Unravel the Dusk (The Blood of Stars, Band 2) - Softcover

Lim, Elizabeth

Softcover

ISBN 10: 059337424X ISBN 13: 9780593374245

Verlag: Random House Children's Books, 2021

Inhaltsangabe

From the New York Times bestselling author of Six Crimson Cranes comes a fantasy filled with courtly intrigue, deceitful demons, and breathtaking gowns ... the stakes are higher than ever in this thrilling sequel to Spin the Dawn!

Maia Tamarin's journey to sew the dresses of the sun, the moon, and the stars has taken a grievous toll. She returns to a kingdom on the brink of war. Edan, the boy she loves, is gone--perhaps forever--and no sooner does she set foot in the Autumn Palace than she is forced to don the dress of the sun and assume the place of the emperor's bride-to-be to keep the peace. When the emperor's rivals learn of her deception, there is hell to pay, but the war raging around Maia is nothing compared to the battle within.
 
Ever since she was touched by the demon Bandur, she has been changing . . . glancing in the mirror to see her own eyes glowing red; losing control of her magic, her body, her mind. It's only a matter of time before Maia loses herself completely, and in the meantime she will stop at nothing to find Edan, protect her family, and bring lasting peace to her country.

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THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SIX CRIMSON CRANES!

ELIZABETH LIM grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she was raised on a hearty diet of fairy tales, myths, and songs. Before becoming an author, Elizabeth was a professional film and video game composer, and she still tends to come up with her best book ideas when writing near a piano. An alumna of Harvard College and the Juilliard School, she now lives in New York with her husband and her daughters.

Elizabeth is the New York Times bestselling author of Spin the Dawn, Unravel the Dusk, Six Crimson Cranes, The Dragon's Promise, and Her Radiant Curse. She is also a contributor to Disney's A Twisted Tale series.


Visit her at elizabethlim.com
Follow her on Twitter at @LizLim
Follow her on Instagram at @elimpix

Von der hinteren Coverseite

Maia Tamarin proved her skill as a tailor when she wove the dresses of the sun, the moon, and the stars, but it will take more than a beautiful gown to hide the darkness rising up within her. . . . The stakes are higher than ever in this breathtaking sequel to Spin the Dawn, perfect for fans of Six of Crows.



Maia Tamarin's journey to sew the dresses of the sun, the moon, and the stars has taken a grievous toll. She returns to a kingdom on the brink of war. Edan, the boy she loves, is gone--perhaps forever--and no sooner does she set foot in the Autumn Palace than she is forced to don the dress of the sun and assume the place of the emperor's bride-to-be to keep the peace. When the emperor's rivals learn of her deception, there is hell to pay, but the war raging around Maia is nothing compared to the battle within. Ever since she was touched by the demon Bandur, she has been changing . . . glancing in the mirror to see her own eyes glowing red; losing control of her magic, her body, her mind. It's only a matter of time before Maia loses herself completely, and in the meantime she will stop at nothing to find Edan, protect her family, and bring lasting peace to her country.

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Chapter One

Thousands of red lanterns illuminated the Autumn Palace, suspended on strings so fine the lights looked like kites floating from roof to roof. I could have watched them all night, dancing on the wind and painting the twilight with a burnished glow--but my mind was elsewhere. For beneath the sea of bobbing lights, the Square of Splendid Harmony was staged for an imperial wedding. 

Seeing all this red, in celebration of Emperor Khanujin’s marriage to Lady Sarnai, should have gladdened me. I’d worked so hard and sacrificed so much for the peace their union would finally bring to A’landi. 

But I wasn’t the same Maia as before. 

The Autumn Palace’s vermillion gates rumbled, and I pushed through the throng of servants to catch a glimpse of the wedding procession. At its helm would be Lady Sarnai’s father, the shansen. I wanted to see the man who had bled my country from within, whose war had taken two of my brothers, and whose name alone made grown men shudder. 

The shansen, his gold-plated armor shining like dragon scales from under his rich emerald robes, rode on a majestic white stallion. Gray touched the tips of his beard and eyebrows. He did not look as fearsome as I had pictured--until I saw his eyes; they gleamed like black pearls, fierce as his daughter’s, but crueler. 

Behind him rode his favored warrior, Lord Xina, followed by the shansen’s three sons, all with their father’s dark, unsettling eyes, and a legion of soldiers wearing patches on their sleeves embroidered with the shansen’s emblem--a tiger. 

“The shansen will mount the steps to the Hall of Harmony,” announced Chief Minister Yun loudly, “where his daughter, Sarnai Opai’a Makang, will be presented as our emperor’s bride. 

“Tomorrow,” Chief Minister Yun continued, “the Procession of Gifts will be presented to the emperor’s court. On the third day, Lady Sarnai will formally ascend to her place as empress beside Emperor Khanujin, Son of Heaven. A final banquet will be held to celebrate their marriage in the eyes of the gods.” 

The wedding music swelled and merged with the clatter of the shansen and his men marching up the stairs. Firecrackers clapped, loud as thunder, and each stroke of the wedding drums boomed so deep the earth beneath my soles thrummed. Eight men strode across the hall bearing a golden carriage draped with embroidered silk and armored with glazed tiles painted with turquoise-and-gold dragons. 

When the shansen took his place before the hall, Emperor Khanujin stepped out of his palanquin. The music ceased, and we all bowed to the ground. 

“Ruler of a hundred lands,” we chanted, “Khagan of Kings, Son of Heaven, Favored of Amana, our Glorious Sovereign of A’landi. May you live ten thousand years.” 

“Welcome, Lord Makangis,” Emperor Khanujin greeted him. “It is an honor to receive you at the Autumn Palace.” 

Fireworks exploded from behind the palace, shooting high beyond the stars. 

“Ah!” everyone gasped, marveling at the sight. 

Briefly, I marveled too. I’d never seen fireworks before. Sendo tried to describe them to me once, though he’d never seen them either. 

“They’re like lotuses blooming in the sky, made of fire and light,” he’d said. 

“How do they get up so high?” 

“Someone shoots them.” He’d shrugged when I frowned at him, skeptical. “Don’t make that face at me, Maia. I don’t know everything. Maybe it’s magic.” 

“You say that about everything you don’t know how to explain.” 

“What’s wrong with that?” 

I had laughed. “I don’t believe in magic.” 

But as the fireworks burst into the sky now, lurid splatters of yellow and red against the black night, I knew magic looked nothing like this. Magic was the blood of stars falling from the sky, the song of my enchanted scissors--eager to make a miracle out of thread and hope. Not colored dust flung into the sky. 

While those around me cheered, eight more young men carried another golden palanquin toward the emperor. Lanterns hung from its every side, illuminating an elaborately painted phoenix. 

A phoenix to match the emperor’s dragon. To breathe new life into the country, helping it rise from the ashes of war. 

The attendants lowered the palanquin, but Lady Sarnai didn’t step out. She was wailing so loudly that even from the back of the square, I could hear her. In some villages, it was the tradition for a bride to wail before her wedding, a sign of respect for her parents to show that she was distressed to leave them. 

But how unlike the shansen’s daughter. 

A soldier parted the carriage’s curtains, and Lady Sarnai tottered forward to join the emperor and her father. An embroidered veil of ruby silk covered her face, and the train of her gown dragged behind her, crimson in the fragile moonlight. 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. Strange, that Khanujin would not have insisted she wear one of Amana’s dresses to show off to the shansen. 

I frowned as she continued to wail, a shrill sound that pierced the tense silence. 

She bowed before her father, then before the emperor, falling to her knees. 

Slowly, ceremoniously, Emperor Khanujin began to lift her veil. The drumming began again, growing louder, faster, until it was so deafening my ears buzzed and the world began to spin. 

Then--as the drums reached their thunderous climax--someone let out a scream. 

My eyes snapped open. The shansen had shoved Khanujin aside and seized his daughter by the neck. Now he held her, shrieking and kicking, above the Hall of Harmony’s eighty-eight steps--and he ripped off her veil. 

The bride was not Lady Sarnai.

 

Chapter Two

The false princess’s legs thrashed wildly beneath her skirts, the long satin train of her wedding robes rippling beneath her. 

“Where is my daughter?” the shansen roared. 

Already, everyone around me was placing bets on the poor girl’s fate. Would the shansen slit her throat--or would the emperor beat him to it? No, they’d let her live until she talked. Then they’d kill her. 

“I--I--I--I d-don’t know,” she blubbered, her wailing intensifying before she repeated, “I don’t know.” 

She let out a scream as the shansen dropped her onto the stone steps. 

“Find my daughter!” he barked at the emperor. “Find Sarnai, or there will be no wedding--only war.” 

The warning hushed everyone in the square. 

Where was Lady Sarnai? Didn’t she care that thousands would die if this marriage did not proceed? 

“The war would never end,” Keton had told me. My youngest brother so rarely spoke of his time fighting for Khanujin, I could not forget his words: “Not unless the emperor and the shansen came to a truce. At dawn of the New Year, they met to make peace. The shansen agreed to withdraw his men from the South and reaffirm his loyalty to the emperor. In return, Emperor Khanujin would take the shansen’s daughter to be his empress and tie their bloodlines together. 

“But the shansen’s daughter...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Random House Children's Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2021
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 059337424X
• ISBN 13: 9780593374245
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 368
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Friedensallee 273; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland