Mark opened his eyes, but he wasn't in the snow anymore.
He stood barefoot on the edge of a crystal lake. The water stretched wide, still as glass, reflecting the silver peaks that towered around him. The moon above loomed massive, round, and pale, as if it were descending toward the earth. Its light cast a silvery shimmer on the lake, painting the world in frost and silence.
Mark took a step forward. His reflection on the water wavered and shifted.
It wasn't his face.
The man in the reflection had eyes like hollow stars, deep and weathered, but not cruel. His hair was longer, tied loosely at the back. A heavy black bow rested across his back, forged from what looked like bone, twisted, ancient, and in the shape of a dragon's spine.
He knew that face. Somehow, without understanding how, he knew. "Houyi." The name echoed in his head.
The scenery around him shifted all of a sudden.
