Page 12 of Tides of Fire

Seichan glanced sharply at her mother. “But I thought you gave Gray yourblessing.”

“A blessing is notapproval. He is a good man. And a good father. I can see that. If you had accepted his hand, I would not have objected. But you are my daughter. I can see your heart has been hardened by all that you have survived. As has mine. That is nothing to be ashamed of. We can love—both a man and any child he gives us—but we have no need of a husband. We remain our own islands, inviolate and guarded by necessary shoals. That is who we are. Both mother and daughter.”

Guan-yin fingered the unbendable silver of her pendant.

Seichan swallowed, both disconcerted and relieved to hear these words. She remained silent for several breaths, then challenged this cold sentiment. “What of my father?” she asked. “If he had offered, would you have married him?”

“You ask for an answer to a question that could never be put to me. You know that. Such a union was impossible.”

“But if he had defied his family and asked you, what would have been your response?”

Guan-yin turned to the rail and looked a thousand miles off. “I... I do not know. I was young.” Her shoulders sagged at some memory of her former self. “Better it was never asked.”

Ready to leave her mother to this reverie, Seichan turned toward the balcony door.

“But youwereasked,” Guan-yin said behind her. “By a good man, with a proud heart. And with your refusal, you risk losing him.”

Seichan continued to the door, forcing her back straighter. “If it takes a ring to hold him, then it’s better he does leave.”

Upon reaching the balcony door, she flashed to Gray down on one knee as fireworks cascaded across the Hong Kong skyline. Their dinner had been private—her mother took Jack and the others to watch the New Year celebrations aboard a boat on Victoria Harbour. He had worn a dark gray suit, with a crisply starched shirt and a silvery blue tie that matched the ice of his eyes. His dark hair had been slicked down, even the stubborn cowlick that always gave him a boyish look, masking the lethality in those firm muscles and quick reflexes. The only mark of casualness was the persistent dark stubble that shadowed his cheeks, courtesy of his Welsh heritage.

Then he had withdrawn a ring box.

I should’ve expected it before that moment.

But she had not. In the past, they had talked about marriage, both jokingly and at other times with some earnestness, more so after Jack was born. She had no desire to be married, content with matters as they were. She had believed the matter to be settled.

Yet, in hindsight, she also suspected the reason behind the sudden proposal.

Friction had been growing between them of late, accompanied by arguments and long silences. When Jack was younger, their focus on the boy had masked a growing frustration on both their parts. Gray wanted more from her, even talking about another child. But Seichan could not dismiss the feeling of being trapped. All her adult life, she had been under the thumb of the Guild, her actions directed and proscribed. And while she loved Jack with an ache that sometimes crippled her, she wanted more, especially as the boy grew older, heading toward independence. She felt pulled in two different directions, and the straining only grew worse over time.

So, when Gray had bent a knee in the villa’s dining room, the ring he had offered her had felt more like a set of shackles. She had tried to explain what she was feeling, what she believed. He had nodded, accepting her at her word, but the wounded look never left his eyes. They had made love that night, slowly and passionately, as if both were trying to reassure each other and themselves.

But this morning, the tension continued. The various celebrations of Jack’s birthday had allowed them some space to further put this behind them, but she was not sure if it was enough—or if it ever would be.

As she pulled the slider open, a low rumble rattled the door in its frame. She froze until the balcony began to jolt, and the chimes in the lower garden rang stridently in alarm.

She turned and waved her mother away from the rail. “Get back from there!”

Off in the distance, the neon skyscrapers of Hong Kong swayed and rolled. Patches of the city fell dark, first over in Kowloon across the harbor, then spreading to the island here. It looked as if the dark moon had descended out of the sky, obliterating the lights.

Her mother joined her, and they hurried inside, away from the windows. Zhuang came sweeping to them from a back room.

“Get everyone down into the open gardens,” Guan-yin ordered crisply. “It’ll be safer there.”

“I’ll get Jack and Gray,” Seichan said.

But before she could take three steps, muffled gunfire erupted outside. She glanced back at her mother. The sharper blast of a rocket-propelled grenade exploded out in the garden, accompanied by a bright flash of fire and a concussion that rattled the balcony windows.

Her mother’s features were preternaturally calm. “Go to the garage bunker instead,” she ordered both Zhuang and Seichan. “We’ll regroup there.”

They both fled in opposite directions.

As Seichan ran, the quaking steadily worsened.

3

January 23, 1:18A.M.NCT

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