Page 151 of A Forgery of Fate

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 hada 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.

Chapter Forty-Six

I didn’t remember the journey home. Didn’t remember getting in a carriage and falling asleep in Mama’s arms, didn’t remember who carried me up to my room or how Baba’s jacket ended up over my shoulders. What I did remember was the fireworks at midnight. They startled me awake, shooting up to the sky in a burst of boisterous joy. There, before the heavens, they bloomed like fire flowers, in dazzling scarlets and golds to welcome the New Year. Their smoke clouded the sky, and I couldn’t see the stars.

Go back to sleep,murmured a voice in my head.

I tried to sit up. “Shani?”

It was the gentlest I’d ever seen her, the way she stroked my hair as she floated over my bed, her ruby eyes blinking in the shadows.

Sleep,she said again.We’ll speak tomorrow.

She swept her feathers over my face, and her watery softness was an unexpected balm to my grief. My eyelids grew heavy. The last thing I saw was the moon, shining high like a dragon’s pearl.

In the morning, there came a knock at my door. “Go away,” I mumbled, but my throat was swollen from crying and I had no voice. My visitor entered.

Mailoh had come with a tray. “Don’t be alarmed, it’s only tea, not sangi.”

I sat up slowly on my bed, rasping, “I’m…I’m not—”

“Lord Elang gave very clear instructions,” the turtle interrupted. “If you don’t drink it, I’m to wait until you finish the cup.”

I started to protest, but she wasn’t done.

---