Page 116 of A Forgery of Fate

“Yes,” I said dryly, “and I’ll continue memorizing how many scales are on his left ear and the exact shape of his toenails, but it won’t be enough. I thought it was only the right blue that was missing from my sketch. It’s more. Back in Gangsun, the artists in the shophouses were always critiquing the energy of a painting, the flow of it.”

“Spirit,”Elang remembered.

Yes,spirit.It was the most difficult element to achieve. A painter could produce the most meticulous brushstrokes, plan the most perfect composition, and apply just the right colors and layers—but if there was no spirit, then the result would be like a dragon with no eyes. Lifeless.

“I couldn’t have painted the teacup into Oblivion without seeing it, being in its presence.” I was adamant. “I need to see Nazayun. Not just some ghostly projection. I need to see the real Dragon King.”

Elang was quiet awhile. “Then I’ll take you. After the Luminous Hour.”

I hadn’t expected him to agree so quickly, and I had to deflect my surprise. “Is it soon?”

“The pearls are expected within the week. It would raise suspicions if we didn’t celebrate their arrival, but we can leave that evening and follow them into Jinsang.”

He made it sound so simple, when I knew it would beanything but. “All I need is a glimpse of him,” I said. “I don’t even need to be close.”

“Good, because that’s all I can offer. There’s a ceremony where Grandfather will receive the pearls into Jinsang. I’ll prepare a disguise so we can watch, but we’ll have minutes at best.”

“That’ll be enough.” I gave a firm nod. “I won’t fail.”

“I know.” He resumed nicking thorns off the sanheia. It was far too many flowers just for me, but I didn’t ask what they were for. I had my task. The less time I spent with Elang, the better.

I left without looking back.

Chapter Thirty-Three

I didn’t hear the knock on my door.

I was caught in a rhythm, oblivious to everything except my work. A practice scroll filled my entire room, and even then I barely had enough space to render Nazayun’s tail.

It’d taken me four days alone to sketch his body, and now I was starting on his scales. From afar they all looked about the same, smooth and glossy, no more different from each other than grains of rice in a sack. But I knew that capturing the slightest variation in size and sheen was critical.

With the sketch complete, I labored over the texture of Nazayun’s scales.

“Looks like lychees,” I mused aloud.

During my first year with Gaari, he’d made me paint fruits and flowers to “master the basic techniques” before I could go back to producing portraits. Painting lychees had been my least favorite lesson, and the most difficult, thanks to the tiny hexagonal bumps on the fruit. Gaari wouldn’t let me progress to a new subject until I’d mastered them. Back then I’d thought he was trying to torture me with the task. Now I knew better.

I clenched my jaw. Even then he’d been preparing me to paint Nazayun.

My brush moved deftly from scale to scale, outlining the bumps in dark green, then varnishing each plate with a preliminary coat of azure. The work was tedious, but I didn’t dare paint loosely. One mistake could cost everything.

Another knock. Louder this time.

“Lady Saigas!” Mailoh was crying from outside my door. “I have something for you. May I come in?”

No, she could not. My room was a catastrophe.

Hastily I set my brushes aside, wiped my desk clean, and raked my fingers through a clump of paint in my hair. It wasn’t only art I’d been practicing; I’d been trying to exercise my visions too, to summon them at will and focus my intent when I encountered the future. Progress was slow; most tries, I accomplished nothing. But I could feel my heart growing steady, my fears easing into a calm and purpose I never had before.

I rolled up my practice scroll and counted to seven, rubbing my hands until the chill in my blood dissolved, then I went to the door.

Outside, Mailoh awaited with a basket of familiar blue flowers. Each had five points, like a star, with a yellow bell in the center.

“Where’d you get waterbells?” I asked.

“Lord Elang grew them. He said you needed them for your art. Look.”

From her pouch, she proudly revealed a fat bottle of paint. The pigment was that of crushed blue sapphires—a shade deeper than the waterbell petals, and richer than the indigo dyes Baba used to trade across Lor’yan.

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