Dé’zihad interfered.
The scene before them cleared. The Medicine disciple, Shàn’jun, was straightening amidst a cluster of smashed porcelain. Stew seeped across the wooden floorboards between the other two figures in the chamber.
The first was someone Zen would not have wished to offend at any cost: Yeshin Noro Dilaya. A disciple of Swords, she had a temper like a blade and was not afraid to use it. Her mother’s noble lineage as last matriarch of the Jorshen Steel clan and position as a master of this school firmly cemented Dilaya’s position of privilege.
And the other figure…Something stretched taut inside Zen as he beheld her. Lan had changed into disciple’s robes that were large for her small songgirl’s frame. She held both hands before her in defense. A sliver of bandages showed on her midriff; as she lowered her arms, she winced, one hand going to her wound from the Elantian arrow. Her face was pale and drawn, but a spark of fire ignited in her gaze as she turned to Dilaya.
“Don’t touch me, you horse-faced fox spirit,” she spat.
Zen fought back the ridiculous urge to laugh.
Yeshin Noro Dilaya straightened from her crouch. Herface was contorted in fury as she drew her sword. “Wayward practitioner.” The words were soft but laced with poison. “The likes of you were never meant to grace the doorstep of the School of the White Pines.”
Zen stepped between them.
“Move,” Dilaya snapped at Zen. Her sword glistened orange in the light of the setting sun.
“Dilaya.” Zen inclined his head, keeping his tone even. As always, he could not bring himself to look at her face, to meet her one gray eye and the dark eye patch, the mark of his mistake that haunted him to this day. “This girl has been my charge. Any crimes she has committed, any taboos against the school, are mine to bear. Though I do request that you think before accusing anyone of anything egregious.”
He sensed when Lan looked up sharply at him.
“What, did my accusation touch a nerve?” Dilaya sneered. “Is this bringing back memories of what transpired in this very chamber not ten cycles past? Perhaps you should bear yourowntaboos before you go shouldering anybody else’s,Zen.”
Zen felt his entire body freeze over. There it was, the stain to his name that could never be erased. The proof that the scholars and emperors of the Middle Kingdom had been right to fear demonic power.
“She cannot yet control her qì to adhere to the Way,” he said at last. “Be not hasty, Dilaya.”
Dilaya’s lips curled. “Surely you also sense the yin energies she emits? I would have thought you’d know precisely what that might mean—or is that the reason you are shielding her?” At Zen’s silence, she continued: “That girl nearly exposed us to the Elantian army. I can sense the wrongness to the metal in her arm. It must be destroyed. Now, for the last time,get out of my way, or I will make you.”
“I do believe that fights, duels, and all forms of physical altercations are against the Code of Conduct within the boundaries of this school,” came a mild voice.
Instantly, Dilaya’s face drained of color.
Dé’zistrode in, taking care to step over the raised wooden threshold of the door. His words had been temperate, but the effect was worse than if he had shouted.
Yeshin Noro Dilaya was hotheaded, but she was first and foremost a disciple to one of the Hundred Schools of Practitioning, and an heir of a former great clan. It was nearly comical how quickly she shifted tack, the ire on her face disappearing as she dropped to her knees before the grandmaster. “Forgiveness, shi’zu. Grandmaster.”
“You might remember,” Dé’zisaid, “that I sent you here to examine the metalwork and to report upon it, not to take it upon yourself to destroy it. Such a heavy decision should not have been made without discussion first.”
“Forgiveness, shi’zu,” Dilaya repeated. “But I sensed the danger from the Elantian metalwork. I don’t believe it should ever have entered our Boundary Seal—”
“My, my, what a ruckus on such a pleasant evening,” came a voice.
Zen tensed as a sixth person strode into the Chamber of a Hundred Healings.
The passage of time had wrought the matriarch of the Jorshen Steel clan, like refined metal, into something far sharper, crueler, and more beautiful than her daughter. Master Yeshin Noro Ulara’s hair was also done in the classic two-bun fashion of her clan, yet instead of Dilaya’s verdant black, Ulara’s was grayed with experience.
“Ah,” Ulara said as her gaze fell on Zen. “Of course.” She tipped her head back, mouth curling with disdain as she beheld him. For a moment, they watched each other, and Zenfelt something in his blood turn, echoes of an age-old enmity stirring inside. Members of the school, though united by the common mission against the Elantians, were embroiled in historical feuds and tussles for power often born into their bloodlines.
By familial obligation, Yeshin Noro Ulara despised Zen.
He swallowed and wrested his face into a semblance of courtesy, then inclined his head. “Ulara.”
It was the most overt disrespect he could direct at her without breaching societal customs. Zen had long held a privileged position within the School of the White Pines. Handpicked by Dé’zi, he’d been accepted as a disciple of the grandmaster of the school, a ranking no other disciple held. This meant that Ulara had never formally been his master, and Zen had no obligation to address her as such other than out of respect.
From the way she’d treated him since his arrival at the school, Zen had no such inclination.
“Dilaya,” the Master of Swords said. “Come here.”
