“That would be one way to do it, but there are others. Performing Seals may seem like a science in its basics, but the more you learn, the more it becomes a form of art.” He shifted his hand around hers, trying not to focus on the touch of her skin against his. “Channel qì. I will guide your strokes.”
It was a marvel to feel the energies she summoned withprecision, each akin to pulling a single thread from a tapestry. Together, they traced the Seal, stroke by stroke, then drew the circle from beginning to end.
The Seal flashed silver briefly before dissolving into the door. Beneath the spirit screen windows, the band of fretwork brightened, the motifs of clouds and flora and fauna glowing with a metallic luster.
With a click, the door swung open.
The interior was dark and damp, a preternatural chill permeating the hallways. As soon as Zen stepped over the wooden threshold, the smoke from his incense sticks rippled suddenly.
He looked down the hallway, thick with shadows. Out of the corners of his eyes, they seemed to move.
Zen led Lan through the hallway, past shuttered doors with fretwork carved in intricate designs. It was strange, he thought, that there were no signs of pillaging or plunder. Lacquered-rosewood cabinets lined the walls, porcelain vases and sandalwood jewelry cases sitting atop them. A prayer altar remained undisturbed, statues of the myriad immortals gleaming in the dim light of the incense sticks as they passed.
Lan’s voice came out in a near-whisper. “Why is the yin so strong here?”
“Because this house is filled with ghosts,” he replied. “Without a summoning, we cannot see them—but the incense can. The smoke flees from yin.” He turned to her. The red tips of the incense sticks reflected in her eyes, lined the curves of her lashes. “In a house of the dead guarded by ghosts and demons, how would we find the object most stringently protected?”
“By finding the densest concentration of yin.”
“Precisely.”
They had reached the end of the corridor. A faded red door loomed in the darkness, hoary with dust and cobwebs, its copper doorknockers in the shape of swirling clouds.
Zen raised the incense sticks. The smoke plumed away from the door in a straight line.
“In there,” Lan said. Her voice held a note of anticipation mixed with dread.
“In there,” Zen confirmed.
She studied the door. “Another Lock Seal?”
“No.” Zen trailed his hand down the wood. “I think we should just…” He slipped a hand over one of the copper doorknockers and released.
The knock cracked like the breaking of stone. It echoed in the air around them.
Then, slowly, of their own volition, the doors creaked open.
The chamber before them was large, the size of a classroom. It appeared utterly empty but for an elegant rosewood table in the center.
A single chair stood by it, facing them.
Zen thought of the sole chair left out in the courtyard earlier. This time, though, there was no Seal, nothing tying the souls of the dead to this room other than the faintest echoes of their living wills.
Zen had experience with finding the imprints of the dead upon this world. It was, after all, what had both saved and destroyed his life thirteen cycles ago.
He turned to Lan. “It seems the time has come for another unplanned lesson in the classifications of supernatural creatures. Watch carefully, for I am about to summon the ghosts ofthe dead to understand what fate befell the School of Guarded Fists.”
Kingdom before life, honor into death.
—Grandmaster of the School of Guarded Fists, Elantian Age, Cycle II
Zen handed Lan the three sticks of incense. Their flared tips were the only source of light, casting the chamber in an eerie red. A shiver ran up Lan’s spine. She felt certain that she was on the precipice of parting a veil that had been cast onto her life since the Elantians invaded. Her mother’s death, the Winter Magician’s search, the half-forgotten song, the echo of her mother’s imprint…All of it had led here.
She watched Zen steeple his fingers. “I thought Spirit Summoning was only passed down through a clan.”
“You speak of the Chó clan,” Zen said. “You are correct in that Spirit Summoning is their specialty—this art of practitioning is passed down through their bloodline. But they taught it to disciples from outside their clan at the School of the Peaceful Light throughout the First and Middle Kingdom periods.”
“What happened after?” She had an idea, already, of the next part of the story.
