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She drank half a flask and refilled it. It was time to continue on her journey.
    After she’d marched for two hours, the trees thinned, and she caught a glimpse of an expansive lake, a calming sight.
    The sky was cloudless. Birds swooped overhead, at times dropping like lightning into the water.
    The lake’s surface was still. She walked to the shore, sat down with care on the dirt embankment, and removed her worn cloth shoes. Never before had she walked as much as she had in the past two days. She wiggled her toes, and then massaged the arch of one foot with her thumb.
    Ai Ling relaxed, a small sigh escaping her lips. Her shoulders dropped as she pressed her chest against her knees. She dipped both feet into the water. The coolness felt delicious, and she reveled in it, her toes tingling.
    She reached for her knapsack and pulled out a small cotton rag. She soaked the cloth in the lake, wrung it dry, and wiped across her brow and cheeks. Her mind drifted to home, a world away now. How was Mother coping? Would she be taking her midday meal?
    The water rippled in front of her.
    Something slithered and tugged on her right foot.
    Startled, Ai Ling recoiled as the thing grabbed her other foot and pulled harder. The force of it slammed her flat on her back.
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    She flailed her arms but found only air as she was dragged into the water. She clawed the embankment. The loose dirt provided no hold, and with another tug, she was below the surface. Whatever gripped Ai Ling pulled her down through the murky depths fast.
    She could do nothing but watch the sunlight on the lake’s surface grow dimmer. The last small breath she had drawn dwindled to nothing, even as she willed it to last. Fighting her terror, she looked down and saw dark, slithering shapes beneath her. Hundreds of shapes skulking below, tittering.
    She could hear them. That was the worst part. Worse than drowning.
    Suddenly her descent ended, and she was left suspended upright in the dark depths. The pressure in her ears made her head throb. Her ribs felt crushed, her lungs compressed with the burning need for air. She struggled against drawing one breath, knowing there was nothing but fetid water if she did so.
    The sinister thing writhed, like a massive eel, its body as thick as a man’s, its length endless. Luminous eyes, glowing emeralds, stared at her, unblinking. She thought it had a long snout, but she couldn’t be sure.
    The creature’s tail curled up and around her until her entire body was captured in its sinewy lengths. Yet those eyes never moved, floating in the water a short distance away.
    Ai Ling. Your family is in ruins because of you. Because of your 38

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    selfishness. Your pride. Your stubbornness. Your mother has not stopped weeping since you left.
    It spoke without speaking. She struggled against its powerful grip, but the effort was lost, as if she had never tried.
    Her lungs spasmed for breath. Water seeped through her vision, filled her nostrils, her head. She refused to succumb to the darkness, to the monster that clutched her.
    But she must breathe.
    Just as she was about to surrender, to draw a mouthful of water, Ai Ling felt a hotness below her throat. Her lungs filled with air. She looked down at the pendant, burning like a star.
    Images emerged in the depths, clear and bright, one object at a time. She blinked, focused. First a four-legged washstand holding a white ceramic bowl, followed by a rectangular desk stacked with books. Then her bed on the raised carved platform. Ai Ling’s throat clenched at the sight of the familiar and beloved objects from her bedchamber.
    Her mother appeared last. She was sitting on the bed, head bowed as she sobbed into her hands. She looked so small, frail, and dejected.
    Tears escaped from Ai Ling’s own eyes, bled from her core. She tasted the salt of them in her throat, even as the pendant flared hot against her skin and replenished her with breath once more. She cried