Unravel the Dusk

by Elizabeth Lim

  Wine perfumed the air, sharpened by the pungent aromas of three hundred different dishes: fried fish and braised pork, eight-spiced bean curd, and crispy shrimp fried with pineapples brought over from the Tambu Islands. The best acrobats, dancers, and musicians had come from throughout A’landi, and the afternoon was spent reveling in their talents. I might have enjoyed their performances were I anywhere but here.

  When at last the banquet began, the shansen sat in the same seat as before, across from the emperor and me. He laughed and drank with his men, throwing subtle insults at the emperor, but I could feel him watching me. The empty chair on his right would have been Lord Xina’s; I wondered whether everyone truly believed my outburst last night was an act of grief.

  Something told me the shansen did not.

  “Lady Sarnai,” said one of his warriors, slightly drunk, “your dress outshines the moon. We thought it impossible there could be a gown more beautiful than the one you wore yesterday, but the Jewel of the North has set an example for these Southern court ladies.” He chuckled. “My wife should like to commission your tailor for a dress of her own.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but Khanujin interrupted, “We shall ask the imperial tailor on your wife’s behalf, Lord Lawar, as a token of peace between the North and South.”

  “I’ve heard the imperial tailor is a woman,” the lord continued. “She must be gifted, to be able to sew the dresses of Amana.”

  The shansen grunted. “Bring her forth. I should like to meet this girl.”

  I held my breath, trying hard not to glance at Khanujin.

  “I’ve a better idea,” said the emperor smoothly. “Lady Sarnai, why don’t you demonstrate the tremendous power of your dress?”

  It took all my control not to glower at him. Surely he had to be joking.

  “The goddess’s power is not mine to invoke,” I said in the flattest tone I could muster.

  “My daughter speaks at last,” rumbled the shansen. His eyes narrowed. He knew there was something different about me. “It’s not like you to be shy, Sarnai. Come, show us what the dress can do.”

  I wouldn’t rise. I forced a morsel of roasted squab into my mouth, chewing defiantly.

  “She’s still angry with me,” Khanujin said, laughing. A chorus of awkward chuckles joined him. “Stand, Sarnai. Show us Amana’s strength.”

  The emperor’s calm surprised me. Had I underestimated him? Edan’s enchantment had brought upon him the appearance of majesty, but I was starting to wonder if the charm of his tongue was his own entirely.

  He left me no choice, so I made a show of leisurely setting down my napkin and rising from my seat, deliberately taking my time.

  The dress of the moon had the most fabric of all the three gowns, with long sleeves and a sheer jacket over the bodice tied with a wide embroidered sash. Tiny pearls studded every inch of the gown, representing the tears of the moon. It had been painstaking work, sewing them onto the fabric, and it had paid off. The pearls rippled, almost like the reflection of the moon over water—a breathtaking effect.

  I unrolled the sleeves, letting them hang loose and brush against the ground. Slowly, I turned, ignoring the loud cheers and cries as silvery lights cascaded over the fabric.

  Only the shansen was unimpressed. “A few sparkles and shiny silks are hardly representative of Amana’s power. Are you sure the tailor did not fleece you, daughter?”

  “This gown is embroidered with the tears of the moon,” I said, an edge to my voice now. I’d gone through so much to make these dresses. How could anyone doubt them?

  I gripped the sides of my skirts, bunching as much fabric as I could into my fists and squeezing. How could I show him?

  I sought the moon through one of the latticed windows, the curtains sheer, dancing slightly in the autumn wind. The moon was as starved as it had been the night before, a fragile crescent—according to legend, that meant the goddess of the moon could not see her lover, the god of the sun. When the moon was full, she could see him, so she was happier.

  Remembering the story made me think of Edan. I’d likely never see him again, never feel his arms around me, or inhale the warmth of his skin touching mine, never hear his voice caress my name.

  We were like the sun and the moon, sharing the same stars and the same sky.

  Somehow, that made him feel less far away. And made my heart feel slightly less alone. Less cold. For a moment, the darkness inside me weakened, and my dress came alive—

  “Look!” one of the ministers cried. “The dress…it’s…”

  Glowing wasn’t the right word. I could understand why he stumbled to find the right one. Light burst from my dress, permeating the entire hall as if stars were shooting forth from the ceiling. A powerful gust of wind rushed across the room, followed by a sudden flash.

  The flames on the candles went out with a snap, and the bronze goblets and porcelain plates sang from the sting of an invisible kiss. Some of the guests ducked under the banquet table, while others marveled at my dress.

  When it was over, the servants hastened to relight the candles, and the chamber broke into applause. Even the shansen’s lips curled with interest. The emperor basked in everyone’s praise—as if he had been the one to make Amana’s dresses.

  Maia Tamarin, the imperial tailor, was forgotten. Lady Sarnai, the Jewel of the North, was forgotten.

  But I, whoever I was at this moment, did not forget.

  I returned to my seat, my mind reeling. The dress had glowed beautifully, and its fabrics had shone with the mysterious light of the moon—enough to impress the shansen.

  But this couldn’t be all Amana’s dresses could do. I’d seen their power destroy Lady Sarnai, disfigure her beyond recognition. What other secrets did they hold?

  Would they turn against me when I became a demon? Or join me in my fall?

  Hiding my troubled thoughts, I sat quietly at the emperor’s side.

  “Very impressive,” allowed the shansen. “But unlike you Southerners, I know my lore: the power of Amana’s dresses can only be wielded by the tailor who creates them.” His eyes, glittering like two polished stones, darkened at me. “So either you are not my daughter, or this is not Amana’s dress.”

  My throat tightened. “I am your daughter. And this is Amana’s dress.”

  “It is not the latter that I doubt,” the shansen replied with a grunt. He pointed at the ash bow he had given me. It hung in the middle of the banquet hall, displayed prominently among the other wedding gifts.

  One of his attendants brought the weapon, and the shansen thrust it into my hands. “Only the Jewel of the North has the strength to wield this weapon.”

  The attendant presented me with a box of scarlet-painted arrows, and as I picked one up and nocked it, he guided me away from the banquet table toward a clear place to demonstrate my ability with the bow.

  It was a miracle my hands did not tremble. I’d never drawn a bow or fired an arrow before. There was no way I could pass the shansen’s test.

  “Where shall I aim?” I asked evenly.

  The shansen stroked his beard. “The tiger on my banner across the hall. That should be easy enough for you, Sarnai.”

  I squinted at the emerald banner, embroidered with a regal white tiger arising from a mountain bed.

  “Is this necessary?” Khanujin interrupted. “This is a banquet, Lord Makangis, not a test.”

  “If Sarnai is who she says she is, this would not be a test, but child’s play. Her favorite sport.”

  I swallowed and lifted the bow. Within a panicked second of pulling, I knew that I could not draw its taut bowstring.

  Help me, I implored, appealing to the magic shimmering in my dress. If I cannot do this, A’landi will be lost.

  Something held back the power of my dress. Something was choking its magic. Choking me. />
  A wicked frost bubbled up my throat. It tasted metallic and bitter, like iron left in the snow. Like moonlight that had gone stale.

  Amana cannot help you, the cold whispered, sounding distressingly like my own voice. But I can.

  Shadows folded into my thoughts, weaving darkness into my mind. No!

  Before I could turn it away, supernatural strength filled me, and I snapped the bowstring back against my cheek. My hands moved without my control, directing the bow. I tried to resist, but I was torn. If I failed this test, the shansen would know I wasn’t his daughter.

  This is your chance, my voice enticed. Kill the shansen. Save A’landi.

  If he dies, there will be no war.

  Sweat beaded my temples, my focus blurring as I fought to ignore the voice blaring inside me. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even hear my heart. The green banner ahead seemed to sway. No, the entire world was swaying, the walls boiling in shadows only I could see.

  Do it, Maia. Kill him. KILL HIM.

  The darkness swallowed me whole—just for an instant. But an instant was just long enough to change everything. I swerved the bow to the left and pointed my arrow at the shansen’s chest. And released.

  The scarlet arrow shrieked across the hall, my shot straight and true. I froze in terror. There was no chance I’d missed. No man could move fast enough to escape the death I had just delivered.

  And yet, the arrow diverged from its path ever so slightly, so at the last moment it pierced the white tiger embroidered on his cloak—instead of the shansen’s heart.

  Once again, the court burst into applause. Beside me, Emperor Khanujin wore a thinly veiled smirk, and the shansen crossed his arms.

  “Only the Jewel of the North has the strength to wield the bow,” the emperor repeated. “She is your daughter.”

  The shansen merely grunted, snapping the arrow out of his cloak—but I caught the dark look he passed me. It vanished before I could read it, and he flung the broken arrow onto the ground.

  “Let the festivities continue!” declared Emperor Khanujin.

  Everyone returned to the food and wine, and the shansen escorted me back to my seat. My pulse was thundering in my ears and my eyes began to burn again, flares of crimson speckling the pearls dangling in front of my face.

  Panic rose in me. Run, I warned myself. Get out of here before anyone sees.

  But I couldn’t. I’d run off last night. If I left again, Khanujin would kill Baba and Keton.

  Besides, no one was paying attention to me.

  No one except the shansen.

  Praying he wouldn’t notice, I counted my steps the way I used to count my stitches, to calm the storm rising within me. Ten paces until I reach my seat. Nine. Eight. Seven.

  Six. One of the servants brought a tray of candles to replace the ones that my dress had extinguished. The glow from the flames made my pupils burn, and tears tracked down my face.

  Five. I couldn’t bear it any longer. I made the mistake of looking up, away from the lights.

  The shansen seized my arm. “There is something amiss with your eyes, daughter.”

  I tried to twist out of his grip, but he was too strong. “Let me go.”

  As I struggled, I spied a flash of black stone within his robes. An amulet, like the one Bandur wore, only with a tiger’s head engraved on the face. Before I could make out anything more, the amulet fell back into the folds of the shansen’s cloak, and he knocked my crown off my head.

  A hush fell over the hall.

  “You are not my daughter,” he snarled.

  With more strength than an ordinary man should have, he hurled me against the wall and overturned the banquet table. Plates shattered, and guests screamed.

  “I declare this marriage invalid,” he growled. “The truce is over.”

  Daggers and poisoned needles flashed in his men’s hands. A blink later, knives were buried in the throats of the guards nearest Emperor Khanujin.

  I lay stunned on the floor. I didn’t hear the screams and shouts, the thuds of the dead guards falling to the ground. I didn’t see their blood seeping through the silken red tablecloths, smearing the gold-embroidered symbols of the emperor and Lady Sarnai’s names.

  My attention was completely riveted by the shansen. His pupils constricted, the tiger fur on his cloak melting over him. And his fingernails grew long and sharp—into claws.

  The amulet I’d spied in his coat dangled from his chest, the brutal beast carved on its surface darkening, like ink spreading into a painting coming to life.

  White smoke curled from the amulet, and the shansen inhaled it through his nostrils. When I looked at him next, he was not a man at all.

  But a demon—a tiger with bone-white fur and glistening black eyes—that lunged for Emperor Khanujin.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  He moved in flashes, faster than my eye could follow, lethal and precise. Everywhere he danced struck a tempest of blood and death.

  Chopsticks clattered against porcelain bowls, and teacups shattered on the ground. Furniture cracked, or was it the sound of bones breaking? I could not tell. My vision went in and out of focus, the flashing red of swiveling lanterns hurting my eyes.

  I should have run, yet I could not. I could not do anything but stare at the shansen’s cinder-black eyes, knowing, with a shiver, that someday mine would be just as empty. Just as soulless.

  A platter of steamed fish flew over me, and I ducked, taking cover under one of the banquet tables.

  Three servants already hid there, teeth chattering and necks shiny with sweat. They held each other, covering one another’s ears to block the clamor of the screaming guests and praying for survival.

  As the air grew pungent with salt and iron, nausea gripped my throat, thickening until I wished I could vomit. I tried to focus on the flying food instead of the falling bodies. There were too many to count.

  A minister dropped beside me, his bright blue robes ripped at the torso. The servants jumped away in horror, but I pulled the minister under the table for protection.

  A dark blossom of blood seeped through the silk of his robes, turning even the gold-knotted buttons crimson and staining the jade plaques on his belt, which many of the ministers wore—believing the jade protected them from illness and ill luck.

  I started to press my hand against his wound to stop the bleeding, but he grabbed my hands. His lips were already graying, final words dying on his breath. It was then I noticed my skin was colder than his, colder than death.

  His mouth parted, and he spluttered sounds. “H-help me,” he pleaded. He gripped my sleeve, pulling it over his face as if its magic might resurrect him.

  I pressed a hand to his chest and gently uncurled his fingers from my sleeve. But he had already passed into the next world.

  Remorse clotted my throat as I closed his eyes. I started to murmur a prayer for him, but the table shook, the servants shouting that it was about to collapse.

  I crawled out quickly and backed against the wall. The emperor’s guards were still attacking the shansen, and one staggered my way, bloody claw marks etched deep into his chest. When I leaned onto my side to get out of his way, something hard hit my thigh.

  My dagger!

  I pulled it out of my pocket, my hands curling over the walnut hilt.

  “Jinn,” I whispered to the weapon, quickly unsheathing it. The blade’s meteorite edge began to glow a faint gray.

  I held the dagger close. I’d only used its power once—against Bandur on the Isles of Lapzur. Gods, I hoped it would work tonight.

  Springing to my feet, I shouted, “Lord Makangis! You’ve missed me!”

  He turned to pounce on me, taking the entire width of the banquet hall in three fleet leaps. He would have crushed my bones with his heft, but his hind legs stumbled at the last moment and he la
nded farther from me than he should have.

  Surprise flitted across his beastly features, and as he snarled in confusion, I raised my dagger to show my strength. The power of the meteorite made him balk.

  He’s not a demon, I realized, stunned. His eyes were black, not red like Bandur’s—or mine. His wounds bled not smoke but bright human blood. What was he?

  Whatever he was, I swung at him. Even on four legs, he stood taller than I, so I had to jump to attack his neck. The meteorite grazed his skin, and he let out a terrible roar.

  His claws swiped at me, and blood trickled down my arm.

  I felt no pain, only anger, and I drove my weapon into the shansen’s ribs. He writhed and twisted, his face contorting until it was more man than tiger.

  Finally, the shansen stood in front of me. But before the emperor’s soldiers could capture him, he pulled up the hood of his fur-lined cloak and shouted, “Gyiu’rak!”

  A terrible gale erupted, and from a storm of wind and ash, the shadow of an enormous tiger emerged behind the warlord, folding over him.

  The shansen’s demon.

  It gazed at me for a moment that seemed to stretch for eternity. Its eyes were red as the cinnabar used to tint A’landi’s prized scarlet lacquer, so depthless they had no reflection, no soul.

  Then I blinked, and the shansen was gone.

  An eerie silence fell over the banquet hall. A few red lanterns still swung from the rafters, round shadows flickering as ash settled.

  Heart pounding, I lowered my dagger and scanned the room. Dozens of servants and ministers and guests were dead, many more wounded. The emperor himself cowered behind a broken screen, the corpses of his bodyguards strewn about him.

  He pushed the bodies aside and stood, his robes bloody and streaked with soot, unharmed.

  I needed to go—I needed to leave this graveyard before anyone realized what I had done.

  Ducking into a shadow, I sheathed my dagger and slipped out of the hall into the night.

  * * *

  • • •

  I was not fool enough to believe that the emperor would reward me for protecting him against the shansen. Now that he had seen I could wield magic, he would never let me leave his side.