Chapter 1: The Map That Should Not Exist

Wei Hailong found the map on a Tuesday, which was appropriate, because nothing good had ever happened to him on a Tuesday.

It was rolled inside a sealed bronze tube at the bottom of a crate of confiscated texts from a temple demolition — the kind of crate that ended up in the Imperial Archive with a tag reading "misc, low priority" and sat untouched for decades. Wei Hailong was the junior archivist who had been assigned to catalog it, because he was new, and cataloging was the kind of task given to people who had not yet proven themselves important enough to avoid it.

He unrolled the map carefully, expecting old administrative records. What he got was something else entirely.

The coastline on the left side of the map was recognizable — the eastern shore, the islands, the shape of the bay near his hometown. He oriented himself, found the capital, traced the trade routes. Normal.

Then the map continued east. Past the edge of any known coastline. Past the edge of any known sea. Into waters that no ship had returned from, labeled in ink so old it was more brown than black:

THE SEA OF ETERNITY. THOSE WHO DRINK FROM ITS WATERS REMEMBER EVERYTHING.

Wei Hailong sat back in his chair.

He was a scholar. He believed in evidence. He did not believe in mythical seas or mystical waters or the kind of maps that should not exist.

He also did not put the map down for the next four hours.

Outside, the archive clock struck midnight. He rolled the map back up, tucked it carefully inside his robe, and made a decision that would change everything.

He was going to find it.

He was also, he suspected, going to regret this.