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“Or what?” Nazayun eyed the Wraith’s pearl, which hovered over him like a harbinger of doom. “Or what, Shiori’anma?”

Something was off. The Dragon King’s heart throbbed in his chest, a sign the starstroke had to be hurting him. So why was he smiling? Why was he laughing?

“You should have given me the pearl when I offered you the chance,” said the Dragon King as he twitched in discomfort under the net. “Your crime of weaving such a net cannot go unpunished. Three hundred years you would have slept, long enough for all you know and love to turn to dust. Then I would have returned you to Kiata, as promised. Unfortunately, you chose poorly. For that you shall never see your homeland again.”

The knife I’d jabbed between Nazayun’s scales suddenly dissolved into the water, and he ripped the starstroke off his chest. It crackled between his claws, singeing his skin before he flung it into a web of kelp, far out of my reach.

“Did you think it would be so easy to take out my heart?” He laughed as his wounds healed before my eyes. “I am a god of dragons. Not even starstroke can harm me.”

I staggered, and cupped my palms around the Wraith’s pearl. “Then what about this—”

I never got to finish my threat. The walls behind me began to sing, and a surge of water whipped across the black crystal window I’d noticed earlier, creating a whirlpool.

Out of it swooped a second dragon. All I caught was flashes of red scales and a pair of round gilded eyes. Then there came a hard yank at my neck, and I jerked forward.

“If you won’t give us the pearl we want, we’ll take this one for now.” The scarlet dragon held up the necklace Seryu had warned me to keep on at all times—the chip of his heart that would allow me to breathe in Ai’long.

My hands flew to my throat as my lungs convulsed. Water was everywhere and rushed into my mouth, filled my lungs. My heart whisked in my ears, beating in alarm as the weight of the seas came roaring. There was so much, I couldn’t even choke. I was drowning.

“This is my daughter, the Lady of the Easterly Seas,” Nazayun said, as if now were the time for introductions. “Since you will not give me the pearl, I leave her in charge of its retrieval.”

Nazayun’s daughter observed me drowning. “I’ve a theory,” she purred, “that the human soul is made up of countless little strings that tether it to life.” She pinched her nails at my heart, and I gasped in pain as she extracted a long silver-gold thread I’d never seen before: a strand of my soul.

“Beautiful, isn’t it? So fragile, yet so vital.” She twisted the strand around her nail. “If I cut enough, and leave, say, one last string dangling, the pearl will break its bond with you in search of someone who isn’t on the brink of death.” She tried to snip the strand with her nail, but it glowed bright and recoiled back inside me.

Displeasure tautened her whiskers. “A tricky state to achieve, especially with such a stubborn soul as yours—but we have time to experiment.”

I had no time. My world was fast constricting, and I called out to the Wraith’s pearl.

Save me, I pleaded. Save me, or you’ll never find where you belong. You’ll never go home.

The pearl began to beat. Once. Twice. Then faster, a racing counterpoint to my dying pulse, and a burst of light poured out of the broken halves.

“A fighter,” murmured the scarlet dragon as she swam forward, obstructing my view of the pearl. She touched my forehead with a cold palm.

“Never play games with a dragon,” she whispered. “You cannot win.”

And before the last of my breath left me, the world washed away to nothing.

“Your Highness,” cried my tutor. “Wake up, Shiori’anma! Please, wake up.”

I didn’t budge. Every day my tutor faced the same task, and I almost felt sorry for her. But what did I care for her waxing on and on about Kiata’s poetry, art, and lore? It wasn’t as if my brothers would invite me to their meetings if I could recite verses from the Songs of Sorrow or charm the court with my knowledge about vermilion paint versus ocher.

“Asleep like the numb moon,” moaned my tutor. “Again.”

I hated the saying. I’d been forced to learn the story behind it. Something about Imurinya, the lady of the moon, and her husband, the hunter, and a kiss needed to wake her.

I wasn’t a romantic, and no kiss would wake me—unless it was from a tarantula, not a boy. The only things that worked were the smell of freshly griddled sweet rice cakes and a well-calculated throw of my brother Reiji’s wooden dice.

The funny thing was, Reiji hadn’t thrown dice at me in years. Yet something small and hard pelted the back of my head. Repeatedly.

My eyes burst open, and I yelled, “Will you stop that?”

Well, that was what I’d meant to say. The words came out garbled, and my chest ached as if someone had squeezed all the life out of me and then reluctantly funneled it back in.

An unwelcome reminder that I was still in the dragon realm—and a captive in Nazayun’s palace, at that. It was too dark to see my surroundings clearly, but it wasn’t the rib cage room anymore.

Kelp shackles clinched my body from the neck down, restraining me to a slab of black crystal like I’d seen earlier. With all my strength, I jerked, trying to set myself free. The shackles tightened, and punishing jabs of pain raced up my muscles. I bit down hard on my lip until they passed.