Then he yanked out the sword, wiped the blade on Lord Xina’s cloak, and kicked him to the side.
Arrows snapped from Lady Sarnai’s bow. They did nothing to the shansen, which only fueled her rage. She barreled toward her father, drawing her sword and raising it high above her head.
“Sarnai, stop!” I cried.
If she heard me, she did not listen. She was no match for her father, not while he wielded Gyiu’rak’s power. Only she was too blind with rage to see it, to care.
I hurled myself after her, knocking her off course.
Angrily, the shansen lunged for me. I grabbed Sarnai’s sword from her hands and blocked him, but he was strong. He shoved me away, then signaled a legion of ghosts to surround his daughter.
Ghosts besieged me, too. Hundreds of them, scrabbling at my flesh and trying to block me from Lady Sarnai. My amulet growing warm on my chest, I swung her sword at them, trying to fight my way back to the shansen.
Sarnai was already up, but her weapons were useless against the ghosts. By the shansen’s command, they advanced on her slowly, one torturous step at a time, until they had her cornered.
“You were always my favorite child, Sarnai,” I heard the shansen tell her. “A pity you chose the wrong side.”
She glared at him, backing up toward the edge of the bridge.
“The ghosts will devour you soon. It won’t hurt. Then you’ll return to my side, where you belong. Daughter.”
“You stopped being my father the day you sold your will to Gyiu’rak,” she seethed. Then, before the ghosts could touch her, she threw herself off the bridge.
I lurched for the rails, but I needn’t have worried. Not even the mighty Jingan River could swallow the Jewel of the North, and Sarnai burst from its waters, cutting across the tides.
The shansen roared for his ghosts to follow her, but I’d had enough. I dropped Lady Sarnai’s sword and bunched up my skirts, ignoring the whiplash of ghosts striking at my arms and back.
I let the ghosts overwhelm me, let their whispers and taunts grow and grow in my head, threatening to undo me with hopelessness. I gathered my fear and anger, letting it grow inside me in a storm—
“Maia!” Sendo called. My brother’s spirit appeared behind me, his hands weightlessly gripping my shoulders to relax them. “Let go. That isn’t the way.”
I spun, startled to hear him. “What is, then?”
“Try again, with the dress.”
I had tried, I wanted to tell him, but Sendo lowered his hands to take mine. I met his gaze, taking in his freckles that only we two in the family shared, taking in the eyes that had once been earthy brown mirrors of my own.
This last dress is my heart. Was that why I could not bring forth its magic, because I was afraid of losing the only thing that kept me Maia Tamarin?
“Your heart is strong, sister,” said my brother, hearing my thoughts. “It always has been.”
Let go, he had said. Slowly, I did. I released the fear I had locked around my heart, and in its place love rushed forth—love for my family, love for my country, love for Edan.
With a burst, my dress sprang to life, the blood of stars rippling in surges across the lustrous silk. Beams of light flickered across my long sleeves, darting out like needles of silver. Power wreathed me, its glow coursing through my sleeves so they fanned like wings. No longer was I a humble seamstress from Port Kamalan: I was the tailor of the gods.
The ghosts shrieked, vanquished by waves of light. I attacked without mercy, aided by Sendo and Finlei’s army of spirits. Until Lady Sarnai’s soldiers finally outnumbered the ghosts.
I saw Keton, aiming his bow and relentlessly shooting arrows alongside Edan. Sweat beaded his brow, his face ruddy from the exhaustion of fighting an enemy he couldn’t beat. Ghosts clamored around him, screaming. He couldn’t see them, but he could feel them; he could hear them.
Sendo and Finlei’s spirits dove past my brother and my enchanter, their swords ripping through the ghosts around them. How I wished Keton could see them.
How I wished we could all be together.
My dress was a furious storm of silk and light. I raised my arms, the sleeves swirling around me in endless ribbons, tearing at the ghosts and clearing a path toward my true target: the shansen.
He moved with a demon’s speed and a tiger’s power. Each swing of his sword ended a life, and whenever someone dared run, he shifted into the tiger form he shared with Gyiu’rak and pounded after them.
I flew across the bridge and landed before the shansen. My sleeves shot out, wrapping around his muscular throat, to choke him.
His fur singed under the brilliance of my dress, his black eyes becoming glassy. With a growl, he ripped through one of my sleeves with his claws, but the fabric mended itself and clung to him stronger than ever.
“Yield,” I commanded.
“If you think this war is won, you’re sadly mistaken,” the shansen rasped. “Half your men are dead, while I’ve not sent a single soldier into battle.”
The realization was a punch to my gut. The shansen was right; we’d only fought an army of ghosts. Thousands of his men awaited on the Jappor side of the bridge.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said through my teeth. “Without you to lead them, the battle is won.”
“Then you should have killed me.”
Before I could stop him, the warlord reached for his amulet. In a rush of pearlescent smoke, he dissipated into the mist.
“No!” I slammed my fists on the bridge’s stone railing.
The ghosts were gone. My brothers’ army of spirits was gone too. Our surviving soldiers were awakening from the enchantment the ghosts had cast over them.
Lady Sarnai had climbed back onto the bridge and was bent beside Lord Xina’s fallen form. Everyone was waiting for her to decide whether we’d retreat back to camp or push forward into Jappor.
“Maia,” a hoarse voice called to me.
“Your brothers,” Edan said, pointing at the two spirits floating above us.
Waiting for me.
I sprang into the air. “Don’t go. The fight isn’t over.”
“Ours is,” said Finlei gently. “Amana let us heed your call this once, but we cannot help you again, sister.”
“Please. Once you leave, I’ll—”
“Forget us?” Sendo shook his head. “You won’t.”
“How could you forget two brothers as memorable as we?” Finlei teased. Then his face grew somber. “Punch Keton for me—extra hard—for following us into war even though we told him not to…and tell Baba we miss him very much.”