Year of the Tiger (Changeling Sisters) (24 page)

Mirrors glinted at me from every space and corner of the wall. I spun slowly on my heel, watching dozens of star lanterns twinkle in the dusty glass. This was where it had all happened. Where Raina had slipped away from me.

And Maya expected me to sleep here. I gave a low laugh. Of course she did.

Raina jumped as she entered, and fruit toppled off the china plate she held. Yeah, cackling to myself in a dark room of mirrors. Guess she hadn’t expected me to reveal the extent of my madness already.

“You startled me,” she said nervously, as I bent to collect the stray grapes and melons. Maya had assigned Raina to “tend to my needs,” a.k.a., “admire her zombie handiwork.”

“You don’t have to be scared of me,” I told her. “I’m not going to transform into a wild beast and chase you around the room.”

Not even a smile. I was going to
kill
Maya. The whole point of Raina being Raina was that she laughed at my jokes, no matter how bad they might be!

“I’ll bring you clean fruit from the kitchens,” Mannequin Raina said instead.

“Don’t bother. I know food’s in short supply around here.” I glanced meaningfully at her as I said it. “But would you mind rustling up some bulgogi? I’m hungry enough to eat a cow.”

She shot me a disgusted look. Of course the savage wolf wanted meat. The bloodier the better.

I shrugged. “Or vampyre will do.”

“Ugh!” She turned on her heel.

“Wait! Please don’t leave!” I had toiled so long for this moment, and now that I’d found Raina, I was going to ruin it by chasing her off? Even if she was Mannequin Raina, she would always be my sister. And I desperately needed to believe that tie was stronger than everything Maya had done to her.

“Join me?” I held out a handful of cherries. She hesitated at the door. She was hungry. I could see it. Everything in this world was always insatiably hungry for more.

“I used to have spitting contests with the seeds,” I rambled, trying to lure her closer. I deliberately didn’t bring up those warm summer nights in Santa Fe, in which we’d mercilessly pelted passerby with seed missiles from the safety of our apartment rooftop. Would she remember? Would she care?

Surprisingly, her fist closed over the cherries. “Me, too,” she said slowly. “Don’t tell anyone, but…” Raina glanced around nervously. “I liked spitting them off of roofs. I was really good at hitting people on the head.”

We both burst into hysterical giggles.

“I’ll stay. For a little while.”

I eagerly moved over to make room. “Help yourself.”

A flutter of tattered black wings in the doorway crossed my vision. Suddenly, long, moonlit fingers snatched the cherries from our mouths.

“Don’t eat those!” Khyber hissed, wings cloaking us both in shadow. “Come with me. Quickly!”

“Khyber!” Was it odd, that after so many nights of watching my sister visit him in my sleep, I felt like I knew him?

Those sharp gray-blue eyes looked me up and down in acknowledgement. “Wolf-girl. How’s your pinkie?”

“Fuck you,” I muttered.

I caught his grin in the darkness. One questing finger traced the scarred ridgelines down my back. “I could have taken much more valuable appendages, you know,” he whispered.

“If you think I’m going to thank you for mercifully maiming me, then you’ve got a long wait coming.”

He shrugged. “How does an eternity sound?”

“Asshole.” I hated people who kept up with me. “Raina, I don’t know what you see in him.”

My little sister scrambled back. “He told me to stay away from you,” she murmured, either at one or both of us.

Khyber stalked toward her, raising a hand. “Donovan was a fool to think he could take what’s mine.”

She stopped like a deer in the headlights. I glared at him.

“How dare you use compulsion on her.”

“Would you rather I bind and gag her?” he asked pointedly. “As you may have gathered, I have fallen out of favor with the Court. We have to go now. And swiftly.”

I wrapped an arm around Raina to support her. Impulsively, I squeezed her tight, like I’d wanted to do for a very long time. Raina continued to stare glassily ahead.

I looked up to find Khyber watching me, pitying.

“Lead the way,” I said quietly.

***

We entered the cave of Raina’s dreams, hidden a few miles north in a snowy patch of trees. I glanced around the dripping cavern, listening to the wind whistle through the catacombs.

“So where’s the coffin?” I asked.

Khyber coaxed a tiny candle to life. “The decoy coffin is over there,” he said, nodding toward the largest cave. “My true sleeping place is in here.”

I followed his finger toward the dark nook where the wind moaned the strongest. By the light of my lantern, I could see massive icicles plunging into a frosty sea of stalagmite teeth. A humanoid shape had broken out of the sheets of blue ice.

“I’d say you were joking if I weren’t acquainted with your spectacular lack of humor.” My eyes wandered from the glacial bed to the red candles glowing over altars of rotting fruit.

“This
is
your daytime resting place.” I stared at him in amazement. “This is where your real body lies.”

“You understand, then, the trust I’m placing in you.” The gray-blue orbs watched me, bodiless, as if they floated on shadows. It was a neat trick. One day, I was going to have a motherload of creepy freak-out stunts myself.

“Hello? Is anyone there? Will you help me?” a voice whispered timorously from the depths of the caverns, and I jumped.

She appeared suddenly, looking slim and haggard in a thin chemise. Her bare feet slapped the cold rock as she felt her way toward us, and her dark hair tumbled to her waist in knots. But when she looked at me, she smiled.

“Citlalli.” Marisol folded me in a hug, and I half-yelped, half-sobbed.

“Do you really see me?”

“Of course I see you, silly. How’d you get here?”

“I’d like to ask you the same thing.” I looked deliberately at Khyber.

He perched on a stone away from the rest of us. “She is a widow. Soul-eaten. Mortal body dead. All that is left is her spirit. Her death was assured the moment Duck Young’s body hit the pyre. It won’t be long now, but maybe, at the end, she will know the truth… You’re welcome, by the way.”

I shook Marisol urgently. “Do you remember everything now?”

She hugged her thin frame. “Enough. The final moments of his death—horrible. Citlalli—you didn’t really kill my husband, did you?”

It still wasn’t really her. Heart deflating, I turned reluctantly to Khyber. “Okay, what the hell is going on?”

“She’s coming out of a deep sleep. A vampyre venom detox.”

“Which happened after we killed Duck Young!”

I remembered who I was talking in front of too late. Marisol went chalk-white, and she fled back into her hole.

Khyber’s scowl deepened further. “You, me. We need to have a talk.”

The six souls danced in front of us, somersaulting on a chilly updraft like otherworldly faeries blown off course. Raina, released from Khyber’s compulsion, walked around and stared at the multifaceted lights curiously.

“They’re even more beautiful in person—whoops, I mean, spirit.” I elbowed Khyber. It was like prodding a stone statue. “Maya was right about that dream bridge thing. So I’m pretty much up to speed on everything that’s happened in Fang Land.”

“Really? So you didn’t miss the part where I told Raina that if a vampyre’s body, spirit,
and
soul aren’t destroyed, he’ll linger on in Eve forever?” Khyber was so icily furious, his scent of death threatened to drown me. Fangs flashed in the shadows, and I bared my teeth.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I should have let Duck Young slaughter me and the entire pack.”

He actually shrugged! I shoved him.

“Oh, hell no! Besides, Rafael tried to destroy the soul. That thing’s as indestructible as a cockroach.”

Khyber tossed his head back to entreat the ceiling. “Karma has finally seen fit to visit me!” he exclaimed, gripping his midnight-black hair. “So close to my freedom, and yet forced to rely on a girl who can’t keep to her challenging cockroaches. No”—he spun around, inches from my face—“instead, you fucked up my capture of Duck Young’s soul! And then that blood-crazed mutt boyfriend of yours fucked up laying him to rest. I should have killed Rafael when I had the chance.”

If Wolf had been around, It would have taken me in an instant. I doubt I would have put up much of a fight to stop It. I stuck a finger in Khyber’s face. “You make one more threat toward the man whose family
you
stalked and killed, and this alliance is over. You’re right. Karma owes you big.”

Unexpectedly, that amused him. “He doesn’t know you’re here with me, does he? Working with me?
Relying
on me?” The whisper hovered near my ear, sending pleasant shivers down to my toes. I twisted away.

“Rafael knows I need you to free my sisters. Besides. You intend to die.”

Khyber made no move to look away, enjoying my discomfort. “I suppose I said that.”

I bit my lip. “You
did
say it. You put my sister’s life in danger for it.”

“You really watched the whole dream stream, didn’t you? Relax, wolf-girl,” Khyber said bitterly. “I’ll go once I’m convinced you beasts understand how to destroy a soul.”

“What the hell is the matter, anyway? It’s not like ghost Duck Young is floating around, spilling the beans on us.”

“It’s worse,” his voice croaked, strangely bleak. “He’s become a Dark Spirit.”

Silence fell. Raina giggled, suddenly, as Donovan’s soul playfully darted around her shoulders. I stared past, remembering an awful, emaciated monster bending its black lips to drink an infant’s blood. Dark Spirits. The Creators of vampyres. The invisible masters of this unending night, their hands conjuring up blizzards from land to sea. Even Maya paid them homage every Lunar New Year. This year she planned to give them my sister: The Changeling Soul.

My throat suddenly burned unbearably hot. Raina was so close I could reach out and touch her! But Maya had found another way to lock her away.

“No one wants to become a Dark Spirit.” The black-winged vampyre gave a low laugh. “They’re wretched, angry things, constantly ravenous and wracked with pain. The only thing that brings them respite is hurting others. Seems fitting they were our Creators.”

Rafael had told me not to trust Khyber. I intended to honor that promise to the fullest. The haughty prince was an unrepentant murderer. But listening to him talk, an ancient being whose regrets cast shadows long enough to drown a man in, made me scared. This was a deadly tango Khyber had danced with Maya throughout the ages; what made me think I would be the one to magically see the solution to it? I needed him.

So I did something I didn’t normally do: I apologized.

“I would be angry, too. I know you’ve worked hard for this.” I shook my hand at the souls. “We have the same goal, Khyber. You know that. You can read me as clearly as a book. But you’re like a scroll written in Hanja characters that I can barely make sense of. Not enough to see meaning behind. I can’t read your mind, Khyber. You don’t want me to mess this up? Fine. Let the wolf in so I can clean up this mess you vampyres have made of everything.”

Okay, it was a lame-ass apology.

But he met me halfway. “We kill Maya and her sons. We disband the Vampyre Court forever.”

I nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, Mr. President!”

“I still need Duck Young’s soul.”

“Why? I thought he’s…kind of busy as his new, evil spirit-self.”

“Because if we leave a notorious soul like that lying around Eve, then it could be a powerful bargaining chip in the wrong hands!” Khyber snapped. “I need to destroy it along with the others!”

“Right… Well, I know Rafael had no luck doing so. What’s your secret?”

“My mother can consume souls,” Khyber murmured, lifting his fingers.

“Is that your plan, then? Spoon feed Maya the souls of her own sons? That’s pretty twisted, even for you, but I suppose we can’t afford to be squeamish.”

“I am like my mother.” Khyber held up a finger. I watched the tip blacken, watched the skin peel back from his nail. I flinched instinctively.

“We are both Death.”

His eyes flashed up to mine, and I watched the blackness blossom up like ink and spill down his cheeks. Rising, as if in a trance, he strode toward the souls. Raina froze as he approached. One of those bleeding black hands reached out, and still, she didn’t move.

“Raina!” I hugged her to me. We both watched the Prince of Sorrow touch the winged soul. It fluttered frantically in his grasp like a butterfly, and we shuddered as music, horrible, screeching music, invaded our ears. The soul was screaming. Khyber’s face was dripping with black tears, and his hand had rotted up to his elbow. He began to tremble under the strain. Black feathers drifted to his feet.

“Is he going to die?” Raina whispered suddenly.

Not yet
. Grimly, I approached. I wasn’t even sure what I was going to do.

“Khyber! STOP!”

The soul’s music hit a shrill peak. Blood dripped from the prince’s ears, but he didn’t notice.

“KHYBER!” It was useless to touch him. I would wilt in an instant. Happy to have the excuse, I grabbed a fatty ice ball and lobbed it. It clocked him upside the head, but he wasn’t deterred.

“Taeyang. Stop.”

I stopped and stared at Raina. I wasn’t the only one. Khyber released the soul in an instant. The blackness slowly retreated, a reluctant dark tide. All that was left was a disbelieving pale young boy, who looked like he’d woken up after a very long time.

“What did you call me?” he whispered.

Raina shrugged. “Taeyang.”

“Taeyang. That means ‘Solar.’ ” I glanced at Khyber. “What’s up with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Khyber’s fangs clicked back. He whispered, almost vulnerably, “Taeyang was my original name.”

Chapter 30: Taeyang

“Was?” I prodded Khyber.

He didn’t answer.

“Alliance, remember?” I poked him again. His hand whipped about, grabbed the offending finger—and then relaxed.