“Why do the trees change color?”I had asked my brothers.
Sendo had paused, no doubt trying to think of a poetic answer for me. But the ever-blunt Finlei beat him to answering,“Because they’re dying.”
“He means,”said Sendo, seeing my stricken expression,“that as the green fades, the leaves die and fall off the trees.”
Their answers had quieted me. I’d studied the vibrant smears of paint on my fingers, then looked to the trees by the sea.“If dying is this beautiful, then I wish I were a tree too. I’d be happy to die and be reborn in the spring.”
How they’d laughed at me. I laughed now too, bitterly. I’d been so innocent back then, believing in past and future lives. Most A’landans did, including Mama and Baba and Sendo, so I hadn’t thought to question it—until now.
If I became a demon, a part of me would die. But it wouldn’t be a beautiful death, and there would be no spring, no rebirth, for me.
What would happen to the Maia that died? Where would she go? Had she had a life before this one?
I wrapped my arms around my chest, knowing there was no answer.
Leaves crunched under my heels, the brisk cold seeping deep into my lungs. We’d only been gone a few days, flying south toward the Tura Mountains and Lake Paduan, but winter had followed us. By the creek, the edges of the bank were already beginning to freeze, an early sheet of ice lacing the moist dirt.
At this rate, we wouldn’t be able to camp much longer. The cold wouldn’t kill me, but Ammi…she would do better with a roof over her head and a proper fire.
Crouching beside the creek, I cracked the ice with a branch and washed my face, trying to shock some life into my tired eyes. Once I’d filled our canteens, my freezing fingers fumbled into my pouch for the mirror of truth. My reflection glimpsed me wearily, and I set the mirror against the bank’s damp soil.
“Edan?” I called. The glass rippled with the sound of my voice. “Edan?”
Nothing.
My heart sank. Every morning, I’d tried to reach him. Always unsuccessfully.
“If you can hear me,” I whispered, “I’m not coming to the Temple of Nandun. I’m…I’m going to Lapzur instead.” My throat ached, and I forced my next words to sound firm. “Don’t follow me, Edan. Stay where you are.”
I echoed myself, “Stay where you are.”
Fresh ice glittered across the mirror glass. My shoulders slumping, I wiped it clean with my knuckles, then slipped the mirror back into my pouch. For days, I’d heard nothing from Edan. I only hoped he wasn’t still waiting for me, and that I’d have a chance to tell him—even if only in the mirror—that I was returning to Lapzur alone.
Back at our camp, Ammi huddled beside the remains of our fire, shivering. How thin she’d grown in these last few days.
“Out for water again?”
I felt a flicker of guilt as I passed her a water canteen, my daily excuse for my disappearances every morning.
Seeing her teeth chatter as she drank, I made up my mind. “We’ll stay in an inn tonight.”
“But the shansen is looking for you. And so are the emperor’s men.”
“If we stay out here, you’ll freeze.”
I’d meant to saywe’dfreeze, but the words came out wrong. Far too honest. Luckily, Ammi didn’t catch it.
“But what if they—”
“We’ll be careful,” I rushed to add. I couldn’t say what truly worried me about staying in the villages. Not that someone might recognize me as Maia Tamarin, but that my demon eyes might reappear and give me away for what I was becoming.
A monster.
• • •
Disguised as traveling brothers, we found a suitable inn along a forgotten spur off the Road. Centuries ago, the town might have been a bustling oasis for weary travelers, but if so, it’d shrunk into a small village since then. Inside, several men were slurping noodles with hot oil, and others drank and gambled with tiles. Business was healthy enough that the innkeeper barely glanced at us when we paid for our lodging.
Our tiny room had two moth-bitten cots beside the window, cobwebs slung across the corners, a lone candle on a rickety table, and a pot of incense for prayer. The ceiling creaked every time a loose tile on the roof rattled, but no wind leaked in through the window cracks, and we had a kettle full of hot water.
