Hana had crawled down onto the other door and was looking through one of the keyholes. “Prince Gin’s not there.”

Sora touched her collar. Had the pearl led them astray?

“If Prince Gin’s not in there, then who is?”

Hana pushed her eye harder against the keyhole. “I think it’s Tsarina Austine of Thoma.”

Sora dropped to the ground and looked into the other keyhole. “He captured her days ago. Why would he wait to give her heart to Zomuri?”

“I doubt he did. But gods don’t always come right away when summoned, or sometimes at all.”

Is that why Daemon wasn’t back yet? Was he having trouble getting the gods in Celestae to pay attention to him?

As for Zomuri, Sora didn’t think that god would fail to show up for one of the mainland monarchs’ hearts. It was only a matter of time. She reached for the door, her fingers wrapping around the dragons carved into the wood.

“What are you doing?” Hana hissed.

“We have to save the tsarina.”

“No, we have a plan, and our job is to kill Prince Gin. It’s Fairy’s task to get Tsarina Austine.”

“But—”

“You’re the one who said it’s safer for the tsarina to wait for Fairy than to wander around with us in the middle of a battle,” Hana said. “Tsarina Austine will be safe as long as Zomuri doesn’t come. We have no control over that, and we’re no match for a god, but we can try to get to Prince Gin. That’s how we save her and our own kingdom.”

Sora held on to the door handle, having a hard time letting go when there was someone in need on the other side. But Hana was right. They had to stay on task.

“Be safe,” Sora whispered to the tsarina through the door. She released her grip on the handle.

“Crawling on the ceiling is too slow,” Sora said. “We have to risk moving on the floor.”

Hana agreed, and they dove back into the castle, following the movement of the soul pearl in Sora’s collar.

On the next floor, two more contingents of ryuu nearly ran into them. Sora and Hana managed to leap to the ceiling with only a hairbreadth of space to spare.