Aki had nothing. She was a prisoner. She couldn’t cast spells like her brother and the ryuu and taigas could. No one knew where she was, or even that she was still alive. She might as well be dead.

She slouched against the wall, no longer bothering to hide the fingers burned by the acid.

Virtuoso smirked at Aki’s blistering skin. “I see you’ve discovered that these are no ordinary waterfalls.”

“You did this?”

“It was my idea. Another ryuu executed it for me. Want to go for a swim?” she sneered.

“I thought my brother wanted me alive. You know, so I could suffer in exile as he had to. Isn’t that what he said before he had me thrown in here?”

Virtuoso glared daggers at her.

Aki set her jaw. She refused to give away the fear chewing at her bones.

The acid in front of Virtuoso began to boil. What in Sola’s name was this? Aki pressed herself even harder against the wall to get as far away from it as possible.

An enormous emerald bubble—seven or eight feet in diameter—rose from the depths of the acid. The orb bobbed to shore and opened as if it were yawning. It was empty, except for a large armchair.

Virtuoso glowered. “There’s a small cell behind this rock wall, sheltered from the acid. Squeeze through the crevice over there”—she pointed to a person-sized crack in the grotto wall, obscured by the falls’ shadows—“and you’ll find a mattress, water, and food. Enough to survive. Barely.”

Then she stepped into her green bubble, sat in it like the captain of a small ship, and sank into the water, leaving Aki behind.

Alone.

Possibly for the rest of her life, because Gin wanted her to rot here as punishment.

She hugged her knees to her chest and looked at the curtain of acid locking her into this prison.

But there was still one hope, even if it was a small one.

“League of Rogues,” Aki whispered. “If you’re out there, please don’t give up on me.”

Chapter Two

Hana clenched her fists as she rode away in her bubble. As Virtuoso, Emperor Gin’s second-in-command, she was supposed to want to snap the former empress’s neck in the grotto. But there was a part of Hana that was relieved she wasn’t allowed to kill Princess Aki. Prisoner or not, she was still royalty.