With all but two of their masters killed and their formerhome destroyed, all the disciples, just children and teens, had agreed. Even two former masters—Nur of the Light Arts and the Nameless Master of Assassins—had followed.
Zen wasn’t certain why he’d made the offer. It would have been foolish of him to believe that a group of so few practitioners, most only half-trained, would be the army to take down the Elantian Empire.
No, Zen thought, turning back to the ruins of the Palace of Eternal Peace: the army he sought lay buried somewhere deep inside, along with the bones and magic of his people.
Growing up, he’d heard whispers, among those of his clan who were left, of a fearsome army of riders Xan Tolürigin had led, who were powerful beyond imagination—and summoned bymagic.It was said the Nightslayer had led these riders to defeat entire clans, to conquer whole territories and shape the Mansorians into one of the most powerful clans in history, second only to the imperial family. Zen remembered late nights curled up in wools inside his yurt, the firelight outside flickering against the walls and outlining the shadows of the adults who sat around the fire, whispering in half awe, half fear. The faithful riders of Xan Tolürigin still existed, they murmured, and could be awakened with a certain magic, one so dangerous and powerful that only Xan Tolürigin had been able to use it with the help of his Demon God.
Now Zen had inherited his great-grandfather’s Demon God; he would find and raise this legendary army and declare war against the Elantians. And if there were any traces of the secrets and old magic Xan Tolürigin had used to summon his army, they would be found within the collective tomb of his people and his heritage.
Zen had thought it through: he would target the Royal Magicians first. The strategy was an old Mansorian war proverb: The viper is only as venomous as its fangs. The Elantians wereonly as powerful as their magicians. Take them out, and the entire army would be crippled.
Zen cast his gaze about the group of disciples, knowing that, no matter how many times he searched, he would not find the only face he sought. Pebble-bright eyes, curved in mischief; smile-tinged lips like flower petals; chin-length hair like black silk that shifted when she turned to gaze at him.
Pain cut across his chest, followed by the torrent of memories and crushing grief that came with any thought of her. The black-glass lake, swallowing the light of the stars. Lan, standing on the same shore yet a thousandliaway in that moment, betrayal filling her eyes when she learned of his bargain with the Black Tortoise.
Please, Zen, don’t choose this.
And he’d uttered the words that cleaved their path in two, once and for all:If you are not with me, then you are against me.
Zen ground his nails into his palms, dragging himself back to the present. “Shàn’jun.” His voice cut through the whistling wind. At the front of the line, a disciple turned to him, a young man around the same age as Zen. His slim face, once smooth as river water, was now ragged with exhaustion, his long black hair unkempt where it had once fallen like a sheet of ink. His lips were chapped, the cleft on the upper lip crusted with dried blood. Shàn’jun’s gentle eyes had once gazed upon Zen with warmth; now the spark in them flickered and died as he lowered his head.
“Yes, Temurezen.” His voice was calm. Cool, with a tight undercurrent of caution. He had taken to calling Zen by his full name in front of the others.
Zen and Shàn’jun might have been friends once—but that was when Zen had only been Zen, practitioner and disciple at the School of the White Pines.
Now he was Xan Temurezen, sole surviving heir to theMansorian clan and great-grandson of former clan leader and rebel Xan Tolürigin.
He had no friends. Only allies.
“Stay here until I send word. The place is filled with yin,” Zen said brusquely, then turned and strode through the yawning gates.
Debris and remnants of stone foundations littered what must have once been a magnificent courtyard. As he did with most new places, he turned his focus to the qì flowing within. Qì—the energy in the makeup of all things in this world, both physical and metaphysical—was bifurcated into yáng, the energy of all life, light, and warmth, and yin, the energy of death, darkness, and cold. Qì was also the basis of all practitioning—ormagic,as the common folk liked to call it. It existed everywhere and in everyone; practitioners were merely those born with the ability to sense it all and weave different strands of it into Seals.
He could feel the thick layer of yin clinging to the ruins. So much bloodshed, so much pain, and so much fear in its final days…yet before that…Zen closed his eyes and dug deeper. Before that…there had been light andlife,which he now felt glimmering beneath the layers of yin like the lost warmth of a cup of tea gone cold.
Hints of a life he should have had, one he had never known.
Ah.That inevitable voice came again, this time the rumble of distant thunder. The one he had come to dread in the hours after dark, once the fires died and the voices of his companions gave way to silence.But I have known it.
Overhead, the clouds darkened as a shadow stirred beyond them. It yawned to life, stretching across half the sky—a shadow only Zen could see, with a voice only he could hear. An existence he had bound to himself, one that continued to expand inside him until it threatened to drown him day afterday.
Zen stiffened as the Black Tortoise flickered into clarity. Eyes the crimson of war and bloodshed burned as they turned to him; a claw shifted so that it appeared to grip the distant mountains as the Demon God lowered its head to him.
I remember your legacy. I can show you that which was stolen from you. That which you wish to rebuild.
That gave Zen pause. The Demon God had been in existence since long before the birth of this world. It had witnessed the tides and turns of history and all the triumphs and failures of humankind.
And it had been there with Zen’s great-grandfather when he’d ridden into wars with his legendary army. What if the Black Tortoise could provide clues as to the ancient magic Xan Tolürigin had used with his army?
Since Zen had bound the Demon God to him at Black Pearl Lake nearly a moon ago, he had devoted every ounce of his energy to shutting it out. A demonic bargain was always one of exchange: surrendering an eye, an arm, a leg, or, in the most extreme cases, one’s entire body in return for access to the demon’s power. If Zen refrained from using the Demon God’s power, he would need to yield nothing further of himself to the being.
The bargain he had sealed with it echoed in his mind, haunting him as it had for the past weeks.
With each time that you use my power, with each soul that you deliver, I take more of your body. Then your mind. Last, your soul.
No—he would pay no heed to the wicked temptations of this being. He had pledged his mind to the Demon God’s control as part of their bargain, but he refused to lose it so swiftly to the creature. That meant he had to abstain from use of its power unless absolutely necessary, for Zen planned to unleash the power of his Demon God only in the final battle against the Elantians.
Zen kept walking, footsteps sounding quicker and sharper. Directly ahead was a great forsaken temple. Traditional Mansorian and Hin architecture bore resemblances in the upward-curving green roofs and red motifs—the two cultures had thousands of cycles of intersection and commingling, after all. Yet here and there, Zen could spot differences: the curved side domes, alluding to the yurts his people inhabited; the touches of gold and blue, representing the sun and the Eternal Sky his people worshiped.
