“We leave at once,” Ketai said, already ordering Caen away to assemble reinforcements, while he himself started for the foyer. A few curious-looking clan members had begun to gather nearby, and they startled as Ketai stormed past them. He shouted over his shoulder at Wren, “Stay here! In my and Caen’s absence, you are responsible for the protection of the fort.”
Wren started forward. “Father, wait—”
“There’s no time! Hold the fort.”
He disappeared in a sweep of dark robes.
The atmosphere of the hall was turning. Worried voices rose, clan members and allies crowding Wren, clamoring for her attention while she stood there, heart thumping. This was it. The attack they’d been waiting for. The first blow of the war—dealt by the King. But as terrible as that knowledge was, Wren’s mind was stuck on the information she hadn’t learned from the young demon boy.
Lei’s whereabouts.
The question that had haunted her for one long month echoed in her ears, louder than those of the demons and humans clustered around her.
Where?
Where was she? Where was Lei? Where where where—
Stop, Wren ordered herself harshly, composing herself. From young, Caen had taught her there was a time and place for everything. She could sink into despair later, but right now, she had duties to uphold.
She was a warrior. A Clan Lord’s daughter.
And she had a responsibility to act like one.
Wren took a deep breath before turning to address the anxious faces of her clan and allies, bracing for their reactions when they learned that the war had well and truly begun.
THREE
LEI
THIS TIME WHEN THE GUARDS COME to my door, I am ready.
I’ve been up all night, fashioning a loop of fabric from torn strips of my hanfu. Luckily it’s still cold enough for more than one layer of clothes. Seeing as a brazier or lantern would be too much ammunition in my hands, the guards have been giving me fresh sets of double-layered robes every three days. Though it must be almost spring by now, it feels like winter in this windowless, marble room, and they can’t have me catching a chill and freezing to death on their watch.
I am to die, but I am not theirs to kill.
When I hear movement in the hall, I scramble up. I snatch my makeshift weapon and press against the wall to the right of the door. I rub my finger over the braided fabric wound around my palm as the steps approach.
Demon steps. Not hooves, but heavy and dull and accompanied by clicking. Talons? Claws? After all this time locked up, I’ve grown adept at picking out the particularities of each guard’s gait. The heavier steps mean bird or reptile, though it’s more likely reptile since bird demons are rare. The other padded thuds sound as though they belong to a bear-form.
They always send the guards in pairs. After my first escape attempt a few days after Naja brought me here, they reduced my meals from two per day to one. After the second, they began putting soporific herbs in my food. After the third, they beat me until I passed out. When I woke, they’d removed the scant furnishings from my room—or cell, as I suppose it’s more accurately called.
The Hidden Palace has always been my prison.
I wait in the darkness. This will be escape attempt number four.
In Ikharan cultures, four is an unlucky number because of how similar it sounds to our word for death. Babies born on the fourth day of the month are said to be ill-fated. We avoid lighting four joss sticks at a time so as not to taint our prayers. Tien—always the most suspicious out of my little herb shop family—would even skip counting the number. She’d push two of the bamboo beads of her abacus to jump from three to five, swift and precise, as if she’d be infected if she touched them too long.
Thud, click. Thud, click.
As the guards draw closer, I’m certain this attempt—unlucky number four—will be the one that works. After all, I want to bring death’s attention to my door.
Crouched in the attacking stance Shifu Caen taught me, I twist my makeshift weapon and bounce on the balls of my feet.
There’s the clunk of locks being undone. Then a crack of light slices into the room.
The first guard enters. I was right; it’s a lizard demon. A flicker of puzzlement spreads across his scaled face when he doesn’t see me in my usual sleeping spot, but before he’s even had time to look around I leap at him and throw the noose high.
It slips over his head before I barrel into him.
He staggers back with a shout. Claw-tipped hands fly up. He scratches me, lands punches to my thighs and sides. But I cling on, half straddling his neck, pulling the noose with all my force.
The second guard barges into the room, saber drawn. She’s an intimidating panda-woman bound with more muscles in one finger than I’ve got in my entire body. Yet instead of her sword, it’s her weaponless hand that flies toward me.
I duck her reach, a manic grin twisting my lips.
They can’t risk killing me.
I’ve known it since I was brought here—before, even, when Naja found me one month ago, alone and blood-soaked in the desert, and told me she was taking me home. I’m aware this protection is only temporary. The King wants to save all the damage, all the pain, all the revenge for himself.
But right now, I don’t care. Right now, knees clamped about the lizard’s struggling shoulders, I strain to keep the noose tight, sneering at the soldier brandishing her useless sword.
“The girl is escaping!” she yells into the corridor before trying again to grab me.
I’m saved by the lizard’s knees giving way. We both go sprawling to the floor. I pin him down. His scaled hands flail. From behind, the panda-woman grabs a fistful of the back of my flimsy, half torn-apart robes, yet her force only draws the noose tighter.
The reptile guard splutters.
It can’t be long now.
Red pulses across my vision. A dark desire storms through my veins. More than desire: need. Need for this, for someone to take the fall for all that has happened. For some way to free the guilty anger that has been boiling inside me ever since that hopeless night at the desert. Ever since the last time I held her in my arms. Ever since we came across the burning wreckage in the middle of a paddy field. Ever since a laughing leopard-boy was set into the ground. Ever since… since everything.
And suddenly, as instantly as a match being struck, the rage and desperation and fire drop away. It’s as though my soul has come untethered from my body. Floating outside of myself, hovering above the scene, I see it laid beneath me like a violence-soaked painting.
A soldier strains to break apart two struggling figures on the floor, one of them a demon near death, pinned to the floor by a crazed human girl with bloodlust in her eyes. The girl’s head is tossed back. Her knuckles are white where they grip the noose she spent one long night making, all for this moment. Another death to notch to her list.
I stare down, and the girl’s eyes lock with mine.
Framed in thick lashes and bloodied whites, her irises are golden: clear, liquid, New Year–moon gold. But that’s all I recognize of them. Her feral look pierces me. She may as well be a stranger.