But the fabric, which had come alive only moments ago from my touch, now hung flat and dull—the color of charred wood, of an endless night.
“You call this a wedding gown?” she asked, scowling.
I didn’t know what to say. The dress had changed when I wore it. The skirts had danced with azures and indigos and purples richer than any dyes found on the Spice Road, casting my skin with a silvery sheen that had made even the emperor gaze at me with wonder.
But on Lady Sarnai, it was lackluster. Lifeless.
I angled closer to her with my measuring string, and I tried to get her to step into the light. “Let me see if—”
“Perhaps Your Highness should try on another dress,” the younger maid, Jun, interrupted. “The dress of the sun.”
Lady Sarnai’s eyes narrowed. “Fetch it.”
She meant me, not the maids. I rolled my measuring string over my arm and lifted the dress of the sun from the chair to bring it forth.
She blinked, her eyes watering at its brightness.
“Your Highness, are you all right?”
“I don’t want that one,” she began. “I—” Sarnai stopped. Her jaw slackened, and her shoulders jerked back and forth. Her arms flailed, and she began gasping as if she could not breathe.
“Your Highness?” Jun and Zaini fanned her, tapped her wrist as if that would help. “Your Highness, are you feeling ill?”
Sarnai coughed and wheezed. Her lips moved, but only a strangled sound came out. “Demons,” she mouthed. Her bloodshot eyes widened with panic. She shrieked, “Demons! They’re burning me.”
She trembled violently as she clawed at her bodice, trying to tear it off. The maids grabbed her arms to steady her, but she writhed and twisted away. Blindly, she stumbled back against the wall, tripping over her long skirt. “Tamarin, get it off,” she rasped. “Get it o—”
Then her body thudded to the ground.
The maids screamed, and I dropped the dress of the sun, hurrying to Lady Sarnai. I lifted her head onto my lap, holding her neck still as the rest of her body shook.
It was the dress. I had to get it off before it killed her.
I rolled her onto her stomach and fumbled at my belt for my scissors. There wasn’t time to undo dozens of buttons, so I cut into the back of the dress. Or, at least, I tried to. The fabric was so strong it resisted my scissor blades. I cut again and again, until the threads loosened and the maids and I could pry the dress off.
“Thank the gods,” I breathed when Lady Sarnai finally stopped trembling. But my relief was short-lived. Her arms had gone limp at her sides, and when I turned her over, her eyes wouldn’t open.
I let go of my scissors. I’d been gripping them so hard the bows had made indents into my fingers. What was happening to the shansen’s daughter?
The older maid, Zaini, pressed her ear to Lady Sarnai’s chest.
“She isn’t breathing!” she cried, her pitch rising with distress. “She isn’t breathing!”
“Hush,” I said. “Bring me water.”
Zaini obeyed, and I poured it over Sarnai’s face, but still she didn’t stir.
Soundlessly, the two lifted Lady Sarnai onto her bed.
Her eyes were swollen, lips twisted in pain. Bruises had flowered up her chest and neck, and her skin had turned a wretched shade of blue and gray. But worst—and strangest—of all, clusters of inky violet marks traveled up her body, shimmering horrifically like burning stars.
“Is she…alive?” I asked. I couldn’t say dead. I wouldn’t.
Zaini hedged by chewing on her lip. “Barely.”
My stomach clenched. Sarnai’s pulse beat, but only if I touched her mouth did I feel the faintest of breaths. It was as if she were deep asleep, unable to wake.
Edan’s warning came back to me. “The dresses are not meant for mere mortals.”
He would have known what to do. But he wasn’t here, and I had no magic of my own…except for the scissors. What could my scissors do for Lady Sarnai?
What was I to do?
The Procession of Gifts would begin in less than an hour. There would be no wedding without Lady Sarnai. Only war.
“Tend to Lady Sarnai,” I said. “Until she is well, I will take her place at the imperial wedding.”
Jun and Zaini shot looks at me, their fear replaced by alarm and shock.
I tilted my chin to confirm my intent. “Speak of this to no one.”
No other words needed to be said; they understood my meaning. Both their lives and mine depended on their silence, and on Lady Sarnai’s recovering.
My gaze lingered on the dress of the stars, a puddle of black silk on the floor. Its seams were ripped, the bodice torn, and the layers of the skirts in disarray. No time to repair it now.
I reached for the dress of the sun and headed to the changing screen.
By the Nine Heavens, I prayed this would work. If it didn’t, A’landi would be back at war before the night was over.
CHAPTER FOUR
What I dreaded most was meeting the shansen face to face. He did not seem like a man easily fooled.
“People will see what they want to see,” I murmured to myself. It seemed so long ago that Keton had given me that advice. Only then, I’d been disguising myself as him, not as the shansen’s daughter. Though, I supposed—ironically, the penalty for being caught was the same for both.
Death did not frighten me as much as it once had.
Jun and Zaini painted my face to erase the freckles on my nose and cheeks, and made my lips as full and red as Lady Sarnai’s. They plaited my hair so tight it hurt to think, and a dozen emerald and ruby pins dangled from my crown, tinkling every time I moved my head.
I didn’t need a veil to hide behind. My dress was so blinding no one could look at me for longer than an instant. The laughter of the sun must have fed off my excitement and nervousness, for the dress had never flared so vibrantly before. Light radiated from its every fiber, piercing even the dark clouds outside.
My arrival inside the Hall of Harmony roused murmurs of awe from the court. Many had to shield their eyes from my splendor, and even Emperor Khanujin could not look directly at me. As we walked together down the hall, the heat from my sun-woven dress drew beads of sweat that trickled down his forehead, ruining the cosmetics that covered his faded glory.
This displeased him, but I ignored his scowls and smiled at the court. Better I than he capture everyone’s attention. Better that he was too irritated to notice that I was the imperial tailor and not Lady Sarnai, the Jewel of the North.