Page 46

The winds receded, and the sky cleared.

A gentle rain loosened from the clouds, washing out the flames of Gangsun.

Darkness ebbed away from the seas, and not far away, Caisan and the merfolk gasped to life, no longer stone.

Queen Haidi, too, was changing.

She staggered onto a rock, where, under the crimson glaze of dusk, her monstrous form melted away and she became a mermaid once more.

One by one, the Dragon King’s enchantments were coming undone.

All but Elang’s.

He was weaker than he’d let on.

The light of his yellow eye was dim, and his tail had reverted to two human legs.

It was his dragon side that healed faster, but he seemed unable to channel that strength to help the other.

He landed us on a fishing boat, a lone vessel plying its way through the rough currents.

As we fell in a pile of tangled nets, a voice I’d recognize anywhere shouted:

“Truyan!”

I squinted.

Mama?

Sure enough, it was Mama at the rudder navigating, Baba at her side holding a lantern.

My sisters were there too, tending the wounds of merfolk who’d fought beside us.

Staggering to my feet, I helped Elang stand.

His hand was cold, his pulse throbbing in his neck.

Halfway up, he stopped.

The color drained suddenly from his face, and his mouth rounded into the shape of my name, Tru —

I caught him in my arms just before he collapsed.

My family rushed to my side, helping me lay him on his back.

Nomi handed me Elang’s cloak.

Her face was long.

“Is he…dying?”

“Nomi,” said Mama, shaking her head.

My mother, a busybody by nature, somehow understood better than anyone that Elang and I needed to be alone.

She shooed my sisters to the other side of the boat, then set a lantern at my side.

Wordlessly, she touched my cheek, then she left too.

I knelt beside Elang.

He was breathing hard, but as I draped the cloak over him, a faint grin lifted the corners of his lips.

“I think your mother likes me.”

“Only because you’re rich.”

“Not because of my good looks?” When he saw that I wasn’t smiling, the humor fled his face.

He looked down at our hands.

“It pleases me to see your family together again, Tru. Should they ever need anything, what is mine is yours. I leave the manor to you, and—”

“Stop it,” I interrupted.

“I don’t want your manor, I don’t care about your three chests of jewels. Tell me what I need to do—to give you my heart.”

His eyes flew up to me.

“Don’t you look at me like that,” I said.

“You told me once that I knew you better than anyone. Of course I figured out how to break your curse.”

“Tru.” The word was short, but Elang held it long on his lips.

“You have a family that loves you, a father who has only just been returned to you.”

“You have a kingdom,” I countered.

“An entire realm that relies on you and needs you. I’ll explain it to Mama and Baba and my sisters. They’ll—”

“Understand?” Elang let out a throaty laugh.

I gritted my teeth.

Only Elang, while mortally wounded, could find a way to vex me like this.

“Stop being dramatic. It’s my choice.”

“It’s a poor choice. If it’s Yonsar that concerns you, General Caisan will safeguard it when I’m gone. The Dragon King’s heir will honor this—”

I clamped my hand over his mouth.

“You talk too much. Now hush.” My tone was fierce.

“I give you my heart, Elang. I end your curse by giving you my heart.”

It was magic, what those words unlocked.

They thundered inside me, releasing a fierce heat that I had never felt before.

Light poured forth from my chest, spinning into the shape of a glittering white pearl.

The same that I’d seen in my dream.

I cupped my hands, bringing the pearl into my palms.

Its light was connected to my heart by one bright thread, not unlike the one I wore around my wrist.

All I had to do was sever that thread, and Elang would live.

“Stop.” Elang caught my hand.

“Don’t you dare. I don’t want it.”

“Damn it, Elang. Don’t fight me. It’s your pearl.”

“Not at this cost. It’s not a fight, Saigas. It’s a choice, and I made mine long ago. You cannot change it.”

Everything was clear.

Why Elang had never wanted to break his curse, why he’d gotten incensed every time I tried.

Why he’d kept me at a distance and refused to show he cared.

From the beginning, he’d been trying to protect me.

From the beginning, he’d known where Nazayun had hidden his pearl: inside the heart of his true love.

My heart.

Only one of us could live.

That was the Dragon King’s curse.

And Elang had decided that would be me.

The way my words were magic, so, too, were his.

The pearl spun out of my hands, unraveling into an interminable strand of light that came rushing back into my chest, gathering there in a glittering pool.

“Stubborn dragon,” I whispered.

I reached into my sleeve for my brush.

“If you won’t take my heart, then I will make you a new one.”

“Tru, what are you—”

I silenced him by unbuttoning his collar, pushing aside the layers of his robes until I found the bare skin of his chest.

I pressed my hand to where his pulse beat.

The closer I leaned, the stronger it beat.

But it was faint.

Fainter than ever before.

My fingertips tingled.

“Here,” I whispered, “is where your new heart will go.”

I bent to press a kiss on his skin, and Elang’s eyes went wide.

“Stop,” he whispered, clasping a halting hand over mine.

“Don’t you think I’ve tried? You cannot change this.”

“I’m not giving up on you,” I said, my chin lifting from his chest.

“Now, hold still.”

I dipped my brush into the pearlescent light.

Miraculously it clung to my brush, like the glitter of morning dew.

It was my heart, after all, and every color of every memory was available to me.

I held Elang still, my brush poised.

Then I rolled back my eyes and started to paint.

It was just a story Baba used to tell, a game he made up for my sisters and me to play, of a magic paintbrush.

With it, anything the artist drew would come to life.

The best games have no winners or losers, he’d said.

Obviously, Nazayun had disagreed.

The curse had been a game to him, one Elang and I couldn’t win without losing each other.

But we simply had to find a different way of playing.

I moved my brush in a gentle circle across Elang’s skin, over the corrugated ridges of his scales and across his softer human flesh.

The light from my heart became my ink; its brilliance made my eyes water, and its heat seared my fingertips.

With his hand over mine, I outlined a dragon’s pearl on his chest.

It was bright and beaming, silvery like the moon rising above us.

Just let him live, I thought.

Let us be together.

A thousand possibilities flashed before me, glimpses of different futures that could come to pass, but I only needed one.

Inside Elang’s pearl, I painted a girl and a boy holding a green lantern.

Snow dusted their heads, and a constellation of lights floated behind them.

I painted flowers in the girl’s hair and round brass spectacles on the boy’s nose, but their faces were blank, unfinished.

Every detail mattered, so I doubled my speed, the tiny muscles in my fingers burning as my brush swooped in every direction, taking no rest between strokes.

In a rush of light and color, I painted my face upon the girl, Elang’s upon the boy.

But before I could finish our eyes, the last of the sun vanished below the horizon—and the light in my heart wentout.

No!

I panicked.

The pearl I’d painted on Elang’s chest began to disappear, and I traced it desperately, as if it were an invisible ember I could spark back to life.

Then it, too, was gone.

Elang and I were left cradling each other in the corner of our boat.

The tingle in my fingers fled, and my hand lay flat against his heart.

His heart, which grew weaker with each beat.

He thumbed the tears from my cheeks.

“Don’t cry,” he said.

“Did you know, they say that when a dragon dies, he gets to choose his next life. Maybe we can get noodles together soon enough.”

I choked back a sob, wishing I could go back in time to our old life in Gangsun, when we were just Gaari and Tru.

“Every time you lie, you find a way to bring up noodles,” I whispered.

“I know your tells, young man.”

Elang laughed, a soft, low laugh that I felt vibrate across his body.

“Well, it was worth a try.” He gave a rueful smile.

“Would you really have been a whale with me, Saigas?”

He was trying to divert me, and I knew I shouldn’t let him.

Yet I couldn’t help it.

“Even a cockroach.”

“A cockroach? Now who’s the liar?”

“I would do it.”

“I can see it.” He half closed his eyes.

“Skittering about with your blue antennae. The only adorable cockroach I’d know.”

“Elang…”

“Or butterflies,” he said, his voice growing faint.

“We made a good team, you and I. We’d have flown well together.”

Tears brimmed in my eyes.

“Stop it.”

He caressed his fingers through my hair.

“I wish we’d had a chance together,” he said softly.

“Friends from the start, with no secrets or lies hanging between us. I wish that we might have fallen in love the ordinary way, holding hands and stealing kisses under the trees.” A smile touched his face, boyish and simple.

“Watching the seasons change, and growing old together…in this life, in every life.”

His smile turned sad.

“Do you know how deeply you’ve grown on me? From the day I met you, I knew I’d never be free of you.” His fingertips were growing cold.

They slid from my cheek as he whispered, “I wish I could’ve shown you…I love you.”

It was too sudden, how his warmth fled.

“Wait,” I choked.

A sob racked my throat.

“Wait!”

It was like clinging to ice.

His touch melted between my fingers, and his skin shimmered like rain.

Before my eyes, he became the water itself, the caress of his lips but a brush of mist.

Then nothing.

All that was left was his red string.

It sat on my lap, as forlorn and slender as a slip of twine.

Before I could pick it up, a gust of wind swooped in and lifted it high.

I shot to my feet and ran, reaching.

The string danced between my fingers, always a beat ahead.

But Saino help me, I would follow it to the bottom of the sea if I had to.

I stretched over the rails, closing my hand as I grasped one frayed end.

“Tru,” cried Falina and Nomi, rushing to my side before I fell.

I was crying, and I wrapped Elang’s string around my wrist before I crumpled into my sisters’ arms.

I’d seen the future so vividly; I was so sure I could save him.

But I had lost.

I had lost.