I started to hum to her, scratching behind her ears so she’d know I wasn’t dangerous.
That I wasn’t a demon.
Still humming, I pressed my forehead against her neck and waited for her pulse to slow. Once she was calm, I kissed her neck and mounted.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
As we edged onto the street, taking cover under the long shadows from the wall around Longhai’s shop, I heard the shansen’s men at the front door.
“There’s no one by that name here,” Madam Su was informing them. She lifted her head slightly, noticing me creep my way to the front of the shop.
“We know the imperial tailor is here,” one of the soldiers said gruffly, trying to push past the seamstress into the shop. “I warn you to stand aside, woman. I’ve killed for less.”
Madam Su held firm, even when the soldier unsheathed his dagger and held it threateningly at her. But I froze, pulling back on my horse’s reins.
“Looking for me?” I shouted. With a hard kick to my horse’s side, I charged toward the street.
“That’s the tailor!” they yelled, running after me. “Stop!”
Before they could reach their horses, Ammi ran out of the shop brandishing a large iron pan and whacked the back of one soldier’s head, and Madam Su knocked the other to his knees.
I caught my friend’s eyes for an instant. Understanding flooded hers, and she nodded.
I didn’t look back again.
After that, no more of the shansen’s men followed. My cloth bird perched on my shoulder, I raced onward—making for the Tura Mountains on the distant horizon.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
My bird flew quickly, bouncing from gale to gale. With the wind pushing me, I barely noticed Nissei disappear behind me, the mountainous pillars of the Sand Needle Forests and the Changi River blurring until the landscape looked like faded watercolors.
I concentrated on the spread of trees coming into view before me, the forest Edan and I had spent our last days traveling through before we had gone to that cursed place, the Forgotten Isles of Lapzur. How different it looked in the teeth of winter. Just months ago, the trees bore leaves as vibrant as the greenest jade. Now the forest blazed yellow, so bright it hurt my eyes.
I couldn’t stop to rest yet, and though my legs burned from riding and my throat was dry from lack of water, all I could think of was that Edan was somewhere near, closer to me than he’d been in weeks.
Winding deeper into the forest, I followed my bird into a valley of trees with crisp golden leaves and ashen spines. To the west, the sun began to sink, leeching color from the world around me.
The air grew chillier. I was getting closer to Lapzur. My cloth bird directed us south, but something kept urging me east instead—toward the Forgotten Isles.
Not something.Me.
The demon inside me displaced the voices of the ghosts in my head. Unlike theirs, her voice floated down into my thoughts, soft and alluring.
Why bother seeing the enchanter?she asked.Your reunion will only pain you when you have to leave again. Best to go to Lapzur now. You’re so close. Once you become the guardian of Lapzur, you can call for the enchanter—you can be together again.
When I ignored her, she took another approach.Bandur is weak,she said seductively. The words slipped into my mind, like silk too smooth not to touch.You have the dresses of Amana. You will be stronger than him.
Think on it, Maia.
I drew a shaky breath, hearing the demon use my real name, and I tried to forget what she had said. But her poison brushed against my ears, gentle as a kiss. The possibility her words promised haunted me, lingering in my thoughts long after she went silent, which made her far more dangerous than the ghosts or Bandur. It was becoming harder to distinguish her thoughts from mine, to navigate the difference between what I wanted and whatshewanted.
While my thoughts drifted, my cloth bird disappeared into a canopy of leaves, and my horse let out a tired grunt. I dismounted to let her rest, then whistled for my bird.
Strange, where had it gone?
I started to whistle again, when an arrow ripped past my sleeve, and my horse panicked and bolted away.
Terror shot to my heart.
