The dragons jeered, and I cursed. Stupid, treacherous pearl. Without its help, Gen would surely die.
King Nazayun was laughing along with his guests. “Sit back down, Shiori’anma,” he said. “You’ll have your moment soon enough.”
I wouldn’t sit. With a hard thrust of my shoulder, I twisted out of Seryu’s grip and dove toward Gen. The jeers and laughs only multiplied. The sharks were nearly upon me.
“Help,” I pleaded with the pearl, shaking it. “Help!”
A low growl resonated from outside the hall. At first I thought it was the pearl, at last responding to my pleas, but as the sound drew nearer and louder and nearer and louder—
In one calamitous boom, the ceiling crashed open. Boulder-sized shards rained upon the dome, and a battalion of sea turtles barreled inside, led by a dragon in white.
I didn’t need to see him to know who he was. From everyone else’s astonished reactions, the answer was clear enough.
Elang, the High Lord of the Westerly Seas, had arrived.
Amid the din of dragon outrage over Lord Elang’s appearance, Gen and I were speedily forgotten. I didn’t think twice and dove after the boy, but Gen was heavy, and when his body hit the ocean floor, it sank into the sand and muck. I pried and lifted and dragged, but I could hardly move him.
“Didn’t I tell you not to do anything reckless?” Seryu said from behind me.
I swiveled, never more glad to see the dragon. “Can you help him?”
Seryu’s nostrils were flared. I half expected him to swim away, but instead he swept off the crabs and mollusks that were starting to crawl up Gen’s legs. He grabbed the boy, and me by my sash, lifting us both easily and placing us on a ledge set in the wall of the dome.
I pressed my palm against Gen’s forehead. His skin was cold, but a lone vein throbbed with the faintest pulse. He was still alive.
“He can’t stay here,” I said to Seryu. “Can you get him out of here?” I glanced at the shimmering panels of black crystal against the wall. “Use a whirlpool.”
“You think it’s that easy?” Seryu balked. “Whirlpools connect within the palace. They don’t take you out of the palace. The only way is—” He let out an aggravated groan, then with his tail he smashed the closest sheet of black crystal he could reach.
His pearl throbbed in his chest as he dug his claw into the crystal. A whirlpool materialized, barely large enough to fit Gen within. Seryu all but shoved the boy through, and the portal vanished before I could follow.
“Not you,” rasped Seryu. “You’re not done here.”
“Where did you send him?”
“As far as I could manage.” Seryu’s voice had turned hoarse. He was paler than before, and if he weren’t a dragon, I’d say he looked seasick. “Somewhere he won’t be pulverized into a pile of rocks.”
Before I could thank him, he grabbed me by the sash again and started to drag me off the ledge, back up to where we had been sitting earlier.
I yanked my sash away, half surprised when Seryu actually let go. He was weaker. “I’m not going back up there. Your grandfather tried to kill me!”
“And he will again if you don’t return.” Seryu muffled my mouth with his hand. “Just trust me.”
“I trusted Nahma. Look where that got me.” I grimaced. “And Kiki.”
His red eyes didn’t waver, but they slanted to the chip of pearl around my neck. The fragment of his dragon heart. He sounded tired. “Trust me.”
I bit my cheek. Demons take me, I hoped I wasn’t making a mistake. “All right,” I said, though I wished he had thrown me into the whirlpool too.
Thanks to Elang’s arrival, hardly anyone noticed me come back to my cloud with Seryu. The ceiling had fully collapsed, leaving a gaping hole in the dome, but no one seemed to care about that, either. Every dragon’s attention was instead riveted on the center of the devastation, where Elang, standing astride two turtles, awaited King Nazayun’s welcome.
“This place is more like a theater than a ritual hall,” I mumbled, but in spite of my grumbling, I too was curious about the Lord of the Westerly Seas.
At first glance, Elang disappointed. He looked like every other dragon in the dome. A long white cloak sailed from his shoulders, its hood obscuring his face, but he wore a mostly human physique. He had the upper body of a man, with metallic scales spread across his arms, neck, and torso, and a long tail whipped out from under his cloak, its ends fanned like a hungry flame. I hardly looked twice; I’d become accustomed to seeing dragon tails.
The most impressive thing about Elang was his sea turtles. I counted nine of them, each as large as a boar, with glowering eyes and spiked shells. Not quite the peaceful sea creatures I imagined turtles to be.
Solzaya extended her claws in a dramatic welcome. “Nephew, you must tire of your empty court if you’ve decided to grace us with your presence. We worried you were dead.”
“Alas, Aunt,” he said gruffly, “the assassins you sent weren’t skilled enough.”
His voice startled me. It was thick and rough—but young. Even though I knew he was Solzaya’s nephew, I’d pictured the High Lord of the Westerly Seas to be older, or at least Seryu’s elder.
But Elang was barely older than Gen. He was just a boy.
With a terse bow, he paid his respects to his grandfather. Then he threw off his hood, revealing a head of ink-black hair, and I saw his face.
The left side was as human as mine. But when he turned, my breath caught. It was as if the gods had drawn a line straight down his face, from the middle of his hairline through his nose to his chin. One side was human; the other, completely covered with tear-shaped scales, was dragon.
He was scowling, which furrowed his thick brow and cast a shadow upon his face, so I didn’t see it at first. Then his brow lifted, and I noticed his two infamous eyes: one dark like the gray sky before a monsoon, and one that was as bright and yellow as a pool of sunlight.
“I came to see the pearl,” he said.
“Of course you did,” replied the Dragon King, leaning back in his jade-and-marble throne. “Your timing is commendable, Elangui. Shiori’anma was just about to present it to court.”
As he spoke, a rush of water swept me from my seat and deposited me beside Elang. A beat later, the pearl settled in my shadow, dark and dull as ever.
The water around me thickened, and I could practically feel the tension coiled in Elang’s muscles. His gaze bored into the pearl, as if transfixed by the crack down its center. Was he thinking of how it mirrored his own face, split into two halves?
I glared at the pearl too. Its silence was a reminder that I couldn’t count on it for anything—not to help Gen, not to rescue Kiki, certainly not to help me. My chest squeezed with anger, the pang especially sharp when I touched my empty sleeve. I’d get Kiki back from Nahma soon enough. Once I had dealt with the Dragon King.