Legend said that throwing rocks into the pool north of Jianang would awaken the Dragon Himself. The pool lay undisturbed for generations; legend also said that each rock shortened the thrower’s lifespan by a year.

Xinhoa spent the years of her life in reckless handfuls, one after the other. She waited for a four-count: nothing. Picking up a stone the size of her head, she heaved it toward the water for good measure. Better a quick death than a life spent beneath the belly of a fat old man.

The pool began to steam. Clots of grey-green algae twisted in erratic currents just beneath the water’s surface. An indistinct hulk rose from the depths, glinting gold and peacock blue. The shape rushed toward Xinhoa over the surface of the water, shrinking to man-size as it approached.

“I am here.” The Dragon’s voice was rougher than the scrape of rock on rock. He did not need to ask ‘who dared awaken Me’? His fingers flexed with impatience, pale against His scarlet robe, the sun shining off the hairless dome of His head.

Xinhoa’s stomach knotted. It had not occurred to her that waking the Dragon and bargaining with Him were not the same thing, or that He might be in a foul mood when He awoke.

“A thousand apologies, Lord.” She sank to her knees, risking a glance upward through her lashes. His expression had not changed. “Forgive my presumption. My need is desperate.”

Lacquer glinted in the sunlight as the Dragon waved a hand, cutting her speech short. “Of course it is. And so, you have come to bargain with me.” His voice was devoid of interest. “I grow bored, girl. Make your request.”

The legends that had led Xinhoa here had said that the Creatures of Heaven enjoyed bargaining above all other pleasures, except possibly flattery. There was truth enough in them; was she not face to face with the Dragon? She bent her head, covering her face with her hands. “I am overwhelmed by Your patience, Lord.”

The noise He made was full of disgust. “Make your request. I will not ask again.”

“My family is poor, and the harvests have been bad. To feed all the mouths beneath our roof, my father has decided to sell me to the moneylender in Jianang.” Her voice caught in her throat at the memory. The moneylender’s mouth had been slack and wet with interest. He had rubbed his plump hands together continuously, as if he was already feeling her flesh between his fingers.

Xinhoa paused. The silence was not encouraging. She skipped to the end of the speech she had memorized. “I would pay anything You asked, short of my life, for the ability to create riches for my family.”

Pausing again, Xinhoa pressed her fingers against her face, trying to keep any sign of hope from leaking out. She had refined her request over the two days it had taken her to travel here. Money was easily spent, and harvests were frequently poor. And if she could create wealth, she would be too valuable to sell.

“The price for such a thing is high.” The Dragon sounded indifferent, but Xinhoa had heard His breath catch at her request. “What could you possibly offer me as payment? ”

Xinhoa freed her hair from the bun at the nape of her neck, letting it fall around her. Its ends trailed over the ground and caught in the hems of her clothes, tangling against the calluses of her fingertips like a living thing. Her voice cracked as she made her offer. The legends had said He was a vain creature. Perhaps this would suffice. “My hair.”

“Beauty for wealth.” The Dragon mused. “Yes. Yes, this is an acceptable trade. Step into the pool.”

Legs cramped from kneeling, Xinhoa limped to the edge of the pool. The water felt cool, silky against her legs as she waded in. Mist swirled around her, echoing with the Dragon’s rough voice. “When you awaken, every tear you shed will turn into a pearl. That should suffice for riches in the world of men.”

The mist gripped her like a vise, and the world went black.

The fabric of Xinhoa’s hood scraped against her scalp as she stooped to pick up a rock. It pulled free from the worst of the sores, sending a trickle of pus down the side of her cheek. The bruises along her back and legs protested her movements, slow as they were.

Xinhoa weighed the stone in her hand; the pool had not changed in the years since her first visit here. Even the trees surrounding the water did not seem to have grown at all. Tossing the rock into the center of the pool, she waited. Eventually, the surface of the pool began to roil, sending up steam.

“You have returned.” The Dragon’s voice sounded behind her.

Turning slowly, Xinhoa knelt. She hurt too much to do more obeisance than that. Even her eyeballs ached in their sockets; rather than looking at the ground, she looked at the Dragon directly.

He had not bothered with a human appearance this time; His serpentine length coiled about the pool, corralling her, scarlet scales brilliant in the sunshine. His talons flexed, sliding in and out of their sheaths in an idle fashion. Around His neck was a mane the color of midnight, stirring in the breeze.

Her hair.

A scab pulled loose at the side of Xinhoa’s mouth as she spoke. “You knew what would happen.”

The Dragon drove his talons deep into the earth, and Xinhoa felt her chest tighten. She pulled the hood from her head, baring a scalp pocked with sun-sores. Nacre trailed down her cheeks, coating her hairless skin in gleaming patterns. Underneath the covering of precious material, the bruises were layered in strata, nearly healed wheals overlapping fresh dark scabs and welts that still oozed clear fluid.

By the time she had returned to her family, her father had sold her younger sister to the moneylender, instead. He had knocked her to the floor for daring to run away; a handful of pearls had scattered across the floor.

Her father’s horror at her appearance was quickly supplanted by greed. He locked her away, telling those who asked that she was incurably mad. While she wept in the dark, he grew fat on the evidence of her pain.

Their father had not bothered to buy her sister back. Instead, he had taken a new wife, attempted to sire an heir. She heard the news of her sister’s fate, secondhand, whispered through the grate in her door through lips nearly as bruised and swollen as her own.

He’d died in his bed five days ago, trying to get himself a son. His wife had unlocked the door to Xinhoa’s room, shoved a cloak and a packet of food into her hands, told her to go while her father’s body was still warm.

It had taken her five days to return here. After the first day, she had been pocked with sun-sores despite the fabric of her cloak. Her skin was fish-pale after so many years locked away from the sun, and her feet were rutted with blisters.

“I gave you what you asked for. If it was not what you wanted, that is not my concern.” The Dragon yawned, teeth like awls. “The trade cannot be revoked.”

“I wish to make another trade.” Xinhoa closed her eyes, lids rasping with the motion. No one would lock her in the dark again. There would be no more years of beatings and pearls.

“And what is it you wish to trade for now?”

Xinhoa did not open her eyes. “I want wisdom, Lord. I want to be able to look into every heart. To know what it desires most.”

“Look at me.” The eye she faced was as large as her head; the pearl between His nostrils twice the size of His eye. “What do you have to offer me for such a thing?”

A thin crust of mother-of-pearl flaked from her lips, fluttering toward the ground with each word. “My name. My family is sold or dead; I have no need for a name any longer.”

“Identity for…” The Dragon paused, teeth clicking together. “for ‘wisdom’. I accept. Your name will be Mine, to keep with My other secrets, under the water. Whisper it into My ear, and breathe what you asked for in from My breath.”

Xinhoa limped forward. The Dragon shook His mane, opening His jaws wide, then wider. His breath smelled like lightning and poppies as He exhaled…

Lightheaded from lack of food, the woman sat and wept, heedless of the sun that blistered her head and hands. Pearls fell among the rocks that lined the Dragon’s pool. The water was dark and unrevealing; no fish could be seen in its depths.

The woman had not moved in the three days since the Dragon had accepted her bargain, except to crawl the short distance to the stream that flowed from the pool. The water there was flavored faintly with ash and algae.

The clarity of vision that had been granted to her was heartbreaking. Although she could not remember her name, she remembered every moment of her life. She saw the final result of all her actions and experiences stretching ahead of her. She could hardly bear to know herself so completely, to know that despite everything, she wanted to live more than anything else.

She did not leave the pool; she could read the hearts of men from where she sat. Others would not look at her and see a person; they would see a thing, a font of gems and riches. She had traded away her identity; there was no possibility that they would look at her with understanding or pity, as her father’s wife had.

The bitter taste of wisdom clogged her throat. She had wished to live, and she had. She had survived, only to barter away her place in Heaven with her name. There would be no surcease for her; just the thin wailing afterlife of a wandering ghost, when death came. And it would. That knowledge pounded at her relentlessly: every beat of her heart brought her a fraction closer to death.

She knew that what she would ask for was an affront against the gods who had made mankind mortal. She knew, as well, that to ask for an escape from death was to consign herself to torment. Not to ask would require more self-will than she owned.

The sun passed behind a cloud. The woman’s tears slowed, then stopped. With a ragged sigh, she crawled to the edge of the pool and lifted a rock. Pearls, dislodged by the movement, rolled down mineral surfaces and into the water, the concentric ripples from their impact stroking at the shore.

She measured the weight of a year’s worth of life, solid in the palm of her had. Her heart beat faster, fear spurring it to quicken pace. Perhaps it was too late. She might be fated to die in this next year. She might be wasting the short time left to her. Shutting her eyes, she opened her fingers and let the rock fall into the water.

The water warmed the rocks on which she lay. She opened her eyes, and saw the Dragon rise slowly from the water. He had chosen to wear a human form, hair tied neatly back in a long queue.

“Was wisdom not all that you had expected?” His smile did not reach His eyes. His heart, such as it was, lay bare before her gaze.

Her words were hoarse as they emerged from lips blistered by the sun. “It was that and more, Lord. I would offer one last trade, for I crave life above all else.”

You have nothing left of interest to trade to Me.” He fiddled with the long sleeve of His robe.

“As a Creature of Heaven, you are singular and male, as are all the others: the Qi-Lin, the great Tortoise, the Chimera,” The woman whispered, wrapping her thin arms about herself. “But I have a womb. I will trade you sons for immortality.”

The Dragon stepped out of the pool, nudging her with a toe. Her half-healed ribs protested; she sucked in a breath through her teeth and remained silent.

“Sons. Dragons.” He voiced the plural form of the word, sounding it out. “It could be done, with certain changes.”

She watched silently as He muttered to himself about the possibilities, inner desire battling with caution. His eyes grew keen. “I keep your name; no trade is undone.”

“You keep my name,” she agreed. Her voice was hoarse. She looked at His lips, hanging slack with avidity. The expression was familiar; her father had worn it, and before him, a plump-fingered moneylender. She had come full circle, returning to the fate that she had tried to avoid; this time, though, she had come to it offering no resistance.

This time, it would last forever.

As the Dragon reached for her, she tried not to weep. His grip was proprietary and painful, but one last thought made her smile: there was always hope for those to come. Let the Dragon have His sons. She would bear daughters as well, and she would safeguard them from wisdom.

The End