“I will never go to Lapzur,” I said through my teeth.
“You know that is not true. Every night, its waters beckon you, and its ghosts call to you.”
I curled my fists.Sentur’na.
His shadow loomed over the dress of the moon, smothering its silvery light.
“Stop lying to yourself,” he said in a pitying tone. “Amana cannot save you. Soon the dresses too will be consumed by the power inside you. What a guardian you will be then, armed with the sun and the moon and the stars.”
Then, as swiftly and silently as he had arrived, he was gone.
I started out the door, refusing to be shaken by Bandur’s visit. What if he was right? Maybe I had no choice but to obey the calling. But I wouldn’t go without a fight.
Gritting my teeth, I probed the newly healed skin on my arm. So the stories about the shansen were true. Hehadmade a bargain with a demon to conquer A’landi.
Without Edan, Emperor Khanujin would have no chance against him.
You could stay,a voice inside me nagged.You could help. You have the power of a demon stirring inside you.
It was true…if I stayed, maybe I could help. Maybe I could—
“No!” I balked. I buried the voice deep into my thoughts, knowing that behind its cloying words was the demon Maia, trying to needle her way into my mind. The more I used the dark powers stirring inside me, the faster I would turn into a monster.
Then A’landi is without hope. All that you sacrificed will be for nothing.
I clenched my fists. Edan had called me the hope of A’landi. He’d left believing I could save it.
I should have told him the truth.
I looked in the mirror. My face was pale, no color flushed my cheeks, and the warm, earthy brown that had once lit my eyes was flat and dull. “I will be of no help to A’landi if I am a demon,” I told my reflection.
My duty to the emperor was done. I could stay here no longer.
Instead, I would find a way to defeat Bandur and free myself of his curse. Even if it meant returning to the Isles of Lapzur.
First things first. I couldn’t expect to escape the palace unnoticed carrying the dress of the moon. I opened my trunk, searching for the two walnuts and the glass vial I’d used to store the sun, the moon, and the stars on my journey with Edan.
I found them wrapped in layers of silk and satin scraps and scooped them up with my palm. At my touch the walnuts and the vial trembled as if possessed, rattling onto the floor until—they snapped together.
In their place was a round walnut pendant made of glass, with a smooth crack in the center: my two walnuts and the vial forged together. It dangled from a thin chain, melded of gold and silver.
The pendant was smaller than my palm, about the same size as the amulet Emperor Khanujin wore—and Bandur, too.
Bandur’s had a crack in the center.
A shiver tingled across my skin as I slipped the chain over my head and grasped the pendant. It began to glow, and I held my breath as the dress of the moon spun and spun, its silvery ribbons whirling as the dress spiraled smaller and smaller, then disappeared into the pendant’s crack.
When the dress had fully returned inside, the pendant weighed lighter against my chest. But the absence of the other two dresses was a hollow ache. The sun and the moon and the stars yearned to be together.
The other two dresses are in Lady Sarnai’s apartments,I thought, swallowing hard. I didn’t have time to retrieve them. I needed to leave now. Too many had witnessed the power of my dress and my dagger against the shansen. If the emperor found me, he’d force me to stay at his side to defend the palace. I’d never be able to break my curse.
But deep down, I knew Bandur was right. Amana’s dresses were my lifeblood now.
I couldn’t leave without them. Without all of them.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“We heard the warning bells,” Jun said when she let me inside Lady Sarnai’s chambers. Her voice trembled. “Is…is the emperor in danger? Has the shansen attacked?”
