I leapt into the air toward the palace. My cloak billowed behind me, and flames scorched my shoes, the wind dangerously fanning the sparks that danced at my soles.
I was not so practiced at moving like a demon that I actually flew; it was more like taking giant leaps. Still, as I swam through the sky among the birds, I almost felt like one myself. And, not for the first time, I wondered what shape I would take when I finally succumbed to Bandur’s curse.
“A demon!” exclaimed the shansen’s guards once we approached the palace. “And the enchanter!”
Arrows rained upon us, faster than birds—like tiny daggers cutting the sky and making the air sing. I panicked. My feet stuttered in midair, struggling to get us higher.
“Keep flying, xitara,” said Edan. “I’ll take care of the arrows.”
The next attack came, and he raised his staff, muttering something under his breath. The arrows bounced off an invisible shield.
“Ah, so his magic has not left him entirely,” I heard the shansen remark.
I should not have heard him, not over the crackle of the fire devouring the Winter Palace, or the howl of the winter wind.
But my demon ears were sharp, my demon eyes even sharper.
Whatever injuries had ailed the shansen after the battle in the Autumn Palace had long since healed. He continued, “But the Edan I knew would have sent those arrows flying back at my men, multiplied tenfold and with their wings aflame.” He turned to his men. “Call off the attack. Let them come. I want to have a word with Khanujin’s demon.”
No more arrows flew, and I cleared the gate in a rush of smoke.
I looked down at the shansen’s soldiers. At their helm rode the shansen’s sons—their dark eyes devoid of mercy, and their mouths wearing variations on their father’s cruel sneer. The eldest carried Sarnai’s ash bow, and I wondered what it had been like for her to grow up among them. They reminded me nothing of my own brothers.
Behind them rode the shansen’s generals and his Balardan mercenaries. The waiting soldiers had their swords drawn and arrows nocked. Did they expect me to surrender?
My mouth set with irritation. I could burn their weapons to ashes with a thought!
I landed on the stone floor of the palace courtyard with a thud so resounding the shansen’s soldiers staggered back. They parted ranks, and the shansen came forward to greet me.
“Have you come to beg for your emperor’s life, Maia Tamarin?” he rumbled. “He has been waiting anxiously for you to return.”
So, he was still alive.
I raised my chin. “Where are my father and brother?”
“Gyiu’rak tells me you were able to refuse our summons,” said the shansen, ignoring my question. I wondered if he knew that I’d thwarted Gyiu’rak’s attempt entirely, preventing all demons from coming to his aid. His demon was nowhere in sight.
“Impressive. I had hoped you might join us. That invitation still stands. Accept it, and I will reunite you with your family.”
His cordial tone unnerved me. At the wedding, he had been gruff and unpleasant. But now he was trying to win me over. That meant he viewed me as a threat.
I was. I could pierce his chest with my claws and spill his blood upon the ash-covered ground—before a single one of his guards could react.
If it weren’t for Baba and Keton, I might have done it.
“Enchanter,” the shansen continued. He affected a small bow. “I must thank you for breaking your oath. I could not have accomplished any of this if you had been by Khanujin’s side.”
Edan’s breathing stilled, but he said nothing.
“History will record that the Five Winters’ War was fought between me and Emperor Khanujin,” continued the warlord, “but this is a lie. The war was between me—and you, enchanter. A pity your magic is so weak now.”
“I want to see my father and brother,” I snapped.
“You’ll see them soon enough.” The shansen turned. “You have arrived in time for the passing of thrones.”
He signaled to his three sons, who promptly disappeared into a chamber behind the courtyard. When they returned, they dragged forth a cowering figure.
I hardly recognized the emperor. No headdress, no armor—the cloak I’d sewn for him was torn and tattered. His black hair was a tangled mass, and he looked like he hadn’t washed in days. Rope bound his wrists and ankles, and he was gagged with one of the shansen’s banners, a pop of bright green.
A chill crawled up my spine as realization dawned. The army would not have abandoned Khanujin here. Not unless—
No. I spun, taking in the palace’s ashen remains. The air was too still, too quiet.
And in that moment, I knew what had happened to Khanujin’s army: it had been destroyed—by Gyiu’rak’s ghosts.
What price must the shansen have paid for such power?
“Let him go,” said Edan, breaking from my side, his shadow tall and commanding.
“The Lord Enchanter speaks,” mocked the shansen. “Curious, Edan, that you continue to serve Khanujin even after your oath has been broken. Even more curious, that you should arrive with the imperial tailor. I never took you for an ally of demons.”
“She is not a demon.”
“Not yet,” spoke a new voice.
In a tempest of pale glittering smoke, Gyiu’rak materialized from the shansen’s amulet and took her place beside him, shifting into human form. Her white hair, striped with black, was knotted up like a court lady’s.
“Sentur’na,” she greeted, baring her teeth as she spoke my demon name. A wicked smile curved her mouth as she regarded Edan. “Jinn.”
At the title, Edan stiffened.
“You have arrived in time for the end of the Ujin dynasty.”
Khanujin’s eyes bulged at the sight of the shansen’s demon. He twisted his hands, trying to free them from the ropes.
“Enough,” said Edan. “You’ve captured the emperor and claimed your victory. Let him go. You dishonor your legacy by killing him.”
“Dishonor?” the warlord snarled. “You think Khanujin would spare me if our roles were reversed? No. He will be sacrificed to my demon. His blood is the price I pay for a new A’landi.”
“I will pay it,” I spoke up impulsively. “Let the emperor go.”
“You?” Gyiu’rak rasped. “A demon cannot pay my blood price. But your father and your brother…”
With a hiss I’d never heard myself make, I lunged to attack her, but Edan held me back. His eyes beseeched me not to do anything rash.
Gyiu’rak laughed. “Very well, then,” she said. And in a movement so quick it was but a whirl of color, she sliced her nails across the emperor’s pale throat.
Blood welled out, as bright as the rubies dangling from his wrists.
The violence of it—the suddenness—shocked me. The air froze in my lungs, my body growing taut as a string.
Then, snap.
Khanujin crumpled. Edan caught him, laying him gently on the ground.
I knelt by his side. My ruler’s lips were gray like the ash that had showered his skin. I swept it off his face and held his hand. I had no love for him; nothing I said would comfort him. And yet, for this moment, I wished I could do something to ease his passing.
His cheeks puffed with one last breath, and his eyes went hollow. He was the last of his dynasty, and with him passed the end of an era. He had been selfish and ruthless, but in a way, I understood. He had even been cruel, but when it came to his country and his people, he hadn’t been devoid of heart. Not like I knew the shansen would be.
When Khanujin’s father had died, the entire country had spent a hundred days mourning him. Every shop and home had covered its windows with ivory sheets to honor Emperor Tainujin’s death, and I had tied a white band around my sleeve as a little girl.
Khanujin would have no such honor.
The shansen’s men hoisted the warlord’s banner. “Long live the emperor,” they chanted. “May he live ten thousand years!”
To my surprise, the shansen did not puff up his chest with pride, nor did he spit on the emperor’s corpse, as I half expected him to do. Instead, while his soldiers celebrated his victory, the shansen circled me, his boots leaving indents in the dirt behind him.
Crimson veins glittered across the warlord’s amulet. I wondered how much blood he had promised Gyiu’rak in exchange for her magic.
“For one so devoted to her country, you do not seem to understand that A’landi’s future lies with me. I extend my invitation to you one last time, Maia Tamarin. Accept, and I will spare your family. Refuse, and they will die.”
The ultimatum resounded in my ears.
I did not succumb, but neither did I resist. “Where are they?”
The shansen tilted his head, and my father and brother were brought to the square.
I watched apprehensively. At first glance, I wasn’t sure it was them. All I saw were two men, one younger and one older, chained together, rice sacks over their heads.
“You don’t know them,” observed Gyiu’rak, the words cutting me like a knife. “You’ve already forgotten.”
Anguish gnawed at my heart. I shouldn’t have needed to see my father’s and brother’s faces to recognize them, but she was right. I did not know them.
A guard struck the back of Baba’s legs, and he cried out in pain.
“Do you recognize his scream, Sentur’na?” Gyiu’rak taunted.
I recoiled. I did not know the sound of Baba’s scream because I’d never heard it until now.
But I did know the sound of his voice. “Keton,” he uttered weakly when my brother tried to defend him. Snow-covered boots pinned my father and brother to the ground, and I heard Baba whisper, “Don’t fight.”
Slowly, the memory of Baba came back to me. Even now, under these terrible circumstances, he was calm. He was tender. At last I recognized the slight bend in his frail back, the defined knuckles on his hands—hands that had spent years teaching my own how to sew.
I recognized my brother, too. The way his heels rocked back and forth when he limped forward, the uneven cut of his pants—hemmed awkwardly by himself while he wore them—the elbows that jutted out whenever he was frightened or on edge.
I faced the shansen. “Free my father and my brother.”
Gyiu’rak snorted. “Or else?”
“Or else I’ll kill you,” I said coldly.
Gyiu’rak’s eyes flickered with amusement. Sharp tiger fangs protruded over her bottom lip, and as she stalked toward me, I could see the muscles swelling across her arms and legs. She made a point of dwarfing me. “I’d like to see you make good on that threat.”
“Don’t,” Edan said, touching my arm. “If you go down this path…”
He didn’t need to finish his warning. I knew what he meant. If I let Gyiu’rak goad me, I’d be surrendering to my demon’s desire for vengeance.
I would become like Gyiu’rak.
But how I wanted vengeance.
I whirled toward the shansen, ignoring Gyiu’rak. “Let them go.”
“You try my patience, tailor,” he replied. “I gave you a chance to join us. You were unwise to dismiss it.” He inclined his chin at Gyiu’rak, whose eyes had darkened with bloodlust. “Kill them.”
My heart shot up to my throat, and I choked back a cry, lunging for Gyiu’rak before she could get to Baba and Keton. She blocked me easily with her arm and threw me aside.
I’d never been hit by such strength before, not even from Bandur. All of me folded, nerves wincing from the blow. My knees wouldn’t unbuckle, and she laughed as I struggled to pick myself up.
“Pitiful,” she rasped. “Worry not. I’ll make their deaths quick.”
I closed my eyes, conjuring the image of Emperor Khanujin’s death—the gash Gyiu’rak had drawn across his throat, so swiftly he had not realized what had happened until the broken seam on his neck began to spill blood, draining the color from his face and the life from his body.
I wouldn’t let that happen to Baba and Keton.
Pushing up, I threw myself on the demon, grappling her from behind and wrapping my arms around her neck.
She swerved and twisted, springing into the air to fling me off. I held on tight, digging my nails into her neck and chest. Her flesh was cold, her bones hard as iron. I couldn’t tell if my attacks were having any effect.
When we landed, she rushed into the fire that still blazed in the center of the square, with me hanging on tightly. Over and over, she charged into the flames, trying to drown me in their heat, but I felt nothing. The fire tickled my skin and singed the tunic on my back, but it did little else to me.
I couldn’t say the same for Gyiu’rak. The flames scorched her human skin. I could see the pain register on her face, the way she clamped her mouth tight, her lips pressing against her fangs. Were other demons vulnerable to fire? The realization stunned me; Bandur had often traveled to me through flames, but never in his human form.
Once she realized that her effort had been in vain, she bared her teeth. “Maybe you are more advanced than I thought, changeling.”
She slammed onto her back, forcing me to leap off before she crushed me. I fell hard on my side, my ribs giving under my weight. Gyiu’rak pounced for me, and I rolled away toward the fire, grabbed one of the logs crackling within, and swung it at her face.
Sparks from the sizzling wood spat into her eyes, and she let out a tiger’s roar, her arms shooting out in another attack. I ducked, then pushed her into the fire.
An arc of silvery blue swept past me. Edan, wielding the meteorite dagger. He barreled toward the fire and plunged the blade into the demon’s chest.
Gyiu’rak screamed, her body spasming with pain. In a storm of smoke, she vanished, swirling back inside the shansen’s amulet.
The fight wasn’t over. Hundreds of soldiers surrounded us. Grimly, I turned to face them. Edan and I had no chance of defeating them all, but I would do what I had to—to free Baba and Keton.
“Kill the prisoners!” the shansen shouted at his sons.
Bows lifted, arrows pointed at my father and brother. Terror seized me, and I leapt to shield them.
Then a familiar scarlet arrow struck one of the shansen’s sons neatly in the heel of his hand. Another arrow, then another, until all three sons collapsed, gravely injured.
Could it be? I craned my neck, searching for Sarnai.
Horses pounded through the gates, bursting past the flames, their hooves kicking up embers and ashes. More scarlet arrows flew, and I heard shrieks and cries, the last sounds of soldiers before they fell.
With the shansen’s men distracted, I hurried Baba and Keton to a corner away from the fray.
I tugged at the rice sacks covering my father’s and brother’s faces, but at the last moment, I decided not to lift them. I didn’t want them to see me like this, more demon than girl.
“Stay here,” I said, touching Keton’s shoulder, then Baba’s. “You’ll be safe here.”
“Maia?” Baba said. “Is that you?”
I bit my lip so I wouldn’t reply. Hearing him call my name brought the ghost of a pang to my heart. Just enough to make it ache for an instant, then the feeling was gone.
I returned to the battle to find Lady Sarnai and Lord Xina flanked by a small battalion of warriors.
I’d never seen Lady Sarnai in combat. She was faster than any man and just as strong. None of the shansen’s soldiers could match her skill with a bow; she shot a dozen men, clearing a path for Lord Xina to attack her father.
But the shansen, imbued with a demon’s strength, easily overpowered the man who’d once been his favored warrior. He sna
pped Xina’s spear in half, flung him at one of the fortress walls, and let out a triumphant roar, more tiger than man.
My eyes tracked the amulet swinging over his armored torso. The obsidian gleamed with Gyiu’rak’s magic, and I feared I knew what was coming next.
The shansen spun to face his daughter, who was advancing on him with her bow raised.
Dropping Lord Xina’s broken spear, he opened his arms as if to welcome her attack. He waited until she was twenty paces away before he touched his amulet—and then, melding with Gyiu’rak, he transformed into a tiger, white fur bristling over his human skin.
I’d seen the warlord transform before, but Lady Sarnai had not. She yanked back on the reins and folded her body forward, shoulders curling in to brace for her father’s attack.
I had to do something! But I was across the battlefield, too far to help.
With dizzying speed, the tiger tackled her. Her horse shrieked, and Lady Sarnai toppled from her saddle, disappearing from view. Most warriors would have died instantly, and at first, I feared Sarnai had. Then she surfaced, wrestling the tiger with her bare hands.
The shansen raised his claws to her throat.
Stop! I shouted into his thoughts. She’s your daughter. You taught her to fight like this.
A flicker of hesitation glimmered on his brow. He growled, but he was listening.
Your demon has warped your thoughts. Don’t let her murder your daughter.
While I spoke to the shansen, Lady Sarnai struggled to inch away from his claws and regain her footing.
Kill her! Gyiu’rak screamed from the shansen’s amulet. The demon’s shouts overpowered mine, and the hesitation on the shansen’s brow vanished. Kill her.
The shansen’s claws hovered in the air. My stomach twisted with cold fear. I was sure that by the next beat of my heart Lady Sarnai would be dead. Down his paw came, but his daughter rolled away, and Lord Xina charged. The warrior drove his broken spear into the shansen’s side.
The tiger roared with pain, writhing and twisting. Lady Sarnai raised her sword. Unlike her father, she did not hesitate. But it was too late. The shansen leapt over the fire and disappeared.
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