The Lady lifted her hand to her face, then stared with interest at the blood on her fingers. “You monstrous boy,” she murmured. “I’m not going to be empress now. You’ve killed me.”

Woo In’s face screwed up with confusion. Someone lunged at him, screaming, wailing, beating his chest. The person was me, I knew, but the world had gone numb, and my vision had shrunk to tunnels.

“That was Olugbade’s knife,” I sobbed. “He poisoned it. You poisoned her.”

The green stripe on Aiyetoro’s mask didn’t matter. The Lady had anointed Woo In, and so he could kill her—just as Thaddace had killed Olugbade. Against Woo In’s hand, she was immune to nothing.

Woo In’s face drained of color. Then a gaggle of warriors burst from the stairwell onto the rooftop, surrounding us. Woo In’s arms connected like a vise around my torso. In a flash we were airborne, rising higher, higher, above the palace, leaving The Lady behind.

“Murderer.” I sobbed against him, wanting to claw his chest but unable to move my pinned arms. “Monster. Murderer.”

“I didn’t know,” he gasped. “I didn’t know.”

The warriors were shooting at us. An arrow grazed my arm with a searing sting, and another landed with a thump in Woo In’s side. Still we ascended, away, far from An-Ileyoba. Before I drifted from consciousness, the last thing I registered was the wind whipping my ears, and a sea of warriors, surrounding a splayed body in the courtyard far below. Drums echoed on sandstone, as cries rung from parapet to parapet:

“The emperor has gone to the village. He will not be back soon. Long live His Imperial Majesty: Ekundayo, King of Oluwan, and Oba of Aritsar.”

WHEN I CAME TO, IT WAS SNOWING.

I had seen snow only once before: on my council’s goodwill tour, when we had traveled by lodestone to the mountains of Biraslov. I remembered thinking how surprisingly soft they felt—the flakes peppering my face, kisses that made me laugh and shiver.

There were no kisses now. Only icy slaps from the wind as we passed over a valley of ghostly white. Woo In still carried me, though his grip was loose, and I stayed afloat via a pulsing force I could not see. I still wore nothing but my First Ruling gown, barely shielded from the cold by Woo In’s thin cape.

“Your arm won’t bleed until we land,” Woo In said. His voice was rough and weak. “Neither will my wound. The airstream stabilizes them, but I won’t be able to keep us in the air for much longer.”

“How long was I asleep? Where are you taking me?” I thrashed, and my arm brushed the arrow in Woo In’s side. He howled in pain and we plunged toward the ground. I shrieked and Woo In cursed, then we stabilized, hovering precariously in the air.

“Trust me,” he rasped. “You don’t want me to drop you.”

“You left her.” Moment by moment, the scene at An-Ileyoba returned to me. My arm ached where the arrow had grazed it. “You poisoned The Lady and left her there.”

“My airstream can’t carry that many people. I had to pick.”

“Why me?” I demanded. “I’m not the one who’s dying, you idiot. She is. Because of you.”

He was silent for several moments, letting the wind scream in our ears.

“She isn’t dying,” I whispered. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

He sagged against me. So I snuffed out every nerve in my body, muted every thought, and grew a shell of adamant against what he was about to say.

“She was dead within minutes of us leaving the capital,” he said. “I knew it when the Ray left my body.”

My ears refused to accept the words. So they washed over me instead, falling harmlessly to the earth beneath us. I would deal with them later—one impossibility at a time. “How long have we been flying?” I asked.

“You’ve been asleep for hours,” he said. “Nine, maybe ten. We’re almost to Songland; though, thanks to your storm, we might need to stop for the night.”

“My storm?”

He gestured to the valley below, which was hedged by frosted blue mountains. At the mouth of the valley, chiseled into the rock face, stood massive twin statues of a Songland king, hand raised in foreboding. Each sculpture was the size of several towers, and must have taken centuries to complete. “That’s the Jinhwa Pass,” Woo In explained. “It’s the only way into Songland from the Arit mainland. Have you never wondered why Songland isn’t part of the Arit empire?”

“They refused,” I said, teeth chattering. “Enoba the Perfect accepted their choice, but cut them off from trade, since they wouldn’t be governed by our regulations.”

Woo In barked a laugh. “Accepted? Do you really think Enoba united this continent without shedding blood? Enoba convinced many realms to join him, yes. But the lands that refused, he conquered. All except Songland, thanks to my thrice-great-grandfather, King Jinhwa. His shamans enchanted the mountain pass so that only people of Songlander blood, or those personally invited by the reigning monarch, may enter. Every time Enoba tried to bring an army, the land rejected him, sending ice and snow. You haven’t been invited by my mother,” he explained. “Hence the storm.”

“Why are you taking me to Songland?”

“I’m only taking you to the border,” he said after a pause. “There’s something you need to see.”

Before I could ask more questions, the pulsing airstream sputtered, and we dipped violently. Woo In cursed again.

“I’ve grown too weak,” he said through gritted teeth. “We’ll have to find shelter. Hold on … and I’m sorry about the pain.”

“Pain?”

“Once we’re out of the airstream, your wound will start bleeding. So will mine.”

We spiraled down into the valley, my stomach doing backflips until we landed in a bracing puff of snow. Immediately my arm burned. Blood began to trickle down my forearm, and I tore my skirt for a bandage. Beneath Woo In, however, the snow had turned completely crimson. He moaned, but when I reached to pull out the arrow, he shook his head.

“Not yet. I’ll bleed too much,” he gasped. “We—we need …” He murmured something under his breath. Then his head fell limp in the snow, and his eyes fluttered closed.

“Don’t you dare,” I said, shaking his shoulders and slapping his face. “Don’t you dare fall asleep and leave me here.”

Woo In was still. I struggled to my knees and looked around wildly. Nothing but white, white, encasing us like a vast tomb, the sky melting into the ground. Woo In twitched, murmuring again.

Several yards away, a smudge of black and gold appeared.

I swallowed hard as it grew nearer, its glowing eyes fixed on me, a familiar lurid yellow. Snow melted beneath its wide, spotted paws, leaving a ribbon of green grass.

“Hyung,” I whispered.

The emi-ehran stopped, inches from my face. Heat radiated from its pelt, making the ground beneath us soggy as ice turned to water. Feeling seeped back into my limbs, and the leopard-beast’s meaty breath dissolved the frost from my lashes. Hyung cocked its head to examine me, tail twitching. Then it roused Woo In with an affectionately rough tongue to the face.

“I know, I know,” Woo In groaned, as though the beast had spoken aloud. “No need to say I told you so.”

Hyung made a sound halfway between a purr and a growl, and Woo In smiled.

“Admit it. If I wasn’t so much trouble, you’d be bored.”

The beast expelled an odorous huff similar to an exasperated sigh. Then it bent to its haunches. I helped Woo In onto Hyung’s steaming back, then removed the arrow, bunching his cloak to slow the blood. Afterward, I pulled myself up, nervously clutching the beast’s neck as Woo In slumped against me, and we climbed between hill and mountain.

The Jinhwa Pass ended abruptly on a steep ridge overlooking the valley below. Rooftops sprawled in a vast red patchwork, and roads spiderwebbed over the land in gray veins, pulsing with carts and horses. A river swept through the valley like dark blue ribbon, and long white boats shimmered on its surface.

“Welcome to Eunsan-do,” murmured Woo In.

“It’s beautiful,” I said quietly. “I wish Kirah could see it.” She had described Songland’s capital vividly, citing phrases from her poetry scrolls. Golden faces shaded by netted hats, bustling through the streets. High-waisted silk robes sweeping the cobblestone. Fish and noodles wafting from market stands, and muscular women carrying wheat bundles on their backs, rolling their eyes as fishermen called from riverboats. Children scampering across the curved rooftops, chasing kites in the shape of tigers. Kirah had made songs for each image, crooning as she stared beyond Oluwan City. Each note seemed to form a tether, linking her heart to someone far away.

Woo In shifted on Hyung’s back and attempted to sound nonchalant. “Why would your council sister want to come here?”