Six Crimson Cranes

surround yourself with those who'll love you always, through your mistakes and your faults. Make a family that will find you more beautiful every day, even when your hair is white with age. Be the light that makes someone’s lantern shine.

Learn from my mistakes, learn from my joys. Surround yourself with those who'll love you always, through your mistakes and your faults. Make a family that will find you more beautiful every day, even when your hair is white with age. Be the light that makes someone's lantern shine.

When you die, I die. If you're not afraid, I won't be either. I'll stay with you to the end, Shiori.

No matter where life takes you, you will be like those stars - connected by the light you shine together.

“I only worry that I won’t want to let you go.”

I threw myself into his arms then, burying my head under his chin. He stroked my hair. “I want to come with you.”

“You can’t.” I looked up, knowing from his tightly pursed lips that he wished for a different answer. “I wish you could. Don’t worry, I’ll be in good hands.”

“If the legends I’ve heard about dragons are true, I have reason to doubt that.” Takkan met my eyes, his own unwavering. “But I know you can take care of yourself, Shiori. Better than anyone. I’ll wait for you.”

"More letters?”

“Better,” he promised. “So you don’t forget me.” I touched my forehead to his and pressed my lips to his cheek, not caring if my brothers saw.

“Our fates are linked,” I said tenderly. “How could I forget you?”

"I won’t let you go,” Takkan said through his teeth. “Come on, Shiori.”

“You have to.”

Our foreheads touched, and I pushed Seryu’s pearl into Takkan’s hand. It would protect him and my brothers. Kiata too, if I couldn’t defeat the Wolf.

Then I let go.

I grabbed Takkan by the hand, pulling him up. Together, we leapt onto Admiral’s back and raced to join my brothers. “What were you thinking? You could have been killed.”

“The odds of death were high,” he replied, catching his breath. “But not assured.”

I wanted to hug him. “You courageous fool.”

“If that’s what you call me now, rather than ‘that barbarian lord of the third rank’ ”—he passed me Seryu’s pearl with a grin—“then it was well worth it.”

"Wait,” I said. Even now, seeing him with his hat slightly askew and ready to fall off his windswept hair, I was imbued with an involuntary rush of warmth. “Are you going to kiss me or not?” The surprise on Takkan’s face was worth a thousand stories.

“You know, you’re even bolder when you can speak, Princess Shiori.”

“I have many months to make up for.”

Takkan laughed, but he touched his nose to mine, drawing so tantalizingly close that our breaths mingled in the cold air.

“I’m afraid you are stuck with me, Shiori, even if you don’t ever wish to marry me. I pledge to protect you.”

Shiori. I liked how he said my name. As if the syllables were the first notes to a song he loved to sing.

A small smile touched my face. “How long have you known?”

“I wasn’t sure until today—when I saw you,” Takkan admitted. “But I thought it. I wondered it many a time. First, when I met you in Tianyi Village, the way your shoulders danced and your feet tapped when you were cooking—as if you were listening to a secret song. I remembered seeing Princess Shiori do that at the Summer Festival when she was eating something she loved. “There were little things, too, like the way you hide food in your sleeves or how a dimple appears in your left cheek when you smile.”

I blinked. “You noticed all that?”

“I wanted to notice more. But you never wrote me back, Shiori,” he said, pretending to chide me. “Or else I might have discovered it was you on that first day in Sparrow Inn.”

"I’m not leaving you.” His jaw tightened with resolve. “Don’t you remember what I told you? I would not have you be alone.”

“I’m bound to you first. I always have been.”

“Bound to me?” I repeated. “All I did was make some crooked stitches over your wound, Takkan. You don’t have to act like you’re indebted to me for life.”

“I am not the sort of man who reneges on my pledges.”

“Then I release you from it.”

“I don’t think you have the authority.” Takkan’s mouth tilted, and his gaze pierced mine. “Not when it’s been in place for eleven years.”

Once I was saddled and strapped, I parted my lips to bid Takkan farewell, but he jumped onto Admiral’s back behind me. “What are you doing?” I protested.

“What does it look like? I’m coming with you.”

“I don’t—”

“You can’t expect to steal my horse and take off without me.” He kicked Admiral into motion. Takkan’s voice hummed against my ear. “Besides, I have a story I think you may like.”

“Will you be here when I return, Lina?” Takkan’s voice was so soft I almost didn’t hear it.

What makes you think I’m leaving?

He’d gotten good at reading my lips.

“... I can’t help but hope you’ll stay.”

I stared down. My silence was telling, and Takkan bent until our heads were level. His voice trembled when he spoke: “I would not have you be alone, Lina, not in your joys or your sorrows. I would wish your strand knotted to mine, always.”

I rested my head on his chest, tucking my crown, bowl and all, under his chin. I could feel his breath catch, yet he didn’t say anything. He wrapped one arm around my waist and held me.

“I must be drunk on moonlight to tell you this…but after I left you at Sparrow Inn, I…I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I didn’t know anything about you, and yet I had never met anyone so determined—or brazen. Not even Megari.” He laughed, then his expression turned serious once more. “Somehow, I knew I would see you again. It was as if I could feel our strands crossing. Yet when you came to Iro, you seemed different. Sadder, more withdrawn. I’d look for you in the kitchen as Pao and I walked around the castle. I wanted to make you smile.”

"But you liked my stories. That, I learned.” He touched his lantern to mine, so tenderly my stomach swooped. “Perhaps they served as my wooden comb. I would tell you stories from dawn to dusk if it meant filling your eyes with happiness.”

I reached out, hooking my arm under his—I didn’t know what possessed me to do it. Maybe it was the story, the beauty of the lanterns surrounding us, or even the cold numbing my senses, but mortification flooded in a moment too late. I tried to pull back, but Takkan didn’t let go. He drew me closer, and my shoulder melted against his.

He heaved a woeful sigh. “But you’ve always been one of my favorites, Shiori,” he admitted, suddenly softening. “If you weren’t so…so human, I’d—”

You’d what?

“Never mind.”

"You didn’t tell me that one of them was your betrothed.” Irritation prickled Seryu’s voice, which I didn’t understand.

What difference does it make? For all he knows, I’m nobody.

“You may have a bowl on your head. But even a fool like Bushi’an Takkan can see that you’re hardly nobody.”

I glowered at the dragon.

He isn’t a fool. If I didn’t know better, I would say you sound jealous.

“Me? Jealous of a mortal?” Seryu scoffed. “Dragons don’t bother with such petty emotions. Besides, I’m the grandson of the Dragon King. I have plenty of admirers of my own.”

“Are these tears for the princess, Lina?” he asked gently. “Or are they for yourself?”

At the question, I looked up. My brush slipped from my grip, and Takkan and I both bent to pick it up. Our fingers touched, clasping either end of the stick. He looked down at our hands. Mine trembled, and he covered it with his, steadying me.

“I wish you would speak to me,” he said. “Sometimes, the way you move your lips, I swear that you can. Even if I’m wrong, I wish I could at least see your eyes.”

"I was told Shiori was curious, so I’d try to end each story on a suspenseful note, hoping she would write back to ask what happened next.” Takkan had wound himself tight, telling me this story, and now his shoulders finally bowed, and he folded himself over his knees. Quietly, he said, “But she never did. I don’t think she even opened them.”