A story of Lien, the albino Celestial, at her first meeting with Napoleon. "In Autumn, a White Dragon Looks over the Wide River" is a short story taking place during Black Powder War. It was first printed in 2009 at the end of In His Majesty's Service, a US omnibus reprint of His Majesty's Dragon, Throne of Jade, and Black Powder War. It also appears in the 2010 multi-author anthology Wings of Fire.
Author

An avid reader of fantasy literature since age six, when she first made her way through The Lord of the Rings, Naomi Novik is also a history buff with a particular interest in the Napoleonic era and a fondness for the work of Patrick O’Brian and Jane Austen. She studied English literature at Brown University, and did graduate work in computer science at Columbia University before leaving to participate in the design and development of the computer game Neverwinter Nights: Shadow of Undrentide. Over the course of a brief winter sojourn spent working on the game in Edmonton, Canada (accompanied by a truly alarming coat that now lives brooding in the depths of her closet), she realized she preferred writing to programming, and on returning to New York, decided to try her hand at novels. Naomi lives in New York City with her husband and six computers. Her website is at naominovik.com