Page 132 of A Forgery of Fate

The sea had gone still, allowing us a moment of precious repose. Together we lay in our grassy cove, cheeks pressed together, savoring one another’s warmth. We didn’t have long, and I roamed my fingers into his hair, twirling the tufts behindhis ears. A bloom of color crept back to his scales wherever I touched.

Elang lifted his head, ears pointed. “Caisan will be here any moment,” he said. “He’ll take you to shore.”

“You’re not coming with me?”

“I heal faster in the water,” he said gently, “and you’ll be safer on your own. Once my grandfather recovers, he’ll come looking for me. Best we’re not together.”

“You won’t make it back to Yonsar like this,” I pointed out. “You’ll be captured.”

“Better me than you,” he replied. “My part in this mission is done. Yours is not. You’ll have more time on land.”

A sharp tingle prickled my fingertips where I’d touched Nazayun’s eye. I closed my fist. I knew Elang was right; a day in Ai’long meant almost a week back home. But still…

“Nazayun told me what will happen to you if…if we spend too long apart,” I said. “If I don’t break your curse.”

You’ll die,I thought, but I couldn’t say the words.

He raised my hand to his cheek. “One day you’ll understand everything. But until then, I’m sorry. For deceiving you and lying to you—most of all, for hurting you.”

In my heart, I’d already forgiven him, but I liked the beseeching look in his eyes and the way he was holding my hand, as though Lord Tamra himself would have to strike him down before he let it go. “I know.”

“Don’t forgive me yet,” he said softly. “I have one last confession to make.”

“Another one?”

He regarded me, looking more nervous than guilty. “I lied to you twice. Once as the old man Gaari, then there was another time.”

He looked down at our hands, fingers interlocked. “On our wedding day, I told you that everything I said and did would mean nothing.” He drew a deep breath. “When in fact every word we exchanged, every glance, and every moment where I didn’t have to pretend…it meant everything—tome.”

Gods. It was good I wasn’t on land, for my knees would have buckled beneath me. I thought back to our wedding, to the smile he’d worn after lifting my veil, that intent gaze he’d given me when he’d uttered his vow, even the firm grasp of his hand next to mine as we’d borne our umbrella against the rain. I swayed, and Elang wrapped his arm around me, letting me land against him.

“When I was Gaari, I’d come up with lesson plans or excursions—for you to practice, but also as excuses for me to see you. You made me laugh. The disguises you would wear, with your hair piled up like knots of bread, the way you’d argue with me over art.”

“I should’ve argued more. You weren’t even a real dealer!”

“I spent two good years studying for the role,” said Elang, sounding mildly defensive. “But you were right more than I let on.”

“You bought my paintings at auction,” I remembered. “Were they so bad that no one else wanted them?”

“There were other bidders,” he confessed quietly. “I just wanted to have them.”

“Why?”

He lowered his head. “In case you never looked at me the way you are now.”

My heart skipped a beat. “You wastrel.”

He leaned closer, a devious one-sided smile flitting across his lips. I would miss this smile, I realized too late. I wouldmiss the sound of his voice, the range of it from cold and stern to tender. I’d miss how he said my name.

Funny, how his face had grown on me too. I didn’t find it so monstrous anymore.

I opened my mouth, about to say so, but that was when he kissed me.

No one was watching us, we had nothing to prove. And that made it all the more true. Below the seagrass, our legs entwined. Our fingers laced together as our backs sank against the ocean floor. I didn’t know that even the gentlest of kisses could be full of longing. That a touch of skin against skin could turn my body into fire, and that time could become my cruelest enemy.

All too soon, it was over.

Elang’s lips slid from my mouth to my ear, his cheek nestled in the bed of my hair. “Caisan is here,” he whispered gently. “You need to go.”

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