Page 54 of A Forgery of Fate

I, too, wrapped the string around our wrists, and the priest made a knot. A symbolic gesture, but I couldn’t help thinking how it literally did shackle Elang and me together. Then the priest gave his final blessings, and the string shimmered with magic—until Elang and I were left with only two matching red bracelets.

Simple as that, it was over. By the laws of Heaven and Earth, I was now bound to the man beside me. I felt nodifferent. Felt no sudden affection or loyalty to him. Only the invisible weight of knowing we were two people coerced to be together.

Rain descended in a soft drizzle, and an umbrella opened over my head.

It was Elang’s. He’d already rolled down his sleeves, covering the red string so it was nowhere in sight.

“This is your chance to say your farewells,” he murmured. “We won’t return to the house after the procession.”

He pressed the umbrella into my hand. It was the same one he’d carried when we first met, with a dragon carved onto the handle. When I looked up to thank him, he was already striding off toward his garden, watching the showers descend upon the flowers.

Mama approached me. “They say it rains when a dragon weds,” she began, “and the sea sheds tears of joy.” She touched my cheek. “Don’t hold back your visions. Let them bring you home faster.”

I caught her hand in mine. “Yes, Mama.”

I bowed to her, then my sisters came under my umbrella. Fal’s arms had been crossed all day, and she hadn’t smiled once. “It’s tradition for the groom to pick you up from your home,” she grumbled. “For your sisters to interrogate him at the door and forbid him from bringing you to the ceremony unless he passes all our tests.”

“You’re going to hold this grudge over him for the rest of your life, aren’t you?” I said.

“I’m a Saigas girl,” replied Fal. “Grudges are my specialty.”

I laughed. “What were the tests?”

“We were going to ask questions,” said Nomi. “Startingeasy, like your favorite food, favorite color, favorite flower.” She raised an imaginary bowl. “We were going to make him drink a numbingly spicy soup to prove that he could endure pain and hardship to be with you.”

“He would have failed them all,” I muttered. “Probably would have guessed dumplings and blue and…peonies.” I stole a glance at Elang, who was out of a human’s earshot but not a dragon’s. “Everyone always says their favorite flowers are peonies.”

“If he failed, we wouldn’t have to let you go,” said Fal softly. The way her eyes twinkled so reminded me of Baba.

“Oh, Fal,” I said thickly. I took my sisters’ hands. “I wish I didn’t have to leave you.”

“Don’t waste your imagination worrying about us,” said Nomi. “I’ll be luxuriating in a dragon’s mansion, reading six books a day. While Fal flirts with the merfolk.”

Fal gave Nomi a playful punch in the shoulder, then reached into her sleeve. “We didn’t have time to get you a wedding gift, but we bought this for you a while ago. For your birthday.”

The box was red, pertly tied with a cloth ribbon. Inside was a jar of—

“Snake-eye peppers!” I cried.

They were green chilis, some of the hottest and most fragrant sold on the Spice Road. My favorite.

“We figured there won’t be much in the way of spices in Ai’long,” explained Nomi.

I didn’t care about propriety or about the powder clumping under my eyes because I was crying. I drew Fal and Nomi into my arms and hugged them fiercely.

“Don’t you dare get yourself killed,” Fal said in my ear.“Or every Ghost Festival day, I’ll send you bland noodles with no spice. That’ll be all you get to eat in the afterlife.”

“The worst fate,” I said, choking on a laugh and sob at once.

Drums and gongs resounded from the other side of the gates, and the carriage stopped behind me. It was time.

My youngest sister was easily two heads shorter than Elang, but she strode up to him, chin raised and eyes steely as though she were the dragon, not he.

“I might not have magic or be friends with merfolk or have a demon at my side,” she declared. “But I have a brain. Bring my sister back to us, Lord Elang. Or in the name of all that we mortals are capable of, I will find a way to make you regret it.”

They were big words for such a small girl, but Nomi’s vow thundered above the rain pattering over our umbrella.

As expected, Elang said nothing, and his mask revealed nothing. Yet as my sisters stalked away, he grasped the hook of my umbrella and bore it with me against the rain.

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