The Dragon’s Promise (Six Crimson Cranes, #2)

by Elizabeth Lim

I wound the thread around him once, twice, thrice. “I bind you to me, Bushi’an Takkan. Not because my father or my stepmother or my country asks me to do so, but because I wish to do so. I would always choose you. You are the light that makes my lantern shine.” I tied a knot. Then Takkan took up the thread, knotting the other end around my wrist. “I bind you to me, Shiori’anma,” he said. “Let our strands be ever knotted as we weather joy and sorrow, fortune and misfortune, and pass our years from youth to old age. We are of one heart, honor-bound, and one spirit, whether on earth or in heaven. From now until ten thousand years forth.”

Takkan was the end of my string. No matter how far my kite wandered, it would always find its way back to him. And though the impossible still awaited us, my heart rested a little easier knowing he would never let go.