Long ago, when it was always spring.… A road ran between what would someday be Europe and the Land of Ten Thousand Willows, where sleepy dragons stretched in the sun. It was in this age that two were bound together, first by fate, then by love: the young Emperor Ty-Sun, and the Puritan girl, Blessing Dunncaster. He from a cultured land where magic and manners were one. She from dark, brooding Britain, with the witch-power wild in her blood. Together, they must fight and find their way to the Black Jade Road, where each step counts as five — and each danger, ten. For the pearls that are days are running low. A darkness is falling over the land. And the dragons are singing a mournful song of Death.….