“But why?” I demand.
“You’ll have to ask her,” Hào’yáng repeats. He’s walking toward me, and for some reason, each step closer he comes sets a strange fluttering in my stomach. My hand goes to my chest, fingers curling over my jade pendant beneath my layers of clothing. “There is no formal training offered prior to the trials anymore. But there is no Precept forbidding it, either.”
“The Precepts forbid any type of relationship between the candidates and the immortals.”
“You’re right,” he says, unfazed. He undoes the buckles of his lamellar armor. “But that rule doesn’t apply to me.” The pieces of his armor fall to the ground, and he steps out in a plain white shift. It’s tight-fitting, and this close, I’m struck by how strong he is, muscles sculpted from what I assume to be an eternity of training and using spirit energy to cultivate his physical form into immortal perfection.
“Why not?” I ask.
“Because,” he says with a wry smile, “I’m mortal.”
—
Mortal. He’smortal.
I think back to all the details I picked up about him, and how this makes perfect sense. The way his complexion lacks the ethereal radiance and perfection of all immortals—how gazing at him feels like looking at the quiet steadiness of the earth instead of the brilliant, blazing beauty of the sun. How his skin is rougher and he carries traces of small scars our mortal bodies cannot heal as the immortals’ can. How he couldn’t fly or summon a cloud but had to call upon Meadowsweet.
Mortal sympathizer,the immortal with the fan called Shi’ya, and now I understand.
Hào’yáng watches the shock and epiphany play out on my face. “Don’t believe me? If you hit me, I’ll bruise just like you.” Then he smiles, and it’s like seeing the sun come out from behind clouds. “Your first task: get one hit on me. I’m going to assess your skills.”
I tilt my head, considering. “One hit, one answer to a question,” I negotiate.
“To a question that Icananswer,” he shoots back. “Onethat doesn’t involve the realm’s security or political interests or other people’s secrets.”
I smile innocently at him and clasp my hands behind my back. With a flick of my wrist, Fleet is in one hand, Shadow in the other. “Deal,” I say, and tap my spirit energy into them.
I charge. Hào’yáng swerves back, but Shadow’s talisman is strong enough to bypass mortal eyes. Another pivot and my palm is pressed to his chest, daggers back in the hidden straps within my sleeves.
“Hit,” I say, and release Shadow’s talisman.
The edges of his eyes curve as I reappear in front of him, and he gives me a long, assessing look. “No magical daggers next round.”
“They’re crescent blades,” I correct, but I’m also grinning as I draw my hand back. My grin fades slightly when I ask, “Did they find the killer?”
“No,” he says, and I can see him weighing his response carefully. “But you were right. The immortals believe candidate Number One was killed by a mó.”
A mó. I was right.
My mind inevitably flits to the only part-mó I know that has access to this place: Yù’chén. “You don’t think it could have been another candidate, given the nature of the trials?” I say carefully. “If I were the immortals, I’d begin by investigating the top candidates.”
“They are,” he replies. “They’ve confirmed that the other top five candidates were all in the training temple at the time. We’ll continue tracking everyone, but rest assured, there is heavier guard presence around the Candidates’ Courtyard now.”
A crash of waves roars in my ears. “Numbers Two through Five were in the training temple?” I croak.
“Yes.” Hào’yáng pauses and gives me a narrow smile. “I think that was more than one question.”
I nod and raise my fists, but my mind is elsewhere.Why don’t we survive this trial first, andthenyou can go back to accusing me of the monstrous things you think I do.
Suddenly, Yù’chén’s anger at me feels insufficient.
Without my blades, I’m no match for Hào’yáng, and my focus slips as my mind wanders to Yù’chén, to all the horrible things I’ve said to him and accused him of. When a missed jab throws me off balance, Hào’yáng catches me by my forearm to stop me from face-planting into the sand.
“Àn’ying,” he says. “Focus.The trials will only become more competitive; the Third could start any day. You almost died during the First, and I don’t want to have to watch you—”
“How do you know I almost died?” That day, everyone knows I came last—but not that I nearly drowned in the sea. We are close, our chests rising and falling quickly, and it’s through the tangle of our breaths that I catch Hào’yáng’s slight inhale. His hand tightens on my wrist, and just like that, I see the walls go back up, the coolness return to his eyes as he considers his response.
I save him from answering by tapping my fingers to his chest. Unexpectedly, I feel the groove of something sharp beneath his clothes—a dagger, or perhaps another layer of armor.
