Chapter 55
AMEIRAH
Given no one else knew who Xiu was, my words landed with less of an impact than I expected.
“I assume she’s cruel, wicked, and did everything in her power to break you,” Mingyue guessed, clenching her jaw when I nodded.
“Well, then.” Dina rose to her feet, layers of diaphanous fabric falling down her body. Not a dress as I first assumed, but layered trousers and a gauzy shirt. “Let’s make her regret ever fucking with the Jiang family.”
“Language,” Hsiuying chided with a little grin.
“You, aunt,” Dina said, pointing at the woman, “have no right to lecture anyone on language. Hand over that thing in your pocket, Ameirah.”
I jolted when Dina extended her palm towards me.
Suddenly, all eyes fixed on me. I didn’t even know the names of some of these people; they just sat and watched me, as if gauging whether I was worthy of their trust. Or simply not knowing what to say to a stranger, I supposed, but my paranoia latched onto the former theory.
“We can sense it, child,” Mingyue said, tiredness creeping into her voice.
Because she was still healing, I thought, until I realised it was true, ancient exhaustion when she added, “Every Jiang woman knows the feel of those dark stones. I bore the crown’s sliver all my life, as my mother before her, and her mother before that. ”
I chewed the inside of my lip as I pulled out the pouch that contained the broken shards of the amulet I retrieved from the tower rooftop where I killed Bakshi.
“The king wore it,” I explained tentatively, “but I—uh. Well, I found out what he did to my mother, and how he captured those other women, and—”
“Bashed the shit out of him?” Hsiuying asked hopefully, her eyes bright.
“I definitely bashed him with my magic,” I hedged.
“Is he dead?” Dina asked, peering at the broken amulet when I tipped the pouch’s contents into my hand.
“Very dead.”
The wild grin on Dina’s round face matched Hsiuying’s. “Good. That’s the Jiang way. We’re protectors, avengers. We don’t suffer evil to live. And if I’m not mistaken, this medallion can be mended.” She raised an eyebrow at Hsiuying. “And then filled with a new kind of magic, for example.”
“Oh, you clever bitch.” Hsiuying’s eyes turned to pure glitter, her smile nothing short of wicked.
“Any time you want to explain it to us would be great,” Nabil muttered, apparently having enough of sitting and waiting because he got to his feet and loomed, arms crossed over his dusty leather jacket.
“We can use the stones in this medallion to store magic. That’s all its purpose is—it captures power and uses it to shield the wearer.
” Mingyue gave Nabil a sharp enough look that he dropped his arms and stood straighter.
She didn’t need to lecture him about his rude tone; that look did a good enough job.
“It could be enough to deal a mortal blow to the pretender,” Dina added, “and since she’s the tether, every dark soldier will be killed along with her.”
“Or healed,” Hsiuying added, watching me with warmth that made me a little uncomfortable. I wasn’t a healer, even if there was a tiny seed of light in my deathfyre. “Give it here.”
I couldn’t explain my reluctance to part with the amulet, but I gritted my teeth as I let the fragments drop onto Hsiuying’s waiting palm.
Light glowed from her skin, and I stared, leaning forward in surprise and curiosity.
This light had healed my strain of using too much magic and could push the dark corruption from the Zalaam fae in Ithanys.
The family rose one by one, and by some unspoken agreement, when Hsiuying’s magic faded, leaving the amulet whole once again, each of the family held out their hand.
Magic flowed from each outstretched palm like an offering, and I felt another tremor through the threads of fate and I knew—we really could change the world with this magic, with healing and life.
Light, as Xiaoyu’s journal said, to drive out the darkness.
These people I’d never met before, some whose names I didn’t even know, gave up tendrils of their magic to save a world they’d never been to.