Dé’zigave him a sly look. “The girl will be well,” he said. “Shàn’jun is as fine a medicine man as they come.”
Zen’s face heated. At the core of his worries was Lan—naturally, as recent events had seemed to follow in her wake—but he’d given no indication of that to his master. And he certainly was no “lover in mourning.”
“You mistake me, shi’fù,” Zen replied stonily. “I do not worry for the girl. There is much we must discuss, including troublesome new findings on the Elantian front.”
Dé’zipeered into his pupil’s face. “Oh? Do you care nothing for whether the girl lives or dies? You risked a great deal, bringing her here.”
Sometimes his master truly tested him. “Forgiveness, shi’fù,” Zen said stiffly. “Of course, I wish her well. I merely meant she was not a priority, in the grand scheme of things.”
“Hmm. We may all very well be surprised,” Dé’zisaid, and turned to face Zen properly. “You speak of ‘forgiveness’—that is another matter.”
Something inside Zen drew taut. What he had risked to use the Gate Seal and transport him and Lan here…how he had lost control twice in the past week…if the other masters of the school heard, there would be an uproar. It was only by Dé’zi’s grace that Zen remained at Skies’ End at all. A monster. An abomination. A reminder of what happened when one strayed from the Way.
Zen bowed his head. “I erred, shi’fù. I broke a fundamental rule of the Way. I will take the ferule.”
His master’s brows furrowed at the mention of the greatplank used to dole out punishments—a Hin tradition that had once been favored in schools and courts alike.
“Zen,” his master said, “you and I both know I did not agree when the other masters voted to keep such an outdated method of punishment. The ferule is effective only as long as you hold its lessons in here.” He tapped a finger to his chest. “It is not just our bodies and flesh that must complement the Way—but our minds as well. The Seal I placed upon your heart is only as strong as your will.”
“I had no choice, shi’fù.” The words pushed through his teeth at last. “The Elantians would have caught us—we might have died.”
“You and I both know that there are worse things than death that await us in this world,” Dé’zisaid quietly.
Zen flinched. He knew they shared a memory: of him prior to his arrival at Skies’ End, of how the grandmaster had found him, barely a shell of a human, beaten, bloody, and broken inside and out.
“The very first practitioners, who established the Hundred Schools and wrote the classics—before the Imperial Court repurposed them—intended for practitioning to be a path to balance,” Dé’zicontinued. “All qì has the potential for great power and immense danger. It simply depends on who wields it. Humans are greedy things. We set ourselves promises we cannot keep, boundaries we break. That is what the classics advise against: not how we practition butwhy.”
Zen lowered his eyes. “That is blasphemous, shi’fù.”
Dé’zilaughed. “And who will come and strike me down? The souls of the dead emperors who failed this kingdom and the last?”
Sometimes Zen thought the grandmaster of the School ofthe White Pines defined the fine line between brilliance andmadness.
“Natural qì, demonic qì, whatever the Imperial Court wishes to force us to believe changes nothing of its nature,” the grandmaster continued. “All qì is but a tool to be used at our discretion. Unfortunately, too many before us have been seduced by the aspect of power and lost their way.” Dé’ziregarded Zen through half-lidded eyes. “I have told you this many a time. Wayward, under my instruction, refers not to the type of qì you use—but whether you control your power, or whether you allow it to control you. Whether you are able to hold its balance. You hold within you a great power, Zen. You must remember to never let it control you.”
Under his master’s piercing scrutiny, it was all Zen could do to remain still. He thought of the voice locked inside him, the fountain of qì that had come spilling from him at the slightest summoning. He bowed his head again. “Yes, shi’fù.”
“Now.” Dé’zibent his face to the fragrance of the snow camellia bush again. “Let us finish admiring this beautiful winter bloom and head to the Chamber of a Hundred Healings to visit our new friend. In the meantime, why don’t you update me on your adventures over the past moons?”
Zen began to tell his master of his pursuit of the metals trading ledger, of how the trail had gone cold with Old Wei’s death in Haak’gong and, instead, he’d happened upon the girl. Of the Alloy who’d pursued them and the Elantian forces who’d followed them deep into the forests at the heart of the kingdom.
He didn’t, however, tell his master of Lan’s vision, of his promise to take her to Guarded Mountain. Of the strange qì he had—or thought he had—sensed within her. After the conversation they’d just had on demonic qì, he had no wish to bring up any further taboo subjects.
“These events yielded the opportunity to observe the Alloyup close through hand-to-hand combat,” Zen said. “The Elantian magicians continue to draw their power from metals and wielding their properties, conducting lightning and raising fires and forging swords out of thin air.”
Dé’zihummed, nodding to himself. They had wound through the stone paths nestled into the mountain, passing schoolhouses half hidden by lush evergreens. Gray-brick eaves curved skyward, adorned with motifs of flora and fauna and the gods. Once in a while, the tinkle of a windchime rang out in the early evening breeze. At this hour, the day bells would have rung and disciples would be rotating to their next classes. The Chamber of a Hundred Healings, where the Master of Medicine taught his craft, sat on a flat stretch of fertile ground on which all sorts of herbs were tended to by his disciples. A quiet pond with an arced stone bridge cut through it, growing an assortment of water plants.
“A pity Master Nóng is away on a procurement trip,” the grandmaster said. “I would have liked his help in treating theyoung lady’s injuries. We may have to wait…yet on the bright side, Master Ulara has just returned. With her clan’s knowledge of metals, she will have valuable insights on the Elantian metalwork in the girl’s arm—I have asked for her presence shortly. It seems there is much to discuss.”
A sudden pulse of energy cut through their conversation—one that felt distinctly familiar. One consisting solely of yin.
Dé’ziand Zen spun as a streak of white qì flashed over the Chamber of a Hundred Healings like lightning. And then Zen felt it: his qì being drawn by the activation of the Seal he had inked on Lan’s arm.
He was already running, boots pounding against stone, his páo offering more flexibility than the stiff Elantian merchant’s outfit he’d worn while traveling. The medicinal garden drewcloser; he sprinted past the stone bridge and carp pond, past the assortment of herbal plants, and hurtled up the front steps of the chamber.
The interior was dim: the chamber was more tightly sealed than most schoolhouses in Skies’ End to preserve the dried herbs. In the center, the black flames of his Seal encircled a pillar of white light in an attempt to marshal it.
It lasted only a moment. A third pulse of qì bifurcated the two, smothering them like fire. Zen recognized the steady earth-gold light it emitted.
