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If I learned just one thing,
Then the year has not been wasted.
If I traded one illusion
For a revelation,
If I kept just one friend,
Then the year has not been wasted.
May we meet here in the new year.
May we meet here in Pearl.
—“PEARLIAN NEW YEAR’S SONG”
CHAPTER
ONE
I commit this venture to the imperium of Shin!
I commit this venture to the radiant Empress Dowager!
I commit this venture to … well, perhaps I can come back later to complete the eighty-eight honorific hailings. At this moment, it’s hard to think of anything except that today I, Chen Peasprout, sail into the city of Pearl.
The city that looks as if it were made of milky porcelain.
The city that looks as if it were poured, not built.
The city that is always busy with racing, jumping skaters, from the smooth white boulevards to the sweeping white roofs.
I, Chen Peasprout, a girl from the village of Serenity Cliff in Shui Shan Province, of the shining empire of Shin, sail today into this city of legend. As the ship heaves toward Aroma Bay, the city of Pearl appears to rise before us out of the sea like the stage of an opera, all creamy sweeps of roofline and slender pagodas.
Today, I begin my studies at Pearl Famous Academy of Skate and Sword, where I, a girl of just fourteen years, shall become a legend of wu liu, the beautiful and deadly art of martial skating! I shall finish this year with first ranking and win the lead in the Drift Season Pageant! The Empress Dowager would be disgraced if I achieved anything less, for I am the first student from Shin to attend the finest academy under heaven devoted to the only form of kung fu that is performed on bladed skates! A form that was invented by a Shinian, the legendary Little Pi Bao Gu! A form that I—
“Peasprout, what are you doing?” My little brother, Cricket, tugs at the sleeve of my academy robe.
I unclench my fist and uncross my arm from my chest.
“Nothing,” I say. “What is it?”
“I’m going to get last ranking at the academy. I know it.” Cricket twists in his skates like he always does when he’s nervous.
“Let go; you’re creasing my sleeve,” I say.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” He pets the cuff of my silk academy robe as if it were a wounded animal.
In the fables we grew up hearing, princes who flew on dragons to their palaces on the moon wore silk. This is what every student at the academy wears. To Cricket, the academy must be as unreal as a palace on the moon. My little Cricket, with his chin buried in his breast, his hands wringing each other, and his big elbows sticking out, is nothing like me. But he will be. I’ll see to that.
“Cricket, it doesn’t matter how much older or bigger anyone is than you. The Empress Dowager of Shin, the greatest empire under heaven, selected us as her emissaries in the goodwill exchange of wu liu skaters! No one else at the academy can say that.”
“The Empress Dowager only included me because Pearl sent two siblings to Shin,” Cricket says. “Do you think the Pearlians will take us hostage?”
Ten thousand years of stomach gas. You stamp on one of Cricket’s fears and two more spring up. He tries to take a deep breath but chokes on his saliva.
“Cricket. You have no need to be afraid of this place. None of those little brats at the academy has journeyed three thousand li. None of them has sacrificed what you sacrificed to study wu liu.”
I can’t let him hear my voice shake. If I cry, he cries. I must collect my emotions. Ever since our parents disappeared, Cricket has been my responsibility. I might be an orphan now, but I’m not going to let him be one, too. “All those spoiled Pearlian students will reincarnate as fleas, and you’ll reincarnate as a hero. Their names will be forgotten. Your name will be long-lived.”
Cricket’s eyes widen and he nods like he’s reminded of some great destiny. “I will reincarnate as a hero. My name will be long-lived.”
As we sail deeper into Aroma Bay, the dazzle of the sun’s reflection off the creamy architecture becomes painful. Cricket and I put on our smoked spectacles bought specially for our arrival. Two weeks’ worth of rice is a lot for a pair of lenses, but it’s hard to see anything in the city without protection for the eyes.
The ship docks at a jetty made of white filigree. Cricket and I shoulder our pouches, and I make sure the reed basket of soaps that we brought as gifts for our teachers is secure. We skate down the disembarking rail with the other passengers.
Everything here is made out of this substance that they call “the pearl.” Even though the whole city is ribboned with waterfalls and fed with canals, the pearl itself is dry and never melts. As I skate, my blades bite into it, but the pearl smooths itself behind me. The sensation is delicious. We have nothing like this back home. In Shin, we have to skate on rinks made of ice preserved in caves until it’s ridged and yellowed like bad toenails, and even then it’s gone by the fourth month of the year at the latest. The
