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On the horizon, white sands rippled as bolts of pale satin, billowing with the breeze. The turquoise ocean mirrored the skies, its waters flecked with pearlescent foam. Coconut trees with leafy fronds and golden globes of fruit swayed at the far end of the shoreline. Yet unlike the beach of the Eastern Sea that flourished with life, this place was starkly desolate.

“Where is the city?” my mother asked, as our cloud descended.

“I heard it lies beneath, upon the seabed itself,” Shuxiao told us.

I stared at the waters, shifting in a ceaseless rhythm. “Can you swim?”

Shuxiao shook her head. Celestials did not take naturally to the water; their lakes and ponds were purely ornamental, brimming with lotuses, adorned with waterfalls and fountains. What need was there to swim when one could fly?

“I will go. My father was a fisherman. I could swim almost as soon as I could walk.” It was my mother who spoke.

Her father; my grandfather. It was the first time she had mentioned him. She spoke so rarely of her mortal family, the one she had left behind.

“Be careful, Mother.” My stomach knotted at the sight of waves, deceptively mild one moment, cresting violently in the next.

Without hesitation, she strode into the waters until they lapped around her thighs. Diving in, she cut a path through the waves with smooth, sure strokes. I shaded my eyes, staring after her until she was a speck in the distance. As a wave swelled, lifting her high, she vanished abruptly from sight. Dread coursed through me as Shuxiao and I urged our cloud onward, soaring to where she had disappeared. My nerves were frayed thin; I had lost too much already.

Waves churned beneath us, their tops aglitter with the gold of the sun. The opaque waters masked their secrets well; there was not a trace of my mother or the fabled city of the Southern Sea. My heart thudded in a frantic rhythm as I grasped my magic, twisting the air into a translucent spear that burrowed through the waters, plunging to its depths.

An arm flailed up, my mother emerging as she floundered amid the turbulence. The wind dispersed at my command, the waves calming as I grasped her hand to pull her up onto the cloud.

She coughed, scattering droplets of water as I slapped her back. “Xingyin, what did you do?”

“I couldn’t see you. I thought you were in trouble.”

“I am capable of looking after myself.”

She wiped a dripping sleeve across her face, then wrung her hair out, coiling it into a simple knot. Her face was drawn and pale, yet she looked younger somehow, as though the seawater had washed away a carefully cultivated veneer, that of the immaculate goddess. I caught a glimpse of the girl she had once been, echoes of her carefree youth in the quiet seaside village. My mother had ascended to the skies, becoming a goddess—and given up her parents, her husband, her future. And now she had lost her steadfast companion throughout the long years of solitude and despair. Some might think this was a small price to pay for immortality, and yet for us, grief was eternal.

A breeze fluttered from my fingers, drying her clothes and hair. “What did you find, Mother?”

“It’s colder, the deeper you get. The current turned stronger, almost like it was pushing me away.”

“Xingyin, over here,” Shuxiao called urgently, pointing at something below.

I followed her gaze—was it a trick of the light or did the waters here gleam brighter, the foam possessed of a glowing iridescence? Passing my palm over it, I released a surge of energy across the waves, shimmering as though a shaft of sunlight had pierced their depths. A line of characters formed before us:

Enter our waters with no fear,

for those who possess an eternal tear.

“What does that mean?” Shuxiao glanced doubtfully at the churning waters. “Tears are lost as quickly as they are shed.”

“Ping’er told me the tears of her people can transform into pearls.” I brushed my thumb over the pearl clasped around my neck, the one she had given me. This was not just a gift but a key.

“I miss her,” my mother said in a hollow voice.

I unclasped the pearl from my neck, wrapping the gold chain around my fingers. “Let’s bring her home.”

As I lowered the pearl into the sea, a whistling sprang up, luminous streams of bubbles spiraling forth—twining and melding to form a slender corridor through the waters. Light blazed from the murky depths, surging up to illuminate the pathway.

I wrapped Ping’er’s body with coils of air, tethering her to me. Taking my mother’s and Shuxiao’s hand, we leapt into the passage together. My body braced for a violent descent, but we glided through the tunnel like drifting feathers. At last, my feet sank into the tawny sand, a dampness soaking through my shoes. The air here was heavier, thick with the salt of the sea.

We stood in a circle just wide enough for one to lie across, surrounded by walls of water. The crash was thunderous yet soothing, reminding me of the waterfall in the Courtyard of Eternal Tranquility. Was Liwei there? How I hoped he was, and that he was safe. A cowardly part of me hoped that he would never learn of how I had wept in Wenzhi’s embrace. It would hurt Liwei, when it meant nothing—less than nothing, I told myself fiercely. I had been desperate for comfort, weak with grief. I had done nothing wrong, and still … I was ashamed.

A silhouette appeared on the other side, the water parting like a curtain to reveal a guard. He was not drenched, but dry, down to each strand of his flowing hair. His black eyes were ringed with pale blue, startling against his yellowed skin. A spear was clutched in his hand, a shimmering translucent cloak flowing over his armor of turquoise scales, rimmed in gold. A pearl ring gleamed from his thumb, set in a thick band of silver.

The guard’s chin jutted out. “Who possesses the pearl?” he demanded.