“I’m not your family,” I said. “I’m not anyone’s family.”
“Maia—” He tried to wrap his arms around me, but I threw him off, and he slammed back hard into the sand.
He got up. Spread his arms out in entreaty. “Please.”
“Don’t touch me,” I warned him. My control was slipping, and I spun away. I couldn’t—
“Maia…”
As I heard him say that name again, my eyes grew so hot the ocean blurred into the sky, and a rush of fire surged through my veins. I turned on him, but my mind was not my own. My body was not my own. Everything happened too fast. One moment, I felt the wind lashing at my face, the next, I saw my claws extended, razor-sharp nails pointed at Edan’s heart.
Blood trickled down his cheek.
I stepped back in shock. I didn’t mean to, I wanted to say, but Edan already had his dagger raised at me.
Seeing it made me balk. I could almost feel pangs of the meteorite’s searing heat radiating off its blade, and I waited, my breath tight, for Edan to utter his name “Jinn” and activate its power.
But he didn’t. He didn’t have to. The message was clear. The sorrow in his eyes was clear.
He lowered the dagger slowly. With every inch that it fell, my heart sank.
“I love you, Maia. Come back.”
My fury vanished, leaving me hollow. Broken.
This was the boy who’d given himself up to a demon for me. The boy I’d given up the sun and moon and stars to be with.
The boy I loved.
I wanted to burrow myself into the earth and stay rooted there, where I would hurt no one, and no one could hurt me.
Edan dropped the dagger. It landed on the dirt with a thump, the meteorite side of the blade still glimmering. The world came into stark focus, and yet everything was spinning, spinning and unraveling. I couldn’t keep up.
“I’m sorry,” he said, uttering the words I should have spoken. “I shouldn’t have—”
I couldn’t listen. I couldn’t bear the pity, couldn’t bear to see the emotions warring on his face. I turned and ran. Even as Edan’s voice calling “Maia!” faded into oblivion, I didn’t stop.
The name meant nothing to me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Trees blurred into rushes of color as I fled through the forest, half running and half flying. Ribbons of smoke curled after me, and my feet were barely touching the ground.
I was moving like a demon.
How could Edan think there was any chance for us when I had almost killed him? How foolish I’d been to hope that by freeing myself from Bandur everything might return to the way it had been before.
Maybe I should go far away—where I wouldn’t be a danger to anyone but myself.
I slowed, coming back to earth. Foxes and squirrels scattered, making for the bushes and the trees, but the birds did not flee. At least they weren’t afraid of me.
My claws snagged against my sleeves, and I ripped away the excess fabric. Sparks flicked from my nails, like flashes of the fireworks I’d seen dancing above the Autumn Palace.
Where could I go, looking like this? Not Port Kamalan.
Yet it was the only place I wished to go. I hadn’t been brave enough to say goodbye to Baba and Keton last time, and now I regretted it more than anything.
No, I had other regrets too. Fresh ones.
“You are my family and my home,” Edan had said.
“And you are mine,” I should have told him. I said it now, and I curled my arms around my chest, hugging the ache inside me. The pain was like a knot holding me together, one I did not dare undo.
Didn’t Edan see? He was why I needed to stay, why I needed to fight for the emperor. There would be no home for Baba, Keton, and him—no home for any of us—if Gyiu’rak and the shansen conquered A’landi.
My amulet grazed my knuckles, the walnut ridges sharper than I remembered. I clasped it, feeling Amana’s power recoiling from the demon I was becoming. My dresses had been stronger when they were three; I had been stronger, too. But for all the tremendous power they held, they could not free me from Bandur’s curse. They were doomed along with me.
And with only two left, I didn’t have much time.
Edan was still far behind me. I’d wait for him, apologize, and we’d go to the Winter Palace together. Then, if the gods favored us and we won against the shansen, I would go home to Baba and Keton one last time.
Are you even sure your father and brother are still safe in Port Kamalan? a dark voice rippled inside me.
I stilled. For the first time, I didn’t tell her to go away. What do you know?
Perhaps it is the shansen you should fight for, if you wish your family to be safe.
My eyes began to burn, so hot that I cried out in pain. All of me convulsed, and I curled against an oak tree, tendrils of bright fiery smoke unfurling from my skin.
My demon sight took me far from the forest, to an army of thousands, all sitting erect in their saddles, weapons raised, emerald banners of a tiger sailing in the wind. Ahead was the Winter Palace, but the army had stopped just before the Jingan River. Something momentous was about to happen.
At the helm of the army rode the shansen, with Gyiu’rak beside him.
Her ruby eyes burned fiercely, and when my gaze found her she lifted her head, her whiskers perking up—as if she felt my presence.
Her mouth curved into a lethal smile. “Sister…you’re here. Just in time.”
I stiffened in shock. Why had my sight brought me here—where were Baba and Keton?
The deafening blare of a horn knifed the air, and I noticed the blackened sky, the burned structures and smoldering wreckage beyond the river. The destruction stretched on and on, an unending shroud of charred temples, houses, and trees. Fury choked me, yet I could not look away. The demon inside me was drawn to the destruction as much as I was repulsed by it.
“Demons near and far,” boomed the shansen, his voice speaking in unison with Gyiu’rak’s, “I summon you from the dark recesses of this world.”
I summon you.
The power of his words slammed into me, pulling me into a tide of darkness. I clutched at my head, unsure of what was happening.
“I have paid my blood price and bound Gyiu’rak to me,” the shansen continued. “Hear me and aid me. I will conquer A’landi and bring you back in glory.”
I summon you. Hear me and come to my aid.
The earth rumbled, my vision going in and out as the shansen and Gyiu’rak repeated their call. I tried to fight the summons, but my blood was blazing to answer, and my limbs began to fracture into smoke. My amulet glowed, and the power of my dresses held me in place, but I feared it would not be enough.