Prologue

"Master! Master, come quickly!" The servant came running into the bedroom, tripping over the rug in her haste. She stumbled but didn't fall, making the lantern in her hand swing wildly.

"What is it, Chen?" Zheng Wu Xie pushed his feet into his slippers and hurried to follow the maid. Even though he asked the question, he knew there was only one thing that would cause her to call him from his bed so urgently. 

"The child! The child is born!"

"Oh, oh no." Zheng Wu Xie broke into a run, with the maidservant on his heels. It was too soon for the child to be born, and on this night, the most inauspicious of nights. The moon was darkened in a full eclipse. 

"Is it a boy or a girl?" 

"A girl. You have a daughter. But Master…"

He crossed the garden to his wife's house. The doors had already been thrown open, and he hurried to the bed, where his wife lay, clutching a tiny bundle. "Elizabeth," his eyes ran over the bed, which was soaked in so much blood, and then up to his wife's pale, tired face.

He took the bundle from her arms and pulled back the blanket to reveal the smallest and most frail-looking infant he had ever seen. Her arms and legs were like sticks, her small body sunken, as though she had suffered a famine in the womb. She was blue and barely breathing. "I'm sorry Master," the midwife bowed regretfully, "The child will certainly die before morning."

"No. No! She must not die." He stood, the bundle still in his arms. "Elizabeth, rest well, I will take her to the shrine and pray for her." 

"Yes," tears glistened in Elizabeth's eyes, "Pray for a miracle." 

Zheng hurried through the garden again, this time headed to the small pagoda which housed the family shrine. There was a small golden Budha in the center, surrounded by the family plaques, and, most prominently, looming over them, was a large, almost life-size, alabaster statue of the White Dragon. It was completely dark, there was no moonlight to illuminate the altar, and he hadn't carried a lantern, yet the dragon stood out like a pale shadow in the gloom. 

Zheng fell to his knees and pressed his face to the floor, holding the baby extended toward the altar. He didn't know which deity or ancestor to appeal to first. He hadn't prepared incense or an offering. "White Dragon! You have been the guardian of the Zheng family for five generations, since you saved my grandfather's grandfather on Gaolo Mountain. Please, hear me!" His mouth continued to move, speaking words of supplication that tumbled from his lips in desperation. He did not even realize that the child had already stopped breathing. 

Because he had his face pressed to the tile floor, and his eyes squeezed shut, he didn't notice that the darkened shrine was beginning to glow with a strange, otherworldly luminescence. The aura seemed to come from the dragon statue itself. As Zheng became aware of the glow, the light permeating his eyelids, he lifted his face fearfully. In the growing brightness, a shadow twisted its way around the room, the shape of a dragon, with a long sinuous body, horns protruding from its head, and clawed hands opened and curved like the talons of a hawk. The light grew even more intense, so bright that it hurt Zheng's eyes, and he was forced to close them again. 

When he opened his eyes once more, a strange man was standing before the altar. He was unusually tall, and very beautiful, if it was right to call a man beautiful. His face was perfect, dark slashing brows over wide, intense eyes. His nose was slender and straight, his mouth curved in a shape that made him look bemused. His strong jaw was smooth and beardless. Although his face was youthful, the hair on his head was silvery white, and very long, pulled back from his forehead and tied in a high ponytail. His robes were white and silver, of an old style and fashion that had not been seen for a few hundred years. 

"Guardian!" Zheng felt a shiver of fear and pressed his face back into the floor. He had been praying in the family temple since he was old enough to walk, but there had never been a day upon which a deity had ever manifested before him. 

"Why do you call me, Zheng Wu Xie?" The god-man's voice was surprisingly soft and mellow.

"The child!" Zheng cried. "Please, my lord, save her!" He sat up on his knees and extended the infant in his hands.

The Guardian stepped forward and retrieved the bundle. He pulled back the blanket and examined the child curiously. "It's too late," he said without emotion. "The child is already leaving this world."

"No! No, please! I beg you! Bring her spirit back, let her stay with us and bring us joy."

The immortal man seemed to consider it. "What will you give me in return?"

Zheng bowed again, "Anything! Anything within my power, my Lord, name it!"

"The child."

"What?" Zheng gasped.

"The child is mine. She must call me master and serve me when I call her."

"Yes, yes, we will dedicate her life to you, but please, save her."

The guardian lifted the infant girl until their two faces were almost touching, his countenance radiant and glowing with supernatural power, her face blue and lifeless. He put his mouth over hers and gently blew his breath into the frail body, inflating the child's lungs. Three times he repeated the breath, until on the third, the baby released the breath with a thin and pitiful wail.

"Thank you! Thank you!" Zheng cried out happily when he heard the sound.

"I don't know why you are thanking me," the White Dragon looked at the crying baby, perplexed. "It is noisy and unpleasant." 

"Please, my Lord, since you have claimed her, you must give her a name."

"A name? A name…" The god-man turned the child in his arms so that it was cradled more comfortably, and she stopped crying immediately. A rare smile spread across the immortal's face. "I call you… MeiLan."

"MeiLan! It's a wonderful name! Thank you!"

"Now, I will bless her." The White Dragon turned back to Zheng. "She has been born in the black of an eclipse. From this day forward, every black horse born in your stable is the property of MeiLan. She may keep them or sell them but the proceeds are hers alone."

"Yes, yes my Lord, I will obey you."

"Good. I'll return her to you. For now." Zheng scrambled to his feet to accept his daughter back from the hands of the Guardian. When he looked down at the baby, her skin was now healthy and pink, and she stared up at him with unusual blue eyes. Looking up again, to thank the guardian once again, there was no one there in the fading light. The statue of the dragon stood cold and lifeless as before.

"MeiLan," Zheng whispered, looking down at the starlit face of his child. "Come, let's go tell your mother the news." He tucked her safely in the crook of his elbow and held her close, protecting her from the chill of the night as he crossed the garden again, to his wife's chamber. He knelt beside her bed and set the bundle back against her breast. 

"Elizabeth," he waited for his wife to open her eyes; they were red and swollen from crying. "Our daughter lives."

His wife gasped and struggled to sit up, pulling back the blanket so she could see for herself her warm, breathing infant. "She lives!" her voice was choked with emotion. "She lives! But how?"

"It was the White Dragon," Zheng said in a hushed tone, as if by speaking the name too loud he would accidentally summon the guardian again. "He appeared to me as a man and breathed life back into her little body. He claimed her his own, and gave her the name, MeiLan."

"Claimed her?" Elizabeth's arms tightened around the newborn. "How can you let him claim our baby?"

"Don't be angry my dear, I saw that if she could live, then it was better. Besides, what is a guardian going to do with a mortal girl? He said she must call him Master, so we shall bring her to the altar every day to pray and bring him offerings. I think he will be satisfied."

It was enough to allow Elizabeth to relax and return to her joy. "MeiLan," she whispered, kissing the crown of her fuzzy head. "My daughter." 

"Oh, there is another thing," Zheng scratched the back of his neck. "The White Dragon said that every black horse born in the stable is now the property of MeiLan, to sell or to keep."

"What a strange thing!" Elizabeth almost laughed. "How many black horses do we have in the stable?"

"None that I know of," Zheng said with a shrug. "So, you see, it's nothing."

**********

From that day forward, every foal born within the Zheng compound was black, without a single white marking. The black horses of Zheng MeiLan became famous across the country, coveted by both nobles and soldiers for their exceptional strength, stamina, and calm nature. 

Despite having been born prematurely, MeiLan flourished into a healthy, happy child. As the only child of Zheng, she was quite spoiled, but it did not make her unpleasant as it did most children. Nothing could tarnish a spirit so poured into with a mother and father's love. She was kind and polite, and each night before bed, she visited the family temple and said a prayer for the White Dragon. She burned incense and left him little gifts that she found during her play. Pretty colored stones, beads, feathers, dolls, folded paper animals, and ribbons adorned the altar. 

It was in MeiLan's sixth year that tragedy struck the Zheng family. A partial eclipse blotted out the sun, turning the whole world an eerie shade of red. The earth seemed angry, and began to shake, and great clouds billowed out of the mountains, glowing as though they were filled with flame. There was lightning, and hailstones the size of a man's fist pelted the ground, smashing the leaves from the trees, and bludgeoning anything that was left outside and unsheltered. Lightning flashed across the sky and struck out at every tall tree and rooftop, leaving blazing fires and dead blackened skeletons of trees in its wake. The shaking continued for what seemed like hours, but it was only a matter of minutes. 

Huddled wherever they stood, in those terrifying moments of chaos that seemed to last forever, the members of the Zheng household and their servants cried out to every deity they could, yet even that was not enough to save them all. The earthquake shook the foundations of the manor and every roof of the main house came down, layer upon layer of tiles and beams crashing louder than the thunder. Eleven people in total lost their lives that day on the family compound alone, and much of the property was destroyed, not only at the Zheng mansion but in all the surrounding area. Zheng Elizabeth herself was crushed beneath the rubble. 

And, strangely, that was the day that the White Dragon statue disappeared from the family temple. No one could understand how such a large statue could be stolen, or how anyone could abscond with it during the deadly storm, or why, but it was certainly gone. After mourning his beloved wife and the servants that were lost, performing the ceremonies as best they could under the circumstances, Zheng Wu Xie alerted the Imperial Guard to the theft.  However, the stolen guardian statue was never recovered.

That night MeiLan got sick with her first fever. She cried the whole night that her legs were in pain. The doctor was called, but the man was overwhelmed with the demand of the many injured from the storm, and he could not come for several days. When he did come, he held her wrist and felt her pulse, and shook his head. "I'll give her medicine," he said quietly, not knowing that the girl was awake and could hear him. "But she is gravely ill. I don't think she will survive."

MeiLan did survive that fever though, and many more, but her health never regained its former vigor. Her legs remained weak, and her body was so racked with pain that even her father sometimes thought that it would be more merciful if one of the fevers did take her.

Master Zheng blamed MeiLan's illness on the loss of the White Dragon statue. "We were careless," Zheng lamented, "And the guardian has cursed MeiLan."