There was no sign of Lady Sarnai.
Despair gnawed at me as my demon eyes swept through the palace and its surroundings from afar. I took in the helmets, broken spears, smashed lanterns, and spilled canteens. Several corpses lay in the streets: mostly soldiers, frost glittering on their toes, their boots and cloaks stolen by local peasants who couldn’t afford to have scruples about how they survived the coming winter. The dead numbered no more than several dozen.
“Where are the emperor’s soldiers?” I asked Edan. “He sent for an army to defend the Winter Palace. They couldn’t have just disappeared.”
Edan’s expression was grim. “I don’t know,xitara.”
The gates were bolted shut, shadows flickering behind the scarlet-painted doors. The shansen’s guards.
“We’ll have to go over the gates.”
Edan made a face to show exactly how he felt about me using my demon magic, but he took hold of his walnut staff and wrapped his arm around my waist.
I leapt into the air toward the palace. My cloak billowed behind me, and flames scorched my shoes, the wind dangerously fanning the sparks that danced at my soles.
I was not so practiced at moving like a demon that I actually flew; it was more like taking giant leaps. Still, as I swam through the sky among the birds, I almost felt like one myself. And, not for the first time, I wondered what shape I would take when I finally succumbed to Bandur’s curse.
“A demon!” exclaimed the shansen’s guards once we approached the palace. “And the enchanter!”
Arrows rained upon us, faster than birds—like tiny daggers cutting the sky and making the air sing. I panicked. My feet stuttered in midair, struggling to get us higher.
“Keep flying,xitara,” said Edan. “I’ll take care of the arrows.”
The next attack came, and he raised his staff, muttering something under his breath. The arrows bounced off an invisible shield.
“Ah, so his magic has not left him entirely,” I heard the shansen remark.
I should not have heard him, not over the crackle of the fire devouring the Winter Palace, or the howl of the winter wind.
But my demon ears were sharp, my demon eyes even sharper.
Whatever injuries had ailed the shansen after the battle in the Autumn Palace had long since healed. He continued, “But the Edan I knew would have sent those arrows flying back at my men, multiplied tenfoldandwith their wings aflame.” He turned to his men. “Call off the attack. Let them come. I want to have a word with Khanujin’s demon.”
No more arrows flew, and I cleared the gate in a rush of smoke.
I looked down at the shansen’s soldiers. At their helm rode the shansen’s sons—their dark eyes devoid of mercy, and their mouths wearing variations on their father’s cruel sneer. The eldest carried Sarnai’s ash bow, and I wondered what it had been like for her to grow up among them. They reminded me nothing of my own brothers.
Behind them rode the shansen’s generals and his Balardan mercenaries. The waiting soldiers had their swords drawn and arrows nocked. Did they expect me to surrender?
My mouth set with irritation. I could burn their weapons to ashes with a thought!
I landed on the stone floor of the palace courtyard with athudso resounding the shansen’s soldiers staggered back. They parted ranks, and the shansen came forward to greet me.
“Have you come to beg for your emperor’s life, Maia Tamarin?” he rumbled. “He has been waiting anxiously for you to return.”
So, he was still alive.
I raised my chin. “Where are my father and brother?”
“Gyiu’rak tells me you were able to refuse our summons,” said the shansen, ignoring my question. I wondered if he knew that I’d thwarted Gyiu’rak’s attempt entirely, preventing all demons from coming to his aid. His demon was nowhere in sight.
“Impressive. I had hoped you might join us. That invitation still stands. Accept it, and I will reunite you with your family.”
His cordial tone unnerved me. At the wedding, he had been gruff and unpleasant. But now he was trying to win me over. That meant he viewed me as a threat.
I was. I could pierce his chest with my claws and spill his blood upon the ash-covered ground—before a single one of his guards could react.
If it weren’t for Baba and Keton, I might have done it.
