Page 123 of A Forgery of Fate

Bile rose to my throat. I didn’t want to watch anymore, but I couldn’t look away. Around me, the merfolk paled. Those closest were trembling.

The screaming stopped. It was eerie, how abruptly it halted, like a music box clamped shut.

Haidi wasn’t moving. She’d gone as limp as the severed locks of hair still floating around her.

“Is she dead?” The dragons speculated among themselves.

Their laughs receded. So did the claps.

It was no fun if Haidi was dead, came the murmurs. They hadn’t even gotten to see what she could do.

I couldn’t listen anymore. I dragged my gaze back to Nazayun, every part of my body vibrating with hate. His brow was lifted, his nostrils flared. He was waiting.

Then from the silence came a wretched sob, faint and melancholy as a song.

Haidi peeled out of her stupor, her many arms hanging lank at her sides. Her eyes were changed, charred and hollow. The eely mass of her hair was barbed with harpoons. I’d seen fishermen hunt whales and sharks with such weapons. I had a bad feeling that Haidi’s was meant for hunting dragons.

With no further warning, she launched out of her cage into the crowd. Everyone scattered, sending up thick clouds of sand from the seabed. Under their cover, Shani and I raced into the grass, attempting to retreat. We weren’t fast enough.

What sorcery led Haidi straight to us, I didn’t know, but she trounced Shani from behind. Both the demon and I fell back, and Haidi rolled me onto my back, the ends of her barbed hair pressing against my cheek. At her touch, my disguise dissolved. My hair turned blue once more, and my fish tail split into two knobby legs.

“It’s me,” I strained. “It’s me, Truyan. Please, Haidi. Stopthis.”

Her black eyes flickered, swirling brown for the briefest of instances, and I thoughtmaybe,just maybe, she recognized me. Maybe she wasn’t a monster.

But no.

She picked me up. Her fingers were long and stiff, wrapping twice around my neck, and I heard the crunch of my muscles constricting. Into my ear, she whispered, “I smell a traitor.”

Her hair braided itself into one thick rope, blades pointed down at my throat. I didn’t need prescience to know what was about to happen. Haidi’s blades dug in deeper, piercing through the collar of Elang’s cloak. Then—

All I saw was a silvery whir, fast as a comet. With a wet and trenchant hiss, it arced across Haidi’s back, drawing dark blue blood. She dropped me and snarled.

Elang stood in the distance, catching his short blade as it flew back into his grasp. My pulse spiked—what was he doing here?

“Let her go,” he warned. His yellow eye burned. “I won’t ask again.”

“There, there, Elangui,” said Nazayun. “Haidi was only testing your wife’s mettle.”

The sea’s turmoil abruptly subsided, the currents goingstill.

“Our fortunes are doubled today,” the Dragon King declared. “Long have I wished to welcome my grandson and his bride to Jinsang.” The palace gates rumbled. “Subjects of Ai’long, this Luminous Hour is over. Begone.”

Coming out of nowhere, a raging current swept me off my feet, carrying me into the Dragon King’s palace. Before I could catch my breath, it deposited me into a wide chamber with black marble walls. A hundred shipwrecks floated above me, trophies of Nazayun’s conquests upon the seas and oceans in my world hanging to create an unsettling gallery.

Nazayun was waiting, his body unfurled across the empty room and his head high enough that his movements caused the dangling ships to sway.

“Welcome at last, Bride of the Westerly Seas.”

I hated how small I felt, how I instinctively shouted in order to be heard. “Where’s Elang?”

“Not to fear, Haidi will bring him to us. You will be reunited in time.” Nazayun gestured at Shani’s fallen form, floating at his side. “As for the demon…”

“Don’t touch her. If you hurt her, I’ll—”

“Hurt her?” The Dragon King chuffed. “I would never hurt the last water demon of Ai’long. She is my honored guest.”

I had to be delirious. Did he just say that Shani was his honored guest?

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