Page 43

It was just before sundown when I awoke.

I’d lost the afternoon.

Wind stung my eyes, and my head throbbed where Shani had struck it.

But most disorienting of all was that every direction I looked, there was the sea.

The blackened sea, gilded by one lone band of rusty sunlight.

Shani had dropped me on a ship.

It wasn’t one of the shrimping boats or fishing dinghies that lined Gangsun’s ports—but a gleaming crystal ship.

The dread creeping up my stomach calcified into horror as I recognized the sapphire-blue light emanating from every plank, the mast carved into the body of a dragon.

There was no captain, no crew, only—

I whirled, finding King Nazayun at the prow.

He’d come as a man, white of beard and hair but neither old nor young, in plain blue robes that trailed in a silken river behind him.

Were he a passerby in the city, he would have commanded little attention.

But I could feel how the wind choked in his presence, how the moisture in the air stoodstill.

“It has been many long years since I’ve walked the mortal realm,” Nazayun mused, batting himself with a fan.

“Your buildings are taller, and your roads longer. Yet the stench remains.”

I could feel the blood draining from my face.

I couldn’t send him into Oblivion like this.

This was not the dragon form I’d painted onto the Scroll.

“Will you not bow before the god of dragons?”

My knees weakened against my will.

I fell to the ground, frost crackling under my knuckles as I bent.

“That’s better.” A breeze lifted Nazayun’s hair from his face, exposing his missing eye.

In its place was a cluster of blue-green dragon scales, with a silvery bead lodged in the center.

“You are more cunning than I gave you credit for, Lady Saigas,” he said.

“Your little trick caught me by surprise. But that’s all it was, a trick.”

“Bold words,” I replied.

“If you’re not afraid, why conceal your true self in the lowly form of a human?”

“Oh, I am afraid,” Nazayun confessed.

“Indeed, it is my fear that guides me. And that is why you’ll not win today.”

Cold wind bit the nape of my neck.

“You can hide as a human all you like, but it’ll do you no good. I’ve seen what is to come.”

“Have you?” said the Dragon King.

“Your Sight is powerful, but as you’ve shown, the future it reveals can be rather…misleading.” He smiled darkly, the tips of his incisors grazing his lower lip.

“I have a feeling it’s not my end you’ve foreseen—but your own.”

Don’t let him rattle you, I thought, digging in my pocket for Nomi’s firecracker.

But it was gone.

Taken.

All I had was my tiny vial of sangi, hidden inside my shoe.

I gulped.

“Gloating is poor form, Your Majesty.”

“So speaks the girl who didn’t even bring the Scroll with her.” Nazayun’s shoulders shook with mirth.

“That’s what I love about you humans, you’re deluded with hope. You haven’t even asked how Yonsar fares. Whether my grandson still lives.”

It hurt, how hard my chest clenched.

“He isn’t dead. I would know if he were.”

“As we speak, Queen Haidi launches her final assault. Yonsar is fallen. Along with it, your dear Elangui.”

“You lie,” I whispered.

“It would be a kindness to lie, and I am not kind.” Nazayun’s face was placid, his pale eye gripping.

His pupil carried no trace of the red gleam I’d seen in my vision.

“The luck of the dragons is with you, Bride of the Westerly Seas. Now my attention turns to this foul city. Your home.”

Lightning forked out from the ship’s mast—spinning in fiery pathways across to a faraway shore.

The first sparks landed upon the boats dotting the harbor and the piers along the coast.

Small fires blossomed like a thousand stars speckled across the dark sky, growing brighter and brighter as their flames spread toward the city.

“Stop!” I yelled.

I threw myself at the Dragon King.

“STOP—”

He grabbed me, spinning me to face the horizon.

The skyline was turning orange, as I’d foreseen.

But I had assumed the light came from sundown—not from Gangsun in flames.

No, no.

My thoughts floundered with panic.

Had I misinterpreted the vision?

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Nazayun murmured, reveling in my distress.

“The embers ensnared in the billowing smoke, the ravenous fire burning brighter the more she consumes.” He inhaled with relish.

“ This is art. What a perfect night to culminate my perfect curse.”

I had to stop him, but I had no weapons.

No sword, no club or whip.

Not even a jar of peppers.

So I did the first thing that came to mind.

The first reckless, suicidal thing.

I punched him.

Turds of Tamra, I was aiming for his remaining eye but hit the missing one instead.

The dragon scales around it were steel tough, and I withdrew my fist, biting back a cry of pain.

I might as well have punched a mountain.

Not a muscle on the Dragon King’s face moved; he didn’t even blink in surprise.

Yet as I cradled my fist, blood humming with dread, his human face shimmered for the briefest instant, revealing the dragon beneath.

Then it was gone.

“I admire your viciousness, Bride of the Westerly Seas,” he said with a sardonic clap.

“Your talents are wasted on a human.”

“Turn me into one of your monsters, then. You’ll see how vicious I can be.”

“In your next life, perhaps.” He closed his fan with a snap, lightning brewing in his eye.

“This one ends tonight.”

I pivoted, my heart cannoning in my ears as I ran for the rails.

I clenched the crystal beam, looking down.

It’d be madness to jump.

The water was dark, impenetrable.

It was impossible to confirm any presence, friendly or not, beneath the surface.

Yet I felt something.

Someone.

Nazayun fired, a flare of sizzling white light.

To the Hells with it all.

I swigged my sangi and threw myself overboard, entrusting my fate to the sea.