Page 34

I didn’t hear the knock on my door.

I was caught in a rhythm, oblivious to everything except my work.

A practice scroll filled my entire room, and even then I barely had enough space to render Nazayun’s tail.

It’d taken me four days alone to sketch his body, and now I was starting on his scales.

From afar they all looked about the same, smooth and glossy, no more different from each other than grains of rice in a sack.

But I knew that capturing the slightest variation in size and sheen was critical.

With the sketch complete, I labored over the texture of Nazayun’s scales.

“Looks like lychees,” I mused aloud.

During my first year with Gaari, he’d made me paint fruits and flowers to “master the basic techniques” before I could go back to producing portraits.

Painting lychees had been my least favorite lesson, and the most difficult, thanks to the tiny hexagonal bumps on the fruit.

Gaari wouldn’t let me progress to a new subject until I’d mastered them.

Back then I’d thought he was trying to torture me with the task.

Now I knew better.

I clenched my jaw.

Even then he’d been preparing me to paint Nazayun.

My brush moved deftly from scale to scale, outlining the bumps in dark green, then varnishing each plate with a preliminary coat of azure.

The work was tedious, but I didn’t dare paint loosely.

One mistake could cost everything.

Another knock.

Louder this time.

“Lady Saigas!” Mailoh was crying from outside my door.

“I have something for you. May I come in?”

No, she could not.

My room was a catastrophe.

Hastily I set my brushes aside, wiped my desk clean, and raked my fingers through a clump of paint in my hair.

It wasn’t only art I’d been practicing; I’d been trying to exercise my visions too, to summon them at will and focus my intent when I encountered the future.

Progress was slow; most tries, I accomplished nothing.

But I could feel my heart growing steady, my fears easing into a calm and purpose I never had before.

I rolled up my practice scroll and counted to seven, rubbing my hands until the chill in my blood dissolved, then I went to the door.

Outside, Mailoh awaited with a basket of familiar blue flowers.

Each had five points, like a star, with a yellow bell in the center.

“Where’d you get waterbells?” I asked.

“Lord Elang grew them. He said you needed them for your art. Look.”

From her pouch, she proudly revealed a fat bottle of paint.

The pigment was that of crushed blue sapphires—a shade deeper than the waterbell petals, and richer than the indigo dyes Baba used to trade across Lor’yan.

I stared, taking the bottle into my hand.

The color matched Nazayun’s scales exactly.

“Elang extracted this from the waterbells?”

“Indeed.” Mailoh beamed.

“You are pleased?”

I plucked a flower from the basket, twirling it by the stem in my fingers.

“How many did he grow?”

“These, he planted by the Court of Celestial Harmony, but I’ll expect the rest to bloom under the light of the Luminous Hour. Which is quite apt, I’d say.”

“Apt? What do you mean?”

“It’s merfolk tradition to plant flowers for someone you love. They say if you present them during the Luminous Hour, your love is sure to be returned.”

It sounded like a scam my mother would’ve run in her old fortune house.

“How romantic.”

“I think so too.” Mailoh shrewdly inserted a waterbell into one of my braids.

“How apt, too, that Lord Elang should grow you an entire field of flowers.”

My eyes went wide.

An entire field?

“He grew them all on his own,” Mailoh went on.

“Last night, I might add. He wouldn’t let anyone help. Never have I seen a man more devoted.”

I must have looked stricken, for she chuckled.

“No need to be so shy, Lady Saigas. I can see how the curse burdens you both.” She made a subtle nod in the direction of Elang’s separate chambers.

“Once you break it, you can finally be together without hardship.”

A bloom of heat prickled my cheeks, which only served to encourage Mailoh.

“Trust me, a love like yours is meant to last from one life to the next.”

I bit back a protest.

It would have done no good anyway; Mailoh had a belief and she wasn’t going to change it.

Still, I thought as I twirled one of the waterbells from the basket, he could have chosen a different flower.

It was true, Elang really had planted an entire field of waterbells.

I surveyed them from the Court of Celestial Harmony, hovering just above the rooftop.

Tiny blue buds covered the grounds, cascading down beyond the rubble from the last storm to the edge of the gate.

The sight was breathtaking.

I was starting to reach into my pocket for my brush when I felt another shadow touch mine.

“Just wait until you see it under the light of the pearls.”

That was how Elang found me, precariously floating above the roof, my paintbrush slipping out of my sleeve.

I didn’t see him and windmilled after it, expecting to float but quickly sinking instead.

His arm wrapped around my wrist as he brought me safely onto the roof.

I whirled on him.

“I wasn’t going to fall.”

“I wasn’t going to take the chance.”

My mouth went dry.

Ever since I’d found out the truth about Gaari, Elang had abandoned some of his cold facade.

It frustrated me, how difficult he was making it to dislike him.

How much I’d missed my old friend.

He let me go, handing me back my brush as I shuffled to the side.

He was dressed finely tonight, silver platelets braided across his wide shoulders.

His robes were white and black, with a rich purple lining that, to my embarrassment, matched the gown Mailoh had selected for me.

“I had a feeling I’d find you here,” he said.

“You always knew how to find the best seats in the house, Saigas.”

“That was Gaari, not me.” I crossed my arms.

“I just wanted to be alone.”

He settled at my side, landing soundlessly.

“That’s why I used to come here too. I would watch the dawns every morning and wish I were on the other side of those crimson lights.”

“I thought you hated the human world.”

“I didn’t hate the sky or the stars, or the way the sun illuminates the secrets of the world after a dark and ruthless night. Or the noodles.”

I rolled my eyes.

Intolerable dragon.

Elang caught my sleeve before I could leave.

“Look,” he said, pointing.

“It’s beginning.”

Light tiptoed past the dark cliffs, sweeping the mountainside in shimmering white pinpricks.

The shimmer came from the pearls.

They traveled in a gentle flurry, as graceful as drops of moonlight.

Little by little, they warmed the sea.

They swelled past the dunes and gray plains, crowning the jagged horizon until everything glowed: the seams between my fingers, the tiny sand crabs crawling across the roof tiles, even the field of young waterbells.

I’d always thought waterbells special because they budded in the dark but bloomed in the light.

Yet never had I witnessed this actually come true—until now.

Under the glow of the pearls, my favorite flowers came alive.

Their stems stretched out of the earth, and their blue petals unfolded like the soft kiss of a butterfly’s wings.

As the flowers opened, there came a gentle current, tickling the petals so they seemed to vibrate.

“They look like stars,” I breathed.

I reached for my brush.

“Wait,” said Elang softly.

“It’s not over.”

The pearls were descending upon the castle.

As they neared, I saw that each one was ringed by a shining aurora, bright and silvery like the sun and moon at once.

The pearls dipped into the Court of Celestial Harmony, and the sand spun up in little plumes, like ribbons of gold dust lifted by the wind.

In gilded streams, the pearls swirled around us.

I reached out to touch one.

Its light exuded a wondrous warmth that tickled my fingers.

The pearls didn’t linger.

Once their light had touched every corner and crevice, they moved on.

I knelt on the roof, utterly enchanted.

“The Luminous Hour is special to Ai’long,” Elang murmured, crouching beside me.

“I’m glad you were able to experience it.”

I said nothing.

His hair was over his eyes, in dire need of trimming, and he was wearing those brass-rimmed spectacles again.

They were still crooked on his nose.

I closed my hands, forbidding myself from reaching over to straighten them.

Was it another power of his, turning my anger into some slippery thing like the sand beneath us, impossible to grasp?

Countless ruses we had plotted together, only for the greatest trick to be played on me.

I had every reason to hate him.

So why, when I sat at his side, when I remembered we’d never been strangers at all—but friends for years, partners for years—was there a warm and prickly feeling buzzing in my stomach?

To my mortification, it wasn’t entirely unpleasant.

It felt a long while that we stayed on the roof, content in each other’s silence, before cheers from the garden moved time forward again.

Below, Kunkoi was passing out flower-molded sponge cakes and skewered fish balls, and the turtles were chasing watery illusions of seahorses and cuttlefish.

It reminded me of a festival back home.

Even Shani had joined the fun, popping bubbles with her nails.

“The race is starting soon,” noted Elang.

“It’s a game children often play in Ai’long. Everyone chooses an animal, and whichever completes a lap around the garden without dissolving wins.”

Soon after he spoke, the turtles gathered in a line.

Even Mailoh had conjured a contestant, choosing a frilled octopus that glided gracefully about.

Kunkoi, inexplicably, had chosen a giant lobster.

“I’ll show you how to play,” Elang said.

He wheeled his hands, molding a watery whale.

It was a simple creation, but its form was well thought out.

“When you finish, give it a breath for life.” He blew, and away the whale swam, down into the garden to join the races below.

“Do you want totry?”

A group of young turtles were giggling at Elang and me, and I waved.

It would be all right, I thought, to put up with the act a little longer.

To have some fun tonight, then resume being angry tomorrow.

“Do you always choose a whale?”

He shrugged.

“I like whales.”

I didn’t know why my shoulders went soft, or why that warm buzz in my stomach turned even warmer.

“So I recall.”

I drew my finger along the water, outlining a book-sized fish with dangling fins.

I took my time.

The water scintillated with magic, and all I had to do was trace the creature I wanted.

Soon my fish was formed, and I added three careful spots to her head.

“A carp?” said Elang.

“They’re good luck.” I noted his blank look.

“There’s a legend of a carp who found the gates of Ai’long. There she encountered a tremendous waterfall, impossible to leap over. But she hadn’t come so far to give up. She jumped again and again, until she vaulted across the gate. As a reward for her courage and effort, she became a dragon.”

“Is that really a reward?” asked Elang wryly.

It was my turn to shrug.

“It’s Nomi’s favorite story. She always loved dragons. And I’ve always liked the lesson it teaches.”

“What is that?”

“Fortune finds those who leap.”

I blew after the carp, and off she swam, catching up to Elang’s whale.

I found myself glued to the race, laughing and cheering when both our whale and carp zipped around the garden, dissolving instants after finishing their lap.

“Yes!” I exclaimed.

I caught myself before I grinned at Elang.

He was at my side, doing his best to hide a smile.

If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought he was watching me instead of the race.

“You had fun,” he observed.

I did.

“Now I see the appeal of those cricket races you used to watch.”

“You wish you’d joined me?”

“Definitely not. It’s gambling.”

“Many things are. How bleak life would be, if we left nothing to chance.”

“Ironic, coming from you,” I spoke.

“Was our meeting even chance?”

He merely smiled, a small, sad smile that did not reach his eyes.

“Mailoh told me you were pleased with the paint she brought today. I take that to mean the color is suitable?”

Of course he would change the subject.

“It’s perfect,” I had to admit.

“I can’t believe you grew this entire field of waterbells. You could’ve asked me to help.”

“I seem to recall, the Saigas sisters have the killing touch when it comes to plants. I couldn’t chance it.”

Turds of Tamra, I couldn’t help it, I laughed.

“I should’ve known from all the gardening you were Gaari. Where did you pick it up?”

“From my mother.” It was the subtlest thing, how every muscle in Elang’s face softened.

“We spent one spring in the hinterlands of A’landi. She kept a garden there.”

“What was she like?”

The ghost of a smile touched his mouth.

“Her name was Lanwah. She smelled of sun and camphor, and she always kept a bag of preserved plums in her pocket—for my bones to grow hardy, she’d say. She hoarded luck in little charms and trinkets and prayed to the gods every night. It wasn’t easy for her, raising a half-dragon boy alone. I spent my childhood on the run.”

“From your grandfather?”

“From humans too,” Elang said darkly.

He knelt on the roof.

“I had a fever one day, and while my mother was out to buy medicine, bandits broke into our home and assaulted me. They wanted to skin me and sell my scales. When my mother came home and found them…” Elang didn’t need to finish—I’d seen his scars.

“She spent all her magic saving me. It nearly killed her.”

I sat beside him, my heart wrenching inside.

I could see how hard it had been for him.

“That was the first time that I remember feeling, ” he said.

“Fear for my mother, along with wrath. Hate.”

“How’d you escape?”

“She changed the bandits into goats. Her spells didn’t last long, and I wanted to kill them before they turned human again. My mother stopped me. It took a long time before I realized that she was more afraid of me than of the bandits. Afraid that my heartlessness would turn me into a…”

“Monster?” I said gently.

“Yes.” He paused.

“That spring, she brought me to A’landi. It was dangerous for us, being closer to the sea, but she thought it an important lesson to grow a garden together. She taught me to care for the flowers and nurture them, from seedlings to withered husks.” He looked to the field of waterbells.

“At first I didn’t have the patience. But my mother was persistent. She believed, one day, I would break my curse.”

“You already have,” I said.

“You’re not as heartless as you think.”

He made a soft, soft laugh.

Then his eyes fell on the pendant hanging from my neck.

“Do you know why butterflies fly in pairs, Tru?” he asked.

“When I was in my mother’s garden, I used to think it was because they were afraid of me. But I was wrong. They fly in pairs because…” He hesitated.

“Because they’re in love.”

Under the heat of his gaze, my cheeks burned.

“You should take this back,” I said, starting to unclasp the butterflies.

“I shouldn’t—”

“Keep it,” said Elang.

“Dragons give each other a piece of their hearts when they marry. This is the closest I can offer to mine.”

My lips parted.

I didn’t know what to say.

“Watch your tells, Demon Prince. I might start to think you actually likeme.”

It was a joke, yet Elang didn’t laugh.

“I always liked you, Saigas.”

I meant to scoff, but my heart rattled in my chest, every beat a roaring peal.

He was close enough that I was worried he’d take it as an invitation to kiss me.

Blast my treacherous heart, I hoped he would.

It was a war I waged against myself, the way I forced my body to draw back.

“Then why didn’t you tell me the truth from the start? Why act like a stranger, why act like you wanted nothing to do with me?”

Elang was quiet.

“Do you recall Gaari’s third rule?”

“How could I forget? You drilled those silly rules into me for an entire month. No details. Business is business.”

“Very good,” he said.

“I stand by the third rule.”

I wanted to smack him on both sides of his blasted face.

“You’re impossible.”

“Wait, Tru.” Elang caught my sleeve before I turned away.

He hadn’t meant to sour the mood.

I could tell by the twist of his lips that he wished he could take back his words.

Gaari had been the same.

“You asked if any of it was real. My name was real.”

“Your name?”

“My human name—the name I was born with—was Gaarin, but my mother called me Gaari.” A deep breath.

“When I met you, I chose it so it’d feel less like a lie. I know it won’t make up for what I did, but I would have told you everything from the start, if I could have.”

“You made up the third rule so I wouldn’t ask questions.”

“I made it up so we couldn’t become too close.”

“Because of your curse.” I understood.

“You don’t want me to break it. Why?”

He shook his head.

He wouldn’t tell me.

He couldn’t.

“Damn it, Elang,” I said, throwing up my hands.

I rose and twisted away to leave, but blast my foolish tongue.

“Are you in love with me?”

That question changed the air between us.

The line of his mouth went taut, and the beleaguered look in his eyes washed away, his dragon nature taking primacy as he let out a low, vexed growl.

“Do you remember the promise I made you on the day we were married?”

My thoughts drifted back to that summer day in Gangsun, to the rain and the hanging red lanterns.

It felt so far away, yet I could practically smell the smoke from the firecrackers, the horses outside Elang’s carriage, when I was about to receive his brusque instruction:

“?‘If I show you kindness or favor,’?” I said, “?‘it means nothing. If I give you a gift, or bestow upon you praise, it means nothing. Everything is for appearances only, and should you occupy a place in my thoughts, it is only to facilitate the mission we have agreed upon.’?”

“And there you have your answer,” Elang said.

The light in his eyes was gone.

“This Luminous Hour is over.”

He was right.

The pearls were sweeping away, and the golden cast that had illuminated the sea faded.

I let myself sink, feeling as hollow and gray as the waters around me.

“Make your preparations,” he said, putting distance between us.

“We depart for Jinsang at darkest tide.”

He spun back for the castle, leaving me behind.

Once he was out of sight, I yanked the waterbell out of my hair.

So much for fates bound across lifetimes.

Yet as the flower sat on my palm, petals falling one by one, I thought of the other promise he had made on our wedding day: I bind you to me, Tru Saigas.

Until the end of our days upon this earth, under this heaven, and across the seas, our fates are one, our destinies entangled.

Whatever course you may wend, I will follow.

Too late, I wondered if he’d remembered the same.