Bandur was gone, but the red eyes weren’t. They flickered like two pomegranate seeds floating in the cloudy white wine.
Myeyes.
Terror seized me. I bolted up, throwing my napkin onto the table to cover my eyes with my hands.
Spinning away from the attendants who tried to force me back into my chair, I fled the banquet.
CHAPTER FIVE
I didn’t remember collapsing in the middle of the Autumn Palace, but I woke in chambers that were not my own.
A cushion supported my head, and my eyes were so dry it hurt to blink. When my vision focused, the sight of Emperor Khanujin standing before me made me leap out of bed.
He greeted me in a menacing tone. “You’ve slept the day away, Tamarin. Unfortunate, given it may have been your last.”
My heart skipped with panic. Had he seen my eyes turn red? Had the shansen?
No. I’d be in the dungeon if he had. Not in one of Lady Sarnai’s rooms.
“That outburst of yours last night will not happen again.”
My voice came out hoarse. Raw. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. It was the truth.
“They’re saying you’ve gone mad over Lord Xina’s imprisonment,” he said. Still fuming, he regarded me. “You will resume your masquerade tonight. You will eat and celebrate in silence. Should the shansen grow suspicious, you will do everything in your power to reassure him. Lives hang in the balance, Tamarin.”
He spoke as if he cared about A’landi’s well-being. As if this wedding truly mattered to him. That surprised me, but I hated him too much to believe his words.
“Why not kill him?” I asked, scarcely recognizing my words as I spoke them. “Why not poison the shansen? Or have an assassin murder him in the middle of the night?”
Khanujin scoffed. “I don’t expect you, a peasant, to understand the intricacies of court.”
“I’m not a peasant—”
“You are what I say you are,” he interrupted. “I am the emperor, and I am trying to prevent a war, not start a new one. If you want your country to survive, I suggest you put on the damned dress and finish this wedding.” He pivoted for the door. “Fail me tonight, and I will have your father and brother hanged while you watch.”
I bit back a stinging retort.How dare you threaten my family!I wanted to scream at him. But instead I knelt, glowering mutinously at the floor as I did. For all his palaces and his armies and his threats, the emperor was just a man. I was beginning to believe the shansen, however, might be more.
I waited for the rustle of the emperor’s clothing to become silence, for the guards’ footsteps to fade into the sound of the distant wedding music, before I moved again.
It took me some time to stand. My knees wobbled, and my skull pounded with echoes of the voices I had heard last night.
Sentur’na,the ghosts had called me.
Simply remembering the name brought a shiver racing down my spine. I didn’t know what that meant. Nor did I know how long I had left before my transformation. Once it happened, I’d never see my face in the mirror again. I’d never hear my name being called again.
Never see my family again. Or Edan.
From the back of Lady Sarnai’s chambers, a whimper broke the chilled silence.
I called out, “Lady Sarnai?”
I went to her. Her eyes were shut tight, dark metallic veins blistering across her neck and chest. There was a stack of folded towels on the table next to her, and I dipped one into the bowl of water and pressed it on her forehead.
Guilt swept over me. It was because of my dress that she’d become disfigured like this. Kneeling by her side, I prayed to whichever gods might listen.
