Page 47

A sea of clouds still buried the dawn. There was no sun.

* * *

It wasn’t until I was wading ashore, bunching up the folds of my dress as I trampled toward the beach, that I noticed the sand in my hair.

Kiki landed on my head. We just got home. How is your hair so dirty already?

I dropped my skirt and crouched by the water to stare at my reflection.

“It’s not sand,” I realized. It was a streak of silvery white hair at my temple, no different from Raikama’s.

With a deep exhale, I blew it out of my face and patted my cheeks. Better a few locks of white hair than a fishtail or horns. Father would still recognize his only daughter. I just hoped the rest of Kiata would too.

When I’d left home, my country was on the cusp of spring. Now heat clung to the air, and my skin was sticky with humidity—a sign that we were well into summer.

I’d been gone for half a year.

My knees buckled at the realization. Six months, lost.

It could have easily been six years, or sixty, I reminded myself. When I looked at it that way, a laugh bubbled up in my throat. I was home. I’d won.

The wind threw Kiki up, and she squealed, flailing her wings. It felt like magic. It brimmed in the air, faint but stronger than before. As my cheeks tingled, Kiki and I dissolved into a fit of giggles.

Seryu shook his head. He’d shifted into his human form, but his hair was still green, darker in the sun than it had been underwater. “I’m starting to think I should’ve let you drown in the Sacred Lake.”

Still laughing, I sat up, digging my heels into the sand. “Then you would have missed out on a grand adventure, Seryu. And a wonderful friendship.”

“Your friendship has caused me nothing but trouble.” Seryu kicked at the sand. “Who knows what Grandfather will do to me when I return? He might cut off my horns. Or exile me from Ai’long.”

“Your mother wouldn’t allow that,” I replied. “She might take joy in tormenting me, but she cares for you. When you reached your full form, I swear she preened.” I offered him a slanted grin. “It must be an important rite of passage for dragons.”

“It is,” said Seryu. “Were you impressed?”

“Very. You don’t look like an eel anymore.”

His chest puffed out, just a little, with pride. “Then I guess it was all worth it.”

I stopped smiling. “You could stay here, you know. On land, with my brothers and me. We’d make you welcome.”

“I’d rather Grandfather turn me into a squid than live among your kind for the rest of my immortal life,” Seryu huffed. “And I’d rather choke on seaweed than watch you and that horse-trough boy make fish eyes at each other.”

“We don’t make fish—”

Seryu covered my mouth with a sleeve, silencing me. His snide expression had fled, and he lowered his arm. “I have to know,” he said quietly. “If not for him, did I ever have a chance?”

A lump swelled in my throat. I didn’t want to hurt him. “Takkan and I are connected by the strands of fate.”

I expected him to be jealous, but the corners of his mouth lifted. “Then I’ll have to find you when you’re reborn—before your strands have time to knot with his again.” His red eyes twinkled. “I only pray you won’t be a human again in the next life. Now that I’ve reached my full form, I’m far too majestic to stomach your world again.”

I didn’t know whether to punch him or laugh. Or cry. My shoulders softened, and I spoke. “So this is goodbye?”

The twinkle left his eyes. “I doubt I’ll be permitted to visit your realm for many years. Maybe not until you’re an old woman. All pruny and wrinkled, with seventeen great-grandchildren.” He snorted in distaste. “See, your hair is already starting to gray.”

I let out a laugh. “White,” I corrected, combing through the snow-touched locks with my fingers. “It turned white from using the Wraith’s pearl, not from age.”

“Same difference.” Seryu waved a dismissive hand. His sleeves and robes were already dry, unlike mine. A useful enchantment.

He was in a mercurial mood, his true thoughts impossible to decipher. But when he spoke again, he sounded strangely gentle. “If you do end up marrying that lordling, I hope they take after you, not him.”