Through fluttering eyes, I glimpsed scenes indistinguishable from dreams. The governor’s estate shrinking into the distance, breaking through the sea of clouds and soaking in the intense sunrays beyond, the cerulean coast and verdant countryside rushing below, and a majestic mountain wreathed with silvery mist. I was an errant kite with a snapped string, a bug on a bird’s back, a mote buffeted by winds—minuscule and fragile.

When I came to, the first thing I saw was a hand blocking the sky. I knocked it away and flinched at the powerful glare of the sun.

“Oh? You’ll hurt your eyes.” The voice was warm and effervesced with the traces of a chuckle. The hand shielded my vision again. I tilted my head, following the sleeve draped on the hand, to broad shoulders, and a handsome face looming over me, upside-down. The breath caught in my throat and I coughed.

“Are you awake now?” The man peered closer—too close.

I jerked into a sitting position and knocked his hand away again. Getting a clear look at him, I stared in stunned silence. He could’ve stepped out of a painting: slender half-moon eyes that curved heavenward with dark eyebrows and a high nose, on an oval face with a sharp jawline. His blue-black hair was adorned with a jeweled wing headdress that I couldn’t place, but his robes were Geunhwan style.

The corners of his plush lips curved downward. “I just didn’t want to wake you from such a sweet slumber, I thought you might be tired. You’ve been sleeping for a while, you know?”

“Is that so? Thank you.” I said, my tone measured in the face of this unusually pleasant stranger. The sea breeze at Hayan Song had been cool, but here, I could see puffs of my breath, visible in the cold. I shivered; he unlaced his overcoat and wrapped it around me. “Thank you…” I murmured, curling my chilled hands in the folds of the silk.

I swayed to my feet, feeling his hand under my elbow steady me. A few steps away was a crystalline lake, surrounded by a meadow and blossoming trees. The sanctuary was nestled within rocky peaks caressed by the clouds drifting across the sky.

The sky.

I gasped. The endless blue and white filled my vision. I had forgotten how wide and high it was. In my confinement in the tower of the Seventeenth Domain, I had only seen the horizon out of the square window.

Unconsciously, I reached out. The clouds seemed close enough to touch. A pink blossom fluttered off a tree and landed on my fingertip. Pink and five-petaled like a cherry blossom, but smaller.

“Would you like to see the peach blossoms?” he asked.

Peach blossoms. They were tinier than I had imagined, from the stylized prints in my books.

Before I could react, he had taken my other hand and led me to the lakeshore. Walking next to him, I noticed how tall he was, the top of my head not even grazing his shoulder. He broke off a flowering branch and handed it to me. I brought the delicately sweet-scented flowers to my nose, but my eyes remained on him.

Distracted, I stepped on a stone and yelped, stumbling as pain stabbed through my silk-slippered feet.

“Are you hurt?” As he kneeled, he braced my hand on his shoulder for balance. Cradling my aching foot, he lifted it, revealing a gold tael. My jaw dropped.

When he tossed it to the ground, the glittering amidst the grass caught my eye. It was littered with gold taels, pearls, and other gems, spilling out of lacquered chests, a dazzling trail leading to the box wagon from the governor’s estate.

“The wagon was filled with these treasure chests, there was no time to empty them before escaping,” he explained. “I thought they would be useful anyway, don’t humans always seek gold and jewels?”

The governor’s estate, Lady Mei presenting me to the Crown Prince, the imperial gifts, the dragon—

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“You’re the dragon!” I cried. The azure gem on his forehead seemed to wink in acknowledgement; it grew from his skin and not part of a headdress as I had thought, and neither were the iridescent fins that sprouted like little ornamental wings on either side of his head.

He laughed. “Who else would I be?”

I frowned. He had found me—seen me—despite the enchantment. It had never failed me before. A dragon…

My knees gave way and he caught me in his arms. “It might be a bit of a shock,” he mused. “We don’t usually show ourselves to humans anymore.” He tugged his overcoat snug around me.

Avoiding the scattered treasure, he led me across the meadow. The greenery sprawled; untrimmed grass with patches of wildflowers, trees of varying shapes and sizes growing where they willed instead of in precise borders. It was unlike the gardens with their straight paths and potted exotic plants that the Hara had cultivated in the Astana.

We reached the rock peaks and entered a cave. I thought it would be cold, dark and cramped. Yet the vast interior was warmer than the outside, illuminated with hanging lanterns, rows of mirrors, and the luminous walls of the cave itself, smooth as polished glass. The cavern chamber housed a rock garden that led to three portals, presumably leading to more caverns.

“Where am I?” I asked, as he sat me down a low wooden platform.

“You’re at the highest peak of Eunhwasan, the Silver Breath Mountain, in the crater that holds the Mirror Dew Lake.”

I exhaled heavily. No wonder it was difficult to breathe. “Why? Why did you take me in the first place?”

“Because you’re beautiful,” he declared, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“What?” I gaped at him. I would never have expected that answer.

“I collect the most beautiful things I come across to keep in my hoard,” he said. “Allow me to introduce myself.” He shifted into formality, as courtly as any prince.

“I’m Jinsol, eldest among the dragons of Eunhwasan.”

I curtsied on instinct. “I’m Saren, granddaughter of the Rajah and Hara of the Seventeenth Domain of Silang. A princess of the highest rank.”

“Saren is a lovely and elegant name—befitting a princess and an exquisite treasure.”

“I’m not a treasure,” I retorted. “I’m not a thing to be collected. I’m a human.”

“Indeed, but I won’t hold that against you,” he chuckled. “Did you know that most pearls are drab, malformed things rather than the prized gleaming jewels that people collect?”

“Well, yes.” I nodded. The Seventeenth Domain was a string of islands, and the Astana was near the sea—pearls were preferred over diamonds for jewelry, and the pearl trade was important to the people, so I was familiar with pearls. “But I don’t see how that’s pertinent to this discussion.”

“In the same way a rare, beautiful pearl could form amongst so many grotesque ones, clearly, a rare, beautiful human like you has been born amongst so many dull, ignoble ones.” Jinsol smiled, with teeth that could put the finest pearls to shame.

Despite myself, I snorted in amusement, biting my lip to stifle the sound. Forcing a staid face, I glanced at him. He was extraordinarily good-looking and quick with flowery words—I was well aware that I was pretty at best, thanks to a faint resemblance to my mother and having been raised with some comforts of rank, but I was no extraordinary beauty. Certainly not someone to warrant such comparisons to prized pearls. My nannies and tutors had warned me about men like him before. But he seemed so earnest. “You jest.”

“I’m never wrong,” he insisted. “You were the most beautiful in that courtyard and amongst all the treasures. So I must have you here with me.”

“Have me?” I huffed. “I’m not a treasure to be collected, I came here as tribute and—” I recalled the Crown Prince and the treasure that was to be sent to my homeland. I should be in the imperial court of Sheng, not in some distant Geunhwan mountain.

“Why was a princess sent as a tribute? Wouldn’t some loyal subjects have offered to do the honor?” he asked.

Shame prickled my neck and I hunched slightly. “I suppose… it’s to show my homeland’s sincerity to the Sheng Empire.”

“Hmm, it seems to me if they were sincere, they would all bear the price of a legitimate tribute, instead of putting the burden on a single woman.”

My shoulders drooped further. I was the child of a prodigal prince, overlooked at best and scorned at worst, of no utility to my royal grandparents aside as a token for exchange. I didn’t want to explain all that to this dragon who seemed convinced that I was someone precious.

Jinsol’s jaunty chatter faded, his fins flicking as he gazed at me. “I mean, it’s preposterous anyone would think to hand you over to that pompous Sheng who’s hardly princely.” He arched a stately, but indignant, brow. “He doesn’t deserve you.”

Despite myself, my cheeks warmed. How silly of me to be impressed by such brazen flattery. “Regardless, I was sent here to do my duty. I must complete it.”

I spun around to leave but whipping winds blustered from the entrance of the cave. Crouching down, I shielded my eyes with my hands and spied three dragons circling to land in the meadow. Orange, cerulean, and vermilion. As the flurry intensified, I was forced to turn away.

When the air finally calmed, I looked up. The three dragons were gone, and in their place were three youths running into the cave, calling out.

“Brother Jinsol! Brother Jinsol!”