Page 121 of The Dragon's Promise

I hoisted myself up a wall, using the broken bricks as footholds, then slid down onto the next road and ran.

I might as well have been a fly caught in a web. The two winged demons had been trailing me, and they swooped down to corner me. One by one, demons plucked Kiki and my paper birds into the shadows, and before I could scream, I was surrounded.

“Silly Princess,” the demons spoke as one, a perverted chorus of every voice I had ever known and cherished. “You don’t want to go to the tower. The guardian is there, and he’s no fun at all. Always kills everyone so quickly…. Come with us…we’ll take you to the king. But first, a little sport.”

The two demons shuddered, and their eagle wings shrank away as their tiger-striped faces shifted into Hasho’s and Andahai’s. They were expecting me to be shaken and disturbed, but honestly, I’d become inured to such trickery. And besides, I’d fantasized plenty of times about punching Andahai in the gut.

I slashed at Hasho first, cutting him across his chest. Inky smoke rippled from the wound. I knew it’d close up again soon, but I’d bought myself a few seconds.

I slammed my knife into the back of Andahai’s skull and drove the blade in. The flesh yielded easily under my knife, as if his head were a boiled turnip.

Andahai snarled in pain. The demon snapped at my ankles, laughing as I jumped back. “We have a fighter,” he growled. “Fighters have delicious souls. No wonder the king wants this one.”

I had better things to do than listen to demon gossip. I spun, brandishing my knives at the fiends that had captured Kiki and my paper birds, but as soon as I freed my friends, the false Hasho and Andahai grabbed me once more. They were done playing, and they hoisted me with them into the air, slipping back into their original forms as they flew.

Two arrows fired from below pierced their wings. The demons howled in pain and dropped me—straight into the arms of a monster wearing Takkan’s face.

His hand clapped over my mouth, smothering my cries. He pulled me into the shadows.

I struggled, but no claws dug into my skin, no teeth bit into my flesh. His heart was racing, same as mine.

I twisted to glance up at him. In the dim gray light of Lapzur, his features were harder and harsher than I’d seen before. But then I took in the birch bow hung over his shoulder, the hair slick with seawater, the thin gash of blood smudging his cheek.

My heart stopped. It was the real Takkan, not some illusion.

“You’re alive!” I breathed in astonishment.

He inclined his head, making the smallest nod of acknowledgment. He led me down a narrow alleyway and into an abandoned house with crumbled gables. The demons had circled back and were marching toward our hiding place—with reinforcements.

“Where are you, bloodsake?” they growled. “We have your brothers surrounded. Come out before we tear apart their flesh, feather by feather, and feast on their souls.”

I leaned back against Takkan, sliding my arm under his and restraining every urge to jump out and search the sky for my brothers. I wasn’t a fool.

Once their taunts passed into the distance, I twisted to face Takkan. I was brimming with questions.

He put a finger to his lips. His face was gaunt; the amulet’s strain on him here was painfully strong.

“The demons are under orders to bring you to Bandur,” he whispered. “He’s told them that if he, not the Wraith, acquires the pearl, he will free them from Lapzur.”

I stilled. So that was why the ghosts and demons were fighting. The ghosts were loyal to Khramelan, while the demons were mutinying against him.

Demons are drawn to power, weak ones to strong ones, Oshli had said.

Yet something didn’t make sense.

Why did Bandur think the pearl would choose him over Khramelan? True, it hadn’t exactly leapt into Khramelan’s heart the moment I’d set foot on Lapzur, but why?

What was I missing?

“I’ve been trying to find Khramelan,” I said. I started out of our hiding place, but Takkan pulled me back.

“Bandur will be expecting you. Let me go first.”

I shot him my fiercest look. “You promised you wouldn’t do anything heroic and stupid, Bushi’an Takkan, yet you leapt into the middle of Lake Paduan like a fool. Don’t think I’ve forgotten.”

“Jumping off your brothers’ backs wasn’t heroic or stupid,” he replied. “It was a calculated move to get Bandur away from you.”

“You could have died!”

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