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

by Elizabeth Lim

Caution is the creed of the wise, Shiori.

“Even still. With all the trouble you get into, Shiori…all the trouble you’re going to get into…you need whatever help you can get. Make sure he knows that.” After a pause, he said, “Make sure he deserves you.”

“Fear unites the most disparate of foes,” Takkan murmured in agreement.

Didn’t you used to say fear is a game? Kiki had scolded me this morning. You win by playing, not by running away. Which is what you’d be doing if you don’t tell him.

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.”

For what was chaos but a knife slashing across the fabric of destiny?

In her dark, secret heart, what she yearned for, even more than for her face to go away, was for someone to love her. For someone to look her in the eyes and make her feel beautiful, even if she was not. For someone to take away the loneliness etched in her heart so she could laugh without tasting the bitterness on her tongue once the sound faded. She wanted to be the light that made someone’s lantern shine.

Maybe I was being foolish for thinking I played any role in Kiata’s fate at all. Yet if I did nothing, who would? Was it worse to be a kite with no anchor, wandering lost on the wind, or a kite that didn’t dare seize the wind and never flew? One at least had a chance of finding home, however slim. The other had none.