“You feel it leaving you now. It’s becoming hard to breathe, little by little it suffocates you; you feel the fire within you dying.” His voice was matter-of-fact. “Stoke the flames, Maia. Let it burn.”
I threw my bundle over my shoulder and headed for the door.
Bandur leapt to block me. “Now that you have tasted it, it will consume you faster than before. You don’t have long, Maia Tamarin. The Forgotten Isles call for you.” His paw curled over my wrist, claws sinking into my flesh. “Surely, you’ve heard the voices.”
I had.
Sentur’na, they begged me. Sentur’na, come back to us. We need you.
His claws sank deeper into my wrist. Trying not to wince from the pain, I wrenched my arm away and pulled out my dagger.
“Jinn!” I cried.
The blade shot out of its sheath, its meteorite surface glittering. Holding it high, I whirled for Bandur and stabbed at his heart—
But he dissipated into smoke, and my dagger met only air.
His laugh resonated across the walls of my chamber. “So much fight. You’ll make a fine guardian.”
“Show yourself,” I demanded. My voice shook, the dagger in my hand trembling.
Bandur reappeared in the mirror. “Hurry, Maia. Any longer, and I will send my ghosts to destroy all that you love.” He mused, “I will start with this palace.”
“Go ahead,” I snapped. “I care nothing for the emperor.”
“But what about your friends here? All these innocent lives. You already have blood on your hands, dear Maia, especially after tonight.”
I glanced down at the wound on my arm. A plume of smoke curled out from Bandur’s reflection, brushing my skin. To my horror, its touch had healed me.
“What is the shansen?” I whispered.
“He struck a deal with Gyiu’rak,” Bandur replied, “the demon of the northern forests.”
“Gyiu’rak,” I repeated. So that was the name of the shansen’s demon.
“Her power lives in him now until the bargain is complete.”
“To conquer A’landi.” I sucked in my breath. “What then?”
“Then she will claim her reward. Her blood price.”
I shuddered. “What is that?”
“Why should it matter to you?” Bandur asked, stroking my hair now. I jerked away, and he laughed. “Soon you will be bound to the Isles of Lapzur, and I will finally be free.”
“I will never go to Lapzur,” I said through my teeth.
“You know that is not true. Every night, its waters beckon you, and its ghosts call to you.”
I curled my fists. Sentur’na.
His shadow loomed over the dress of the moon, smothering its silvery light.
“Stop lying to yourself,” he said in a pitying tone. “Amana cannot save you. Soon the dresses too will be consumed by the power inside you. What a guardian you will be then, armed with the sun and the moon and the stars.”
Then, as swiftly and silently as he had arrived, he was gone.
I started out the door, refusing to be shaken by Bandur’s visit. What if he was right? Maybe I had no choice but to obey the calling. But I wouldn’t go without a fight.
Gritting my teeth, I probed the newly healed skin on my arm. So the stories about the shansen were true. He had made a bargain with a demon to conquer A’landi.
Without Edan, Emperor Khanujin would have no chance against him.
You could stay, a voice inside me nagged. You could help. You have the power of a demon stirring inside you.
It was true…if I stayed, maybe I could help. Maybe I could—
“No!” I balked. I buried the voice deep into my thoughts, knowing that behind its cloying words was the demon Maia, trying to needle her way into my mind. The more I used the dark powers stirring inside me, the faster I would turn into a monster.
Then A’landi is without hope. All that you sacrificed will be for nothing.
I clenched my fists. Edan had called me the hope of A’landi. He’d left believing I could save it.
I should have told him the truth.
I looked in the mirror. My face was pale, no color flushed my cheeks, and the warm, earthy brown that had once lit my eyes was flat and dull. “I will be of no help to A’landi if I am a demon,” I told my reflection.
My duty to the emperor was done. I could stay here no longer.
Instead, I would find a way to defeat Bandur and free myself of his curse. Even if it meant returning to the Isles of Lapzur.
First things first. I couldn’t expect to escape the palace unnoticed carrying the dress of the moon. I opened my trunk, searching for the two walnuts and the glass vial I’d used to store the sun, the moon, and the stars on my journey with Edan.
I found them wrapped in layers of silk and satin scraps and scooped them up with my palm. At my touch the walnuts and the vial trembled as if possessed, rattling onto the floor until—they snapped together.
In their place was a round walnut pendant made of glass, with a smooth crack in the center: my two walnuts and the vial forged together. It dangled from a thin chain, melded of gold and silver.
The pendant was smaller than my palm, about the same size as the amulet Emperor Khanujin wore—and Bandur, too.
Bandur’s had a crack in the center.
A shiver tingled across my skin as I slipped the chain over my head and grasped the pendant. It began to glow, and I held my breath as the dress of the moon spun and spun, its silvery ribbons whirling as the dress spiraled smaller and smaller, then disappeared into the pendant’s crack.
When the dress had fully returned inside, the pendant weighed lighter against my chest. But the absence of the other two dresses was a hollow ache. The sun and the moon and the stars yearned to be together.
The other two dresses are in Lady Sarnai’s apartments, I thought, swallowing hard. I didn’t have time to retrieve them. I needed to leave now. Too many had witnessed the power of my dress and my dagger against the shansen. If the emperor found me, he’d force me to stay at his side to defend the palace. I’d never be able to break my curse.
But deep down, I knew Bandur was right. Amana’s dresses were my lifeblood now.
I couldn’t leave without them. Without all of them.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“We heard the warning bells,” Jun said when she let me inside Lady Sarnai’s chambers. Her voice trembled. “Is…is the emperor in danger? Has the shansen attacked?”