A vicious cycle he had seen across the Last Kingdom, across his people.
Thiswas the consequence of refusing power.Thiswas the damnation of rejecting the idea of becoming gods: you became ruled by newer, crueler, merciless gods.
The Hin had seen this within the eras of the First, Middle, and Last Kingdoms: the rise and fall of clans, of emperors, of dynasties. The elements were in constant flux, each vanquishing the other in a cycle of destruction and rebirth.
Perhaps this was the truth to the Way.
Perhaps this was all meant to be.
And in the darkness, a new thought came to him like a flame.
It is the duty of those with power to protect those without.
If the Hin had the power of the Demon Gods…if they could harness that power against the Elantians…
No.For his entire life, he had lived under the shadow of the Nightslayer’s mistake, the one that had given the Ninety-Nine Clans their reputation and destroyed their chances of ever returning. The one that had marked demonic practitioning as a stain upon Hin history.
He knew the dangers.
Zen held out a hand. “Let me keep the ocarina safe for you,” he said.
Lan’s eyes darted to him; she hesitated, only a fraction of a second, but he sensed it.
Zen tapped the black silk pouch emblazoned with the emblem of red fire at his waist. “This is a practitioner’s storage pouch. It can expand endlessly as needed.” He forced a smile.“I promise to take care of the ocarina for you. Have I ever broken a promise?”
For a moment, he thought she might refuse. Then Lan leaned forward, squinting at him. “Why are you smiling? I get nervous when you’re all sweet talk and honeyed words.”
He frowned. “You would have me brood all day, then?”
She grinned. “Exactly,” she said, and just like that, she handed him the box that held the ocarina. It was no heavier than a rock, yet it seemed to hold the weight of worlds as he held it in his palms. The weight of her trust.
Carefully, Zen slipped it in his pouch. “Let us be on our way, then,” he said, and pressed his fingers to the stone door. The qì of the Seals swirled against his touch, and he pulled on the threads that would form the Counterseal.
The door ground open and they stepped out.
That was when Lan screamed.
Zen’s focus sharpened; he’d barely felt the shift in qì around them when fire streaked through his veins, splitting him with pain from the inside out.
Dully, Zen felt his body hit the floor. He was paralyzed, the qì in his flesh and blood unbalanced with the intrusion of cool, hard metal spliced into his bones. His mouth was filled with warmth, the sharp tang of blood mixed with the presence of metal all around them.
“Hello, my little singer.” The voice drifted to him from somewhere nearby, colder than winter’s ice, as the edges of his consciousness faded into darkness. “Did you truly think I would let you slip through my fingers again?”
Strength without restraint and power without balance are akin to a path into darkness without light.
—Dào’zi,Book of the Way (Classic of Virtues),1.7
Trapped in a wagon made of metal and darkness, Lan felt as though she’d returned to the Teahouse; to Haak’gong beneath the watchful stares of their conquerors, her every move scrutinized and her every choice made for her. The freedom of Skies’ End, the days spent learning to fight with the arts of practitioning, now seemed like an illusion. As though it had never happened at all.
Her left arm throbbed, the metalwork in her flesh pulsing as it responded to the overwhelming presence of Elantian magic all around them. Metal shackled her wrists to the walls, the carriage blocking out the flow of qì from the other elements. Zen was chained to the wall across from her, locks of his hair fallen before his face. The Winter Magician had electrocuted him until he’d lost consciousness.
She couldn’t tell how long the journey took; it might have been hours, or it might have been a day. At last, they pulled to a stop, the doors opened, and Lan was hauled out by a pair of Elantian Angels.
It was still night, the shadows of jagged mountains crowning the tips of the pine forest behind them. The walls rose between the trees, sudden and stark, a metal-and-stone intrusion blotting out the stars, looking so utterly foreign amidst the flow of wind and water. Lan heard the clink of chains and a thud as the guards dragged Zen between them.
A feeling of powerlessness overtook Lan as the Elantian Central Outpost loomed over them. She was awake, qì flowing around her, yet she was unable to conjure even a single Seal to save their lives.
The ground beneath their feet widened into a smoothed-out lime-mortar road, cutting a straight line through the forest toward the stronghold’s walls.
