For a moment, there was nothing but shock.
From the shoreline, Shahrzad heard Artan shouting in a strange language. The ball of fire turned back on itself and disappeared in a feather of smoke.
She couldn’t even manage to scream. Around her, the smell of burning flesh mingled on the sea breeze. Her knees started to tremble as a wave collided against her.
The salt water on her bare skin stunned her back into feeling.
Into agony.
Shahrzad fell toward the sea, a cry caught on her lips.
“Idiot.” Artan gathered her in his arms and dragged her from the foaming surf back onto the shore. “Absolute fool,” he muttered.
The shaking spread from her legs into her arms. Her teeth began to chatter.
“It’s—it’s on f-f-fire.” Shahrzad dug her fingers into his wrist. “My—my skin. It’s—it’s . . .”
Kneeling along the shore, Artan pushed her back against the hard sand. “Complete moron.”
“S-s-stop. I c-couldn’t—”
“I’m not talking about you!” Without another word, Artan stripped back the scorched bits of linen around her stomach.
That time, Shahrzad managed a scream.
“Shut up, shut up!” Artan tugged at an earring, his expression pained. “Lie still, and I’ll fix it. I swear I’ll fix it.”
Though his words were wrong, his face was strangely right. His jaw was fixed. The diagonal scar through his lip, white. He pressed both hands to her shoulders in an attempt to steady her quaking. A jolt blazed through her.
The dark centers of Artan’s eyes spread, like a drop of ink through water. His hands moved from her shoulders to hover above her stomach.
From the tips of his fingers bloomed an unsteady light.
But it wasn’t a warm light.
Something viciously cold tugged at her center. Tugged through her skin. A tremor rolled down her spine, as though the very air around them was prickly and alive.
The ink in Artan’s eyes began to change color. Began to brighten to a stormy grey.
He swallowed a cry of pain. Then fell back onto his heels.
When Shahrzad sat up, she glanced down at her stomach. An ugly red welt remained. But it was nothing like the burn she’d expected, the pain nothing worse than that of a few days in the hot sun.
It took her only a moment to realize what had happened.
For on Artan Temujin’s bare stomach, in the exact same spot, was a burn like hers.
Except his was far worse.
His was blistered. Sores formed along its length.
The sores she should have had.
Somehow, Artan had transferred the worst of her injury onto his skin.
“You—didn’t have to do that,” she sputtered, a salty lock of hair caught on her lips.
It was a ridiculous thing to say. An obvious thing to say. Yet she felt it should be said, nonetheless.
His mouth bent into a smile resembling a scythe. “You’re welcome.”
“Thank you,” Shahrzad replied, still at a loss.
After a beat of unsettling calm, a shudder racked through him, and Artan collapsed into the sand. “We always seem to do things hind over end, don’t we?”
“It appears so.”
His chest heaved from exertion. “This”—he motioned between their matching burns—“isn’t working.”
“No.” She leaned up on an elbow, her expression morose. “It’s not.”
“Such a pity.” Artan remained prostrate along the shore, lost in thought, regarding the night sky above. “My aunt will eat you alive.”
“Why—why do you think your aunt will eat me alive?” Shahrzad asked haltingly. “And if you know this, why did you agree to take me to her?”
What is the real reason you are helping me, Artan Temujin?
When Artan finally deigned to speak, his gaze remained fixed on the stars.
“Have you ever heard the story ‘The Girl Who Grasped the Moon’?”
“Of course. Every small child has heard it.”
“Tell it to me as you heard it.”
“To what purpose—”
“Humor me.” Artan pointed at his blistered stomach. “This once.”
Shahrzad’s brows pinched together. “Just this once.” She turned her gaze toward the sky. “There was a girl who lived in a stone tower, surrounded by white dragons that did her every bidding. When she desired a sticky pastry, she had but to ask. When she wished to sleep, they turned the sky to night with the beat of their wings. The sun to moon with a simple roar. Though the girl wanted for nothing, she continued to want—more and more of everything and anything. But more than anything, the girl wished to be powerful. To her, the dragons always possessed more power than any being in the world, because they were able to make her every wish come true.”