Dropping Lord Xina’s broken spear, he opened his arms as if to welcome her attack. He waited until she was twenty paces away before he touched his amulet—and then, melding with Gyiu’rak, he transformed into a tiger, white fur bristling over his human skin.
I’d seen the warlord transform before, but Lady Sarnai had not. She yanked back on the reins and folded her body forward, shoulders curling in to brace for her father’s attack.
I had to do something! But I was across the battlefield, too far to help.
With dizzying speed, the tiger tackled her. Her horse shrieked, and Lady Sarnai toppled from her saddle, disappearing from view. Most warriors would have died instantly, and at first, I feared Sarnai had. Then she surfaced, wrestling the tiger with her bare hands.
The shansen raised his claws to her throat.
Stop!I shouted into his thoughts.She’s your daughter. You taught her to fight like this.
A flicker of hesitation glimmered on his brow. He growled, but he was listening.
Your demon has warped your thoughts. Don’t let her murder your daughter.
While I spoke to the shansen, Lady Sarnai struggled to inch away from his claws and regain her footing.
Kill her!Gyiu’rak screamed from the shansen’s amulet. The demon’s shouts overpowered mine, and the hesitation on the shansen’s brow vanished.Kill her.
The shansen’s claws hovered in the air. My stomach twisted with cold fear. I was sure that by the next beat of my heart Lady Sarnai would be dead. Down his paw came, but his daughter rolled away, and Lord Xina charged. The warrior drove his broken spear into the shansen’s side.
The tiger roared with pain, writhing and twisting. Lady Sarnai raised her sword. Unlike her father, she did not hesitate. But it was too late. The shansen leapt over the fire and disappeared.
Immediately, the flames subsided, and Lady Sarnai stabbed her sword into its remains. I could not see her face, but her shoulders heaved in frustration. She’d missed the chance to defeat her father.
She spun from the embers and strode to the banner the shansen’s men had hoisted. She broke its pole over her knee and ripped the flag in half.
“The shansen has retreated,” she declared. “Shut the gates!”
And at her command, the doors of the Winter Palace thundered to a close.
The battle was over.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
It was not a victory.
Lady Sarnai knew, as I did, that the shansen only conceded the Winter Palace because it held no strategic value for him. The smallest of Khanujin’s residences, it had been built during more peaceful times for the purpose of housing the royal family during A’landi’s bitter winters. It relied on its position on a cliff for its defenses, and the military barracks had been depleted of its resources during the Five Winters’ War. It did not even connect to the Great Spice Road.
Emperor Khanujin had made a mistake staying here. The Spring Palace was only a week’s journey from the Winter Palace, and, seated along the eastern coast of A’landi, it was protected by both the imperial navy and Jappor’s army—the strongest in the nation. Now that Khanujin was dead, no one could stop the shansen from conquering the capital—and A’landi.
No one, I wanted to tell Lady Sarnai, except her.
Her three brothers were in chains; her scarlet arrows jutted out of their hands and legs, their ribs and shoulders. Each wound looked calculated to bring severe pain, but not to kill.
She ignored their pleas for forgiveness and reclaimed her ash bow from her oldest brother.
“Take them to the dungeon,” she told Lord Xina. “I’ll decide what to do with them later.”
Terrified by the dark demon magic they had witnessed, many of the shansen’s troops were willing to pledge themselves to Lady Sarnai, who had fearlessly led them in battle during the Five Winters’ War. Those who would not defect were thrown into the dungeon without food or water. A few spat at her, shouting, “I’ve more honor than to follow a woman!”
They were also thrown in the dungeon, but with a note to the guards to have their tongues cut out.
No one else dared question her command.
By noon, Lady Sarnai had restored order to the Winter Palace. Her men had extinguished all the fires, and she’d enlisted the emperor’s surviving ministers to inventory what weapons could be salvaged from the armory and what food the palace had in its granary and storerooms.
“She’s really something, isn’t she?” Keton asked while I cradled Baba’s head on my lap. “Even more frightening than I remembered her during the war.”
