Year of the Tiger (Changeling Sisters) (13 page)

That it was Duck Young whom she loved only made me feel more pity for her. The emotionless vampyre who had casually beheaded my sister and the visionary man she was describing were two entirely separate beings.

“We’ll lay him to rest for good, Yu Li.” I doubted that helped any, but to my surprise, she reached for my hand.

“Thank you, Citlalli. Sometimes I think…you are a good person.”

“Only sometimes?”

“I will have to take out a month’s savings to pay for a trip to Everland.”

“Oh, get over it. The kid deserves it.”

“Yes. He does. I would take him to live there forever if I could.” Yu Li folded her arms. “Will you really accept Maya’s invitation, Citlalli?”

“Oh, Yu Li.” A hollow laugh shook my chest. “A long time ago, you asked why you should like me. That all I had done was distract the pack from its true goal: destroying the vampyres. Well, this is me. Not distracting, but ending humanity’s hidden enemy of a millennia. And now you don’t want me to go?”

“You will surely die.”

“So
that’s
why you opposed the plan. Sisterly concern.”

She smiled faintly. “And I wanted to make you look like a fool in front of the elders. But somewhere in there, maybe, concern.”

I spread my arms wide. “This is me running after my Duck Young, Yu Li. No thought or emotion involved. It’s what I would always do.”

“Then come. Let’s go prepare the attack.”

Chapter 16: The Soul of Donovan

Every seventh night, the brides held a private “Knitting Circle” in their husbands’ absence. They drank cocktails. They compared shoes. Someone would hesitantly mention the “sunshine life,” and gradually, as the night wore on, more and more stories came pouring out from cobwebbed memories. They did everything but knit. When the moon set, they snapped back to attention—“perfect” wives once more.

I was interested because the Circle was held in Donovan’s quarters.

Favorite brides-to-be could wait on them, if they knew the right people. When I approached Marisol, she was overjoyed I wanted to attend.

“That’s the spirit, Raina!” she congratulated me. “Of course I’ll get you in. I was so sick of that Natalya, already crowning herself as Donovan’s next queen. Now you’ll be in the perfect position to fight for your man.”

I wasn’t surprised. After walking in on Natalya licking Lady Amrit and Eva’s boots clean while they reclined on their floor cushions, I suspected she’d even been granted access to the mysterious Mirror Room.

I entered the common room dressed in a white blouse and a full skirt
chima
of the brides-to-be. Beneath the smoky eye shadow caking my eyelids, I chanced a glance up the stairwell toward Donovan’s bedchamber.

I’d thought long and hard. How did one steal a soul from a vampyre? I could only wait until he was “asleep”: that time when he returned to his body on Earth. But what happened to his soul, while his spirit returned to the body? The vampyres hadn’t figured out how to reconcile with their souls; it couldn’t follow him over. Where would Donovan hide a pair of wings?

I had to start somewhere. The bedchamber was an easy guess, but four giant ghosts stood to attention on either side of the ornate sliding door: two turtle-lions and two vicious-looking seals.

Fortunately, the window was open, and I could taste the moisture frozen in mid-air. The vampyres Amrit and Eva no doubt meant for the cold to torture us warm-bloods, but for me, the water droplets soaking the sky sharpened my wit. They were my unseen soldiers.

Tonight the brides were playing
hwatu
, a Go-Stop game that revolved around a gorgeously painted deck of flower cards. Four of the same flower card represented one of the twelve months, and could be matched up to earn maximum points. Marisol assured me she was an expert at it.

“Oh dear, they forgot to bring us footstools this evening,” the Russian vampyre Eva said, mock-pursing her lips as she glanced around the common room. “Girls. How can we remedy this?”

That was directed toward me, Natalya, and three other oh-so-lucky attendants. I grimaced as I squatted, bear-like, under Amrit’s sapphire-blue toenails. The floor had splinters. This was going to be a long night.

I spent my time focusing on Marisol’s water glass. I’d practiced harnessing the power of water in the women’s quarters, but this was for real. I tentatively poked at the glass.

A bubble. Seriously, all I could conjure up was a bubble? How the hell was that going to help me?

“Three
kwang.
” Amrit matched two from her hand to the crane character card. She had to be cheating to get such a high scoring hand right off the bat, but no one wanted to call her on it.

Eva went next, scoring zero. “I do hate card games,” she huffed, eyes flicking around the room for something to entertain her. “Ladies! Did you hear about the new ‘guest’ we’ll be hosting this Lunar New Year?”

“Another ‘guest’ from the sunshine world?” one of Aaron’s wives grumbled. “The palace is already too crowded, if you ask me.” She gave her live footstool a small kick.

Amrit’s flat black eyes never left Eva’s as she reached for another card. “We are not supposed to talk about that with present company, Eva.”

“Oh!” I caught her eyes flicking momentarily in my direction. “How silly of me. I sometimes forget she’s not deaf anymore.”

This disturbed my momentary focus on the glass. Which “guest” were they talking about? Citlalli? Was she walking into a trap and she didn’t know it? Or were the vampyres casting out false lures? My arms felt leaden, my elbows crooked. I shook myself and resumed focus on the glass. I could do this. I just had to push
harder
.

Marisol’s glass frothed up with boiling water. She jumped off her cushion in shock.

“Orchid? Why do you disturb the game?” Amrit, thankfully, took her card games extremely seriously.

“Nothing, Sister Wife!” Marisol squeaked. Her gaze swept suspiciously around the room. I attempted to look the part of a humble footstool.

Amrit scored with a set of bird
yul.
It put her in an extremely good mood.

“Get up,” she ordered, kicking me in the rear. “Make me another drink.”

“Yes, Lady Amrit.” I all but ran for the bar. Natalya watched me beneath Eva’s wagging feet, looking like a disgruntled cat. As the eldest vampyre wife, Amrit was the queen of the brides, holding a higher status than Eva, even. It would have been a great honor to wait on her.

I was just happy I had a bride who was on a winning streak. The other, far unhappier, players kneaded their live foot cushions in displeasure.

Safely unnoticed in the shadows of the bar, I inched toward the window. Frigid winter air swam around my face. I breathed it in, expelling each gust in successively larger clouds of frost. My eyes were shining as I drank in the night. Was this what it meant to have a Changeling Soul?

“How is your husband, Orchid?” Amrit asked of my sister. “It’s been a rough week. Losing his frontrunner
and
something far more personal…”

Marisol glanced in both directions nervously. “That is a secret, good Sister Wife.”

“Oh, please. Every ghost from here to the hermits on U-Do have heard that your husband’s soul is in the hands of
monks,
” Amrit said scathingly. “Foolish young vampyre. He thought such a small, trivial reminder of his past life meant nothing when it was in his care, but now it means
everything
to him.”

“Amrit, be careful how you speak of him. He may be your younger, but he is still a prince,” Eva hissed.

Marisol scored with a set of three blue ribbon cards. It wasn’t much, but her cheeks glowed proudly. “Yes, and Prince Duck Young has a plan for getting his soul back.”

Amrit and Eva exchanged identical surprised expressions. “Do say? And this ‘plan’ has been run by the Queen?”

Marisol realized she’d said too much. She shut her mouth and determinedly focused on her cards.

Amrit leaned over the table. “The ‘plan’ doesn’t, for instance, involve interfering with the plans our Queen has for a certain
guest
?”

There was that “guest” again. I watched Marisol’s shadowed face with growing dread. It couldn’t be who I thought it was. There was no way Mari would espouse a plan that put Citlalli in danger.

“I’m only a lowly wife; he doesn’t discuss such things with me,” Marisol murmured.

Amrit snorted. “So now you choose to powder your cheeks with that pretty shade of coy pink. Keep your husband’s absurd secrets. Dark Spirits know, I’m thankful Prince Donovan doesn’t put us through that. He keeps his soul extremely well-protected—”

The glass shattered at my feet. All of the brides, vampyre and human, whipped around to stare at me with unnatural speed. They could see right through me. I would be found out! I threw all of my urgency, all of my need, into the winds. They spun up, up, and away, where they began to spin and shape the slumbering clouds. As soundless panic dropped away within me, so, too, did the clouds thicken menacingly, until a head broke through the forefront. And I called it to me.

“T-that!” I pointed with a trembling finger at the window. “T-there!”

“What in the seven hells?”

The blizzard dragon lurched ponderously through the air toward us, wisps of cloud beating the air in the semblance of wings, while its head drew back to unleash a flurry of snowflakes.

“Shut the window, you idiot!” Eva shoved Marisol toward the amassing gale.

No! She can’t!
I summoned even more winds to the storm dragon’s wings, and the skin rubbing around my nails turned frightfully, numbingly cold. It felt like ice water was sloshing down through my veins, leaving my hands dark and unresponsive. But I couldn’t back down. One of my nails popped off.

Marisol was buffeted back by the fierce gale and hit her head against the low coffee table. I winced.
Sorry, sis
.

The rest of the humans scrambled to stand on two feet. Amrit cocked a finger at Donovan’s chamber guards, and they marched forward. Together, vampyre and ghost forced the window closed. I closed my eyes, feeling the ice water hit a sub-zero point in the middle of my forehead. They were too late. The storm dragon broke upon the palace.

My hands slipped limply to my side as I released all control of the storm. I had no choice. That sub-zero spot in the center of my forehead stung like the most awful bout of brain freeze, leaving me a cringing mess in the corner.

“Raina? What’s wrong?” Marisol touched my shoulder, and I buried my head in her chest. Warmth. The pressure relieved. I felt her hand stroke my hair, and then snow pellets shattered through the stained glass, extinguishing all candles.

“Goodbye, sis.” As shadowed shapes dove for cover, I fought my way through the blustery winds to the staircase. I knew the way from here. Taking a last peek over my shoulder to make sure everyone was occupied, I slipped past the sliding door and into Donovan’s private chambers.

The hall loomed ahead, tall and silent. My harsh breathing cut through the darkness, trembling every time the gale shrieked and dive-bombed the palace. Donovan’s bedchamber opened up before me. The room that had once been warm and smoldering with our hungry kisses now huddled cold and empty, like a dead fireplace.

Something rustled overhead. I peered up, heart hammering, to see the most curious thing: one hundred beating white wings, fluttering overhead like butterflies. They all shied away from the rattling window, emitting golden sparks of light at every push and shove of the winds. But which one was the soul?

I cautiously uncovered the small lotus lantern from the folds of my dress. The wings flew in erratic circles around me.

“It’s okay,” I called. I remembered stroking the dove-soft feathers. “You know me.”

One set of wings detached itself from the rest. It circled me curiously, poking at my cheek and brushing against my neck. The soul recognized me, I was sure. Then it rested on my shoulder. I could feel the way it beat like a heart, could feel the most incredible vibrations reverberating throughout my entire being, energizing me with life and joy.

“When we were turned, we were cast out from the eyes of God,” Khyber had told me. “The soul flees when the mark of the vampyre is placed upon it.”

But what was it like before
? I wondered. Khyber had said Maya must sacrifice innocent souls to the Dark Spirits, not wicked ones. But Donovan’s soul didn’t seem so bad. It seemed…fiercely beautiful.

But hungry. As it frolicked across my skin, each stroke became more urgent, seeking penetration. My mouth dropped in horror, and I glanced nervously toward the empty bed. Seriously? Even when absent, there was only one thing on Donovan’s mind, only one thing that ruled his soul: the desire to consume. He always needed…
more
.

I held up the unlatched lantern, but the soul refused to go in. It glided instead to my back, where it attempted to settle in the crevices beneath my shoulder blades. But it couldn’t.

 I froze. Perhaps it had recognized me, perhaps it hadn’t, but one thing was for certain: It knew I wasn’t
him
.

 The wings grew hotter to the touch, and my nostrils filled with the scent of burning feathers and blistering skin. My skin. I frantically batted the soul away, but it reared up in a vision of blinding celestial flames, both mesmerizing and awful.

Now the other wings broke away from the ceiling to encircle me, their feathers not the downy-soft fluff of doves, but jagged blades that nicked my cheeks, my legs, my back. I covered my face with one hand and swung the lotus lantern around blindly to fend off the buffeting snowstorm of knife-sharp wings.

The storm dragon sensed my danger. It howled and pounded against the walls with mounting intensity, frustrated that it couldn’t break in. Blood ran in countless tiny streams over my knees and elbows, and one wing sliced my eye. The moaning gale was the only things that oriented me, that made me crawl toward the sound. White filled my vision, but I thrust my red-smeared fingers into the flurry of feathers, tearing the wings apart at the bone.