Page 5 of The Dragon's Promise

“That’s what you said when we first met—that inviting me to Ai’long would be like bringing a pig to meet your family. I thought you were joking.”

“I never expected to bring you here, Shiori,” he said, his voice so low I almost didn’t hear. We were nearly at the gates. “I want you to know that.”

It sounded like an apology, but for what, I didn’t understand. I never got a chance to ask. A deafening chorus of conch shells blared—then, out of nowhere, an invisible current wrenched me off Seryu’s back and swept me into the palace.

It happened with the swiftness of a sword stroke. I didn’t realize I’d been torn away until it was too late.

“Shiori!” Seryu was barreling toward the gates, trying to force his way inside before they closed. “Grandfather, no!”

That was the last I saw of him before I was washed away, speeding down a chute of water so fast it made our previous journey feel sluggish. By the time the chute spat me out at my destination, I was sure I had fainted—at least for a few seconds.

I landed in the largest room I’d ever beheld. It was vast and wide, its pillars going on as far as my eyes could see, and except for one window of what looked like cascading black crystal, everything, from the walls to the ceilings, was the color of bone. Or snow, if one was a cheerier-minded sort of person.

I kicked my feet against the ocean floor and propelled myself up.

Did we get eaten by a whale? Kiki whispered from inside my sleeve.

If we weren’t in such a dire situation, I might have laughed. The chamber did resemble a whale’s rib cage. Marble pillars lined the walls, evenly spaced and rising three times the height of the ceremony hall in my father’s palace. Their ends arced impossibly into an open roof, like a cage of bones.

Out of precaution, I drew my knife. The spaces between the pillars were wide enough to slip through, and the palace gates gleamed in the near distance. Was Seryu still there, looking for me?

I held my knife tight. I wasn’t about to wait here and find out.

I dove between two of the pillars and had made it as far as one breath out of the chamber when long, wriggling tendrils of kelp sprouted from the pillars and wrapped around my limbs.

Kiki bolted out of my sleeve. Shiori!

I hacked at the kelp. The stalks were thinner than the seaweed I boiled in my soups. But looks could be deceiving. This kelp was strong as iron—and alive, sprouting three new fronds for every one that was cut. They lashed Kiki away and spiraled around my wrists, jerking the knife from my grip and pinning me against a pillar.

Next came the sharks.

I hadn’t believed Seryu when he mentioned them earlier, but here they were. Each was ten times my size, with rows of briar-sharp teeth and blue-black eyes that expressed no compunction in turning me into a snack.

“Seryu!” I shouted. “Seryu!”

“He will be joining us shortly.”

The Dragon King’s tail curved around the pillars, and gooseflesh rose on my skin.

“My grandson has told me much about you since we last met, Shiori’anma,” he said. “Your gods have given you an unusual amount of attention: the adopted daughter of the Nameless Queen, the bloodsake of Kiata…and now the bearer of the Wraith’s pearl.”

The Wraith? My ears perked. It was the first time I had heard that name.

Long, crooked bolts of silver pierced the shadows—Nazayun’s horns. “Show it to me.”

The kelp loosened its grip around my wrists just enough for me to open my satchel. I reached inside, my fingers brushing over the broken pearl and then the starstroke net.

My fingers itched to dispatch the net over the Dragon King. Starstroke, after all, was a dragon’s only weakness. The only thing powerful enough to separate one from its heart. And demons take me, I’d sacrificed enough to make the net.

The sharks would have torn me to ribbons had I dared, but luckily the pearl didn’t give me a chance. Once I opened the satchel, it made a low and chiding hum and breezed out into the open.

I was beginning to suspect that it was alive in some strange way. Back home in my father’s palace, whenever I left it in my room, I would find it later floating in the air beside me—as if watching. Waiting.

“The pearl takes fate and twists it to its own purpose,” Raikama had said.

After what it had done to my brothers, I wouldn’t be fool enough to assume that its purpose included keeping me alive. Which was why I watched, holding my breath, as the pearl rose level with Nazayun’s pallid gaze.

Displeasure showed in the bend of the dragon’s brow. “It has tethered itself to you.”

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