Page 111 of A Forgery of Fate

Elang didn’t turn around. He shredded a handful of rose petals with his claws. “I have to finish preparing your sangi. I must ask that we continue this discussion—”

“Damn the sangi.” I grabbed his arm. “Why the ruse, why waste three years pretending to be my friend when all you were going to do was just…” The words dried up inside me, heat swelling up to the backs of my eyes. Damn it, I would not cry in front of Elang.

He touched a button on his cloak, transforming it into the drawing I’d made on the day Baba left home. His voice was soft. “This is why.”

I looked down, facing the dragon I’d drawn so many years ago. He looked far too familiar. Crescent horns jutted out of his temples, and his scales were silvery blue, each a shining teardrop. But most damning were his eyes: one was yellow and the other smeared with dark ink—like day and night.

“No,” I said hoarsely. “I painted this when I was a child. It can’t be—”

“It is,” Elang said. “You painted me.”

I shook my head, refusing to believe it.

“It was the beginning of your Sight manifesting. Shanizhun is the one who found your drawing in Nazayun’s palace. She gave it to me after I freed her—about five years ago, not long after your father’s ship sank. I left immediately for Gangsun to find you, but Nazayun’s assassins followed me. I was afraid they’d find you too, so I hid. I had Shanizhun watch you, help you when she could. When I was ready, I came to you.”

“As Gaari,” I said flatly.

His lips thinned. “There were others before Gaari. You wouldn’t remember.”

“What do you mean, I wouldn’t remember?”

His silence only fed the anger gathering under my skin. He could have been any person on the street, and I wouldn’t have known. The boy who sold the cabbage dumplings I hated somuch, the palanquin carrier shouting that he could bear two grown men on his back, the old beggar sleeping on the corner of Rolan Street with one missing shoe.

“Was it fun?” I seethed. “You and Shani spying on me, throwing me pity coins when you worried I might starve. You could at least pretend to be sorry.”

“Would that make you feel better?”

Yes,I thought petulantly, but I knew it wasn’t true. We were long past the point of apologies.

“I don’t enjoy lying, Tru,” said Elang tiredly. “That’s part of the reason I let Gaari die.”

“Then why come as him at all? Why the disguises and the lies when you could have come to me as yourself?”

“Like this?” Elang faced me fully.

His fangs were bared, his golden horns fully extended so they gleamed in the kitchen fires.

I’d known him for weeks now—wasmarriedto him—and still the sight of his two-sided face made my breath hitch. As a stranger, I would have quailed. But would I have run?

Elang took my reticence as a yes.

“It took years to find a potion that made me look human,” he said through his teeth. “Even then, I could only erasethis”—he touched the dragon part of his face—“for minutes at best. Over time, I learned that the less I looked like myself, the longer I could keep it up. That’s why I made the old man.”

“Youmadehim,” I repeated. “People aren’t wooden figurines that you carve and chuck away when they no longer suit you.”

Elang bowed his head low. “He was a character I played to earn your trust. I’m not proud of it, but I did what I had to.I needed you to develop your skills as a painter, and believe in your art.”

“For your mission.” It was always about the damned mission.

“Yes.”

Behind me, my broth had reached a boiling point and was on the verge of spilling out of the pot. I ignored it. All I could think of was the way Gaari’s cheek used to twitch. His sudden excuses to leave. The days and weeks I’d go without hearing from him. One time we had gone out for dinner and his beard had flickered like lightning, then he’d bowled over in pain. When I’d asked if he was all right, he’d said,I must have had a bad prawn. Excuse me, Saigas. I’ll find you when I’m better.

Bad prawn, my foot! It was magic taking its toll on Elang. Making him pay for his lies.

“How much of it was even real?” I whispered. My voice had gone tremulous, every word a vehement stab. It was becoming harder to breathe. “The cons we went on together, the stories you told, the auctions! You have all the paintings from my auctions!”

I couldn’t stop the tears anymore. They welled up in a rush, trembling on my lids. I wiped them on my sleeve, hating that Elang could rouse this storm of emotions inside me while he stood like a pillar, unfeeling and unmoving.

---