Page 157 of A Forgery of Fate

I went back into the house to help my sisters prepare the table for lunch.

Epilogue

Three Years Later

It was the fifteenth day of the monkey, the last day of the New Year’s festivities. Much had changed in Gangsun: Governor Renhai was ousted for corruption, new laws were made, and Madam Yargui was never heard from again. The manor became quiet as most of the merfolk returned to Yonsar. Even quieter when Nomi was accepted into the National Academy. Mama started reading fortunes again (though only for entertainment), and she and Baba began charting a pleasure trip they would take across the Taijin Sea once the weather warmed.

Falina opened a shop on Dattu Street selling embroidered boots and slippers with the upturned toe caps she loved so much, and coaxed me into becoming her business partner. She sewed, I painted designs for her to embroider. Slowly but surely, I gained a reputation for my dragons. By the end of our first year, we had so many orders she had to hire two extra seamstresses to help.

“My fingers are going to fall off if I sew another stitch,” Falina announced on the last day of New Year’s. She tossed me a pair of boots. “Put these on. I know you’re itching to goout. Everyone’s at the Lantern Festival, and—is it snowing outside?” My sister clapped with glee. “This is the perfect opportunity to show off our boots and drum up some business.”

“Don’t you already have more orders than you can handle?”

Falina clucked her tongue like Mama. “What is it the Sages say? Dig the well before you get thirsty.” She stepped out the door. “Hurry, Mama and Baba are coming too!”

It was early afternoon, and the streets teemed with festivalgoers: children juggling tangerines and slurping warm bowls of glutinous rice balls in syrup, market vendors shouting, “Steamed chestnuts, firecrackers!” Glowing paper lanterns hung from every eave.

Winter had been fierce this year, and thanks to a stalwart frost, even the plum blossoms were slow to bloom. Normally there would be carts all over the city selling waterbells, but I didn’t spy a single one.

Falina dusted snow from my shoulders, then touched my cheek. The New Year was still difficult for me, and she could read what was on my mind. “Look!” Trying to distract me, she pointed at the large crowd before one of the shops. “They’ve started on riddles already.”

It was a popular game during the festival: You would buy a paper lantern, decorate it, and compose a riddle on one of its sides, hiding the answer on the inside. The shopkeeper then hung the lanterns for all to see. Whoever solved the riddle first could claim the lantern as their own. My sisters and I couldn’t afford to buy our own lanterns when we were younger, so we’d loved competing over who could solve the most riddles. Now that Nomi was away at school, we couldn’t bring ourselves to play without her.

“Let’s paint one,” Falina exclaimed, purchasing a lantern.

Mama and Baba were already at the shop, and Mama beamed at the fellow customers. “My daughter’s a famous artist. She’s going to paint the most beautiful lantern of the festival, just you wait. No one’s ever solved her riddle.” She elbowed me. “Tru!”

I’d already started. In my neatest calligraphy, I wrote:

I have wings that cannot fly,

a mouth that cannot speak.

Born in the dark, I rise in light—

A star lost from the sky.

Every festival, I wrote the same riddle, and after three years, no one had solved it. I exhaled warm air into my hands, rubbing them before I began on the art.

I painted a girl and a boy holding a lantern, while hundreds of others floated off into the sky. It was the vision I’d once drawn on Elang’s heart, but with each passing year, I added more details. A pair of butterflies behind them, the girl’s blue hair, the boy’s gray eye. A garland of vibrant belled flowers—and moss, which gave the lantern a wash of green.

Had it really been a vision of the future, or merely a wishful fantasy? I still didn’t know.

The shopkeeper, Aunt Vosan, recognized me. “You’ll need a new riddle this year, Truyan,” she said cheerily.

I looked up. “What?”

“Yours was solved this morning. Your lantern from last year, that is. I kept it on display since it was so pretty.”

Air rushed out of my lungs. I was too stunned to speak.

Luckily, Mama was there. “Who solved it?” she asked.

“It’s a shame, you just missed him. He was here an hourago—a handsome young man. He was quiet but very polite.” Aunt Vosan whirled. “Which reminds me, he left this for the artist.”

She handed me a single waterbell, its petals still moist with dew.

“A waterbell!” Falina exclaimed. “We haven’t seen one all winter. It must be a sign spring is on its way.”

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