Pinmei nodded. “I wish I could be as brave as you,” she said in admiration.

“It is not bravery, Pinmei,” Lady Meng said, reaching up to touch her cheek. “For I am not afraid. With my husband’s death, I have nothing left to fear. You are the bravest of all of us, truly.”

Lady Meng grasped both of their hands in hers. “Good journey, my young friends,” she said. “If one of the greatest joys is encountering a friend far from home, making a friend must be as well.

“Now go,” Lady Meng said, giving BaiMa a slap. The horse reared up, and Pinmei clung to Yishan, her braid whipping into the air. Then BaiMa leaped over the frozen waves onto the silver sea of ice.

CHAPTER

48

“There it is,” Yishan said, pointing to the rolling mussel. It was quite a distance ahead of them, but they were still able to see it in the vast expanse of stillness and ice. But Yishan’s direction was not needed, for BaiMa was already galloping toward the moving speck. Pinmei marveled at how he did not slip; his hooves burned into the waves of ice, and he ran as easily as if he were on a dirt road.

As BaiMa ran, the ice began to darken in color, white to gray, gray to dark gray, and when Pinmei raised her head, she saw a strange land before them—a rippling black surface dotted with feathery white flowers. But then the rolling mussel hopped into the air and splashed into the blackness. The bitter wind flew into Pinmei’s open mouth. The black ground was water! The white flowers were pieces of frost! The ice was thinning!

Crack! The ice shattered under BaiMa’s hooves, and Pinmei gasped as freezing water sprayed her, its coldness more startling than a slap. BaiMa reared, jumped onto thicker ice, and continued running.

“Are we going…” Pinmei panted. “Are we going to go…?”

Her words were lost in the wind, but Yishan turned his head to her. “Look at BaiMa!” he said.

Pinmei looked. Was BaiMa melting? Where the water had splashed him, his coat was washing away, leaving… scales? Crack! BaiMa’s hooves broke through the ice again, and a large wave of water splashed over them. Again, Pinmei struggled to catch her breath, and this time the shock of the water felt as if her whole body had been struck.

But when she was finally able to think again, she gave an even greater gasp. For the water that had swept over BaiMa had washed away all his hair. His entire body was covered with luminous scales, and two horns had sprouted from his head. BaiMa opened his mouth and, instead of nickering, gave a loud roar that echoed across the ice.

“He’s a longma!” Pinmei yelled so she could be heard above the sounds of the wind and the clopping hooves. “BaiMa’s a dragon horse!”

Yishan nodded but instead of saying anything, he cocked his head forward. Pinmei gaped. The dark water was right in front of them, like the yawning mouth of a monster.

“We’re going in,” Yishan yelled back. “Hold tight!”

His last words were unnecessary. Pinmei clung to Yishan as if already drowning, her eyes as large as moons. BaiMa gave another roar, one so thunderous that the ice cracked behind them. He made a great leap, the force of the wind making Pinmei swallow her scream, and they all plunged into the blackness of the water.

CHAPTER

49

“Stonecutter!” the guard grunted. He let a bag drop to the floor, and it hit with the ringing sound of an iron bell. “These are for you!”

“Are they…” the stonecutter said, peering at the black bricks at the guard’s feet, “stones?”

A second guard stomped in. He was older, and judging by the hostile glare he gave the prisoners, more brutish. “An old woman and a skeleton,” he said, looking at them as if they were rice maggots. “They should just be executed and save us the trouble.”

The stonecutter shrugged at Amah. Apparently, not all the soldiers valued her as the Storyteller.

The guard took a scroll of paper from his waistband and tossed it to the stonecutter.

“Those are the emperor’s great deeds,” he said as the stonecutter crawled on his hands and knees to retrieve the scroll. “Each must be carved in stone.”

“The emperor’s great deeds?” the stonecutter said. His eyes widened. “There are thousands!”

“We will bring you more stones when these are finished,” the first guard said. He gave the stonecutter a packet that, when opened, contained stonecutting tools, and set down his lantern. Without another word, the guards marched away. The dungeon door clanked shut, leaving the prisoners staring at the pile of uncut stones in the flickering light.

“I suppose this is the use the Tiger King had in mind for me,” the stonecutter said. “Why do you think he wishes this?”

“The emperor is not known for his humility,” Amah said, “and great deeds carved in stone do have much power.”

“Do they?” the stonecutter said, his eyes twinkling at Amah. “And is there a story about it?”

Amah had to smile at the stonecutter’s impish grin. “There is,” Amah said, “and I suppose I can tell it to you.”

My father told me that when his grandfather was a boy, it was not impossible for one to see a dragon or even a longma. While it would still be considered an extraordinary sight, people could believe it possible—unlike now, when most would think you were a liar or crazy.

For those were the days when beasts of the heavens and seas were still allowed to be seen by mortal eyes. That changed when the first king of the City of Bright Moonlight stopped the floods of his city.

Stopping the floods of the city seemed an impossible task. The first king realized that, instead of building dams, he must build waterways to redirect the river. But the work this required was enormous.

“I will supervise the men,” the king’s father said. “You have other things you must attend to.”

With misgivings, the king allowed his father to oversee the project, for it was true that he had many other things to do. However, his misgivings proved correct, because his father was callous and cruel to the workers, forcing them to labor under harsh conditions from morning to night. When the king heard of this, he ordered his father to treat the workers better, but his father only argued.