He turned just as Shàn’jun emerged from one of the hallways leading to the kitchens. The boy held a clay bowl of broth in his hand. He froze as he spotted Zen, his eyes widening and his mouth dropping. “You have returned,” the Medicine disciple said with a tentative smile.
Zen had wished to avoid this. He shot the Nameless Master a pointed look, and the man disappeared down the palace’s halls to rouse the sleeping disciples. Shàn’jun watched this exchange with open confusion.
“Is something happening?” he asked, and then glanced down at the broth in his hands. “Ah, I had made this to bring to the Nameless Master on his watch tonight, as I have heard him cough from the chill, but it seems he is gone.” He brightened slightly. “There is more in the kitchen, I could get you a bowl—”
“Shàn’jun.” Zen’s tone stopped him. The Medicine disciple’s smile faded slightly. “The war is to begin, and I need you and the other disciples to be somewhere safe. That is why I have asked the Nameless Master to rouse everyone and gather them here.”
Shàn’jun’s brows creased. Zen looked away. He could not stand the sympathy in his friend’s gaze—not when he deserved none of it. “Zen’ge,” he said, and Zen nearly flinched at the honorific.Older brother.Shàn’jun had not called him that in so many cycles, not since Zen had lost control of his demon and hurt Dilaya. “I may be neither strong nor well-trained in combat practitioning, but…I am a disciple of Medicine. Let me go with you. Perhaps I can be of some use.”
Zen exhaled long and looked at his friend. “I will not need it, but your skills will be of use at the place you are going.”
“I do not understand. Are you not coming?”
“Shàn’jun.” How was he to explain an entire lifetime of regret? How was he to convey that he wished he had been kinder, that he had valued their friendship, so much so that he had been terrified of hurting Shàn’jun as well and had thus begun to push him away?
He couldn’t. Voices and footsteps were starting to sound in the hallways as the disciples began to wake.
“This is a war I must fight alone,” Zen said instead, “and I do not know when we will meet again. Please know that if I have caused you any grief, I am so, so sorry. And that I wish you happiness always.” There it was again, that pain locking up his chest and his throat, making it difficult to speak. Zen spoke through it. “I promise you will find happiness where you are going.”
The hall was filling up now, former disciples of the School of the White Pines stumbling in, rubbing sleep from their eyes. Their drowsiness vanished when they caught sight of Zen.
“Zen’ge,” Shàn’jun said, but Zen was already turning away. “Zen’ge! Zen—”
Zen approached Master Nur of the Light Arts, who filed in with a throng of younger disciples. The Nameless Master followed closely behind.
“This is everyone?” Zen asked. When they confirmed, he nodded. “Follow.”
The two masters seemed to have done well with consoling the disciples; they made no sounds of protest as they trailed after Zen into the freezing night. They had to leave the perimeters of his Boundary Seal in order for him to conjure a Gate Seal.
Once they were outside the Boundary Seal, Zen came to a stop. He turned to the disciples clustered together in the cold. “The war is to begin,” he said, “and the place you are going will be safe.” He dipped his head slightly. “It has been an honor.”
The Gate Seal came to him easily once he opened his mindand let the Black Tortoise in.The Sòng courtyard house,he stated, and the Demon God yielded the memory of the location. Zen paused for a moment as the image of Lan’s childhood home drifted into his mind’s eye: a traditional Hin courtyard house with gray terracotta roofs that curved to the skies over white walls. Round moon gates led to gardens and terraces; weeping willows dipped their branches into clear-glass ponds. No doubt this was an older memory and the courtyard house would have gone through the turmoil of the eras and Elantian invasion, but the location would remain the same.
He smiled as he traced out the Gate Seal, imagining a smaller Lan darting through the gardens chased by tutors. A swirl here, a dot there: departure, destination, a straight stroke to connect them, and then a circle to close the Seal. Black flame erupted, and in the midst of Where the Flame Rises and the Stars Fall, the courtyard house appeared through a bamboo forest beneath a coat of winter snow.
The ache in his heart resurfaced. Lan would be there, just within reach.
Zen swallowed and looked away, back to the disciples. “May the winds be smooth upon your path,” he said.
Master Nur went first. He paused before the Seal, looked at Zen, and pressed his fist to his palm. A salute.
“Shi’fù,” Zen said in quiet surprise.
“Walk well” was all Master Nur said. It was a shortened version of the sayingWalk well upon your Way,a traditional parting greeting for practitioners. Zen watched him step through the Gate Seal.
Disciples followed, all familiar faces he had seen at Skies’ End, some even classmates. Some dipped their heads in his direction while others only cast him frightened glances.
When it was Shàn’jun’s turn, the Medicine disciple paused. He reached out, clasping his hands over Zen’s. “I left the brothfor you on the table,” he said quietly. “It will replenish your qì. When we meet again, I will make it for you fresh.”
“Thank you,” Zen said, and then his friend was gone, and there was only one person left.
The Nameless Master fixed an indecipherable gaze upon him. “If I predict correctly,” he said, his tone like the whistle of wind through dry valleys, “then you have earned this greeting: ‘Kingdom before life, honor into death.’ ”
It was the parting greeting the masters at the School of the White Pines had spoken, and Zen knew well its meaning: the honor of sacrifice, of giving one’s life to protect their people. It was a farewell worthy only of the legendary heroes that had once walked the rivers and lakes of this kingdom.
He bowed his head. When he looked up again, the Nameless Master was gone.
Zen looked into his Gate Seal for a moment longer. Within, he glimpsed a courtyard house blanketed in snow, weeping willows bent over a frozen pond. He imagined Lan sitting at one of the fretwork windows, horsetail brush in hand as she bent over scrolls.
