Unravel the Dusk

by Elizabeth Lim

  I tore off the dress of the moon, and my body gave a violent shudder. All of me ached, and an agonizing heat buzzed through my fingertips as I hurriedly gathered my things.

  The tattered threads of my enchanted carpet poked out from under my bed. It seemed a lifetime ago that I’d woven it with just two bundles of blue and red yarn, only half believing it would ever fly. Now I understood the costs of magic better. Like me, my rug didn’t have much time left.

  I seized it, along with my letters from Baba and my sketchbook. I didn’t know where I would go, but I didn’t have much time.

  The only pause I allowed myself was to drink a cup of water to soothe my parched throat. A sudden coldness gripped my heart when the candles on my table flickered, most of them snuffed by an eerie wind.

  But what wind? All my windows were shuttered.

  Then I saw the wolf lurking at my door. His name boiled out of my throat:

  “Bandur.”

  The demon entered and leaned against my wall, paws scraping the floor. “The power is irresistible, isn’t it?”

  My hand slid behind my back for my dagger, gripped the hilt. “Get out of here.”

  “You feel it leaving you now. It’s becoming hard to breathe, little by little it suffocates you; you feel the fire within you dying.” His voice was matter-of-fact. “Stoke the flames, Maia. Let it burn.”

  I threw my bundle over my shoulder and headed for the door.

  Bandur leapt to block me. “Now that you have tasted it, it will consume you faster than before. You don’t have long, Maia Tamarin. The Forgotten Isles call for you.” His paw curled over my wrist, claws sinking into my flesh. “Surely, you’ve heard the voices.”

  I had.

  Sentur’na, they begged me. Sentur’na, come back to us. We need you.

  His claws sank deeper into my wrist. Trying not to wince from the pain, I wrenched my arm away and pulled out my dagger.

  “Jinn!” I cried.

  The blade shot out of its sheath, its meteorite surface glittering. Holding it high, I whirled for Bandur and stabbed at his heart—

  But he dissipated into smoke, and my dagger met only air.

  His laugh resonated across the walls of my chamber. “So much fight. You’ll make a fine guardian.”

  “Show yourself,” I demanded. My voice shook, the dagger in my hand trembling.

  Bandur reappeared in the mirror. “Hurry, Maia. Any longer, and I will send my ghosts to destroy all that you love.” He mused, “I will start with this palace.”

  “Go ahead,” I snapped. “I care nothing for the emperor.”

  “But what about your friends here? All these innocent lives. You already have blood on your hands, dear Maia, especially after tonight.”

  I glanced down at the wound on my arm. A plume of smoke curled out from Bandur’s reflection, brushing my skin. To my horror, its touch had healed me.

  “What is the shansen?” I whispered.

  “He struck a deal with Gyiu’rak,” Bandur replied, “the demon of the northern forests.”

  “Gyiu’rak,” I repeated. So that was the name of the shansen’s demon.

  “Her power lives in him now until the bargain is complete.”

  “To conquer A’landi.” I sucked in my breath. “What then?”

  “Then she will claim her reward. Her blood price.”

  I shuddered. “What is that?”

  “Why should it matter to you?” Bandur asked, stroking my hair now. I jerked away, and he laughed. “Soon you will be bound to the Isles of Lapzur, and I will finally be free.”

  “I will never go to Lapzur,” I said through my teeth.

  “You know that is not true. Every night, its waters beckon you, and its ghosts call to you.”

  I curled my fists. Sentur’na.

  His shadow loomed over the dress of the moon, smothering its silvery light.

  “Stop lying to yourself,” he said in a pitying tone. “Amana cannot save you. Soon the dresses too will be consumed by the power inside you. What a guardian you will be then, armed with the sun and the moon and the stars.”

  Then, as swiftly and silently as he had arrived, he was gone.

  I started out the door, refusing to be shaken by Bandur’s visit. What if he was right? Maybe I had no choice but to obey the calling. But I wouldn’t go without a fight.

  Gritting my teeth, I probed the newly healed skin on my arm. So the stories about the shansen were true. He had made a bargain with a demon to conquer A’landi.

  Without Edan, Emperor Khanujin would have no chance against him.

  You could stay, a voice inside me nagged. You could help. You have the power of a demon stirring inside you.

  It was true…if I stayed, maybe I could help. Maybe I could—

  “No!” I balked. I buried the voice deep into my thoughts, knowing that behind its cloying words was the demon Maia, trying to needle her way into my mind. The more I used the dark powers stirring inside me, the faster I would turn into a monster.

  Then A’landi is without hope. All that you sacrificed will be for nothing.

  I clenched my fists. Edan had called me the hope of A’landi. He’d left believing I could save it.

  I should have told him the truth.

  I looked in the mirror. My face was pale, no color flushed my cheeks, and the warm, earthy brown that had once lit my eyes was flat and dull. “I will be of no help to A’landi if I am a demon,” I told my reflection.

  My duty to the emperor was done. I could stay here no longer.

  Instead, I would find a way to defeat Bandur and free myself of his curse. Even if it meant returning to the Isles of Lapzur.

  First things first. I couldn’t expect to escape the palace unnoticed carrying the dress of the moon. I opened my trunk, searching for the two walnuts and the glass vial I’d used to store the sun, the moon, and the stars on my journey with Edan.

  I found them wrapped in layers of silk and satin scraps and scooped them up with my palm. At my touch the walnuts and the vial trembled as if possessed, rattling onto the floor until—they snapped together.

  In their place was a round walnut pendant made of glass, with a smooth crack in the center: my two walnuts and the vial forged together. It dangled from a thin chain, melded of gold and silver.

  The pendant was smaller than my palm, about the same size as the amulet Emperor Khanujin wore—and Bandur, too.

  Bandur’s had a crack in the center.

  A shiver tingled across my skin as I slipped the chain over my head and grasped the pendant. It began to glow, and I held my breath as the dress of the moon spun and spun, its silvery ribbons whirling as the dress spiraled smaller and smaller, then disappeared into the pendant’s crack.

  When the dress had fully returned inside, the pendant weighed lighter against my chest. But the absence of the other two dresses was a hollow ache. The sun and the moon and the stars yearned to be together.

  The other two dresses are in Lady Sarnai’s apartments, I thought, swallowing hard. I didn’t have time to retrieve them. I needed to leave now. Too many had witnessed the power of my dress and my dagger against the shansen. If the emperor found me, he’d force me to stay at his side to defend the palace. I’d never be able to break my curse.

  But deep down, I knew Bandur was right. Amana’s dresses were my lifeblood now.

  I couldn’t leave without them. Without all of them.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “We heard the warning bells,” Jun said when she let me inside Lady Sarnai’s chambers. Her voice trembled. “Is…is the emperor in danger? Has the shansen attacked?”

  “Yes,” I replied solemnly, “but he’s retreated for now.”

  “Why did he attack?” she asked. “Did he find out that you weren’t—”

  She couldn’t fi
nish the words, and I couldn’t bring myself to confirm her fears.

  “It’s over now.” I hesitated, hating myself for the lie I was about to tell. “The emperor’s commanded me to take the dresses for safekeeping.”

  “Thank the gods,” Zaini said fervently. “They’re cursed.”

  She and Jun pointed me to Lady Sarnai’s trunks. “Take them. Please.”

  I scooped the dress of the sun and the dress of the stars—still damaged from my cutting it off Lady Sarnai’s body—into my arms and funneled their essence into my pendant.

  Then, I heard a hoarse cry from behind the bedchamber’s closed doors.

  At first, it sounded more like an animal than a person. Low and reedy, like the whimper of an injured fox. But when I heard it again, I recognized the voice.

  Lady Sarnai. The air around her was thick with incense meant to drive away the evil spirits Jun and Zaini were convinced had attacked her.

  The sight of her made me shudder. Jun and Zaini had bandaged most of her skin and treated it with salve, but they hadn’t wrapped her nose, mouth, and ears, which were a motley mess of violet and blue burns and ore-colored splotches—the pigments not unlike the blood of stars.

  “Demon’s breath,” I whispered. “She looks worse than before.”

  Ghosts haunted Jun and Zaini’s eyes. The maids looked like they hadn’t eaten or slept in the past two days. Knowing Khanujin, I bet they hadn’t even left Lady Sarnai’s apartments, on pain of death. The way their voices trembled confirmed my suspicions.

  “We’ve…we’ve tried everything, Master Tamarin.”

  “No matter what we feed her, she will not wake. And her skin…where the dress touched her—it keeps changing, sometimes blue, sometimes gray. We’ve never seen anything like it.”

  The two maids huddled together fearfully. “She can’t be long for this world.”

  The calmness of my voice surprised me. “His Majesty hasn’t sent for a doctor?”

  Jun and Zaini shook their heads.

  No surprise. The emperor probably feared that the royal physicians might divulge the secret that Lady Sarnai was near death. Not that it mattered anymore, after what had happened at the banquet.

  I swallowed. I couldn’t leave Lady Sarnai like this.

  Darkness crawled in me. Let her be. She’s never been kind to you. Let her die.

  I turned to the door, but then Lady Sarnai coughed. The sound was so pitiful, so unlike the fierce princess who had once terrified me.

  Think of how she slit the throats of those guards. She wouldn’t have a second thought about leaving you behind.

  I had no doubt this was true.

  Then leave her.

  It would be so easy to listen to the dark reason in my head, to let the demon strip me of my humanity one thought at a time. But the old Maia was still there, for now. You’re stronger than this, she urged. Resist.

  Leave her, the demon insisted. She wouldn’t hesitate to abandon you.

  Yes, but I wasn’t Lady Sarnai.

  I was Maia Tamarin.

  I let my satchel slide from my shoulder onto the ground. It landed with a soft thump, and I knelt beside Lady Sarnai, ignoring the relentless whispers buzzing within me.

  How could I save her?

  Even if they’d been permitted to visit, doctors couldn’t do anything for Lady Sarnai. The only person who could help her wasn’t here.

  “Where are the Lord Enchanter’s chambers?” I asked.

  Jun blinked at me, her wide-set eyes blank with confusion.

  “In the Summer Palace, they were by the Great Temple,” I said impatiently, grabbing a spare sheet draped on one of Lady Sarnai’s chairs. “Where are they here?”

  “But the Lord—”

  “Yes, I know he’s away. This is urgent.”

  They blurted their answer, and I was gone.

  * * *

  • • •

  A palace-wide search for me had begun. At every turn, I heard the guards shouting my name, “Master Tamarin, reveal yourself! Master Tamarin!”

  Under a somber veil of clouds, I quickly fashioned a disguise out of Lady Sarnai’s bedsheet. I pulled it over my head and hurried to the north end of the Autumn Palace.

  The entire courtyard was empty. Shadows haunted the path to Edan’s residence, which boasted no celebratory lanterns or flowers or any sign of the earlier festivities. I slipped through the doors to his apartments and slid them shut.

  His rooms had been ransacked. Books and scrolls lay sprawled across the floor, having been thrown without care from their shelves. His desk was a mess of inkpots and brushes, his bed an upheaval of feathers and sheets. Dust rose in clouds as I sidestepped a smashed bamboo birdcage and shuffled deeper into his chambers.

  I wasn’t sure where to look for something that might heal Lady Sarnai, but Edan’s workspace seemed like the best place to start.

  Maps littered his desk. Some pages were yellowed with age and smelled of spices I couldn’t name. There were journals in his careful handwriting, with illustrations of countries I’d never heard of. I thumbed through the top one, pausing over a drawing of a familiar Niwa spider. These must have been the notes Edan consulted before we’d left for the Halakmarat Desert. His writing was in a language I couldn’t read.

  Nelrat, I supposed.

  “Do you not write anything in A’landan, Edan?” I murmured, moving on to his cabinets. From the deep dents in the wood, it appeared the emperor’s men had tried to smash the locks open, but without success. They’d given up, maybe too frightened by what magic still lurked in the Lord Enchanter’s chambers.

  Not long ago, I hadn’t been too different. Well, I’d never been frightened of Edan, but I remembered the air of mystery surrounding him during our early meetings. It had taken months before I saw the earnest boy beneath the enchanter’s cloak of arrogance and magic.

  I touched the lacquered cabinet doors, tracing my fingers from the strange words inscribed on the surface down to the bronze lock in the middle. There was no keyhole, but the lock was shaped like a hawk, its two spread wings latching either side of the doors.

  My curious fingers folded the wings together, not expecting anything to happen. But the metal warmed under my touch, the bronze melting into a black lacquer like the rest of the wood. The doors cracked open, as if they recognized me.

  Inside, I found drawers containing glass vials, filled to the brim with liquids of every color imaginable. There were plants and flowers and herbs I did not recognize, most dried and still in their whole form; some were crushed or ground and stored in hemp pouches. I found seeds that bloomed into flowers when I touched them, feathers and scales and molted snakeskins. At the bottom of the cabinet, I found a tray of objects. Talisman boxes inlaid with iridescent shell, a teak comb with missing teeth, an hourglass, a tin cup, an empty inkpot. The bottomless leather pouch that allowed Edan to carry so many books with him during our trip. I quickly exchanged my satchel for it, then picked up a familiar-looking mirror.

  A reflection of the truth, he’d called it. When I was pretending to be my brother, its glass had revealed my reflection as my true self. Maia, not Keton.

  I swept the dust from its glass and looked at myself. Without powder caking my cheeks and rouge painting my lips, I could see the familiar constellation of freckles on my face, the tired eyes that looked older than I remembered, the chapped lips.

  “Still Maia,” I murmured, relieved. For now.

  Tucked beside his bed was the little flute he had brought on our journey. I raised it to my lips, but I could not coax a sound out. How forlorn it was, without its master. Longing for Edan flooded over me, and for those carefree days when I could sit by a campfire listening to him play.

  You’re not here to relive memories of Edan, I chided myself sternly.

  Setting down the flute, I
rifled through the books on the ground. Most were in languages I could not read.

  A loose page peeking out of one of his journals caught my eye. Edan had brought it with him on our journey. Sand from the desert still spilled from its pages.

  With trembling fingers, I picked up the loose page.

  Maia. My name jumped out at me in Edan’s elegant script—finally, something written in A’landan.

  Knees suddenly weak, I sank into the chair by his desk.

  Xitara—my brightest one. Forgive me for leaving you. It is not what I would choose, but I would pay any price for your freedom—for your happiness. You say you will not be happy without me, but I know that is not true. Live your life, xitara.

  His writing ended there, unfinished. It was the farewell letter he had intended to give me when he left for Lapzur.

  I held it to my heart, the page crinkled from the strained press of my fingertips. I missed Edan so, so much.

  “Where are you?” I murmured, reaching for my pendant. The walnut shell was warm, the light of my dresses pulsing within.

  I turned back to the pile of books when a chill came over me, a sudden breeze tickling the back of my neck.

  “Maia?” a voice called, faint yet near. A voice I dreamed of these nights, so tender and dear was it to me.

  Again, “Maia?”

  I trembled. The sound came from the mirror of truth. Was this my demon sight again?

  I picked up the mirror and looked within: Edan sat by a tall stack of books, his black hair falling over his eyes. Trees rustled behind him, and the sky above was blue and clear. It was day, whereas here, it was night.

  “Edan?” I called urgently.

  He looked up and jumped to his feet. “Maia? Maia, can you hear me?”

  “Yes.” I reached out to touch him, but my fingers only slid along the cold glass of the mirror.

  “Are you safe?” Edan asked. Dark circles bruised the skin under his eyes. He hadn’t been sleeping well. Yet somehow, without the weight of his oath upon him, he seemed more carefree than before. What torture it was to see him so clearly yet not be able to touch him.