Kest got it first. “Sanya-ketsu put us to sleep when we made it into orbit, then used the dreams like an assessment.”
“Correct, Metal cultivator.” Sanya’s pale green eyes roamed over us. “Now I not only know your strengths and weaknesses, but your deepest desires and your greatest fears. As you just experienced, I can make your life a living nightmare or give you everything you’ve ever wanted.”
“While we’re asleep,” I said. Then I remembered to add, “Ma’am.”
Sanya-ketsu’s yellow eyebrow cocked, and I knew I’d screwed up.
Thankfully, Rali saved me.
“It wouldn’t have to be while we’re asleep, especially not for an esteemed Ketsu.” He made another deep bow toward her, then stood back up and shrugged. “We’re all just walking around in the dreams and nightmares we impose on reality. It’s not that much of a stretch for her to impose a dream on us at any second, awake or asleep.”
The way the Sown Dream cultivator’s face crinkled, it was obvious she was smiling underneath her mask.
“It’s a shame about your Spirit sea, kid,” she told Rali. “With wisdom like that, it wouldn’t have been long before you reached ketsu, too.”
Rali grinned. “Maybe I’ll find hakkeyoi instead.”
By the way Kest rolled her eyes at that, it was easy to figure out that hakkeyoi was another one of Rali’s sword legend things. If we’d been anywhere else, the twins would’ve started bickering about whether it was made up or not.
Warcry just scowled at the wall, and for a second, I could see him slugging Rali in the mouth on the arena floor. He’d taken Rali’s broken Spirit sea a lot harder than Rali himself had.
At least, that was what it had seemed like at the time. Considering Rali had been harboring enough resentment and anger to slaughter an army as a warmup for when I showed my face, there was no telling what was actually going on under that carefree sage facade.
The Sown Dream cultivator’s voice snapped me out of my head.
“Follow me.” She swung away from us and headed for the door. “Let’s see what that platinum favor card bought you.”
The Komodo Emperor
SANYA-KETSU LED US through a maze kind of like the underground castle of Dragon Heartchamber 1 on Van Diemann, except this place—the Soulchamber—had open windows looking out onto brilliant green jungle and letting in the occasional vegetation-scented breeze.
I glanced up at the yellow orb in the sky. That would be Shinotochi, the system’s only star. Kest and Rali had nerded out over it on the trip over. They’d grown up on Van Diemann, where there was a pair of day suns—one blue and one white—and a black night sun, so they were excited to visit a planet where the only light and heat came from a single yellow sun.
Warcry, on the other hand, hadn’t been impressed. He’d spent most of his life traveling around the universe to different Intergalactic Fighting Championship tournaments, so he’d seen enough variations on the solar theme that they weren’t cool to him anymore. I hadn’t said anything on the ship, but I’d gotten kind of tired of the twins’ single-sun talk, too. If you’ve seen one yellow sun, you’ve seen them all.
Now that we were on Shinotochi-Ryu, though, I was weirdly happy to see it up there, all alone. It felt homey. Whenever we passed a window as Sanya led us through the halls, I craned my neck to look out at it. Who knew you could miss your planet’s specific type of sun?
The Sown Dream cultivator stopped us at a heavy dark wood door inlaid with a small fortune’s worth of Spirit stone. The stones were glowing, which meant they were full of Spirit, maybe as a temptation to anybody dumb enough to try to absorb it on the Emperor’s turf. The inlay was in the shape of a dragon, with all eight of its legs clutching a throne.
The strongest gang in the Big Five really liked their dragon motifs.
Sanya-ketsu pressed her rubber-gloved palm to the inlaid throne.
“Enter,” a deep voice called from inside. There was a hint of accent there, but I couldn’t place it. Some kind of Russian or Eastern European.
The Sown Dream cultivator turned her flat head to stare sidelong at Warcry. He frowned, then he realized he was the closest one to the door besides her. He yanked it open and stood back so Sanya could go in, then he shrugged like whatever and gestured for the rest of us to go, too.
As I passed the Spirit stone dragon, all the Spirit in me drained away. It was similar to what the Transferogate had done when I’d been a Spirit farm for the OSS, but subtler. Less like I was having every good thing sucked out of my soul and more like I was circling a drain and couldn’t do anything to stop it. A crappy feeling, but not like I’d never felt it before, so I didn’t freak out. Rali didn’t seem affected at all, maybe because he didn’t have any Spirit to drain.
The other two were a different story.
Kest doubled over and clutched her solar plexus, baring her teeth in a silent scream. She was going to drop if I didn’t do anything, so I looped an arm around her and held her up. I wanted to tell her it would pass in a second, but she probably wouldn’t have heard me. I’d never been able to concentrate on sounds outside my head when the Transferogate was going, either.
Warcry didn’t have anyone to catch him. He stumbled into the doorframe, just barely managing to grab it before he fell.
“What’s this bollix?” he growled through gritted teeth.
“A precautionary measure,” Sanya-ketsu said. “You’ll get your Spirit back if you leave.”
Not when you leave.
Inside, the room where we met the Emperor of the Eight-Legged Dragons wasn’t anything like I’d been expecting. On the prison planet, I’d had an
