“Impossible.”
Zen lurched to his feet, grasping the trunk of the tree behind him to steady himself. Combating Elantian metalwork always took tremendous effort. There was something to their magic that felt unnatural to the way practitioners wielded qì: as though they had taken one of the natural elements and twisted it somehow, made it into something all-consuming, all-powerful…and utterly monstrous.
Lan was on her hands and knees, her eyes squeezed shut. “I saw them. They’ve found us.”
In all his years post-Conquest, Zen had never run across Elantian forces beyond the outposts and the largest Hin cities.
What were the chances that a legion had ventured this farinto the Central Plains and found the girl they’d been searching for—the girl with strange yin energies and a mysterious Seal, who’d been the target of a high-ranking Elantian Alloy?
And yet…as he spread his awareness to the currents of qìweaving and wending all around them, he sensed it at last: the heavy, overwhelming presence of metal.
They had minutes, perhaps not even, before they were found. Zen looked to the girl, to the abhorrent metalwork in her left arm, to his own Seal he’d just performed to keep the poison back and rejuvenate her qì. Even so, she was trembling.
They would not make it far; there was no chance under the Heavens they could outrun the Elantians. If they moved at their current pace, they would risk leading the Elantians toward the location of the school. The School of the White Pines had remained hidden for centuries beneath a powerful Boundary Seal; as other schools had fallen to dust around it, it had outlasted the turn of dynasties, the rise and fall of emperors, and even the Elantian invasion.
Zen would rather die than reveal its location.
There was only one solution: a Gate Seal.
A Gate Seal had only two principles the practitioner had to remember. First, it had to lead to a location he knew existed, one that he could easily visualize and draw up from his memories. Second, the distance of transportation correlated directly with the amount of qì required.
Zen had never used the Gate Seal for anything farther than a hundred li, approximately a day’s travel. By his calculations, they were still five days out from the school.
In his current state, attempting that distance would be near-fatal.
It doesn’t have to be this way.A dormant voice rose in a whisper in his mind, dust scattering before wind.You know it doesn’t.
Lan stirred. She pushed herself to her knees and, with her right hand, reached to her waist. From an inner pocket, she palmed something. It took Zen a moment to recognize it.
It was the butterknife from the Teahouse—the one she’d held when he’d first found her in the Peach Blossom Room, adead Angel on the floor. She’d raised it with full conviction on her face, as though her entire life were staked upon the little piece of glass.
It was with the same expression that she turned to face the direction of the approaching Elantians—only he saw the full truth of it now: not the courage of a warrior who would go down fighting, but the desperation of a girl with nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
He thought of the first morning after they’d met, the dawn light carving her face in fierce strokes of red and gold.Teach me to be powerful, so that I will not have to watch another person I love fall to the Elantian regime.
In three strides, Zen crossed to her. He took her right wrist, spun her to face him.
Her expression flickered into bewilderment. “What—”
“I will use a Gate Seal to take us out of here,” he said.
She blinked, those clever eyes darting between his. He could see her combing through all that he had taught her in the past week and drawing a conclusion. “You can’t,” she blurted. “You’re not fully recovered yet—”
“I have strength enough,” Zen said gently. “What use is power if I cannot protect those without it?”
Her face shifted with recognition at her mother’s words, paraphrased. For the past few nights, he’d lain awake, staring at the stars, pondering the meaning of those few simple words.
“The place we are about to enter is called Where the Rivers Flow and the Skies End,” Zen continued. “The School of the White Pines rests there, hidden within a powerful Boundary Seal. My Gate Seal cannot breach the Boundary Seal, but it will bring us very close. If I am unconscious—”
“Zen!”
“—I need you to leave me, and walk up the mountain to get help. No matter what you see or hear, do not stop, do notlisten.” His grip tightened against her wrist. “Do you understand?”
Her eyes roved his face, burning, her chest rising and falling with rapid breaths. “I was right,” she whispered. “Youaremad.”
“At one point, you will trigger the Boundary Seal. You will not be able to cross it, but it should summon disciples of the school to you. Tell them you are with me, and they will help you.”
Another nod. The energies around them rippled, weighing heavier with the stench of metal with each passing moment. Nearby, he heard the snapping of twigs, the even press of boots against the ground as the Elantian army neared.
