Page 37

My father had told me once that anyone visiting A’landi’s Summer Palace had to climb ninety-nine steps before reaching the entrance.

The first emperor had designed it that way to ensure that every visitor would arrive out of breath and fall into a bow upon greeting him.

I used to think the story utterly absurd.

But now I understood where he’d gotten his inspiration.

The Dragon King’s throne room was a nine-tiered tower with sloping roofs on each level.

The walls were studded with jade and opal, and the gables were plated with the purest gold.

Instead of stairs, there were colossal sheets of tumbling water, impossible to cross without Shani’s help.

Even then, I was panting by the time I reached the top.

There, lounging upon a cloud of sea foam, was the Dragon King.

And by his side, sitting cross-legged on a slab of speckled crystal, was Elang.

I’d always thought him tall, but next to his grandfather, he looked small.

Insignificant.

I couldn’t tell whether he was hurt.

His eyes were bloodshot, his shoulders tense, and yet the instant I entered, something in him lifted.

I looked away, schooling my face into a stony expression.

Never play games with a dragon, the old saying went.

Against all sense, I was throwing all my tiles in against the king.

I prayed I wouldn’t lose.

“Your Eternal Majesty,” I said with a deep bow.

“I have done as you asked. Behold.”

With a flick of my wrist, I sent the Scroll unraveling.

In a long white ream, it fell, and there, for all to see, was my portrait of Elang.

A careful congress of water and ink, every existing detail was finely rendered, as true to life as I could have drawn.

Elang didn’t even glance at it.

Stop looking at me, I wanted to shout at him.

Look at the painting.

For three years, I’d known him as Gaari.

He knew my art better than anyone, but it was the greatest gamble of my life—whether he’d see through the ruse I’d woven into his portrait.

I bit my bottom lip.

During our cons, that had always been my tell.

I hoped he’d remember it.

Meanwhile, the Dragon King surveyed my work.

Several of his attendants gathered around the Scroll, comparing it to Elang himself, who still sat on a crystal slab.

I straightened.

It was clear for all to see, my work was as accurate as life itself.

“You’ve done well,” Nazayun allowed.

“But where are Elangui’s eyes?”

I’d been waiting for this.

“I will paint them after you release my father.”

Displeasure rumbled in the Dragon King’s throat.

“You are in no position to bargain. Complete the portrait. Now.”

The sea boiled with his rancor, making me stagger back several paces.

I steeled myself.

“It is not a bargain; it is part of your promise.”

“Bring the girl’s father back to life,” Elang spoke up.

His voice, hoarse yet commanding, startled everyone in the chamber to attention.

“Bring him to life but keep him in Ai’long. Show her what she will lose if she defies the Dragon King.”

Nine Hells of Tamra, whose side was Elang on?

This wasn’t part of my plan at all.

Nazayun seemed to like this idea.

He considered it, then in a blink, it was done.

Baba’s toy ship reappeared, close enough for me to see each individual strand of my father’s hair.

“Awaken, Arban Saigas,” said Nazayun.

The ship began to glow.

The painting of Baba peeled off the wood, and a tempest of water and ink surrounded him.

Within, I could make out the growing silhouette of a hand, the ends of a green scarf I’d all but forgotten.

“Baba!” I whispered.

The tempest was growing, and so, too, was Baba’s silhouette inside.

He was as tall as I’d remembered, and I waded closer, reaching for him.

“Baba, I’mhere!”

My fingers clasped a sleeve, then an arm still becoming whole.

I held on.

I felt his bones stretch into place, his muscles and veins cord around his arm.

When I could count five hard knuckles on the back of his hand, I knew it was really him.

The tempest receded, and there was my father.

He lay in the water, floating supine.

At first I thought he was dead; his skin was gray, and he wasn’t moving or breathing.

Behind me, Elang drew out a vial of sangi and poured it between Baba’s lips.

Baba’s face contorted, his muscles jerking before they calmed.

His eyelids twitched, struggling to open, but one of his brows shot up.

Then he breathed, his first breath in five years.

“Truyan?” Baba whispered.

Joy clotted my throat.

I rushed forward, forgetting completely where I was.

My only thought was for Baba, wanting to embrace him, touch him, be with him.

Then ice frosted Baba’s lips and eyelids.

He shivered violently, eyes closing once more.

“Finish the portrait,” Nazayun snarled.

“Now.”

I clenched the brush, my entire body glittering with hate.

He wanted me to paint?

By gods, then I would paint.

With great flourish, I outlined the shape of Elang’s eyes and painted the first one yellow.

Then I turned to the other.

I used to think his yellow eye upstaged the gray, but now I found myself contemplating the many shades within that gray.

Ashen when he was angry, pewter speckled when amused, and charcoal dark when he was in pain.

The shade I mixed for this portrait was achingly deep.

I leaned forward to dot his pupils.

One last stroke, to capture the light, and I’d be finished.

I braced myself, about to mark it upon the Scroll—when Elang spoke.

“Wait,” he said, shattering the chamber’s brittle silence.

“A last request, if you may. Before I am sent to Oblivion, I should like one kiss from my wife.”

I nearly dropped my brush.

“A kiss, Elangui?” The Dragon King’s laugh made the walls shudder.

“Look at your bride, ready to betray you for all eternity. No kiss will make her return your love.”

Love?

“Didn’t Shani tell you it was all a sham?” I blurted.

“Elang doesn’t love me.”

The moment I spoke, the water in the room went utterly still.

The Dragon King dipped his head, coming close enough that I could feel the electricity sparking from his whiskers.

His eyes beheld me, just as mirror sharp as I’d remembered.

“Elangui doesn’t love you?” he repeated.

“Surely, Bride of the Westerly Seas, you cannot believe that. If it were true, my patrols would have slew you as soon as you entered my realm. But they did not.”

He was lying, wasn’t he?

I blinked, thinking back to the day I’d arrived in Ai’long.

The jellyfish had wrapped their tentacles around Elang, testing him for any traces of deception.

I’d been so preoccupied with getting them away from me, I hadn’t been paying attention to what they had done to him.

Only that he had passed the test, because…

because…

“They heard Elangui’s heart,” Nazayun answered for me.

His heart, I thought, over the pounding of my own.

“But…how? I thought he had none.”

“He doesn’t. Unless he’s with his Heavenly Match.”

It was like I’d been struck.

My head jerked up, eyes flying to Elang, certain he would deny such a ludicrous claim—the way he had when we’d first made our bargain.

Don’t be dense, krill, he had said, the tips of his ears burning red.

Don’t imagine I would choose to take someone like you as a bride.

It would be for appearances only.

Until our business is complete.

But he was silent.

His eyes were unwavering, not even daring to blink.

His gaze, stuck on me.

And suddenly I knew.

“It is simple,” Nazayun explained.

“When he is in your presence, his heart returns. Away from you, it vanishes. Too long apart from his love, and Elang suffers, he grows weak. The curse resembles an affliction common among mortals—what is it called? Ah yes, a broken heart.” He leaned forward, his voice falling to a soft purr.

“I’m told it can be deadly.”

My brush snapped under my thumb.

I was vibrating with anger, and it took my greatest self-control to bury it and speak, in my iciest tone.

“Like the demon told you, our marriage isn’t real. Why should I care if he dies?”

Nazayun impaled me with his gaze.

“You sound as though you care, Bride of the Westerly Seas.”

“She does not,” said Elang.

“I didn’t ask you.” Lightning fired out of Nazayun’s eyes, striking Elang in the chest.

“I asked the girl.”

Elang jerked back.

Smoke sizzled where he’d been hit.

It was the hardest thing, masking my horror and feigning cold aloofness.

But I stayed rooted in place, silently choking on my fury.

No matter what, I would not give up the game.

Nazayun peered at me.

“Do you love Elang?”

I parted my lips, an answer on the precipice of my tongue.

In the past, I would have barked a refusal without hesitation.

Now the words wavered unsteadily.

This much I knew: Elang wanted me to hate him.

From the start, that had been his plan.

Why, I still didn’t understand, but it had to do with his curse.

Which explained why Nazayun was so fixated on my love for him.

But I didn’t have time to ponder that question.

I mustered a scoff.

“Elang is a monster. He forced me into a false marriage, trapped me in the realm of dragons, and endangered my entire family. All I want is for things to go back to the way they were. Before I met him.”

To punctuate my point, I made my final stroke on the Scroll, angrily stabbing a bead of ink into Elang’s pupil.

Dear Amana, I prayed that Nazayun had never bothered studying art or painting technique.

I prayed he was paying more attention to his grandson’s missing pupils than to the actual shape and composition of the painting…

.

“It’s done,” I declared.

“The portrait is finished.”

“But here I remain,” spoke Elang.

His voice startled me.

It’d become even more hoarse, and there was a hitch in his words.

“The Painter must send her subject off to Oblivion with the Touch of Entrapment. I ask once more, let it be a kiss from my wife.”

It was a good thing I’d completed the portrait.

At his confession, my entire world went out of focus.

I could barely hold myself upright, let alone breathe.

Elang…

“Go on,” allowed the Dragon King.

“Bid your husband farewell.”

I swam to Elang’s side.

The sea was heavy, causing me to sink with each stroke.

Yet my heart felt heaviest of all.

“Why so sad, Saigas?” Elang said softly.

“Dare I hope you’ll miss me?”

His eyes were too sincere, too tender.

“Yes,” I whispered.

For the first time, I realized it wastrue.

“It’ll be all right.” He touched his forehead to mine.

His voice fell to a whisper.

“The shrimps are secured.”

Shrimps.

That was our old code word for the money.

But there was no money here.

I looked up at him in confusion—

And that was when his lips found mine.

It was a better kiss than the one we’d shared in Nanhira.

Maybe that was because it wasn’t an act anymore.

Gone were the pretenses; the lies were exposed and deceptions unearthed.

And still I found I wanted him.

He pulled me to him by the waist, and I tasted his lips, taking my time.

The black was seeping into his hair, and the cold scales of his dragon face turned warm, almost hot.

And when I heard his heart, beating wildly against mine, I held him close, desperately worried that if I let go, he might disappear from the fabric of the universe forever.

Don’t go, I thought, a feverish heat swelling in my chest.

Don’t go.

He was the one who let go, and in that moment, I swore all of Ai’long went still.

I waited with bated breath, half convinced that he might vanish any second.

He didn’t.

A grin slowly spread across his face.

“Clever, Saigas,” he murmured.

“Ever so clever.”

And that was when Nazayun realized that he’d been deceived.

We didn’t wait for the consequences.

We wouldn’t have survived them.

I threw myself onto Elang’s back.

Grabbed him by the horns.

A beat later, the ceiling shattered.

In a blitz of golden debris, General Caisan and a brigade of turtles had arrived.

The seas rocked.

Lightning dazzled out of Nazayun’s eyes, and entire walls and columns were turned to stone, barely missing Caisan’s forces.

The turtles were fast, and their shells were strong.

The first thing they did was cluster together to form a shield, swooping down as one to rescue Baba.

It was a small miracle I’d remember forever, the sight of General Caisan with my father astride his shell.

I clung tighter to Elang, straddling his back as he swerved toward his grandfather.

Water roared, gathering into a vicious force.

We only went faster.

Elang was an arrow primed to his target.

Nothing could stop him, not even Shani.

Thanks to his years acting as Gaari, he knew my art better than anyone.

He knew my lines and strokes, the way I composed my subjects and chose my colors, but most of all, he knew how much I liked to bury little deceptions in my work.

Deceptions, like the fact that I hadn’t painted Elang at all.

I had painted his reflection—inside the pale blue orb of Nazayun’s eye.

Reaching that eye was like scaling a cliff in a storm.

Lightning ripped after us, and Elang narrowly scraped past each blast.

The heat was blistering.

Even my tears burned.

“Hold on, Tru,” Elang whispered.

“We’re almost there.”

Yes, we were close.

I could almost look up and see Elang’s reflection in Nazayun’s pupil.

Any moment now.

To send someone into Oblivion, I had to paint their final moment.

And this was what I’d foreseen: Elang, invading the Dragon King’s line of sight, his gray and yellow eyes ablaze.

My body trembled as it came true.

Now I only had my part to play.

For Ai’long, I thought, letting go of Elang’s horns.

For Baba.

Throwing myself as far as I could, I leapt for the Dragon King.

I kicked furiously, aiming for the highest whisker on his cheek, tilted just above his brow.

With a silent prayer to the gods, I oustretched my hand.

Down I tumbled, past the storm of his white hair.

My fingertips grazed down the rough hood of his lid, peeling past his lashes—for the fathomless black pupil below.

I wished I’d had enough time to paint the damned entirety of the Dragon King into Oblivion, but for now this would do.

A touch was all it took.

The Touch of Entrapment.

His eye vanished, as if it had never existed.

And Nazayun let out an anguished cry.

I didn’t wait for the aftermath.

As fast as I could, I grabbed the Scroll and I hooked Elang by the arm.

“Go.”