Everyone returned to the food and wine, and the shansen escorted me back to my seat. My pulse was thundering in my ears and my eyes began to burn again, flares of crimson speckling the pearls dangling in front of my face.
Panic rose in me.Run,I warned myself.Get out of here before anyone sees.
But I couldn’t. I’d run off last night. If I left again, Khanujin would kill Baba and Keton.
Besides, no one was paying attention to me.
No one except the shansen.
Praying he wouldn’t notice, I counted my steps the way I used to count my stitches, to calm the storm rising within me.Ten paces until I reach my seat. Nine. Eight. Seven.
Six.One of the servants brought a tray of candles to replace the ones that my dress had extinguished. The glow from the flames made my pupils burn, and tears tracked down my face.
Five.I couldn’t bear it any longer. I made the mistake of looking up, away from the lights.
The shansen seized my arm. “There is something amiss with your eyes, daughter.”
I tried to twist out of his grip, but he was too strong. “Let me go.”
As I struggled, I spied a flash of black stone within his robes. An amulet, like the one Bandur wore, only with a tiger’s head engraved on the face. Before I could make out anything more, the amulet fell back into the folds of the shansen’s cloak, and he knocked my crown off my head.
A hush fell over the hall.
“You are not my daughter,” he snarled.
With more strength than an ordinary man should have, he hurled me against the wall and overturned the banquet table. Plates shattered, and guests screamed.
“I declare this marriage invalid,” he growled. “The truce is over.”
Daggers and poisoned needles flashed in his men’s hands. A blink later, knives were buried in the throats of the guards nearest Emperor Khanujin.
I lay stunned on the floor. I didn’t hear the screams and shouts, the thuds of the dead guards falling to the ground. I didn’t see their blood seeping through the silken red tablecloths, smearing the gold-embroidered symbols of the emperor and Lady Sarnai’s names.
My attention was completely riveted by the shansen. His pupils constricted, the tiger fur on his cloak melting over him. And his fingernails grew long and sharp—into claws.
The amulet I’d spied in his coat dangled from his chest, the brutal beast carved on its surface darkening, like ink spreading into a painting coming to life.
White smoke curled from the amulet, and the shansen inhaled it through his nostrils. When I looked at him next, he was not a man at all.
But a demon—a tiger with bone-white fur and glistening black eyes—that lunged for Emperor Khanujin.
CHAPTER SEVEN
He moved in flashes, faster than my eye could follow, lethal and precise. Everywhere he danced struck a tempest of blood and death.
Chopsticks clattered against porcelain bowls, and teacups shattered on the ground. Furniture cracked, or was it the sound of bones breaking? I could not tell. My vision went in and out of focus, the flashing red of swiveling lanterns hurting my eyes.
I should have run, yet I could not. I could not do anything but stare at the shansen’s cinder-black eyes, knowing, with a shiver, that someday mine would be just as empty. Just as soulless.
A platter of steamed fish flew over me, and I ducked, taking cover under one of the banquet tables.
Three servants already hid there, teeth chattering and necks shiny with sweat. They held each other, covering one another’s ears to block the clamor of the screaming guests and praying for survival.
As the air grew pungent with salt and iron, nausea gripped my throat, thickening until I wished I could vomit. I tried to focus on the flying food instead of the falling bodies. There were too many to count.
A minister dropped beside me, his bright blue robes ripped at the torso. The servants jumped away in horror, but I pulled the minister under the table for protection.
A dark blossom of blood seeped through the silk of his robes, turning even the gold-knotted buttons crimson and staining the jade plaques on his belt, which many of the ministers wore—believing the jade protected them from illness and ill luck.
