Keton had told me before that the Five Winters’ War ended only because of a stalemate. The shansen feared Edan, and Edan was wary of the dark forces behind the shansen’s enormous power.
But if Edan was truly gone, how would the emperor prevail against the shansen?
This wedding had to happen.
“Time grows short, Your Highness,” I said quietly. “I must fit you into your dress.”
Lady Sarnai’s two maids—her twonewmaids, Jun and Zaini—brought forward a large walnut trunk. Bitter wistfulness washed over me as I opened it and lifted out the dresses of the sun, the moon, and the stars. Their radiance flooded Lady Sarnai’s dark chambers, beams of gold and silver light darting across the ceiling.
“How beautiful,” the maids breathed. “They’re—”
“I suppose he wants me in that one.” Sarnai pointed curtly at the dress of the blood of stars. Stripes of sunlight danced over its black silk, igniting bursts of otherworldly color, like shooting stars across the night sky.
Before I could reply, the maids snatched the dress from me and accompanied Lady Sarnai to her changing area.
While I waited, I turned to the large rosewood mirror on my left. Sunken eyes peered back at me, tired from worry and lack of sleep, and wisps of black hair escaped my hat. I touched the freckles peppering my cheeks, and my pale, bloodless lips.
I was a shadow of my old self.
Lady Sarnai had stepped out from behind the changing screen, the dress of the stars’ skirts blooming behind her. The bodice cinched her small waist, the neckline accentuating the sharp contours of her shoulders and chest. Our measurements were nearly the same, and everything fit her perfectly, as I knew it would.
But the fabric, which had come alive only moments ago from my touch, now hung flat and dull—the color of charred wood, of an endless night.
“You callthisa wedding gown?” she asked, scowling.
I didn’t know what to say. The dress hadchangedwhen I wore it. The skirts had danced with azures and indigos and purples richer than any dyes found on the Spice Road, casting my skin with a silvery sheen that had made even the emperor gaze at me with wonder.
But on Lady Sarnai, it was lackluster. Lifeless.
I angled closer to her with my measuring string, and I tried to get her to step into the light. “Let me see if—”
“Perhaps Your Highness should try on another dress,” the younger maid, Jun, interrupted. “The dress of the sun.”
Lady Sarnai’s eyes narrowed. “Fetch it.”
She meant me, not the maids. I rolled my measuring string over my arm and lifted the dress of the sun from the chair to bring it forth.
She blinked, her eyes watering at its brightness.
“Your Highness, are you all right?”
“I don’t want that one,” she began. “I—” Sarnai stopped. Her jaw slackened, and her shoulders jerked back and forth. Her arms flailed, and she began gasping as if she could not breathe.
“Your Highness?” Jun and Zaini fanned her, tapped her wrist as if that would help. “Your Highness, are you feeling ill?”
Sarnai coughed and wheezed. Her lips moved, but only a strangled sound came out. “Demons,” she mouthed. Her bloodshot eyes widened with panic. She shrieked, “Demons! They’re burning me.”
She trembled violently as she clawed at her bodice, trying to tear it off. The maids grabbed her arms to steady her, but she writhed and twisted away. Blindly, she stumbled back against the wall, tripping over her long skirt. “Tamarin, get it off,” she rasped. “Get it o—”
Then her body thudded to the ground.
The maids screamed, and I dropped the dress of the sun, hurrying to Lady Sarnai. I lifted her head onto my lap, holding her neck still as the rest of her body shook.
It was the dress. I had to get it off before it killed her.
I rolled her onto her stomach and fumbled at my belt for my scissors. There wasn’t time to undo dozens of buttons, so I cut into the back of the dress. Or, at least, I tried to. The fabric was so strong it resisted my scissor blades. I cut again and again, until the threads loosened and the maids and I could pry the dress off.
“Thank the gods,” I breathed when Lady Sarnai finally stopped trembling. But my relief was short-lived. Her arms had gone limp at her sides, and when I turned her over, her eyes wouldn’t open.
