“You’re holding it too tightly,” Zen said. Lan sensed him assessing her page, her characters jutting out like overgrown clumps of weeds.
The heat spread down to her neck, jumbling her mind even further. She’d always prided herself in her quick wit and silver words and her propensity for getting out of trouble—butin this moment, with Zen watching her, she would have given anything to have been a proper, educated noblewoman.
“Try to loosen your grasp and let the brush flow like an extension of your hand,” Zen said. “It’ll take time, but—here.” He closed his cool fingers over hers, and the heat in her face had nothing to do with shame anymore.
She felt his breath against her neck as he leaned over her to reposition her fingers in the correct grip. Her heart tumbled in her chest; he quietly spoke to her on methods to balance the brush, but all that she could focus on was the sensation of his touch.
He no longer wore the black gloves he’d had on for most of their journey. The candlelight outlined the ridges of scars on his hands, too evenly cut to be from an accident.
“Your scars,” she found herself saying in a stretch of silence. “How did you get them?”
Zen paused, tipping his head to her. A streak of black hair spilled over his face. This close, she could make out the individual lashes of his eyes, see her face reflected in the midnight of his irises.
He looked down, and she felt a small thrill that he did not pull back. “An accident,” he said, and then, to her surprise, he lifted a part of his sleeve. There, carving up his forearm, were pale white marks like the crude slashes of a blade. “These the Elantians gave me.”
The spark of thrill turned to horror.
“They captured me during the Conquest. Held me for one entire cycle.” His voice was flat; his gaze was shuttered. She recognized that look. It was the look of someone doing his best to shut out memories.
Lan had heard stories—rumors spread among fearful villagers—of Hin captured by the Elantians after the Conquest and dragged off as experimentation subjects. Most died, theirbodies cast into the Coiled Dragon River; the corpses found by fishermen had been distorted to horrifying degrees, with eyeballs and fingernails plucked out, flesh split open and embedded with all sorts of metallic objects.
“You were an experimental subject,” she whispered.
He closed his eyes. “Yes.”
If a songgirl had told her this, Lan would have gathered her into her arms and held her until the sun rose. But it was Zen, elegant, beautiful, distant Zen, and she could think of nothing more to do than sit here with her knuckles white against her brush, his hand still draped loosely over hers as though he’d forgotten all about it.
Instead, a thought came to her.
I want to be powerful.
She hadn’t been able to protect her mother.
She hadn’t been able to protect Ying. The songgirls. The Teahouse. Even Madam Meng. Their names trailed her like weights—their laughter, then their tears and their endings.
“Zen,” she said softly.
He gave a slow blink, gaze clearing as it found her from a torrent of memories. “Hmm?”
“Thank you,” Lan said. “For everything. I’m going to work hard.”
The drowsy, distant look of his face had gone, replaced by a steely expression. As though by instinct, his thumb swept a stroke over the back of her hand, sending shivers up her arm.
“Good,” he said, and stood. “It’s time we begin our second training for the night.”
He led her down some rocky footpaths to a flat stretch of mountain that ended in plunging cliffs. The Last Kingdom opened before her beneath a waning moon: a sky like a bowl of black ink flecked with silver dust, mountains forming thejagged edges. The breeze here was cool, carrying a bite of winter rarely felt in the southern regions.
Zen turned to her. “I have a gift for you,” he said. He palmed a soft leather scabbard and slid out its contents: a dagger that winked silver. Holding the flat of the blade between his fingers, he took her hand in his and rested the hilt in her palm. It was cool to the touch. The handle was ringed with engravings of stars dancing amidst flames, along with elegant, curling characters she did not recognize. “It is better to begin practicing with the weapon you will use in combat, for each weapon has a different length and weight and trick to balance.”
“It’s so small.” Lan eyed the jiàn strapped to Zen’s waist, which extended down to his calf. “Can’t I have one like yours?”
“Judge not the potency of a blade by its length,” Zen said. “Look closer at your dagger.”
Lan did, flipping it over in her palm. Its blade caught the glint of moonlight, and this time she noticed a steady trickle of qì shimmering in the metal, wrought into the semblance of Hin characters. “There is a Seal on this,” she said at last, looking up.
The edges of Zen’s lips lifted slightly. “There is qì in this,” he corrected. “Stories often say practitioners’ swords are imbued with souls. That isn’t quite true; whatistrue is that we fill our chosen weapons with our qì to better protect us. The name of this dagger is That Which Cuts Stars. This blade pierces not only human flesh but supernatural as well. Its purpose is to sever demonic qì to stop a demon’s attack. It will not destroy a demon, but it will do what ordinary swords cannot: maim one, though only temporarily.”
Chills erupted down Lan’s spine at the word supernatural.The little blade in her hand would protect her against demons. “How would one pierce a demon’s flesh?”
