Unravel the Dusk Page 3

  But I couldn’t tell the emperor that.

  I could lie, but no lie would keep Edan safe from Khanujin’s wrath forever. Unless…

  I licked my lips, tasting the sweetness of a new possibility. I glanced at Emperor Khanujin’s throat, barely protected by the richly embroidered collar of his jacket.

  Think how easy it would be, a dark voice bubbled within me. My voice.

  If you want to protect Edan, this is what you must do. You have the strength. Khanujin is weak and alone.

  Heat prickled my eyes, and my fingers twitched with temptation.

  Yes. Do it. The voice resonated deeply, overthrowing my senses and my reason. Kill him.

  No! I dug my nails into my palms. Go away.

  The voice in my head chuckled. Little Maia. You know it’s only a matter of time. I grow stronger every minute. Soon my thoughts will be your thoughts. Our thoughts will be one. You won’t even notice it.

  That was what I was afraid of. I gritted my teeth. LEAVE ME.

  When the laughter floated away and finally faded, I uncurled my fingers and rubbed the bloody half-moons imprinted on my palms.

  “Tamarin!” the emperor growled. “If you lie to me, I’ll have your father and brother brought here to be hanged.”

  A flare of anger shot up to my chest, squeezing it so tight I could hardly breathe. I wanted to tell him I would kill him before that happened, that I’d give in to the darkness in me and shatter his bones one by one before I let him touch my family.

  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.

  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.

  Once we reached the front of the hall, he took a seat in a comfortable satin-cushioned chair, and I stood at his side, the brilliance of my dress waning as my legs throbbed from balancing on heeled shoes.

  One after another, the nobles and ministers in Khanujin’s court presented their gifts. Then came the ambassadors from every corner of the world—Kiata, Samaran, Frevera, the Tambu Islands, and Balar. Trunks full of the finest lace, and jade-carved dragons with scales so delicately chiseled they looked like they’d been stolen from tiny fish, hand-painted ceramics gilded with bulls’ heads by the finest Samaran artisans, and wood carvings from lands I had never even heard of.

  Finally, the shansen arrived. As Lady Sarnai’s father, he had the honor of presenting his gifts last.

  For such a large man, he moved quietly. Scars roughened his cheeks, his gray beard curving from his chin like the tip of a ceremonial dagger. Up close, the angles of his face were sharp and unforgiving. Carv
ed by war.

  “I present to you, Emperor Khanujin, a scepter crafted by the blind monks in the Singing Mountains. It is meant to bring prosperity to he who rules A’landi.”

  He turned to me next, his piercing gaze falling on my heavily powdered face. My dress flared brighter as my pulse quickened.

  The shansen harrumphed, and though he did not shield his eyes, he looked away. “And to you, my daughter—the finest archer in A’landi—I give the ash bow you sought to wield when you were a girl.” I caught the tiniest ripple of pride in his next words. “Of all my children, you were the only one who could draw it.”

  The bow was so tall that the bottom of the curved limb rested just above my foot. Its lightness surprised me, but I kept my lips twisted in a scowl even as I inclined my chin to acknowledge the gift. I knew Lady Sarnai held little regard for her father.

  “With the shansen’s offering, the Procession of Gifts is concluded,” Chief Minister Yun proclaimed.

  I could hardly suppress my relief. All the guests fell to their knees and bowed to the emperor, wishing him “ten thousand years,” a phrase I was beginning to wish I’d never have to hear or mumble again. Then finally, stiffly, I followed the emperor out of the hall.

  He heedlessly took a pace that required me to hustle to keep up. I kept my head down, staring at the long stretch of gold tiles leading outdoors, ignoring the faces of our bowing guests. But as I followed, a hawk’s cry tore my attention away from the floor. My eyes flew to the windows and up to the sky.

  A hawk soared above the palace, but its feathers were gray not black, and its eyes did not glow the familiar yellow that haunted my dreams.

  Of course it isn’t Edan, you fool, I rebuked myself. He hasn’t the magic to turn anymore.

  When we exited the hall, the hawk still flew above us, its tapered wings skimming the clouds. It followed us until the emperor stopped at the nearest pavilion.

  I desperately hoped he would dismiss me so I could rest before the banquet tonight. My feet ached from standing.