Darkening Skies

by eden Hudson

  Chapter Seven

  10 YEARS AGO

  That afternoon, while the rest of the students were gathering their congee and fried bread from the kitchen, Raijin dragged himself into the dining hall and fell lengthwise onto a bench. Every muscle in his body ached and throbbed and occasionally cramped in excruciating pain. The back of his neck felt like the weight cord had rubbed a hole through his skin and into his spine, and he was certain he had a bruise on each side of his chest where the weights had been hitting.

  Running had been bad, but Moving Meditation had been the worst. Stepping at a crawl through every hand and foot technique when his body wanted nothing more than to fall apart had made him want to scream. In fact, he’d done it a few times as they neared the end, the shout ripped up from the bottom of his stomach. He’d had to. Otherwise, he felt he would have just collapsed in a heap on the flagstones.

  Raijin threw his arm over his face. If one could have nightmares about exercise, today’s training was guaranteed to wrench him from a sound sleep.

  The dull roar of conversations filled the dining hall. A girl laughed, her voice musical. A bench scraped. Someone argued for spiritual medicine while someone else claimed there was no substitute for demon core stones. The bench was hard beneath him, and too narrow to span his shoulders, but at least he wasn’t moving. And without the weights, he felt lighter than air. If he weren’t so tired, he thought, he could leap over the Shangyang Mountains.

  A clatter on the table above startled him. He must have drifted off for a moment.

  “You always get me into trouble,” Yong Lei complained.

  “Never that much trouble before.” Raijin cracked an eyelid and pushed himself up on one elbow. “I think we hurt Master Palgwe’s pride, interrupting him in front of the new student.”

  Yong Lei sat across from him, scooping a spoon into a steaming bowl. When he saw Raijin sitting up, he pointed at the second bowl he’d brought.

  “Eat your congee before I do, laughing bird.”

  Raijin grinned and gave a half bow. “Thank you, sulking horse.”

  “Why can’t you ever break your leg during your morning tasks?” Yong Lei grumbled. “If you missed training one day, I wouldn’t get a punishment.”

  Raijin sat up the rest of the way and took a huge bite of the piping hot, savory rice porridge. Fatty had used chicken and vegetables in it this time. It was one of his best creations so far, imbued with the chef’s natural Strength Restoration ability. With the first bite, Raijin felt energy returning to his exhausted body, flowing down the Ro paths and into his heartcenter like cooling rainwater on a hot summer roof. The edge came off the throbbing pain, and the looming threat of muscle cramps dissipated.

  “The weights are good for you,” he told Yong Lei between bites. “The harder you train, the stronger your Ro will become. And you’ll need all the help you can get if you want to advance to Rain before I do.”

  Yong Lei looked up from his congee long enough to make a rude hand sign, then went back to eating. “Don’t be late for afternoon training, servant boy. I’m not saving you a spot this time.”

  Laughing, Raijin finished off the rest of his rice porridge and bread, then bolted down his water. After returning his bowl to Fatty and thanking the chef for the wonderful food, he raced upstairs to the masters’ quarters to find Master Chugi.

  Yong Lei might have been joking, but he was also right. Raijin had afternoon chores that needed tending before he could go to afternoon training, and after that morning, he didn’t want to risk being late.

  Chapter Eight

  10 YEARS AGO

  That night, Raijin limped his way to the massive library. It housed every scroll, tablet, and book the Path of Darkening Skies’s practitioners had ever brought to the school, knowledge from both sides of the mountain and beyond. If a student did not already know how to find what they were looking for, they could easily spend weeks searching the shelves and sparrow holes for a single text, but Raijin was well acquainted with the stacks. He visited often on his rare days off training and every night before bed, searching for Master Chugi’s requests.

  He wound his way through the shelves with a demon firefly lantern. No actual fire was allowed in the most prized room in the school. The glowing green bugs flitted around inside the glass globe, their green lights casting an unnatural amount of illumination onto the scrolls and books around him. Each of the scrolls was stored inside a wooden tube with the name of the story or subject of the text carved onto the side and each end, and the books were slipped into special oiled leather packages with the title or subject tooled into the edges and both covers.

  As Raijin searched, the smell of rich leather, exotic woods, ink, and parchment curled inside his head like a calming incense. He loved the library, but the last of his strength was waning, and he still had one serving task to complete before he could return to his room and fall onto his bed mat.

  It took longer than he would’ve liked, but finally, he found the book Master Chugi had requested, a bound volume wrapped in dusty leather. The words Tale of the Thunderbird and the Dark Dragon had been worked into its covering.

  He dusted the book off and tucked it under his arm, then returned the firefly lantern to Master Tang-Soo at the library’s central desk.

  “Book?” she asked without looking up from her ledger. Green firefly light briefly illuminated her sunken, papery features. The effect was to make her look nearly as old as Master Chugi, though in many lights Raijin had always thought Master Tang-Soo looked young enough to be a sister to Master Palgwe. That could have been her Ro, however. Many masters looked much younger than they were because their cultivations slowed their aging.

  “Tale of the Thunderbird and the Dark Dragon, Esteemed Library Master.”

  “Studying up on what you have to do to become the chosen one?” she asked, holding back her sleeve as she painted the title into the ledger with the precise strokes of a master calligrapher.

  “I am bringing it to Master Chugi, Library Master,” Raijin said. He didn’t add, Like I do every night. He wasn’t sure the library master paid enough attention to humans to notice that he had been borrowing a different book every night since Chugi began to lose his sight.

  Master Tang-Soo nodded, her hair sliding softly over her smooth cheeks with a sound like whispering pages. “Tell him to have it back by tomorrow.”

  “I will bring it back tonight when he finishes it, Master Tang-Soo.” Like he did every night.

  Raijin bowed to her, keeping his gaze on her face though she wasn’t looking his way. Politeness dictated that he treat every master as if they could strike him dead at any moment, never exposing the vulnerable back of his neck to them, even if they couldn’t be bothered to pay him any attention.

  This late, the halls between the library and Master Chugi’s residence were empty. Everyone had retired to their rooms except for the library master and him. There were days when Raijin didn’t want to do his tasks, days when he wished he could just lie in bed and be expelled from the school, but it was silent times like these that he relished the idea of being one of the last people out at night, knowing that in a few hours, he would be one of the first back out again.

  Firelight flickered and danced off the walls in Master Chugi’s room as Raijin let himself in. Reclining on his bed mat, Master Chugi at first looked to be asleep, but the old man turned expectantly to follow the sound of Raijin’s movements as he crossed the room and lit a lantern.

  “Did you find it, my boy?” Master Chugi asked in his craggy voice.

  Raijin brought the lantern to the old man’s side and sat on the floor beside him. Carefully, he unfolded the protective leather covering the paper book.

  “The Tale of the Thunderbird and the Dark Dragon, as requested.”

  “Well, go on,” the old man said, waving his gnarled hands impatiently.

  Raijin carefully opened and leafed through the paper book to the beginning.

  “The chosen one was born
in a village at the foot of the rainbird’s nesting mountains...”

  Master Chugi settled back on his mat and folded his hands over his frail birdlike chest. The old man listened, enthralled, as Raijin read him the story of tragedy, battle, betrayal, love and loss, though it quickly became apparent that Master Chugi was even more tired than he was. The elderly master’s eyelids slowly drooped closed, then his mouth eased open. When the sound of throaty snoring filled the residence, Raijin switched from reading aloud to reading to himself. It was the first time he’d read this book, and he couldn’t put it down. He didn’t see how the Thunderbird would stop the evil Dragon and save the world, but he had to know.

  The fire had burned down to glimmering red coals by the time he turned to the final page. One of the embers cracked loudly, shooting off a burst of popping sparks and announcing another coming snow.

  On the bed mat, Master Chugi snorted and sat up, his milky eyes wild.

  Raijin took up reading aloud midsentence. “...with all his power and all his might, still the Thunderbird submitted willingly to his death, and in doing so, destroyed the Dark Dragon’s world-crushing grip.”

  Master Chugi tucked his feet beneath himself and rested his hands on his lap.

  “The end,” the old man said.

  In the red-tinged light, Raijin closed the book and folded it back into its leather covering.

  “The end,” he agreed solemnly, rubbing his tired eyes.

  “Uh oh,” Master Chugi said, cocking his ear toward Raijin. “My good student doesn’t like this story.”

  “No, Master, it isn’t that.” Raijin searched a moment for the words to express the thoughts whirling through his mind. “This is the prophecy of the chosen one...”

  “Yes.” Master Chugi nodded. “And you hope you are the chosen one. So, what about your prophecy troubles you, boy?”

  Raijin struggled again. “Why is it written as if it has already happened?”

  “Because the seer viewed it from a point in time when the events of the chosen one’s story had already come to pass.”

  “When the chosen one was already dead,” Raijin said.

  Master Chugi smiled, revealing his toothless gums. “Ah, now we come to it! The death bothers you.”

  Raijin shook his head though he knew the blind man couldn’t see him. “I don’t understand the Thunderbird’s decision.”

  “Raijin, if you are the chosen one, then it is your decision.”

  “But how can I make the right decision if I don’t understand it?” he asked, tracing his thumb across the tooled leather of the book’s covering.

  “Tell me this,” Master Chugi said, leaning close as if to look into Raijin’s eyes. “If you are weaker than I, and I kill you, what have I accomplished worth bragging about?”

  “Nothing,” Raijin answered immediately, disgusted.

  “If you are many times stronger than I, and I kill you, I could brag for years, correct?” The old man waved a gnarled hand before Raijin could speak. “In the view of the world, not the Path of Darkening Skies.”

  Slowly, Raijin nodded. “It would be a larger accomplishment, so naturally, the self would feel inflated pride.”

  “And you, as the much stronger party, would seek to save face as well as survive my attack. It would impugn your pride to have a weakling destroy you.”

  “Yes.” Raijin gave another nod, though he didn’t see where the master was leading him.

  “Suppose that you, the stronger party, submitted to the weaker party, allowing yourself to be killed though an entire world was mocking you for weakness while you did, but in doing so your death defeated the Dark Dragon. You would lose face and never live to see your triumph, but your submission would save the world all the same. A moral victory.”

  Master Chugi put up a hand as if to forestall Raijin from speaking, though Raijin had no idea what he could possibly say to that.

  “Now,” the old man said, “imagine instead that you gave in to your pride and avoided a shameful death at the hands of one weaker than you, but when you did, the entire world was swallowed up by the darkness in the Dragon’s heart. In that case, showing your superior physical strength would reveal a spirit too weak to save the world. A moral failure.”

  His milky-white eyes searched the area near Raijin’s face.

  “Could you do that, good student?” Master Chugi asked. “Could you die a ridiculed weakling to prove your strength?”

  Raijin closed his eyes and considered the question for several slow heartbeats. The correct answer was obvious, but to blurt it out just to make an old man think he might be the chosen one would only prove it a lie.

  Finally, he looked at Master Chugi and asked, “Why did my mother bring me here when I was an infant? Yong Lei’s father kept him at home until he was six years old, even knowing he might be the chosen one.”

  Master Chugi sat back, surprise marking his wrinkled face.

  “Raijin, twelve years ago, I laid these failing eyes on a young woman who climbed a mountain with nothing but a baby and a pouch for qajong smoking. She was beautiful beyond description, boy, but already her bloom of youth was beginning to wither under her addiction. Her hands shook, her eyes watered, her teeth clenched. She sweated and stuttered and winced at the touch of the softest breeze. The drug had taken hold, and though she’d managed to go the trip up the mountain without smoking, she wouldn’t go the trip back down without it. The baby she left in my arms screamed for nearly two weeks straight. Perhaps it was that he missed his mother and could sense that she was gone, but the baby also sweated and shook and winced in pain at the softest touch as if the poison were in his body as well. The mother who left you at the school was one who had already seen what your life with her would become and had chosen instead to give you a chance at something much better.” He raised one gnarled finger and pointed it at Raijin. “Raijin, that same mother wept as she left her son behind. She held her stomach and stumbled away bent nearly in half, sobbing so loud that it sounded as if the mountain’s heart was breaking. Many nights, I hear her cries in my dreams, and I wake up thanking this woman for her selflessness. She brought the world the hope of a rescuer, but more precious to me, she brought a son to an old man who had long since given up all hope of experiencing such a joy.”

  Raijin swallowed hard, glad Master Chugi couldn’t see the tears in his eyes.

  “I could do it,” Raijin said, his voice escaping his throat in a strained growl. “To save someone like that, I could die in whatever way was required.”

  Chapter Nine

  PRESENT

  The emperor had been in residence for six days before he sent a summons to Koida. The messenger brought the scrolls to the training courtyard where Koida and Shingti were sparring while Master Lao watched on.

  “A summons from the Exalted Emperor Shyong San Hao for the Second Princess Shyong San Koida,” the man shouted, his voice ringing off the courtyard walls.

  Koida looked over her shoulder at him. The messenger knelt and held the scroll above his head, the wooden royal seals tied to it clicking against one another.

  “Ah-ha!” Shingti leapt into the air, swinging her ruby bo-shan stick overhanded at Koida.

  Koida flinched and nearly tripped over her own feet backing away. She barely brought her stick up in time to protect her face. Her elder sister spun lightly on the ball of her foot and rapped Koida’s wrist, hip, and knee in quick succession.

  “You’re dead, little sister.” Shingti scowled, pressing the end of the bo-shan to Koida’s throat. “Concede.”

  Koida swallowed hard, lungs heaving with effort. “I am beaten.”

  “If your enemy yet survives, you have no business looking away from them.” Shingti’s stick disappeared as the first princess let her Ro return to her heartcenter. A generous portion of Koida’s amethyst stick followed it, the price of losing.

  “The message,” Koida panted, swiping her sleeve across her face to wipe away the sweat. “It’s from Father.”
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br />   In spite of having been sparring for the better part of the morning, Shingti looked as if she had done nothing more taxing than calligraph a particularly easy character. She flicked her long curtain of brown hair over her shoulder and waved Koida’s protest away.

  “He’s only holding court. I was with him this morning when he had the scribes make the summonses out.” Shingti pointed a finger at Koida. “But even if it was an urgent message about the Sun Palace being engulfed in flames, it’s not worth dying over.”

  Koida conceded the point and pressed one hand flat to her fist, bowing to her sister while keeping her violet eyes locked on Shingti’s darker ones.

  “Thank you for the lesson, elder sister.”

  “I hope you take it to heart.” Shingti returned the bow, watching Koida as she did. The eye contact was just politeness. The Dragonfly of the Battlefield had nothing to fear from exposing the back of her neck to her Ro-crippled little sister. “Thank you for the exercise.”

  As Koida went to the messenger, Shingti dropped into Dueling Sword Hands, manifesting a pair of wickedly curved, glowing red blades. “Master Lao, would you like a turn at teaching me? No? Batsai, you old bear?”

  Hearing the second princess coming, the messenger bowed his head lower and straightened his arms, extending the scroll once more.

  Koida took the proffered item and rolled off the royal seals. “Thank you, gracious messenger.”

  He pressed his forehead to the dirt in acknowledgement of the dismissal, then backed away.

  It was exactly as Shingti guessed, a summons to court, identical to the hundred others that must have gone out to the nobles in residence and the surrounding land. Though it was not for the reading of a new law, to bestow rank on a heroic soldier, or to collect an emergency tribute tax from the nobles.

  Koida turned back to her sister, who was furiously dueling her way across the courtyard with Jun. His red serpentine spear was not holding up well against Shingti’s Thousand Darts of the Dragonfly technique.