But I did not. The anger was gone as quickly as it came. I touched my head to the ground in a deep bow.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty, but I do not know. I pray the Lord Enchanter and Lady Sarnai will both be found.” I paused, waiting for the sharp sting of regret rising in my chest to dull. I wished I had never searched Lady Sarnai’s room, had never helped the emperor gather clues to find her.
I bowed again, and finally, Khanujin flicked his hand in dismissal.
“Thank you, Your Majesty.” My voice was ice once more, gravid with lies. “May you live ten thousand years.”
CHAPTER THREE
A calamity of bells startled me awake. It was an hour or two before dawn, the sky still dark but bright enough for me to make out the gray fumes curling up from the exhausted lanterns.
Over and over, the bells pealed, the sound resonating through my windows. When I finally rose to close them, I caught a flash of movement outside—and heard the snap of a whip biting into flesh.
Lady Sarnai. Lord Xina. They had been found, and the guards were thrashing them.
Bamboo leaves clung to Sarnai’s back, and water dripped from her long black hair. From the looks of it, they’d made it to the Leyang River before the guards captured her and her lover.
“You won’t be slaughtering any more of my men,” one of the guards was telling her. “Not on my watch. Take her back to her residence, and bring this one to the dungeon.”
I leaned against the wall. A cold knot twisted in my stomach. If not for me, maybe they would have gotten away.
Lady Sarnai’s happiness was a small price to pay for peace, I reminded myself. No more families would suffer the loss that Baba, Keton, and I had felt, when Finlei and Sendo were killed in the war.
So, why did my relief taste bitter?
An hour later, I had my answer. Minister Lorsa barged into my chamber to announce that the wedding would resume this afternoon with the Procession of Gifts. I was to fit Lady Sarnai into “the stars dress.” Immediately.
* * *
• • •
A troop of soldiers patrolled the front of Lady Sarnai’s apartments, and a line of archers stood at the windows behind the rustling willow trees.
No incense burned on her table this morning, and all the lanterns hanging from the ceilings had been taken down. Anything she might have used as a weapon was confiscated.
Wind seeped in through the broken windows, which had been hastily patched with cotton sheets and parchment. The chill raised goose bumps on my skin.
I bowed. “Your Highness, I’ve arrived to dress you for the wedding cele—” I caught my tongue; Lady Sarnai would not view tonight’s festivities as a celebration. “—For the banquet tonight.”
She didn’t rise from her chair. Her rich black hair had been oiled and plaited; in the gleaming sunlight, it shone. But her full lips were cracked with dryness, and her eyes stared glassily ahead. She looked like she might shatter.
But Lady Sarnai was not glass. Stone, perhaps. And stones did not break.
“I could wring your neck with those dresses,” she spoke, her voice low, a growl from a tiger’s throat. “If not for you…”
She gritted her teeth. Hatred unsteadied her breath, and I knew if it weren’t for the guards outside and her lover in prison, she’d make good on her threat.
I lowered my gaze to the ground and chose my next words with care. “I am relieved Your Highness has been returned safely to the Autumn Palace. Ten thousand years of joy and happiness to the Lady Sarnai and His Majesty—”
“Enough!” she barked. “You think by helping Khanujin you will win his favor?”
“No, Your Highness, I do not.”
She leaned back in her chair, her long fingers clasping the wooden arms. “When I am empress, you will be the first to pay.”
Her words were a deadly promise, but I wasn’t afraid of her anymore.
“As you wish, Your Highness.”
Lady Sarnai frowned. “You’ve changed,” she observed. “Something about you is different.” A cruel smile formed on her lips. “It’s the enchanter, isn’t it?”
Now my eyes flew up, meeting hers with my own cool stare. That pleased her, and I regretted it.
“There are rumors that he is missing. I assure you such news will greatly interest my father, particularly when I confirm it tonight.”
“The Lord Enchanter is not missing,” I lied.
“Oh? I would not have gotten as far as the Leyang River if Edan were still here.” A little laugh rasped from her throat. “Don’t worry, tailor. Khanujin will hunt him to the ends of the earth to get him back. Or is that not what you want?”
She was trying to hurt me. I’d done her a terrible wrong, and she had nothing left but words to hurl at me.
“I want you to marry the emperor,” I replied. “The wedding is our only hope for peace.”
Contempt spilled across her face. “It is too late for peace.”
Keton had told me before that the Five Winters’ War ended only because of a stalemate. The shansen feared Edan, and Edan was wary of the dark forces behind the shansen’s enormous power.
But if Edan was truly gone, how would the emperor prevail against the shansen?
This wedding had to happen.
“Time grows short, Your Highness,” I said quietly. “I must fit you into your dress.”
Lady Sarnai’s two maids—her two new maids, Jun and Zaini—brought forward a large walnut trunk. Bitter wistfulness washed over me as I opened it and lifted out the dresses of the sun, the moon, and the stars. Their radiance flooded Lady Sarnai’s dark chambers, beams of gold and silver light darting across the ceiling.
“How beautiful,” the maids breathed. “They’re—”
“I suppose he wants me in that one.” Sarnai pointed curtly at the dress of the blood of stars. Stripes of sunlight danced over its black silk, igniting bursts of otherworldly color, like shooting stars across the night sky.
Before I could reply, the maids snatched the dress from me and accompanied Lady Sarnai to her changing area.
While I waited, I turned to the large rosewood mirror on my left. Sunken eyes peered back at me, tired from worry and lack of sleep, and wisps of black hair escaped my hat. I touched the freckles peppering my cheeks, and my pale, bloodless lips.
I was a shadow of my old self.
Lady Sarnai had stepped out from behind the changing screen, the dress of the stars’ skirts blooming behind her. The bodice cinched her small waist, the neckline accentuating the sharp contours of her shoulders and chest. Our measurements were nearly the same, and everything fit her perfectly, as I knew it would.