Without warning, she lunged, attacking the soldiers nearest her. As their screams pierced the air, a plume of smoke enshrouded the tiger and she vanished.
The chanting had stopped, and the air was thick with fear and uncertainty.
No one had surrendered to the demon, yet she had triumphed. Before, the soldiers had only heard stories about her power and invincibility. They hadn’t witnessed it until now.
But Lady Sarnai has a demon, too, I thought. Me.
“How can we fight that?”
“She can’t die. What chance have we?”
“We’re doomed.”
“We still have the Lord Enchanter!” I heard Keton shout. “And—” My brother’s eyes met mine, and I shook my head.
“The enchanter did nothing while we fought for our lives at the Autumn Palace. He no longer has power.”
At my side, Edan tightened his fists.
“Show them,” I urged him. “Show them they’re wrong.”
“It is not my magic that will save us,” he replied. “It’s yours.”
Much as I wanted to deny it, I knew he was right. I can’t hide forever. Not if I want to save A’landi.
Flicking off my gloves, I stepped into the middle of the camp and raised my claws. The wind swallowed the gasps that followed.
“Many of you have wondered about my eyes, why they glow red as a demon’s. And my hands.” I raised them, extending my claws. “They are part of the price I paid to make the dresses of Amana.”
Keton stood at the front of the soldiers, a mass of hundreds, all waiting to hear what I was going to say next. I inhaled, avoiding my brother’s gaze.
“I am a demon.” I let the words ring in the air, taking care to look as many men and women in the eye as I could. To show them, in whatever way that I could, that I was still Maia. That I would not harm them.
I swallowed, taking in the fear in everyone’s eyes, the curled lips and tense jaws. Edan touched my elbow, nudging me onward.
“In our legends,” I continued, “the first demons were created by the gods themselves, gods who grew restless in heaven and wanted an immortal race to do their bidding. So they soldered parts of men and beasts together to create a new kind of creature. When the mother goddess learned of them, she sent her children—the stars—to chase the demons from heaven onto earth. Since then, the stars have stood guard over the demons to make sure they never return to heaven.”
I held out my amulet. “Demons and ghosts are vulnerable to the power of the stars, which I will harness to keep A’landi safe. To keep all of us safe.”
Cracking open my amulet, I released a beam of starlight, silver and gold, and dazzling with all the colors of the heavens. It was not a true show of my power, merely a gesture to ease their fear, but it worked. Heads lifted, eyes glimmered. Threads of hope wove through the crowd.
“It isn’t my magic that will save us from Gyiu’rak!” Edan shouted to the crowds. “It is Maia Tamarin’s!”
“I will fight Gyiu’rak,” I pledged, “and Lady Sarnai will defeat her father. But the shansen’s army is strong. We need all of you to help us, so we can win back A’landi’s future.”
At that, murmurs of agreement swelled across the camp, and I stepped to the side as Lady Sarnai came forward to rally the soldiers.
I would do my part. I only prayed I would not let them down.
* * *
• • •
Baba sat on a log, huddled beside a small fire over which a brass kettle hung, rubbing his hands together for warmth. Despite his recent captivity with the shansen, he looked sturdier than he had in years. Over the past few days, I’d heard him laugh with Ammi and some of the older men and women at camp. I’d even seen him attempt to help with the mending.
Yet whenever he saw me, his good spirits faded.
I lifted the kettle and poured hot water into the wooden cup at Baba’s side. If he’d heard my confession, he said nothing about it.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see snow again,” he murmured, sifting it through his fingers. “Did you know I grew up near Jappor? I was a lazy boy, didn’t want to learn my father’s craft—or any other, for that matter. One year, there was a terrible blizzard in the middle of autumn. No one expected it, so we were unprepared. It lasted days, and since there was no business to be had during a storm, we ran out of both food and money.”
He regarded me. “Since I was the oldest son, my father sent me into town to beg. I trudged from house to house through the snow, which was waist-high, offering to mend torn sleeves and patch up pants in exchange for rice. Just as you did in Port Kamalan when times were hard for us. That was when I discovered I loved my needle and thread, as my father did and his father before him.” He touched my gloved hands. “As you do.”
“Did you know the scissors had magic?” I asked, after a pause.
Baba inhaled the steam from his cup before sipping. “I suspected. My mother never spoke of them. She was a talented tailor herself, like your grandfather. But she stopped sewing when I was very young. She gave me the scissors when I moved to Gangsun with your mother and instructed me to take care of them. I think she knew they wouldn’t speak to me. I take it they spoke to you.”
“They did,” I replied. “But I’ve lost them. I had to give them up.”
Baba could tell there was more to the story than I was telling him. “You’ve gotten so pale, Maia. I worry about you.”
“I was sick for a while,” I said. It wasn’t a lie, not entirely.
“The enchanter…he took care of you?”
“He did his best. I wish you would give him a chance.”
Baba sighed. “I want to, but then I ask myself—where was he when the shansen attacked the Autumn Palace? How can he say he loves you when he abandoned you to the mercy of demons and the enemy’s soldiers?”
“Is that what bothers you, Baba? That you think he left me to die?”
From his silence, I knew it was. “Maia, I want what is best for you. A man of magic is not—”
“Edan left because I lied to him,” I interrupted. “I didn’t tell him what I’d become. Just as I’ve been avoiding telling you. If there’s anyone you should distrust, it should be me.”
Baba stared at me, stricken. The color drained from his face. “Now is not the time for stories, Maia. This is unlike you.”
“You know it is the truth. Baba, you’ve noticed the changes….”
“I noticed when you came home,” he said quietly. “As if all the light from your eyes had vanished forever.” He stopped. “I blamed the enchanter for your unhappiness.”
What could I say to comfort him?
“They aren’t rumors,” I whispered. “It was my choice.”
“Your choice? First your mother, then two sons,” Baba choked. “A father shouldn’t have to bury his children, Maia.”
My throat burned with sorrow. I wished I could cry with him, but no tears would come. The brisk air fogged at my lips, a tendril of steam twisting from my breath.
“I’m sorry, Baba,” I said. “If I don’t return, be good to Edan. Keton could use another brother, and Edan…he has no one in this world.”
Baba’s eyes clouded with the tears he’d been trying to hold back. “You love him,” he said. “He is the one your mother spoke of, then. The one you are tied to, from this life to the next.”
“Yes.”
Snow began to fall, and I held out my hand, watching the flakes melt as soon as they touched my palm. Below, the fire smoldered, its sizzling the only sound aside from birds. The embers at my feet blinked like dying stars.
“Then let your heart be at peace,” Baba said at last. “No matter what you become, you are always my Maia. Always my strong one.”
Something in me lifted, knowing my father understood. “Thank you, Baba. Thank you.”
> CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The shansen’s horn blared from the other side of the Jingan River. Three calls, each deafening enough to unsettle the snow from our helmets.
An invitation to battle.
I stared fixedly ahead, ignoring my reflection in a soldier’s shield as I rode alongside Edan, behind Lady Sarnai and Lord Xina. We’d left Baba behind in the camp this morning, but I’d chosen not to say goodbye.
It was for the best. I’d woken up different today. Overnight, my black hair had deepened into the darkest shade of gold, my eyes burned red as molten fire, and my nose had sharpened to a point as fine as an arrowhead.
I hadn’t greeted Edan when he came to me. I had recognized his tall frame, the square edges of his jaw, the slant of his shoulders. But I didn’t know why I recognized him. Why I loved him.
A bridge divided our army from the shansen’s, ten soldiers wide. Engraved on a stone pillar at its base was a greeting from A’landi’s first emperor, welcoming all to the capital, Jappor, where the Great Spice Road began and ended, where fortunes and misfortunes were made and reversed. I wondered if the first emperor had ever imagined that this bridge, the only way into Jappor, would also become the doorway to war.
Plum trees edged the capital’s walls, pale pink buds drooping from snow-covered branches. Untouched by war for centuries, Jappor was considered one of the most beautiful cities in the world. But now that the shansen had conquered it, I doubted it was so beautiful anymore.
Beyond Jappor loomed the Spring Palace, its sea-green roofs so tall they pierced the clouds. There was no sign of mourning for Emperor Khanujin—only the shansen’s banners draped from every roof, bursts of violent green that slithered down the walls.
His army awaited us across the river.
“This is what we are fighting for,” Lady Sarnai was saying. I’d missed most of her speech to rouse the soldiers, but when she spoke my name, I snapped to attention.
“—Tamarin will wear a legend we all know, the gown painted with the blood of stars.”
I touched my amulet, summoning the last dress of Amana. It spun over my shoulders to my ankles with the splendor of a midnight tempest. The brilliance of the stars weighed little, the never-ending folds of night swirling like clouds around me.
Gasps of wonder echoed behind me, but I kept my eyes on Edan. Out of all the crowd, he was the only one looking at me, not my dress.
At Lady Sarnai’s signal, we galloped onto the bridge. A storm of footsteps thundered past me, swordsmen rushing for the shansen’s men, and I glanced back, just once, to see Keton among the archers. His bow slung over his shoulder, he was helping a fellow soldier lift a hand cannon, trying to find an ideal place to fire it at the shansen’s army.
They didn’t get the chance.
Twenty paces on, a cold mist shivered up from the raging river below, suddenly thickening into an impenetrable fog.
Through the haze, I saw him.
The shansen stood alone, no army behind him. He carried only a broad sword, sheathed at his side. He bowed slowly, his fur-lined cloak billowing behind him. Over his uniform, he wore golden armor, the head of a tiger blazing in the center of his torso.
Something wasn’t right. Why weren’t the shansen’s soldiers on the bridge with him?
“Edan,” I murmured, pointing at the warlord.
“Draw back!” he shouted to Lady Sarnai. “It’s—”
Too late.
The shansen hadn’t come alone. Hundreds of ghosts accompanied him. They emerged out of the mist, dead flesh hanging off their exposed bones, and what little skin they had was milk-white like the snow, their eyes black as onyx.
“We push forward!” Lady Sarnai shouted, charging toward her father.
Ghosts surrounded her and Lord Xina, closing her off from the shansen. Our soldiers panicked, forgetting Edan’s training as the ghosts blocked escape in every direction.
Sentur’na. You know you cannot win. Join us.
I ignored the ghosts and turned back to our soldiers. “Remember what Edan told you!” I shouted. “Don’t listen to them! Brace your minds against whatever they say—it isn’t real!”
Edan sent a flare of fire through the fog, lifting it momentarily and sending the ghosts staggering back. But one by one, the soldiers froze, arms hovering in the air with weapons raised.
They’re listening to the ghosts, I realized with a sinking heart. Lady Sarnai’s army would be decimated without a single casualty on the shansen’s side.
I gripped the folds of my skirts, willing the power of my dress to turn the ghosts away, but nothing happened. Why couldn’t I summon its magic?
Because Amana rejects the darkness in you, my demon voice replied. You are too far gone, Sentur’na. But all is not lost. You’ve other magic in you powerful enough to wield the dress.
Yes, use the thirst inside you—the anger and hatred for the shansen—to call upon the blood of stars. Amana’s magic and our own should not be at odds with each other. Unite them, and you will be a demon far more powerful than Gyiu’rak—
“Enough!” I pushed the voice away and glided into the fight.
The ghosts turned on me, their thin fingers latching on to my limbs and my dress.
I yanked it from them, my anger sparking the blood of stars alive. Veins of hot, shimmering crimson snaked across the skirts, a pattern I had never seen before.
Remembering my demon’s words, I snuffed my anger immediately. There had to be another way. If this dress was my heart, surely it could sense my need.
But no. When the spark from my anger died, the dress did not come to life. The fabric remained dull as ink. As dark as death.
I saw Edan attacking the ghosts with his dagger. Lady Sarnai and Lord Xina focused on the shansen. But every arrow fired at him rebounded, every spear thrown barely nicked his armor.
“Give this up!” the shansen shouted. “You cannot win, Sarnai. Surrender, and I will spare your pitiful army.”
I could not hear Lady Sarnai’s reply.
What could I do? I was not the guardian of Lapzur. I couldn’t call upon its ghosts to aid me. And yet, Gyiu’rak’s ghosts had to have come from somewhere, from the shansen’s fallen soldiers. Perhaps I could call upon the ghosts of people I’d known and loved. Their spirits.
My heart swelled in my throat. “Help us,” I whispered, silently wishing for anyone who would listen.
Over and over I reached out, until pain needled my eyes and hot tears streamed down my cheeks.
Then—two familiar figures loomed from the darkness.
My brothers. Finlei and Sendo. They looked older than when I’d seen them last. There was a crooked scar across Finlei’s left eye and cheek that I’d never seen before, and Sendo’s freckles stood out in stark relief, the once boyish curves of his face hardened by hunger and war.
My lips parted, but my oldest brother had anticipated my question.
“This isn’t a trick,” said Finlei. “We’re here. You called for us.”
I turned to Sendo. My second brother, my best friend.
“We’ve brought help,” he spoke. “Soldiers who fell with us during the Five Winters’ War. We won’t be able to stay long, but we can fend off Gyiu’rak’s army.”
“How?” I breathed. “How are you here?”
Before they could reply, a scream pierced my ears, so thick and full of grief that I reeled to see where it had come from.
Lady Sarnai?
I’d never seen such terror on her face. Such anguish. She swept through the crush of soldiers and ghosts with broad, wild strokes of her sword—like a brush wielded by a storm. But she was too late.
Lord Xina had fallen.
The shansen rammed his blade deeper into the warrior’s ribs, holding him by the shoulder. When he saw his daughter storming toward him, panic and anger rio
ting on her face, he smirked.
Then he yanked out the sword, wiped the blade on Lord Xina’s cloak, and kicked him to the side.
Arrows snapped from Lady Sarnai’s bow. They did nothing to the shansen, which only fueled her rage. She barreled toward her father, drawing her sword and raising it high above her head.
“Sarnai, stop!” I cried.
If she heard me, she did not listen. She was no match for her father, not while he wielded Gyiu’rak’s power. Only she was too blind with rage to see it, to care.
I hurled myself after her, knocking her off course.
Angrily, the shansen lunged for me. I grabbed Sarnai’s sword from her hands and blocked him, but he was strong. He shoved me away, then signaled a legion of ghosts to surround his daughter.
Ghosts besieged me, too. Hundreds of them, scrabbling at my flesh and trying to block me from Lady Sarnai. My amulet growing warm on my chest, I swung her sword at them, trying to fight my way back to the shansen.
Sarnai was already up, but her weapons were useless against the ghosts. By the shansen’s command, they advanced on her slowly, one torturous step at a time, until they had her cornered.
“You were always my favorite child, Sarnai,” I heard the shansen tell her. “A pity you chose the wrong side.”
She glared at him, backing up toward the edge of the bridge.
“The ghosts will devour you soon. It won’t hurt. Then you’ll return to my side, where you belong. Daughter.”
“You stopped being my father the day you sold your will to Gyiu’rak,” she seethed. Then, before the ghosts could touch her, she threw herself off the bridge.
I lurched for the rails, but I needn’t have worried. Not even the mighty Jingan River could swallow the Jewel of the North, and Sarnai burst from its waters, cutting across the tides.
The shansen roared for his ghosts to follow her, but I’d had enough. I dropped Lady Sarnai’s sword and bunched up my skirts, ignoring the whiplash of ghosts striking at my arms and back.
I let the ghosts overwhelm me, let their whispers and taunts grow and grow in my head, threatening to undo me with hopelessness. I gathered my fear and anger, letting it grow inside me in a storm—
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