Page 38

We fled the palace.

It was the most tumultuous, dizzying ride of my life.

The halls flashed by in a wash of color.

Spears sang past our ears as we left our enemies behind.

Past the gate, we sped through the seagrass.

Queen Haidi was hunting us.

Her barbs tore through the field, skinning past rocks and reefs alike.

Elang pulled me into a narrow cave, the ridges on his back tensing as Haidi combed the area for us.

At his touch, my clothes matched the algae-covered rock.

So, too, did his scales and long tail.

I reached for his hand, held it tight.

The minutes crawled by, and instinctively we breathed at the same time so we wouldn’t make any extra sound.

I watched as the magic took its toll on Elang.

His yellow eye twitched, its vibrance turning dull and cloudy.

The warmth was bleeding from his scales.

I pressed my ear to his chest and listened for his heart.

Faint and unsteady it beat.

My own pulse spiked with worry.

“I think she’s gone,” Elang finally whispered.

He rolled to his side so we faced each other.

“Are you hurt?”

Was I hurt?

One of Haidi’s harpoons had found the sinewy human flesh between his scales, just above his chest.

He was trying to hide it, but there was too much blood.

It pooled between the seams of his fingers, drenching his white cloak.

I heal faster than full-blooded humans, Elang had told me, but I bleed like you, and I hurt like you.

Do you die like us too?

I wished I’d asked.

From the looks of it, the answer was yes.

His scales were losing their luster, and even with the cloak on, he wasn’t getting much better.

“It’s nothing—”

“Stop talking.” I swept aside his healing cloak and gripped the bottom of the harpoon shaft, my knuckles turning red with Elang’s blood.

“One,” I said aloud.

“Two.”

Three.

With all my strength, I yanked out the harpoon.

There came a grisly crunch that made my insides clench, and Elang’s chest heaved.

I folded his cloak over him, rolling him onto his back.

I swallowed hard.

“Does it hurt very much?”

Elang attempted a grin.

“Less, now that you’re here.”

Liar, I almost said, before I realized he wasn’t lying at all.

“You never were good at flirting.”

“I never had a chance to practice. As Gaari, I thought it would make you uncomfortable. And after that, we were already married so it didn’t seem necessary.”

Again, that urge to slap him as much as kiss him.

I settled for kissing him, twice.

The sea had gone still, allowing us a moment of precious repose.

Together we lay in our grassy cove, cheeks pressed together, savoring one another’s warmth.

We didn’t have long, and I roamed my fingers into his hair, twirling the tufts behind his ears.

A bloom of color crept back to his scales wherever I touched.

Elang lifted his head, ears pointed.

“Caisan will be here any moment,” he said.

“He’ll take you to shore.”

“You’re not coming with me?”

“I heal faster in the water,” he said gently, “and you’ll be safer on your own. Once my grandfather recovers, he’ll come looking for me. Best we’re not together.”

“You won’t make it back to Yonsar like this,” I pointed out.

“You’ll be captured.”

“Better me than you,” he replied.

“My part in this mission is done. Yours is not. You’ll have more time on land.”

A sharp tingle prickled my fingertips where I’d touched Nazayun’s eye.

I closed my fist.

I knew Elang was right; a day in Ai’long meant almost a week back home.

But still…

“Nazayun told me what will happen to you if…if we spend too long apart,” I said.

“If I don’t break your curse.”

You’ll die, I thought, but I couldn’t say the words.

He raised my hand to his cheek.

“One day you’ll understand everything. But until then, I’m sorry. For deceiving you and lying to you—most of all, for hurting you.”

In my heart, I’d already forgiven him, but I liked the beseeching look in his eyes and the way he was holding my hand, as though Lord Tamra himself would have to strike him down before he let it go.

“I know.”

“Don’t forgive me yet,” he said softly.

“I have one last confession to make.”

“Another one?”

He regarded me, looking more nervous than guilty.

“I lied to you twice. Once as the old man Gaari, then there was another time.”

He looked down at our hands, fingers interlocked.

“On our wedding day, I told you that everything I said and did would mean nothing.” He drew a deep breath.

“When in fact every word we exchanged, every glance, and every moment where I didn’t have to pretend…it meant everything—tome.”

Gods.

It was good I wasn’t on land, for my knees would have buckled beneath me.

I thought back to our wedding, to the smile he’d worn after lifting my veil, that intent gaze he’d given me when he’d uttered his vow, even the firm grasp of his hand next to mine as we’d borne our umbrella against the rain.

I swayed, and Elang wrapped his arm around me, letting me land against him.

“When I was Gaari, I’d come up with lesson plans or excursions—for you to practice, but also as excuses for me to see you. You made me laugh. The disguises you would wear, with your hair piled up like knots of bread, the way you’d argue with me over art.”

“I should’ve argued more. You weren’t even a real dealer!”

“I spent two good years studying for the role,” said Elang, sounding mildly defensive.

“But you were right more than I let on.”

“You bought my paintings at auction,” I remembered.

“Were they so bad that no one else wanted them?”

“There were other bidders,” he confessed quietly.

“I just wanted to have them.”

“Why?”

He lowered his head.

“In case you never looked at me the way you are now.”

My heart skipped a beat.

“You wastrel.”

He leaned closer, a devious one-sided smile flitting across his lips.

I would miss this smile, I realized too late.

I would miss the sound of his voice, the range of it from cold and stern to tender.

I’d miss how he said my name.

Funny, how his face had grown on me too.

I didn’t find it so monstrous anymore.

I opened my mouth, about to say so, but that was when he kissed me.

No one was watching us, we had nothing to prove.

And that made it all the more true.

Below the seagrass, our legs entwined.

Our fingers laced together as our backs sank against the ocean floor.

I didn’t know that even the gentlest of kisses could be full of longing.

That a touch of skin against skin could turn my body into fire, and that time could become my cruelest enemy.

All too soon, it was over.

Elang’s lips slid from my mouth to my ear, his cheek nestled in the bed of my hair.

“Caisan is here,” he whispered gently.

“You need to go.”

My thoughts were languid and soft.

I longed to stay.

I was so warm.

Elang kissed my throat, my neck, then my hand.

Slowly, together, we emerged above the grass.

“Be safe,” he said, “and don’t leave the protection of the manor.”

“I won’t.”

Feeling a ripple in the waters, I turned around.

Caisan was here, Baba secured to his wide back.

My father didn’t stir even when I held his hand, but I could feel a pulse.

For now, that was enough.

“He is recovering,” said Elang, at my side.

He tore off his cloak and folded it over Baba.

“You needn’t worry about the sangi I gave him. So long as his first breath was underwater, he’ll be fine on land.”

My voice quavered with emotion.

“Thank you.”

“Your Highnesses,” spoke Caisan gruffly.

“The Dragon King’s forces are preparing for attack. We must hurry.”

There came a pinch in my chest.

I wasn’t ready to leave.

Elang set me on Caisan’s back, behind Baba.

“Tru,” he spoke.

His two faces strained from warring with one another.

“If at any time you change your mind about completing the portrait, give the Scroll to Caisan. He will see it returned tome.”

“After all the work I’ve put in?” I shook my head.

“Don’t you insult me like that. I’m not going to change my mind.”

“You have lost years with your family already. No more. I release you from your contract. Be with your parents and your sisters, live a long and happy life with them.”

“Are you trying to get rid of me?”

That made him laugh softly.

“Never would I dare,” he said.

“My heart, my home—they are yours. They always have been.” He touched my hair, both his eyes sad and solemn.

“I only want you to have the choice—to forget me, if you will.”

I didn’t get the chance to argue—or even say goodbye.

Elang withdrew from my arms, and Caisan took off like an arrow.

Up we soared, rushing through the violet light to escape the realm of dragons.

And my journey ended the same way it began—with all I had come to know being washedaway.