“Yes,” I replied solemnly, “but he’s retreated for now.”
“Why did he attack?” she asked. “Did he find out that you weren’t—”
She couldn’t finish the words, and I couldn’t bring myself to confirm her fears.
“It’s over now.” I hesitated, hating myself for the lie I was about to tell. “The emperor’s commanded me to take the dresses for safekeeping.”
“Thank the gods,” Zaini said fervently. “They’re cursed.”
She and Jun pointed me to Lady Sarnai’s trunks. “Take them. Please.”
I scooped the dress of the sun and the dress of the stars—still damaged from my cutting it off Lady Sarnai’s body—into my arms and funneled their essence into my pendant.
Then, I heard a hoarse cry from behind the bedchamber’s closed doors.
At first, it sounded more like an animal than a person. Low and reedy, like the whimper of an injured fox. But when I heard it again, I recognized the voice.
Lady Sarnai. The air around her was thick with incense meant to drive away the evil spirits Jun and Zaini were convinced had attacked her.
The sight of her made me shudder. Jun and Zaini had bandaged most of her skin and treated it with salve, but they hadn’t wrapped her nose, mouth, and ears, which were a motley mess of violet and blue burns and ore-colored splotches—the pigments not unlike the blood of stars.
“Demon’s breath,” I whispered. “She looks worse than before.”
Ghosts haunted Jun and Zaini’s eyes. The maids looked like they hadn’t eaten or slept in the past two days. Knowing Khanujin, I bet they hadn’t even left Lady Sarnai’s apartments, on pain of death. The way their voices trembled confirmed my suspicions.
“We’ve…we’ve tried everything, Master Tamarin.”
“No matter what we feed her, she will not wake. And her skin…where the dress touched her—it keeps changing, sometimes blue, sometimes gray. We’ve never seen anything like it.”
The two maids huddled together fearfully. “She can’t be long for this world.”
The calmness of my voice surprised me. “His Majesty hasn’t sent for a doctor?”
Jun and Zaini shook their heads.
No surprise. The emperor probably feared that the royal physicians might divulge the secret that Lady Sarnai was near death. Not that it mattered anymore, after what had happened at the banquet.
I swallowed. I couldn’t leave Lady Sarnai like this.
Darkness crawled in me.Let her be. She’s never been kind to you. Let her die.
I turned to the door, but then Lady Sarnai coughed. The sound was so pitiful, so unlike the fierce princess who had once terrified me.
Think of how she slit the throats of those guards. She wouldn’t have a second thought about leaving you behind.
I had no doubt this was true.
Then leave her.
It would be so easy to listen to the dark reason in my head, to let the demon strip me of my humanity one thought at a time. But the old Maia was still there, for now.You’re stronger than this,she urged.Resist.
Leave her,the demon insisted. She wouldn’t hesitate to abandon you.
Yes, but I wasn’t Lady Sarnai.
I was Maia Tamarin.
I let my satchel slide from my shoulder onto the ground. It landed with a soft thump, and I knelt beside Lady Sarnai, ignoring the relentless whispers buzzing within me.
