Another call from the shansen drew a scream from my lips. I summon you.
Like an invisible dagger, the words stabbed my chest, and I doubled over. I dug my nails into the dirt, to keep my flesh from scattering into smoke and shadow.
Come, Maia, beckoned Gyiu’rak, her blood-red eyes glittering in the smoke swirling around me. We have your father and your brother. They’re waiting for you.
I went still. My father and brother?
My sight burned, and I saw Baba and Keton, chained together, a pine board loaded over their shoulders. Keton struggled to march fast enough, and Baba could hardly bear the weight of his shackles. The walls I’d built around my heart crumbled when I saw them shuffle forward together as the soldiers bellowed for them to move faster.
“Can’t you see he’s an old man?” Keton yelled. “Let him go.”
A soldier beat my brother’s shoulders with a thick lash. “Another word, boy, and those broken legs are what I’ll thrash next.”
Keton collapsed, but as Baba helped him up, my brother’s eyes shone with defiance.
“Don’t,” Baba warned.
“Does the shansen not have enough men that he has to abduct them from the emperor?” Keton said, his lip bleeding from the blow.
The soldier sneered at him. “Fool, they don’t want you two for soldiers.”
My brother’s brow furrowed. “Then?”
“You’ll find out. Once we reach the Winter Palace.” The lash cracked the air again. “Now walk!”
I blinked away the vision, my eyes stinging as if I’d rubbed them with salt. As everything came back into focus—my sight, my hearing—my heart sank. I knew what I’d seen just now hadn’t been a dream.
The shansen had my family. Baba and Keton…they didn’t even know why they’d been taken.
Answer the call, Maia, Gyiu’rak rumbled, or your family will pay.
What could I do?
If I went, I’d make the shansen stronger; I would become part of his demon army.
But if A’landi fell, Baba and Keton would die anyway.
My thoughts raced. Last I had faced Gyiu’rak, I’d sacrificed the dress of the sun to defeat her.
I clutched my amulet. “Those three dresses are your body, your mind, your heart,” Master Tsring had said. What would it mean for me to lose my mind?
I knew what Edan would say. He’d tell me that the dress of the moon was too great a sacrifice to make.
But the shansen wasn’t only summoning me. If I had trouble resisting his promises of death and ruin, then who knew how many legions of demons and ghosts would gleefully come to his aid? Such an army would decimate the emperor’s forces.
I had no choice.
Still gripping my amulet, I sprang up. Smoke bled from my fingertips, and every second I resisted the summons made my insides scream with agony. But I needed the dagger.
I didn’t need to search far. Edan had nearly caught up; he was panting, his cheeks flushed from racing after me. When he saw me, he shouted, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I was somewhere else, stuck halfway between the real world and the darkness of the shansen’s summons.
He was a mere hundred paces from me, but I couldn’t wait.
I let go of my amulet and stretched out my hand to him. The smoke from my fingers traveled quickly, thickening until they curled around the dagger on his belt. And in a snap, the weapon flew to my grasp.
“Jinn,” I breathed. The dagger slid out of its sheath, and the meteorite sizzled alive, its power against me so strong that I nearly dropped it. Simply holding the hilt was like putting my hand into a pile of burning coals. But I could bear it; I had to.
I gripped the amulet hanging over my chest. “Help me stay strong,” I whispered, pressing it to my face. If the goddess of the moon was listening, perhaps she would take pity on me. “Help me. Please.”
It took only a thought for me to call forth the dress of the moon. The moon’s soft beams enfolded me, and for the last time, my moon dress coursed out of the walnut, its shimmering silk flowing over my arms. The cuffs and cross-collar sparkled with white-gold floss, the flowers and clouds I’d embroidered glittering like tiny crystals. Light bathed me, and tears misted in my eyes—tears of the moon.
Before I could change my mind, I raised my dagger and stabbed the heart of the dress. Silvery ribbons unraveled, dancing and swirling around me as I dragged the dagger down to the hem of the skirts until I’d torn my creation in half.
Unlike the sun-woven gown, whose death had been fiery and violent, the dress of the moon remained serene. Remorse clotted my throat, and the last of my tears streamed down my face when, finally, I threw its remains into the air.
Amana, I prayed, watching my dress skim the clouds, its light beaming across the sky. If you can hear me, I return the tears of the moon to you. In return, I ask that you sever the threads that bind me—and all demons—to aid Gyiu’rak and the shansen. Give me the strength to stay Maia—long enough to help A’landi.
No sooner did my prayer end than the tears of the moon disappeared in a bright white flash.
The summons ended abruptly. The shansen and Gyiu’rak were gone.
I grasped my amulet, feeling lightheaded. I’d won a victory against the shansen today, but at a terrible cost.
I still have one dress left, I reminded myself. The strongest dress: the blood of stars. My heart.
Was it enough to save my family and A’landi?
“Maia, Maia.” A boy was running toward me out of the forest, breathing hard. He wrapped his cloak over my body and stroked my hair. “It’s all right. He can’t have you.”
“The tears of the moon represents the mind,” I murmured. “I’ve lost it. My memories, my—”
“Then I’ll remind you. You still remember me, don’t you?” He touched his nose to mine, his eyes so blue. Blue as water, as the glittering sea by…I could see it, but I couldn’t name it.
I squinted. His face was familiar, but I couldn’t remember why.
He pressed a kiss on my lips, soft and warm as a breath of sunshine on my back.
Edan. The boy with a thousand names and yet no name. The boy whose hands were stained with the blood of stars. He was coming back to me.
But in his place, other memories fled. My dearest memories, as if handpicked from my mind to hurt me most with their loss. No matter how I tried, I could no longer recall the blue of the waters I’d grown up with, the stories my brother used to tell me of sailors and sea dragons. I’d had three brothers once. Which one had chuckled when he tried to get me to go out into town with him on an adventure? Which one wore a crooked smile, laced with mischief, whenever he managed to swindle me into doing his chores?