“Power,” she repeated. “All the masters and the classics speak of power as a double-edged sword, not to be used without balance.”
His mouth thinned. “And the masters would have me relinquish my power—for what? So we can be sitting ducks to the Elantian onslaught? Just as the Imperial Court forced the clans to relinquish their powers. When the clans gave up their power, look how this kingdom repaid them.”
He was right. He was right, but there was still that warning buried like a blade inside her, entrenched with memories of blood. The Hin needed power to win against the Elantians. But they also needed to be able to control that power, for power without balance, Lan realized, was destruction, no matter in whose hands.
And now, looking at the boy with darkness wrapped around him like night incarnate, she found she understood. “The masters asked you to relinquish your power because you had nocontrol,”Lan said. “And therefore, no way to balance it. You forget what happened at the Elantian outpost. The lessons learned from the Nightslayer.”
“And you forget what the Elantians did to us. What they planned to do, had I not destroyed their foothold. You forget why the Nightslayer was forced to do what he did—whoforced him to do what he did. There will never be a perfect balance, Lan, now of all times. As we live today, it is either everything or nothing.”
She had never heard Zen speak like this, had never seen so much bitterness in his face. “And what of the innocent people whose lives were taken?” she asked, and she did not know whether she referred to Zen or to the Nightslayer. “Were theynothing?”
“Lan, a war cannot be won without casualties.”
His words slicked up her veins in a rush of ice water. All this time, hadshebeen the naive one? Of course, war came with casualties. The emperors who had ruled this land dynasty after dynasty—she could not think herself wiser than them, yet they had all bought into this notion that achieving their goals and wielding their power came with casualties.
But…no, Lan thought.Shehad been one of those casualties. The servants back at her courtyard house and the songgirls back at the Rose Pavilion Teahouse had been faceless, nameless casualties ofsomeone’sbid for power.
“Lan.” Fingers wrapped around her own, and they were burning; as though beneath the familiar grooves of Zen’s hands was the touch of something else. “You and I are the same. Last of our clans, last of the practitioners, last of this kingdom. Let me do this for our land, for all that we have lost and all in history that will never return.” Zen’s eyes were soft, and it was almost easy to let his words curl around her heart as he drew her toward him. “Let me use this Demon God’s power to drive out the Elantians, then reestablish a kingdom where the clans are returned to the power they once held.”
There it was again: that blade, driven hilt-deep. Fracturinghis reasoning, his story.Power.The emperors of old had fought wars for power over the clans; the Elantians now fought to cement their power over the Hin.
But Lan thought of the words her mother had said to her:You must serve the people.The faceless and nameless casualties of wars fought in their name but neverforthem. The songgirls at the Teahouse, bent and broken beneath one regime; the clans who had wished only for peace, under the fist of another.
Slowly, Lan drew her hand back. “Zen,” she said. “Please don’t do this. You cannot control the power of a Demon God.”
“I am perfectly in control, Lan.”
“Not forever.” Even now, she could feel it: the soft, insidious pulse of yin from him. Dilaya had been right. It would eventually take his mind, corrupt his soul. “The Nightslayer lost his mind, and I cannot watch the same thing happen to you, Zen.” She shifted her tone to become softer, pleading. “Give us some time—”
“Us.”He spat the word with a hiss, and for a moment, she thought she saw his eyes flicker black.
Something cut through the air with the swiftness and sharpness of a blade. Zen moved in a kiss of metal, and Nightfire sliced, catching against the other sword with a clang.
“Conqueror,”Dilaya growled, the word charged with a history of hatred. She straightened beneath a pine by the lake, its shadow cutting ribbons of moonlight across her. “I’ll not allow you to do to this land what your ancestors did to my clan in the name ofprotectingus.”
“I am not my ancestors,” Zen said coldly, “but you’re right. I will no longer sit by watching history repeat itself.”
“Enough useless words,” Dilaya snapped, leaning into Wolf’s Fang with a snarl of her own. “A demonic practitioner must be eliminated before he loses his mind to the demon. And I would take that honor tonight.”
Dilaya charged. She fought like a wraith, dao flashing and cutting in perfect rhythm, limbs awhirl as though in tune to a song only she heard. For all that Lan had clashed with this girl, she couldn’t help but admire her tenacity at this moment, the effortlessness with which she moved.
She was far from a match to a Demon God, though. As Zen’s grip on Nightfire gave way to Wolf Fang’s thrust, Zen lifted a hand—and something responded.
An explosion of qì ripped through the night, cracking through the air and heaving through the waters of the lake itself. The clouds overhead seemed to shudder, the rocks surrounding them reverberating with raw, unbridled power. Lan flung up her hands, her shield Seal wavering as the energies poured over it. Dilaya, mid-charge, was flung back ten, twenty paces. Lan heard a sickening thump, then silence.
Zen lowered his palm, closing his fingers into a fist. The qì stilled. For a moment, Lan could swear she saw a shadow of something else in his eyes—and as he turned to her, that thing lingered a moment before it vanished.
His expression, though, did not change. Cold, distant, somber, yet with a new dimension she had never seen in the Zen she had come to know: rage.
Lan glanced to Dilaya, slumped against the trunk of a pine tree. Above them and all around them, the presence of metal was so close that it pressed on every one of her nerves, overriding every other sense. A flicker of movement from the path between the mountains behind Zen; a gleam of foreign armor. The Elantians were coming.
“Lan.”
She nearly flinched as she turned back to Zen. The shadows to his face had gone, and for a moment, she thought she caught the flash of something open, vulnerable to his gaze.
She could think of nothing to say other than, “Please, Zen, don’t choose this.”
His expression crumpled, and when he spoke, he pushed the words through gritted teeth. “Choices are for those withprivilege,Lan. What part of that do you not understand? You said it yourself, that we’re givenshitchoices and we have to make the best of them!” His voice rose into a shout, and she flinched at hearing the curse word fall from his lips. “If I couldchooseto be good, if I couldchoosethe balanced path of the Way, why wouldn’t I? But this was the hand the gods dealt me, the circumstances I was born into, and if I must choose the Wayward path in order to save this kingdom, then so I shall. If I must see darkness for our people to find light, then I will make that same choice, over and over and over again.” He was panting slightly, his face open and pleading. His voice grew soft. “Will you stay with me on this path, Lan?”
