Unravel the Dusk

by Elizabeth Lim

  Sentur’na, you have returned to us. At last.

  As I walked to the Thief’s Tower, the city rebuilt itself around me, crumbled bricks reassembling themselves into proud buildings with gabled roofs, dead trees sprouting leaves as verdant as springtime, and the sky above blushing with the colors of dusk. The moon, full as it had been when I’d sought its tears, hung within a net of stars. Stars whose blood adorned my gown.

  I glanced at Edan, wondering if he saw the city as I did. Something about his dark expression told me he did not.

  This isn’t real, I reminded myself. But how real it feels. Like I belong here.

  For the first time in weeks, I felt alive. It had been so long since I’d felt my blood rushing from my cheeks to my fingertips, stirring my heart. No longer did I feel the presence of the demon inside me, looming in my thoughts and tightening her grasp.

  This was how the isles would seduce me. Not with my family, but with power. With life.

  The ghosts bowed to me, their long, crooked arms outstretched. Others clamored for Edan, boldly reaching for him in spite of the dagger he wielded. The meteorite glowed brighter than I’d ever seen it, a shimmering silver that was nearly blue.

  “Leave him alone,” I seethed, hissing at the ghosts who drew too near. They backed away, nails scraping against the stone path as they crawled to obey.

  Bandur was waiting for us at the Thief’s Tower, a hideous hybrid of wolf and man flanked by a pack of wraithlike wolves. When he saw me, he bared his fangs with pleasure.

  “You have finally come,” he greeted me from the top of the stairs. He spared a glance for Edan. “And with the oath breaker.”

  I looked over and saw that Bandur’s wolves had surrounded Edan, separating us. Angrily, I whirled to face the demon.

  “An incentive, if you will.” Bandur gestured at Edan. “To ensure you complete the ceremony. I warned you he was not invited, Sentur’na.”

  How I hated the way Bandur spoke that name. My name.

  “Do you hear your new friends? They claim you.”

  I did hear. Thousands of voices, each an icy pinprick stabbing me from every direction. Our new guardian has arrived.

  My amulet weighed on my chest, and my whole body felt like stone. My dress went dark, its fabric inky as the eternal night above. I lifted my skirts and forced my leaden legs onto the first step and the next and the next, up to the Thief’s Tower.

  Fear gripped my heart.

  Was it truly my fate to become the next guardian of Lapzur? What if I couldn’t fight Bandur?

  I reached the mouth of the tower, where Bandur awaited me. Wisps of smoke trickled out of the jagged crack in his amulet, forming a dark cloud around me.

  Without ceremony, Bandur yanked my amulet from my neck, closing his claws over it. Smoke drifted through the seams of his fingers into the amulet, and though my mouth was clamped shut, a rush of cold stung my lungs and chest, making me gasp aloud.

  When he opened his fist, my amulet had become black and lackluster—like his. Like a demon’s.

  Bandur’s amulet—its round obsidian surface, dull and scratched—suddenly blazed to life. The wolf engraved on the top sharpened, its fangs gleaming, its ruby eyes glittering.

  “The transfer of guardianship has begun,” he said, hanging my amulet over his neck.

  I didn’t struggle as the breath was squeezed out of me. Instead, I looked him calmly in the eye. I prayed he wouldn’t notice my shaking hands reaching behind my skirt to unhook my scissors.

  In one swift motion, I grabbed the scissors and stabbed him in the neck. Bandur howled, and I dug the blades deeper, until black velvety blood welled out. Then I wrenched out the scissors and snipped the amulets’ chains, catching them as they fell from his neck.

  The smoke abruptly stopped. Air rushed back into my lungs as my amulet reconnected itself back over my neck, and my strength returned. Smoke gathered at my feet, curling around my ankles like snakes. Flames tickled my fingertips as I tucked Bandur’s amulet into my skirt.

  An arrow flew past me and pierced Bandur’s shoulder. He ripped it out and snarled at Edan, who’d managed to break free of the wolves.

  “Go!” Edan shouted, wielding the dagger, leaping up the stairs toward Bandur. “Go now!”

  I was already running. We’d planned this meticulously. He would fend off Bandur while I raced to the top of the tower.

  Ghosts swarmed after me. Their airy hands tore at the train of my dress, some close enough to graze my skin. But I was already marked by a demon; the ghosts could not harm me.

  I ran, my feet pounding against the stone steps, spiraling up the tower.

  “Maia, stop!” my mother shouted, blocking my path.

  Baba’s workshop in Gangsun appeared just as I remembered it. The stool Mama had bought for me was by the window, with my basket of tools on the floor. The altar with Amana’s statues, the paint barely dried.

  I could hear Finlei and Keton fighting outside, Sendo trying to play peacemaker.

  “They’re fire and wind, those two,” Mama said, shaking her head. “You and Sendo, earth and water. Like the river against the stone.”

  I refused to let the power of the isles devastate me. I knew it wasn’t real. And yet—memories of my family flooded back with vivid intensity. It had been so long since I’d heard Mama’s voice, so long since I’d seen her. Like last time, I almost couldn’t resist.

  “Stay with us, Maia. Isn’t this what you always wanted? To be with your family again.”

  Gray hair tickled her temples. She looked so real, the wind that ruffled my skirts fluffed hers, too. I gazed at her, taking in the burnished glow of her cheeks, the freckles dotting her skin, the wrinkles along the corners of her lips. She was just as I remembered her, and yet—something about her eyes were too soft and watery to be human.

  “Stay with us,” Mama said again. She edged closer to me. “You are the strong one, Maia. The one who will hold the seams of our family together. You can do that, here.”

  At the sound of my dead mother’s words on this pretender’s lips, a surge of anger swelled in me.

  “I will hold my family together,” I said through my teeth. “But you are not my mother. Let me pass.”

  The ghost’s lips pressed tight, and my mother’s face melted off, her black hair washing out until it was wild and white, streaming down over her starved black eyes.

  She wrapped a skeletal hand over my wrist.

  A ghost’s touch doomed a human to become a ghost. But I was no longer human. I flung up my hand, breaking her grip on me. My skirt flared angrily, spitting beams of light.

  The ghost writhed, her shrieks slicing the air as her bones sizzled into smoke.

  I leapt up the steps, two at a time, my dress lighting the dark winding stairway up to the rooftop, to the well that collected the blood of stars.

  And there it was. How desolate it looked—like a stone bowl jutting from the earth. It hadn’t been so quiet the last time I’d arrived. Then again, today was not the ninth day of the ninth month. No stars bled in the sky, no silvery dust fell into the well.

  I gripped the side of the well, its rocky surface scraping against my elbow. Inside surged a fathomless gulf of darkness.

  This—this was the heart of Lapzur. Not the Thief’s Tower, not Bandur.

  Not me.

  I took out Bandur’s amulet. The obsidian sent a shock wave roaring through me, burning icy cold. As if it knew I wanted to destroy it.

  I leaned over the well.

  “Stop,” rasped Bandur, appearing on the other side. “The enchanter’s life for my amulet.”

  My demon sight flickered to Edan. He was still downstairs, surrounded by ghosts, their fingers grabbing at his throat. His dagger flashed, arcs of silvery blue sweeping furiously around him as he fended them off. One touch, and he wo
uld become a creature like them.

  “They prey on weakness,” Bandur reminded me. “His weakness is you, Maia. No mortal is able to resist, not for long. And he is mortal now.”

  I flinched.

  “Return the amulet to me, or Edan will die.”

  “No,” I whispered, my eyes burning, my blood blazing with anger. With my demon sight, I traveled down the tower again to where Edan and the ghosts were.

  “I am the guardian of Lapzur now!” I yelled at the ghosts. “Let him go!”

  They froze, confused. Sentur’na…

  “I am Sentur’na.” This time, my voice boomed like Bandur’s. My eyes glowed bright as two blood-red stars. “Let him go.”

  Sentur’na. They bowed, obeying me and backing away from Edan.

  “Kill him!” Bandur screamed. “She is not the guardian yet!”

  They rallied at the demon’s command, but Edan had spun away and was now making for the top of the tower. The ghosts surged after him.

  My heart clenched. We’d both known the risks of coming to Lapzur.

  “If we go,” I’d told him, “then we go with the intent to destroy Bandur. For good. Even if that means one of us—or both of us—doesn’t make it.”

  I uncurled my fingers from the amulet, and my demon sight broke.

  A flash of teeth and claws was my only warning before Bandur slammed into me. I screamed and almost pitched into the well, but the demon caught my wrist, pulling me toward him.

  “Now we complete the ceremony, Sentur’na.” He gashed my arm with his nail, sharp as the edge of a sword, and blood oozed from my wound. “Once the blood offering to Lapzur has been made, you will be the new guardian.”

  He held my arm over the well. My sleeves flailed against him, sparks shooting from the fabric as it singed his gray fur. In a beastly rage, he clawed at my dress and snatched at his amulet, but I held it out of reach over the well.

  “Give me the amulet.”

  His words chafed my ears, cruel as a knife sharpening against bone. They echoed down into the well, ringing off the endless stone walls.

  “The last time we encountered each other, I traded you your amulet for a vial,” I told him. “I will not be so foolish again.”

  “You drop it, and you’ll die along with me.”

  I looked down. Below was darkness, blacker than the bottom of the sea and as endless as the night. The rippling folds of my dress shimmered, but even their luminous starlight could not penetrate the abyss.

  Bandur’s amulet dangled, swaying to the drumbeat of my heart. Too late I saw the dark rivulet trickling across my arm, collecting into one thick bead at the slope of my elbow. I jerked to the side, and it splashed against the stones. But there was nothing I could do to stop my blood from running down, down—once it touched the bottom I’d be the guardian of Lapzur.

  Knowing he saw it too, I faced Bandur with my steeliest smile. “So be it.”

  And I dropped his amulet into the well.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  In a whirl of shadow and smoke, Bandur vaulted into the well after his amulet.

  Panic knifed through me. I couldn’t let him get it back.

  I threw myself after him, scrabbling at flashes of gray fur. The battle, fought in the pitch black of the well’s oblivion, was frantic. Bandur was stronger, but I was more determined.

  Then Bandur’s flesh flickered, and I dug my nails into his fur, knowing I’d caught him. I dragged him out of the well and held on until I heard the amulet break the surface and sink into the well’s murky depths.

  Then another plop. My blood.

  Bandur twisted violently out of my grasp and seized my neck, dangling me over the well.

  He held me close, so close I could smell the ash on his breath, the smoke whistling from the singed layer of his fur. The folds of my dress took on a life of their own, flailing against him, a storm of stars and light whipping at his demon flesh. His red eyes burned wild with anger, and his claws tightened around my neck.

  Why wasn’t he dead? I’d destroyed his amulet.

  “Congratulations, Sentur’na,” he rasped. “You are now the guardian of Lapzur.”

  I couldn’t be the guardian of Lapzur. The well had devoured his amulet before it’d taken my blood. It should have killed him!

  My fear escalated to terror. I grabbed the scissors from my belt and thrust uselessly at his hands, his heart, his throat.

  “How—”

  My question became a scream as he grabbed my amulet, scoring its surface with his monstrous nails. I bucked and went limp.

  Laughing, Bandur seized the scissors dangling from my fingers. “The amulet is your heart, Sentur’na. You could have controlled me when you had mine, but you didn’t know, did you?”

  He held me high in the air, and I screamed again, but no sound came out of my mouth. I was choking, couldn’t breathe.

  “Now—you die.”

  Below, the well’s dark waters swirled, gathering into a terrible tempest. Its stones were crumbling, piles of rocks and pebbles cascading into the water. Somehow, seeing the violence of the well, I knew I wasn’t the guardian. If I were, I would be stronger than Bandur. I would control the power of Lapzur’s ghosts, and I could have commanded them away from Edan and to my aid.

  Bandur was bluffing. But why?

  Seconds stretched to eternity. Frenzied, my dress attacked him, trying to snatch my amulet back before he dropped it into the well.

  He launched the scissors against my dress, their metal humming and zinging with power. But the scissors wouldn’t cut; he was not their master.

  With a snarl, he hurled me—and my amulet—into the well.

  As I fell, suddenly I understood. Destroying Bandur’s amulet hadn’t destroyed him, but now he was mortal. That’s why he was so desperate to be rid of me and to get off the island.

  Because he knows you can kill him, Sentur’na, whispered that dark, seductive voice within me. You have the dresses of Amana. You are stronger than him. Give in, and kill him.

  For once, I listened.

  I dove for my amulet, catching it in my fist. My skirt glittered, illuminating the dark well around me. And, overriding the fear that clenched my heart, I let go and trusted the blood of stars to catch me and lift me.

  Like a shooting star, I rocketed up and out of the well and leapt onto Bandur’s back.

  Startled, the demon spun and tried to throw me off, but my sleeves countered the attack, whipping and wrapping themselves around his neck. I snatched my scissors from him—and stabbed him in the heart.

  Bandur shrieked. Writhed. He tried to rip the scissors out of his chest. With the last of his strength, he flung me across the rooftop. I lost my grip on the scissors and fell hard on the cold stone floor.

  He peeled away, smoke leaking from his lips as his body began to dissipate. He flailed, but his arms and fur had thinned into shadow, his red eyes melting into a stream of blood. Then a storm of fire devoured him.

  Until he was no more.

  Rocks flew up out of the well, hurtling fast toward me. I turned onto my stomach, covering my head to shield myself. Around me, the rooftop began to crumble, exposing the stairway and Edan, who was running toward me, his face shiny with sweat. Even though Bandur was no more, ghosts surrounded him.

  Alarmed, I sprang to my feet, but the earth beneath me quaked, knocking me to the ground again. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my scissors tremble on the lip of the well, then fall inside.

  I let out a choked cry. “My scissors!”

  “Leave them.” Edan grabbed my wrist. “We need to go.”

  A flash of light erupted from the well, so great it swallowed the entire island. It lasted no longer than a blink, but the ghosts vanished.

  Bandur’s remains were a pile of ashes. The wind swept them up fr
om the stone floor and scattered them over the raging waters below.

  Gone was the well of the blood of stars, destroyed by the eruption of light. In its place was a mess of broken rocks and stones. Debris whirled across the rooftop, tiny pebbles prickling my skin. Edan shielded us with his cloak.

  “We have to get off the tower!” he shouted as the winds picked up. Something roared in the near distance, like the rumble from the belly of a terrible beast. It took me a second to realize the island itself was crumbling.

  Another quake. The world tilted so violently I couldn’t keep my balance.

  I staggered back, and Edan caught my arm.

  Below, Lake Paduan’s waters crashed and heaved. Edan was fumbling to unroll the carpet. With a glance, I took in the rips and tears, the holes and broken tassels, and claw and teeth marks….

  “It’s not going to fly,” I said, touching his arm. Without my scissors, I couldn’t fix it. My demon’s magic was destructive, and Amana’s I could not control. I had understood my scissors—how to wield them and channel magic into the garments I’d sewn—but now they were gone.

  “The only way is to jump into the lake.”

  “Together, then,” he said, pulling me up toward the parapet.

  The wind howled, and my hair flew wildly behind my shoulders. I looked down and was immediately grateful for the fog shrouding the waters, obscuring just how high we were. Even then, I could see the foam curling over the dark, stormy waters.

  “You can’t swim,” I remembered. “Edan?”

  “There’s no other way.”

  Behind us, the wind grew strong, and the tower rumbled.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  I nodded, interlacing my fingers with his. “On the count of three. One, two—”

  We jumped.

  I couldn’t see the water below, which made the plunge even more frightening. The water growled, alive with the wrath and fury of all those who had perished in its depths. I gasped, feeling the force of gravity pull us down, down, down.

  I braced myself for landing, my stomach twisting and my heart in my throat.

  At the height of my fear, the wind wrenched my hand away from Edan’s, tearing us apart.