He looked up at the mó, his mind sharpening like the blade of his sword. He understood what he’d left out of the Dispelment Seal. Though Zen didn’t think he could ever know peace, joy, or love ever again, he found, in this moment, a fierce sentiment that was close.
It is the duty of those with power to protect those without.
Zen tilted his face, his cheek brushing against Lan’s temple, the soft strands of her hair. He felt her heartbeat against his, the rise and fall of her chest as her breaths came quickly.
She trusted him with her life.
The knowledge was like a bolt of lightning, sparking through his veins and setting him aflame.
Zen drew the Seal, and this time, the qì flowed from his fingertips into Nightfire like a great, immutable river. The jiàn gleamed, bifurcated down its central ridge: one half split into darkness, the other shimmering with light.
The mó leapt at them, and Zen raised Nightfire.
He felt the impact as the tip struck the demon’s chest. His Dispelment Seal bled across the demon and began to burn.
The effect was instant. Zen had the impression he was watching a faded painting being restored to life. Skin that had shriveled and turned bluish green from rot regained the smoothness and fullness of life, turning a pleasant fawn color; grimy and bloodied robes shifted to fabric smooth as silk; the snarling expression on the demon peeled away until they were looking at a handsome, serene-faced man. He wore pale, scholarly robes with yellow and orange clouds stitched along the hems. His hair was long and black, sleek as a fall ofink.
Zen loosed a breath as he caught sight of the sash on the apparition’s waist, conferring the man’s status.
Grandmaster. The core of this mó had once been the grandmaster of the School of Guarded Fists.
Zen stepped away from Lan and sheathed his sword. A knot formed in his throat as he knelt, bringing the palms of his hands to the ground before him. “Shi’zu,” he said. “Grandmaster.”
The man—the echo of his soul—inclined his head, and without a word, he began to fade, his pale light dimming until only sparks of it drifted away on a wanton wind, and then there was nothing at all but the silence of a time long gone.
Zen remained where he was, prostrated at the feet of a soul released from the fetters of this world. The sting of tears had frozen many times over in his chest. Beneath that: a chasm of anger.
The Elantians had done this.
A soft touch on his shoulder, a voice of silver bells. “Zen?”
Zen straightened. Lan was watching him, expression cautious.
“Was he…was he a demonic practitioner?” she asked at last.
“Yes.” His voice was hoarse.
“Shàn’jun told me that to borrow a demon’s power, you have to give something in return,” she said quietly. “Usually a part of your physical body. But how did…how did that grandmasterbecomethe demon?”
It sickened him to speak, but he pushed forward anyway. “Lesser demons will typically take physical body parts as payment. But the more powerful demons will request something more valuable to them. Something that will contribute to their core of energies and grow their power, grounding them to this world.” He closed his eyes. “That grandmaster must have bargained his soul to the demon, tethering them both to this place. That is how he and the demon merged into one.”
“We have to keep going.” Lan’s voice was soft. When he opened his eyes again, he found her looking at him, gaze bright as black pebbles. “That mó—he was the grandmaster of this school. And he tethered his soul to this place, warping it into something so—so twisted…” She shuddered and looked away. “It must have been to guard something precious. Something he did not wish to fall into Elantian hands.” A pause, and then she said, quieter still, “Perhaps it is the same thing that my mother died to protect.”
Zen looked to the empty chair. Thought of the Seal written on the ground in blood, of the village fallen to ruin. The silver cuff in his pouch, engraved with the sigil of Elantian magicians.
He had the feeling there was more to it than they knew. The courtyard was thick and layered with currents of qì woveninto Seals, some so ancient they had settled into the bones of the houses and the roots of the soil; some newer, pulsing gently.
Zen reached into his silk pouch and drew out three sticksof incense. With a quick Seal, he lit them, their light and sweet smoke a welcome change from the darkness pressing in.
They walked in the opposite direction of the smoke to the western sidehouse. The door was a creaky old wooden thing with paint peeling off. Locked.
Lan stepped in front of him and pressed a finger to the wood. “There is a Seal here, made mostly of wood,” she murmured, and looked at him like a student waiting for her master’s approval. “Wood and metal. They’re woven together in a complicated pattern. Yin, yáng—balanced.”
He tried not to let his wonder show on his face. Ordinarily, it could take moons of meditation and training for a disciple to begin to discern the elements in the qì around them, and acycle or two before they were able to produce the most basic of Seals. For someone who had found out about the existence of practitioning just several weeks ago to perceive the traces of Seals—not to mention their makeup, and theirpatterns—was nothing short of miraculous.
“Correct. Now, watch me unlock it.” Zen touched his fingers to her palm; she held very still, paying careful attention. He asked, “What combination of elements do you think would make up the Counterseal?”
“According to the cycle of destruction between the elements,” she said immediately, “fire melts metal, and metal cuts down wood. So if I trace the exact opposite of this Seal using fire and metal to break the grid of metal and wood, would that work?”
