The false princess’s legs thrashed wildly beneath her skirts, the long satin train of her wedding robes rippling beneath her. Now he held her, shrieking and kicking, above the Hall of Harmony’s eighty-eight steps-and he ripped off her veil. The shansen had shoved Khanujin aside and seized his daughter by the neck. Then-as the drums reached their thunderous climax-someone let out a scream. The drumming began again, growing louder, faster, until it was so deafening my ears buzzed and the world began to spin. Slowly, ceremoniously, Emperor Khanujin began to lift her veil. She bowed before her father, then before the emperor, falling to her knees.
I frowned as she continued to wail, a shrill sound that pierced the tense silence. Strange, that Khanujin would not have insisted she wear one of Amana’s dresses to show off to the shansen. It did not even shimmer, as any of the dresses I’d made for her would have: woven with the laughter of the sun, embroidered with the tears of the moon, and painted with the blood of stars. An embroidered veil of ruby silk covered her face, and the train of her gown dragged behind her, crimson in the fragile moonlight. A soldier parted the carriage’s curtains, and Lady Sarnai tottered forward to join the emperor and her father.
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