Page 21

The entire sea shook, underwater waves the size of mountains lashing out at the castle.

Debris spilled from the ceilings, and the crystal walls swayed, whistling like paper against wind.

My every instinct screamed to find cover.

Now I understood why so many had left Yonsar.

I climbed onto Elang’s back, my arms wrapped around his neck as he barreled through the castle halls.

His hair had become white, and his yellow eye glowed as his scales turned warm under my fingertips—signs that the dragon in him had taken over.

It made him dizzyingly fast.

“Watch out!” I shouted in his ear.

Outside, rocks winged against the walls, gales of sand leaking through the cracks.

I lost count of how many times we narrowly escaped the toppling pillars, how many times Elang swerved before a door exploded.

At last we came to a halt.

“Your room,” he said.

There was a break between his words, the only sign that he was out of breath.

“The south court is the safest place to be during a storm. It’s against the Spine; you’ll be safeguarded by the mountain—and my best soldiers.”

He ushered me through the round door.

“Stay here. Shanizhun will protect you.”

I whirled.

He hadn’t come inside.

“ You aren’t staying?”

“I’m needed at the front.” He unhooked his cloak.

“Wear this. The silk is stronger than any armor, and the lining will heal minor wounds.”

I wanted to insist that I go too, but I knew it’d be foolish.

What good could I do outside against a storm?

I pushed the cloak back his way.

“You keep it. You’ll need it more than Iwill.”

His jaw clenched, as if he wanted to argue.

Instead, he gave a curt nod.

“Shanizhun, see that she does not leave this room. I’ll be back when it’s time for her sangi.”

Without another word, he was gone, and Shani iced the door shut.

I swam to the window.

Hundreds of turtles were forming a wall around the castle, using their hard shells to barricade us from the storm.

I picked Mailoh out by the yellow spots on her shell, right before a fold of dark sea swept her out of sight.

No matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t find Elang.

I wiped my fingers on my sleeve.

They still burned where his lips had touched, something I wanted to forget as quickly as possible.

“Can the turtles survive the storm?” I asked Shani.

“I doubt everyone will survive.” Shani lounged on my bed, entirely too nonchalant about the whole affair.

“How many casualties we get will depend on Nazayun’s mood.”

I closed my eyes, suddenly grateful that Elang had sent away the children of Yonsar.

At least Mailoh wouldn’t have to worry about her daughter.

“You should go and help them,” I said.

“My orders are to stay with you.”

“I’ll be fine on my own. Nazayun can’t harm me, remember?”

“Don’t be stupid. The curse might prevent him from killing you, but never for an instant think you’re safe here. That’s how you’ll lose a limb—or two.”

Shani, ever the font of reassurance.

The blasts were fainter in my room, short staccato bursts rather than a continuous stab.

But I could still feel the storm intensifying, drawing nearer.

Outside, the wall of turtles blocked my view.

All I could see were the ribbons of debris that leaked between their shells.

“Why does he hate Elang so much?” I asked, pulling away as another blast struck the castle.

“I read that dragons often marry merfolk and humans. Elang can’t be the only one of his kind.”

“But he is,” replied Shani.

“Children born of such unions are either dragon…or not. There are no halflings. And in the rare case that one is born, they’re executed at birth.”

“Elang survived,” I pointed out.

“Was he spared because his father is Nazayun’s son?”

“He wasn’t spared—he was cursed. His mother had the sense to pretend he was dead and keep him away from Ai’long. She raised him in the desert, as far away from the sea as she could. Still, they were always on the run.”

I tried picturing Elang as a boy, his two faces covered by a black mask.

Friendless and alone, with no one but his mother to trust—because anybody could be one of his grandfather’s assassins.

It couldn’t have been easy for him, a half dragon growing up in a harsh and arid land—when water was the source of his strength.

“Why won’t he just break his curse?” I asked.

“He knows where his pearl is. Why make Yonsar suffer?”

“Because Nazayun’s cruelty isn’t limited to the Westerly Seas. It isn’t even limited to the dragons.” Shani’s red eyes glittered.

“You’re just a human, you’re too stupid to understand.”

“Now you sound like Caisan.”

Shani threw me a withering look.

I scooted closer.

“Stupid or not, it helps for me to at least try. I’m stuck in Ai’long until I finish Nazayun’s portrait. And I’ve got a feeling there’s some trick to it. Not exactly something he’ll be clamoring to flaunt on his palace walls.”

The demon was silent, and I sensed I’d struck a chord.

“Show me how to paint him,” I said.

“Elang said you know him better than anyone.”

“I more than know him,” she hissed.

“I’ve spent lifetimes emblazoning his wretched form into my memory.” Her pitch rose with fervor.

“In my dreams, I nick off his scales with my talons one by one, and I score the skin from his eyeballs slowly, painfully. Then I smother the light of his sacred pearl and drink his soul.”

What did he do to you?

I wondered, but I knew better than to ask.

“Perhaps you’ll have your chance,” I said instead.

“Fate never favors demons,” said Shani through her teeth.

“If it did, the Eight Immortals might’ve chosen me to vanquish Nazayun, not some foolish mortal.”

“The Eight Immortals are involved?” My eyes widened.

According to legend, they were a secret council of deities that oversaw peace among the realms.

Shani merely sniffed.

“Even a squall sprite has more promise than you. I saw the dragon you painted. It was so ordinary, so boring, so human. The least they could’ve done was chosen a master painter, not some tuna-haired swindler.” She shivered into a puff of mist, sliding back into the opal ring.

“You’re just a waste of my time….”

Her words were a jab to my pride, yet I wasn’t stung.

What she said was true; I wasn’t a master painter.

I’d never formally trained, and only by forging the works of less popular artists had I barely been able to make a living.

But I’d capture the Dragon King’s likeness.

I knew I could.

“His scales overlap from neck to tail like a fish,” I said aloud quietly, “but not in the head. He’s a snake, in that way.”

The mist swirled within the opal, the only sign that Shani was listening.

“He has roughly ten thousand scales,” I went on.

“Nine whiskers—four on the right and five on the left—and his pearl is lodged left of his chest, where it glows like a hazy moon.”

The demon crawled out of my ring, still misty.

“What of his eyes?” she asked.

What I remembered was that they were wintry, the palest blue before gray.

I hadn’t caught anything more.

“An artist always paints a dragon’s eyes last,” I said evasively.

“They carry his spirit.”

Shani saw through my ruse and made a harrumphing sound.

But she did return to my desk.

“This is going to take a lot of work,” muttered the demon.

In one languid motion, she shifted into a smaller imitation of Nazayun, shuddering when her transformation was complete.

She opened Nazayun’s eyes, two wan and glittering ovals whose cold made me shudder.

In the Dragon King’s own merciless tone, she spoke, “Let us begin.”

Confined to my room, I chased the hours by studying with Shani.

“We’re doomed,” she’d say of my progress.

“Nazayun is a dragon, not a lizard. Do it again.”

The demon made for an exacting mentor.

She sat on my shoulder, hurling insults into my ear when I made one mistake, tearing the parchment in half when I made two.

Not once did I complain.

The work took my mind off the storm, and off Baba.

All night I painted.

Even when my fingers cramped and pruned, and new calluses formed where I held my brush, I pressed on.

But I was only human.

At some point, my eyelids grew heavy, as if weighed down by sand, and my brushstrokes started todrag.

The last thing I remembered was mixing a new well of gray paint.

I slept, but not deeply.

Every time there came a lull in the storm, some part of the castle would subsequently explode.

And toward the end of the night, when the sea was so dark not even the dawn lights could pierce its murk, the ring on my thumb grew cold.

“She fell asleep at her desk.”

It was Shani speaking.

My eyes were closed, but I could tell from the ripples in the water that we weren’t alone.

Someone else had come.

I heard a rustling of pages.

“Her progress has been pitiful,” the demon went on.

“There’s no chance she’ll be able to paint him—she can’t even summon a vision.”

There came a low murmur, but I couldn’t hear what wassaid.

“Yes, she still despises you, though I suspect she is growing less fearful of you. Are you certain you don’t want me to erase her—”

There came a brisk slice in the water, cutting off her reply.

It had to be Elang, I thought.

No one else could silence the demon so effectively.

I could feel his presence grow nearer.

He swam gracefully, his movements barely conjuring a ripple.

In three quiet strides, he was at my side, his shadow eclipsing my bed.

The glass lip of a vial prodded open my mouth.

I tried to peel open a sliver of eye, but Elang touched my forehead, and a wave of sleep overcame me.

Sangi washed down my throat, and I floated back into the sweet oblivion of my dreams.

In the morning, my fingers tingled.

Shani stepped on my hand, pressing harder when I winced.

“You’ve been biting your lip and twitching your fingers for the last hour,” she said.

“Your mother’s a gambler, you should know better than to have a tell.”

“It’s just a tingle,” I explained groggily.

“I get them because of my—”

“Visions. Finally you show a hint of progress.” The demon waved a fin at the parchment.

“Paint it out.”

No.

“After the storm ends.”

“Now,” insisted the demon.

Shani sneered.

“What, are you afraid you might make the castle collapse onto us?”

Yes.

I bit my lip.

Or worse.

The sneer was helpful, though.

I ambled toward my chair, not remembering ever leaving it for bed.

I picked up my brush.

When I first began to understand my Sight, I’d thought I could change the future.

I used to tell myself, If I can paint Baba alive, it will be so.

I’ll make it so.

But every time I tried, pain shot up to my chest, immobilizing me.

I would get as far as his silhouette before my hand would convulse, and I’d make an involuntary sweep with my brush, blotting out Baba’s face with ink.

Leaving me as I’d been before, with only the ghost of his memory imprinted upon my heart.

My Sight could only give me glimpses of what was to come.

Rarely had it done any good.

Hadn’t warned me about Gaari’s death, hadn’t given me answers about Baba, hadn’t saved my family from losing our house.

But I had to try.

Muttering under my breath, I let my pupils roll back.

I inhaled, blanking my thoughts and cutting away each string that tethered me to consciousness.

Once I let go, the glittering sensation in my fingertips rushed up to the backs of my eyes, sweeping them with a warm, hypnotic wash.

The edges of the world blurred, and the rattling blasts from the storm became rinses of sound.

It was like painting in a dream.

The Dragon King’s head— his hair, his eyes, and his whiskers—flew out of my brush.

I painted jagged cliffs and a dense fog that curled around his beard.

It was a place that I didn’t recognize, and if I’d been fully awake, I might have asked Shani about it.

But I was trapped in a dream, my lips pressed so tight that I couldn’t part them.

Then the tingle behind my eyes flushed away, and slowly I came out of the trance.

There was a lull in the room, an odd silence from the demon that I wasn’t used to.

“Was it real?” I asked.

“Did I paint…Nazayun?”

“Come look for yourself.”

It was always a jolt, seeing my vision manifest on physical paper.

But there he was, the Dragon King in all his glory, looming before a frosty ridge.

Lightning darted from his eyes, and his talons curled into the pallid sand.

And his scales!

They were like plates of sapphire, crisp and blue.

“He’s beautiful,” I whispered.

“He is a god,” said Shani, landing on my shoulder.

She pinched my bone.

“Don’t be too giddy. Good things rarely come from a visit with His Eternal Majesty.”

I wasn’t listening.

“Look at the texture of his scales,” I murmured, tracing my fingers over the sketch.

“They’re smooth. Translucent.”

“And so?”

“He’ll be an apparition when we meet,” I explained.

“Elang said my portrait has to be as accurate as life itself. If I’m going to do that, I’ll need to see him in the flesh.”

“What do you think I’ve been doing?” huffed the demon.

“I know Nazayun better than anyone.”

“Do you know how the shadows of his whiskers fall on his scales? Do you know whether light travels into the gaps between his teeth or how his muscles crease when he moves?”

Shani glowered.

“Most portrait artists wouldn’t either,” I allowed.

“But I’m a forger, not an artist. I make my living on noticing things. It’s my job.”

“And my job is to keep you alive. You want to parade over to Jinsang to meet the Dragon King? Be my guest. But don’t blame me when you foresee yourself as a puddle of sea foam.”

“You’re being dramatic.”

“ You’re being na?ve. Like I said, I know Nazayun better than anyone.”

I would have rolled my eyes, except that was precisely when I saw the blood.

It was a shallow red pool I’d painted on the ground, obscured by the swirls of ice and debris surrounding King Nazayun.

But once I made it out, it was unmistakable.

“Shani,” I whispered, lifting the edge of the painting so she could see too.

“Whose blood is that?”

“Yours, I’d guess,” she replied tartly.

“Demons don’t bleed red.”

“That isn’t funny. Will you take another look?”

She sizzled with displeasure, but she studied what I’d painted more closely.

“Never mind the blood,” she said at last.

“The frost is the real clue. There aren’t many places in Ai’long that cold. Only the Northerly Seas, or maybe the bottom of the Western Fold.”

“What’s the Western Fold?”

“A chasm along the Spine. It’s not far from the castle.”

“That has to be where we meet Nazayun,” I replied.

“Will you take me when the storms are over?”

“Why bother? I thought everything you see is inevitable.”

“It is, but a push can’t hurt.”

“Elang’anmi won’t like you going behind his back.”

Honestly, I didn’t care what Elang thought.

I folded my sketch, pocketing it in my skirt.

Soon I’d meet the Dragon King.

I would make every second count.