From somewhere in the crowd, there came another shout. “Shi’fù! This disciple is eternally grateful for your teachings!”
“Shi’fù, this disciple swears to take your art of practitioning to the rivers and lakes of this land and beyond!”
One by one, the disciples of the School of the White Pines sank to their knees, their páos rippling like the tides of a great white river.
Lan looked around again at each master in turn. Gyasho, bald and ageless, blindfolded face raised to the skies in serenity. Feng, scowling and hunched like a shrimp, with that mole on his nose and his satchel of oracle bones and other divination materials. Nán, looking strangely lost without his usual stack of tomes in his hands. Ip’fong, tall and staunch as a bear, metal spikes clad to his fists. Cáo, quiver empty and siyah horn bow bloodied. Nóng, unusually somber, head bowed, perhapsin remembrance of his most dedicated pupil. And Ulara, hands on the hilts of her great swords, lips pressed in a crimson line.
Seven people, against the might of the Elantian Empire.
“The honor has been ours,” said Master Gyasho, bringing his fist to his palm. “The next time we meet, it will be as equals, whether in this life or the next. Carry our history, and our legacy, and live to see another day. Kingdom before life, honor into death.”
The other masters brought their hands together in a salute.
Numbly, Lan watched as the disciples began to make for the back steps of the mountain. She caught sight of Chue, his arms around Taub’s shoulders. The masters, too, turned to leave, fading into the rain like ghosts until they might have never been there at all.
Yet Lan found that she could not bring herself to move her feet. “Wait,” she said, and caught up to the last master to leave. “Wait—Master Ulara, please.”
Ulara turned to her, eyebrows raised in a question.
“Let me go with you,” Lan said. “My mother gave her life for the Order of Ten Thousand Flowers. It is my duty to help.”
“É’niáng,please,” Dilaya begged. She hadn’t moved either, and for the first time, she and Lan were on the same side. Tai, too, hovered nearby. “What is so precious in the Chamber of Forgotten Practices that you must defend, and why is that worth risking your life?”
One might have expected Ulara’s anger at her daughter’s refusal to yield. But this time, Yeshin Noro Ulara pressed her lips together. She glanced around and, seeing that the other masters were gone, turned back to her daughter. “Sealed away at the heart of the mountain,” Ulara said quietly, “is the Azure Tiger.”
Dilaya’s mouth fell open—but this time, she seemed to find no words to say. Behind her, Tai went very still.
“Unlike the other Hundred Schools of Practitioning, the School of the White Pines never held the secret to a Final Art in its Chamber of Forgotten Practices,” Ulara continued. “This school became home to the clans that came together in the Order of Ten Thousand Flowers—the underground rebel movement that sought to resolve the ageless power struggle between the Imperial Court and the clans…by destroying the source of the greatest power struggles in our history: the Demon Gods.
“Many in our order gave their lives for this cause, including”—Ulara’s sharp eyes turned to Lan, and she thought they might have softened for a second—“her mother. We were hunting down the Demon Gods and Sealing them away while searching for the instrument with which to kill them. But before we could finish our mission, the Elantians invaded.”
A flash of lightning; a gleam of silver. A sudden gale whipped up near the entrance stone of Skies’ End, bringing with it the crushing energies of metal. Out of the darkness came a silhouette, tall and pale and clad in metal. His wrists flashed with varying shades of gray, gold, and bronze.
The Elantian Royal Magician Erascius stepped forward. His sharp features were curved in a cold smile. “At last,” he said, the Elantian language rolling long and sinister. “The elusive home of the last practitioners of this land.”
In the blink of an eye, Ulara had positioned herself between the magician and Lan, Dilaya, and Tai. Her fingers moved, and a Shield Seal erected itself before them: a wall wrought of metal, wood, and ice the height of a small hill, bordering the cliffs on either side of them.
On the other side of the shield, Erascius’s face opened in a laugh. His hands gestured to summon a metal ramming pole. With a thunderous crack, it slammed into Ulara’s shield.
Ulara grasped her daughter’s shoulder. Her nails dug in,her knuckles white. “Run,” she said quietly. “Run, and protect Lan with your life. She holds the Silver Dragon of the East inside her. No matter what, do not let the Elantians find it.” Dilaya’s face blanched in shock, but her mother continued: “And take this.”
The dao gleamed as she held it out. Its handle was sleek, as though made of bone—and in the center was embedded a thick jade ring.
From the other side of the wall came thunderous booming sounds. The wall trembled, shards splintering and beginning to rain down on them.
“Falcon’s Claw?” Dilaya’s head snapped up. “É’niáng—”
Ulara grasped her daughter’s hand and wrapped it around the hilt of the sword. Her knuckles were white as she held on to Dilaya’s hand. “You will one day lead a clan, a people, and you must learn the meaning of sacrifice.Go,” Yeshin Noro Ulara repeated, and then the fierceness to her expression yielded to a profound tenderness. “We will meet again, if not in this life, then in the next, my daughter.”
Lan saw, once again, her mother standing before an insurmountable army with a lone woodlute. This time, she understood. So long as there was war, there was sacrifice. So long as there was power, there was bloodshed.
So long as there was life, there was hope.
As the matriarch to the Yeshin Noro clan moved to face the enemy, her daughter lifted her gaze to Lan.
Lan gave her a single nod. She turned, and with a burst of qì, began to make for the back steps of the mountain, followed by Dilaya and Tai.
They were now well and truly alone. Around them, Skies’ End was eerily empty, its curved pavilions and halls hollow and dark. Lan couldn’t help but think of the School of GuardedFists, how it had stood like no more than a phantasmal memory in the night, its occupants long passed into the next world.
