Only when I was well inside the dungeon did I shut the laughter of the sun back into my pendant, but I kept a hand on it in case I encountered more guards.
I scrambled down the stairs, scanning the prison for Lady Sarnai. Most of the cells were empty. A few held servants caught for stealing, or soldiers who drank too much. I didn’t spare them a glance. According to Ammi, the more important prisoners would be on the lower level.
When I reached the floor below, Lady Sarnai’s labored breathing gave her away. I hurried toward the sound, the iron keys slippery with sweat in my palm, and opened the door.
Shock flew through me, and I gasped.
Overnight, Lady Sarnai’s condition had worsened. Her ivory skin was now a pale, unnatural gray-blue. Even more worrisome were the black and violet splotches flaring under her robes; they blazed over her chest, coming dangerously close to her heart.
Jun and Zaini had been right—she wouldn’t be long for this world, not if the blood of stars continued to consume her.
Someone groaned in the cell across from hers. Lord Xina. The space for him was too small, and he was curled against a corner, a rivulet of blood dripping from his temple to the ground. “Get away from her,” he croaked. Chains rattled as Lord Xina feebly struggled to rise. “Get!”
I had to hurry before the guards heard him. Collecting myself, I stepped closer to Lady Sarnai and reached into my pouch for Edan’s extract.
Using my teeth, I uncorked the bottle, then poured half its contents down her throat, covering her mouth with my hand so it wouldn’t dribble out. A grunt escaped her lips when I touched her, and I winced; I couldn’t imagine the pain she must be in.
At last she swallowed, and gradually, her breathing evened. I waited expectantly, praying that the blood of stars would cease to spread across her body. That she might at least stir and wake.
But Edan’s medicine hadn’t worked.
I panicked.What now?
Desperately I tried to pull her to her feet, but I couldn’t budge her. Either I gave up now and made my escape or I risked the guards catching me.
Think, Maia. Think.
Out of habit, I started to reach for my scissors before my fingers twitched with revelation. My pendant still throbbed against my chest, and when I touched it, a soft tingle of comforting warmth rushed through my fingertips.
A silvery thread, so thin at first I was sure I had imagined it, spun out of the pendant through my fingers and shimmered over Lady Sarnai’s face. Like tears.
Could the tears of the moon help her?
In legend, the goddess of the moon had been a healer, the counterpart to her fiery husband, the sun. It was worth a try.
I unwound the dress of the moon from my pendant. Even in the dungeon’s thin air, it rose like a kite on a breeze before settling gently over Lady Sarnai’s body.
I knelt beside her, watching the argent satin ripple over her arms and legs. Slowly, ever so slowly, a soft white glow spread over her body, soothing the blood of stars’ vicious flares until the marks, dark and glittering, receded from her heart. Then Sarnai’s eyelids fluttered, and her ashen blue complexion began to change color and bloom with the faint promise of life.
As the moonlight woke her, I eyed the shackles chaining her to the wall and hesitantly took out my scissors. Would they work on metal?
Their silver blades shone brightly against the chains, and as I held them to the iron links, they began to hum. They were telling me to try.
Slipping my fingers into the bows, I parted the blades and cut at the shackles. Each snip took far more strength than cutting through fabric—so much that I needed to use both hands to clamp the scissor blades down on the links.
With a brittle clatter, a wrist shackle fell to the ground.
“Thank the Nine Heavens,” I whispered. Working more quickly now, I moved to Lady Sarnai’s other wrist, then to her ankles—until she was free.
Footsteps thumped above. The guards were also waking.
I shook Sarnai until she moved, breathing hard. She jolted up in a delirious panic, tossing aside the dress of the moon and lashing at the vial still at my side. She thought I’d come to poison her.
“Shhh.” I tried to calm her. “I’m here to—”
Sarnai snatched my scissors and pressed their blades against my neck. The metal sang violently into my ears.
She meant to slit my throat with them, but her wrist wobbled, her face twisting with bewilderment as she saw what had happened to her. Faded were the fiery blue splotches on her skin, the marks of the dress of the stars. But in their place were silver-white scars, like brushstrokes across her face and body. The tears of the moon.
