The press of metal in the air strengthened, so much so that Lan could nearly taste it. It filled their throats, stifled the other elements in the qì around them. The rain eased. The trees, the buildings, the rocks and bones of the mountain itself seemed to go still.
They were halfway to the summit now, the Chamber of a Hundred Healings looming in the night, its windows blank and its doors open. They passed by the steps to the disciples’ living quarters, and then they were at the steep set of stairs carved into the mountain, winding up toward the Peak of Heavenly Discussion. On the other side, Lan now knew, the stairs diverged, spiraling into a secret set of steps leading down the plunging cliffs.
Lan glanced down, the peak yielding a perfect view of the entryway to Skies’ End. There, on the open terrace before the Chamber of Waterfall Thoughts, two figures were engaged in battle.
Erascius had broken through Ulara’s shield and was advancing upon her, blow by blow. Ulara’s hands were a blur as she flung written fús through the air at Erascius. They exploded around him in clouds of brimstone and fire. Before the clouds could settle, Ulara swiftly drew up a Seal.
Erascius emerged. He snapped a finger. Metal spikes shot through the air, puncturing Ulara’s Seal. Ulara’s sword was a blur as she defended, eachplinkof metal against metal audible from even where Lan stood.
Lan reached inside herself. Where the silhouette of the dragon had stretched sleek and silver, she found only ashes and the faintest pulse of its core, bleeding qì from the gash That Which Cuts Stars had given.
A screech of metal rent the air. Erascius drove Ulara back, his metal magic coiling about him like a whip. The Yeshin Noro matriarch was reduced to defending herself with a combination of swords and Seals.
Dilaya’s knuckles were white against the hilt of Falcon’s Claw; they had all stopped to watch. “Keep going,” she said, but that was when they saw it.
From the darkness between trees stepped more figures, pouring through the entryway to Skies’ End.Magicians,over a dozen of them, pale blue cloaks fluttering and metal gleaming around their wrists. They raised their arms, and the sky lit up in response.
Flashes of lightning erupted around them, exploding in fire where they hit the ground. Ulara had been engaged in a fast, deadly dance with Erascius as they sparred with both swords and magic. As explosions sounded around her, she faltered, her concentration slipping for a fraction of a second.
Erascius made a slicing motion with his hand, and one of his hovering metal blades cut through Ulara’s neck like scissors through paper.
Dilaya screamed.
Lan only stared, the numbness in her heart growing. Yeshin Noro Ulara, the Master of Swords and fierce matriarch to her clan, had always stood in Lan’s mind as indomitable, with a tenacity to life like a raging fire. In death, she made no sound as she fell.
Dilaya started forward. Lan lunged, latching onto one of her legs. Pain spiked in her midriff, but she clung. Through stinging eyes, she looked up.
Dilaya had never shown anything but anger or contempt in front of Lan. Thus, it frightened Lan to see the terror, heartbreak, and helplessness written on the girl’s face. She clutchedFalcon’s Claw in her hands, remaining terribly still as she watched more and more Elantians appear out of the night. Their boots tread over her mother’s body as they advanced.
Standing at the very front, Erascius looked up.
Straight at Lan.
Of the Thirty-Six Stratagems, retreat is best.
—General Yeshin Noro Dorgun of the Jorshen Steel clan, Thirty-Sixth of the Thirty-Six Stratagems,Classic of War
Lan stepped back, pressing against the mountain wall, but it was too late. The magician had seen her—and she knew, by some unknown instinct, that he would come for her to finish what he hadn’t been able to twelve cycles ago.
Thunder cracked across the sky. When Lan looked down again, Erascius was gone.
Dilaya stood frozen at the edge of the cliffs, staring down at the place where her mother had fallen. Shock, grief, loss, heartbreak, and anger warred on her face. The Elantian army poured into the School of the White Pines like a pale tidal wave, consuming, destroying everything in their way: the open-air terraces, the pines, the rocks, and the school temples.
Dilaya turned to Lan. She closed her eye. Swallowed. And her expression cleared. Only a steel-like determination remained in that storm-gray eye when she opened it again. She slashed Falcon’s Claw in the direction of the summit; her own sword, Wolf’s Fang, hung at her hip in its scabbard. “What are you waiting for?” she snapped. “Keep going!”
The steps were slippery and treacherous; Lan and Tai moved slowly, their qì spent from their wounds. At last, they stepped onto flat ground.
The Peak of Heavenly Discussion howled with the fury of the storm. Dark clouds swirled overhead, looking close enough to touch. Icy rain pelted at their faces. The fall from up here was precipitous, the steep decline of crags and pines spiraling into gray mist below. By now, the other disciples should have gotten safely down, Lan reasoned. The masters would be lying in wait near the Chamber of Forgotten Practices, ready to defend and release the Azure Tiger should the Elantians come knocking.
“Ah, my little singer. I’ve found you at last.”
The voice, the language, the words, sent sickening shards of ice through Lan’s blood.
She turned. Standing at the top of the steps she had just climbed was the Winter Magician. Even in the rain, he looked as though he held an unworldly glow: pale armor and sky-blue cloak, face and hair white, metal encircling his wrists.
He smiled. “Did you truly think your little tricks could stop me?” He chuckled. “The others might think me strange for wishing to read what your, ah, civilization might deem literature…but I find myself sympathetic to some points. ‘Know thy enemy, and know thyself, and thou shalt not know defeat.’ ”
Tai moved as though to step between the magician and Lan, but Dilaya cut him off.
