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His eyes creased with sorrow. “Daughter, you are mortal-born, yet immortality flows in your veins. Your home should be here, yet you live on the moon. You, more than anyone, should have learned that nothing is impossible.”

I forced my mind to clear, to piece together the fragments of my thoughts. He was an archer. A mortal in the early winter of his life. He carried the silver bow from the legends—the one painted on my mother’s book, upon this very grave. He knew who I was. And as I stared at his features, at the cleft in his chin … I knew him too.

This was no trick. More than anything I had reasoned, this was knowledge that sprang from within. There were so many things I wanted to say, countless more I had whispered in the solitude of my mind, and yet nothing emerged except this one, halting word from my throat.

“Father.”

I bowed, fighting back the emotions that flooded me, the hot tears surging into my eyes. He was almost a stranger; he had never been a parent to me, as I had never been his daughter. We lacked the memories, the living, that gave such a bond its strength. And yet, deep down, there was this undeniable link between us—forged through flesh and blood and something more profound, impossible to decipher.

A brightness glazed his own eyes, a smile breaking out, softening the harsh angles of his face.

“My name is Xingyin. Mother named me for the stars.” A strange thing for a daughter to tell her father, but perhaps he did not know and was unsure how to ask.

“A good name,” he said hoarsely. “You’re taller than your mother, though you have her look about you.”

His words were tender, yet a jarring reminder that while we had been ignorant of his existence, he had been aware of us all along. “Mother grieves for you; she thinks you’re dead. You must have seen her here. Why didn’t you speak to her?” I could not suppress the accusation in my tone for the misery he might have spared her.

“I could not.”

Was it regret that flashed across his face? Yearning, sorrow, or anger? I thought of how she had taken the elixir from him—the one he had earned, the one he had forsaken for her.

“Do you blame her? Me, for endangering her life?” A tentative question that I both longed and dreaded to learn the answer to.

He released a drawn breath. “I will admit, I was furious at first. When I saw her flying to the skies, I wondered, had it been her scheme all along to become immortal? A goddess? Only later did I realize my own mistakes: letting my fears silence hers, ignoring the doctors who said what I did not want to hear, which terrified me more than any battle I had fought. That’s what comes of being revered—you start to believe you’re infallible, that you can bend fate to your will. But there are some things in the world no power can alter.”

He fell silent before adding, “I would have given the elixir to your mother had she asked it of me. I should have done so before.”

“Why did you let everyone believe you had died?” I probed.

“In my last battle, I was struck down and lost consciousness. When I recovered, I found myself abandoned in a strange land. It took months before I made my way back, a shock to find news of my death abounded. However, there was also freedom in this, a chance to live for myself again without being commanded or begged to go where danger lurked.” His gaze dropped to the ground. “I also hoped your mother might hear of my death. For even if she no longer loved me, she might come to pay her respects—out of obligation, if nothing else, so I might see her again.”

A shadow fell over his face. “I waited. Eagerly at first, my mind turning over all we would say. I need not have bothered. The years crept up on me before I knew it. My hope grew tarnished with dread, then shame—that she would see me this way while she remained untouched by age. And when I finally saw her, it was too late.” The tips of his fingers brushed his cheek, tracing the lines on them.

A tightness gripped my chest. Despite their parting, my parents loved each other still. “Don’t blame her, Father. She could not come before.”

“Why not?” He hurled the question as though it had haunted him all this time.

“She was punished by the Celestial Emperor for taking the elixir. She could not leave the moon until a year ago.”

His fingers curled into a fist. “I should not be surprised. It was the Celestial Emperor who deceived me, sending me from my home with false promises and lies. Not this place, but my real home, in the Eastern Sea.”

“You were immortal?” The moment the words came out, I flushed from their thoughtless cruelty.

“Long ago, before this mortal life.”

“Father, what happened to you? Why did Mother not tell me?”

“She didn’t know. Nor did I, then. When immortals are reborn in the world below, they lose their powers and memories—only regained once they are restored to the heavens.” He unslung his bow as he lowered himself to the ground beside me.

“Was it common for immortals to be sent to the Mortal Realm?” I asked.

“It was most rare. While it can help strengthen an immortal’s powers, few are willing to undergo the trials of a mortal life. It is only done in the gravest of circumstances with the Celestial Emperor’s consent, for the elixir is needed to restore them to the heavens.”

I glanced at the Jade Dragon Bow in my hands, recalling the recognition that had lit his face, the inexplicable bond that had always existed between me and this weapon. “Were you in the Eastern Sea with the dragons?”

His expression turned distant. “Some called me their ruler. A hollow title, as I never commanded them for my own ends.”

My father was the fabled warrior who had saved the dragons, binding their essence to the pearls. How strange this cycle of fate that had led me down the same path, but to free the dragons instead. Was this why the bow had cleaved to me? As I ran a hand across its limb, light rippled through the jade. It pulsed in my grip, for the first time pulling away with a sudden eagerness, dispelling the last flicker of doubt from my mind.