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I could feel the power of Khramelan’s name as I spoke it, over and over until the wind carried it across Lapzur, until the sound sank deep beneath the stones of the tower, until the word edged along the dark that rippled inside the well of the blood of stars.
Bandur had wielded the name as a weapon against Khramelan to win over Lapzur’s demons. I would use it to summon him back.
“Khramelan. Khramelan.”
Bandur’s ruff bristled, and the amulet sank into his fur, no longer humming. Something had caught his attention.
It was the pearl. It had returned, a crack of light slipping out of its broken center. The sight made me dizzy. The color in my world had washed out, and I could barely keep my eyes open.
“Go to Khramelan,” I beseeched it weakly. “Reunite with him.”
The pearl didn’t respond. It skulked in my shadow, a numb observer.
“So you’ve come at last,” Bandur said, turning to the pearl. He clasped it. “And you will choose me!”
“No,” growled the guardian of Lapzur. “It won’t.”
The pearl flew out into oblivion again, the way it had when Khramelan crashed onto the tower. His wings alone spanned the expanse of the entire rooftop, and he dwarfed Bandur easily.
“Bow down,” Khramelan ordered the demons, but they no longer obeyed. They were Bandur’s to command now. And Bandur had commanded them to kill.
They shot up to attack, biting and gnashing at their former master. Khramelan knocked them away with his wings, but still they did not bow. More demons came, in relentless waves, and as formidable as Khramelan was, I sensed with dread that Bandur was winning.
Blood the color of tarnished gold smeared the folds of Khramelan’s wings: deep, diagonal cuts and scratches that the demons had given him. In this condition, he couldn’t hold them off forever.
The ghosts rose to Khramelan’s aid, and in a soundless clash, a great battle was fought. Humans and cranes and paper birds had no place in this fight, would only die in this fight. But I couldn’t do anything to help them.
“Get out of here!” I cried when I saw my brothers dip through the mist. They had returned, and bit at the invisible chains that held me.
“You fools,” I whispered through the relief in my heart that they were alive. “Leave before the demons kill you. Go!”
Of course they ignored me. So did Takkan. My vision was too faint to make out his face, but I recognized the soft tap of his footsteps, the warmth of his hand on mine.
“I’ve one arrow left,” he told me. “Your brothers and I think if I shoot Bandur’s amulet, we can free you.”
“Do it,” I whispered. “I’m ready.”
Takkan was swift. I couldn’t imagine how he would pick out one demon amid the horde, but I heard the snap of a bowstring and the whir of his arrow flying.
Then, a beat later, I dropped. His arrow had found its mark.
My brothers caught me as my fingers scraped against the lip of the well. Takkan reached for my arms, and Kiki grabbed my hair, the seven paper birds nipping my sleeves and collar.
Six princes, eight birds, and one lordling, all here to catch you from falling into a well, said Kiki, shaking her head at me. Not your finest day, Shiori. She landed on my shoulder, the glint of gold and silver on her wings shining brighter than ever. But we’ve been through worse.
“So we have,” I replied as I took Takkan’s hand and slowly pulled myself up.
Spinning out of a hidden corner, the pearl crept toward me.
I crossed my arms. “You’re no more than a child, aren’t you?” I scolded it. “I brought you halfway across the world, nearly getting killed a dozen times, and you’re too afraid to go back to him?”
The pearl pulsed—rather ruefully, it seemed. It didn’t come out of the shadows.
Irritation radiating from my core, I limped toward it and scooped it under my arm. “Your home is his heart, and his heart is your home. You don’t belong to anyone or anywhere else. Whatever has happened between you, you two must sort out. Help him now—or Khramelan will die.”
A wink of the pearl’s light bathed me, which I took as assent. “Come,” I said to it firmly. “We know what we have to do.”
There was little time. Powerful as Khramelan was, he couldn’t defeat Lapzur’s demons on his own. Already, Bandur was starting to howl his triumph.
