I bowed with Keton and Baba to pay my respects, then lingered a few moments, watching the wind lift the emperor’s ashes away from the pyre. My fingers were sore from sewing all night.
After making hundreds of birds with Edan, I’d attended to the task of fashioning Emperor Khanujin’s burial robes. I’d used his banner, along with whatever scraps I could find in the palace—old curtains and tablecloths, even the rice sacks used to cover Baba and Keton’s faces—to sew my birds, and without my scissors, I couldn’t spin coarse linen blankets into silk.
Only what was left over went into Khanujin’s robes. So, the emperor was buried plain as a villager. No embroidery, no jewels studded into the humble cloth, no inlaid gold or brocade. Not so much as a patch of silk.
No one said a word about it.
“Where are you going?” Keton asked me. When I turned, he flinched. “Your eyes, Maia. They’ve been red since yesterday. You—”
“They’re just bloodshot,” I lied quickly, waving away his concern with a gloved hand. A veil of unease fell over me. My brother used to tell me I was a terrible liar, and I had been. But things had changed. I had changed.
I hurried ahead to avoid his questions. But as my brother followed, I couldn’t help but listen to the quiet landings of his footfalls, the graceful skid of his cane from one step to the next. The last time I’d seen him, he had only just begun to try and walk again.
My chest tightened. Not long ago, all I had wished for was to see Baba and Keton so I could embrace them. But now that we were together, all I did was keep my distance. I didn’t know what to say to them that wouldn’t be a lie.
And how that pained me.
I slowed my steps and walked beside my brother. My hands sunk into my pockets, the piecemeal gloves I’d made barely concealing my claws.
“I haven’t been sleeping well,” I said at last, a meager attempt at an explanation.
“Me neither.” Keton tilted his head, listening to the flames still crackling from the funeral pyre. “I heard Lady Sarnai held a war council yesterday. Do you think the rumors of a march to Jappor are true?”
That was the reason I wanted to see her. “I don’t know.”
“There are men willing to fight,” said Keton. “I will fight.”
I bit my lip, trying to ignore the surge of alarm rising to my throat. “No, you should stay here. With the wounded.”
Keton frowned at me, and I wished I could take back my words. “My legs are getting stronger, Maia. I may not be as fast as the others, but I can figh—”
“You’ve already fought. You’ve already seen too much of war.”
“Says my younger sister,” he chided. “I didn’t know what I was fighting for back then. Now I do. The other soldiers feel the same.”
“What are you fighting for?”
“The emperor is dead, and the shansen is halfway to the capital. You’ve seen his demon.” Keton swallowed. “If we don’t defend A’landi against him now, then heavens help us. We are doomed.”
How could I dissuade him without cheating him of the same opportunity I’d wanted for myself—to help save our country?
I wanted Lady Sarnai to march to battle. I wanted her to defeat her father, to slay Gyiu’rak and send her reeling into the underworld.
Ten thousand lives! How could any man crave power so much he would bargain the lives of his people in such a trade?
I unclenched my jaw, reining in my wrath. When I looked at my brother and saw the fire in his eyes, I recognized the same determination that burned inside me.
“I’m going to find Lady Sarnai” was all I could manage, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Take care of Baba.”
* * *
• • •
Neither Lady Sarnai nor Lord Xina had attended the funeral, but I knew where to find her. She’d slept outside by the kitchens, giving up for the wounded her claim to one of the palace’s limited rooms.
I heard her before I saw her, sparring with Lord Xina. They were so engrossed in their match they barely noticed me, and I slipped behind a pillar to watch.
Sarnai still hadn’t taken off her armor. It must have been a third her weight, yet she carried it proudly, with her shoulders squared and sweat glistening on her brow. Lord Xina was at least twice her size, but she moved with deadly grace, her fighting stick dancing to the beat of battle the way my fingers used to dance with a needle. Spying an opening in Lord Xina’s side, she jabbed him in the knee and whipped her pole to hook his ankles and bring him down to his back.
“You’ve grown slow, Xina,” she said before helping him up. “You’re going to get yourself killed if you keep lumbering around like a bear.”
“And you’ve grown weak, Sarnai. So if I lumber like a bear, at least I don’t swing my sword like an ax. What happened to your training?”
Instead of taking her hand to get up, Lord Xina pulled her down, and for the first time, I heard Lady Sarnai laugh. He’d never been handsome, but after his time in Khanujin’s dungeon his face had become a patchwork of nightmares: his front teeth cracked, his nose smashed, and his upper lip torn. Yet the way they looked at each other made my heart heavy, and I turned away from the scene, giving them a moment of privacy.
When I finally looked again, they sat together beside a fire burning in a brick pit, once used to roast meat. They weren’t alone.
Edan had beaten me there.
“If you have come to beg for the tailor’s life, you are too late,” said Sarnai, barely acknowledging him as she wiped the sweat from her temples. “My mind is made up. She cannot be allowed to live.”
“Then you are not the warrior I knew during the Five Winters’ War, Your Highness.”
“And you are not the enchanter I knew,” Sarnai retorted. “Perhaps I should have you executed as well. After all, what can you offer now?”
Edan raised his walnut staff, and the campfire shot up, taking on the shape of a hawk. Only if I looked closely could I see the sweat glistening on the nape of Edan’s neck. Such a display would have been as easy as breathing for him before, but now it took much effort.
“You will not defeat your father without Maia Tamarin—”
“She will stay in the Winter Palace,” Lady Sarnai said over him, surprising even me with the sudden reversal. “That is more mercy than she deserves.”
Edan began to speak, but I stepped forward and interrupted, “Take me with you to Jappor. I would give my life to save A’landi. To save my family.”