“No, Shàn’jun,” Zen said. “It should be me asking for your forgiveness. All the yin here…the history….” He swallowed, uncertain how to go on to explain the monster he’d dreamt.
“I understand,” Shàn’jun said gently, and Zen looked away. He did not deserve sympathy. Not when he’d nearly hurt someone who had once been precious to him. “I will clean the tea.”
“Leave it,” Zen said, more sharply than he meant. He softened his tone. “Please. Go get some sleep. I will clean up.”
Shàn’jun hesitated. “The Elantians are gathering in the Emaran Desert,” he blurted out, and Zen could tell this was what he’d waited up for. “The Nameless Master returned from a day of scouting. I overheard him tell Master Nur that he senses they are closing in on something—someone.” His eyes shone with hope, and that struck Zen harder than any blade. “Do you think…would you think there is a possibility…?”
Someone.There was no question as to whom Shàn’jun referred; there was only one target besides Zen that might draw Elantians like a swarm of flies.
Sòng Lián.
Zen had begun running the palace as he would a camp, assigning duties to the disciples including procuring food and supplies. He’d asked the Nameless Master and a few older disciples to scout the area and bring him news of any Elantian troop movements. The Master of Assassins had a way of tracking qì over impossible distances, of hearing whispers in the way the winds turned and the trees swayed and the rivers shifted.
If the Nameless Master had declined to report the news to Zen at supper, it was likely a secret he’d meant to keep.
Zen had kept a few secrets of his own: That they weren’t the only survivors from the School of the White Pines. That one of them was Chó Tài, the Spirit Summoner Shàn’jun loved.
And that Zen had saved Lan that night.
Zen could not meet his friend’s eyes. Instead, he looked out at the open-air doorway, at the stars winking in a sky of ink. “Why are you telling me this?” he intoned.
“Because…if Lan is alive…”—Shàn’jun swallowed—“if she is alive, she might need help.”
Zen shut his eyes briefly. How like the gentle-natured Medicine disciple to hope for this. “And if she were alive, would you leave me for her?”
Shàn’jun’s lips parted. He hesitated, but Zen already knew the answer.
Zen turned abruptly and made for the doors. He could sense his former friend’s eyes on him, the silent answer to that question stretching taut between them—along with the plea Shàn’jun had made.
She might need help.
Outside, stars reeled over his head, as bright as coins. He recalled a story his mother had told him, a myth of a realm beyond this one, beyond the River of Forgotten Death and the Nine Springs of Immortality, where the souls of the dead went to rest. The stars were the guardians of the veil between this world and the next, immortals who had given their cores of qì and their souls to the service of guarding the peace between worlds and lives.
Zen wondered what awaited him in the realm beyond thisone.
He tipped his head to the moonlight spilling from the heavens and exhaled, his breath unfurling in a cloud.
The truth was, a plan had begun to form in his mind the moment Shàn’jun told him the news. The remainder of theClassic of Gods and Demonswas locked by a Seal wrought with the power of the Crimson Phoenix—one so powerful, even the Black Tortoise could not conjure the Counterseal.
The star maps Zen had transcribed from Lan’s ocarina music were wrinkled with wear. He averted his gaze from the quadrant holding the location of the Black Tortoise—seeing it never failed to provoke guilt as he recalled the betrayal on Lan’s face when she’d found out his intentions to bind it—and focused on the quadrant that gave the location of the Phoenix.
To find the location a star map pointed to, one had to deduce which part of the world matched the view of the night sky presented in the map. In his time at the school, Zen had never put too much stock in the Art of Geomancy, which included astrology. The Crimson Phoenix, he’d surmised from the star map, was somewhere southwest of the palace.
Somewhere, if Zen’s rough calculations were correct, in the Emaran Desert.
From the pillars of the entryway, the shadows stirred. They parted to reveal a man who might have been sculpted from them. It was impossible to say where he had come from, for there was nowhere in the chamber he might have hidden—but such was the talent of a Master of Assassins.
Zen’s jaw tightened as the Nameless Master stepped out before him. His first instinct was to reach for his jiàn—but that was ridiculous, as the master was on his side. The master’s hooded eyes, though, missed nothing. They darted to Zen’s waist, to the slight twitch of his fingers. To the star maps Zen held in his hands, the tome tucked under his arm.
Zen wondered how much of his attack on Shàn’jun the Nameless Master had seen. He had the paranoid suspicion that this man had the impossible ability to read minds.
Not so impossible,whispered the Black Tortoise. Its shadow lingered in a corner of Zen’s mind.Qì, as you know, is not limitedto the physical realm. There remain few with the ability to sense the qì of emotions. Of thoughts. Of souls.
Zen swallowed and inclined his head. “Shi’fù.” No matter how far up in ranking and societal status one climbed in life, one’s master of practitioning was forever his master…even if Zen now held the authority.
“The Medicine disciple informed you after all,” the Master of Assassins said, his voice like wind on a starless night.
Not for the first time, Zen was uncertain how to respond. “Is there something I can help you with?” he replied, keeping his tone neutral.
