Deep in the heart of the city of ghosts, a chisel breaks stone. Alone in the candlelit studio, Hua Cheng bows over the remaining boot and chips away slivers of veined marble. The sculpture is nearly finished, has been for weeks. The details he cuts into the lower foot now are so fine as to be invisible if viewed from any further away than a single step.
Above it, ornate robes are swept back on a frozen wind and a sword halfway from its sheath cuts across the sculpture’s waist. With its weight perched on the front foot as if a breath away from leaping and the candelight rosy across its cheeks and brow, the sculpture looks as if it is only a heartbeat from life. Except—
Hua Cheng takes a step back, tilting his head to survey his creation from toe to brow.
A blank face stares down.
••• Hua Cheng emerges from Mt. Tong’lu looking for someone he cannot name, cannot place, cannot picture. For centuries, he chases fragments of memory—until he stumbles upon a cultivator in white who might be the answer to the questions he has carried for eight hundred years.
