Darkening Skies

by eden Hudson

Chapter Fifteen

  7 YEARS AGO

  Raijin awoke lying facedown on a raised bed in the same physician’s wing he’d helped Yong Lei to only hours before. His hands were bandaged loosely over an amber medicine that smelled like cedar sap, and he could feel more bandages on his back and feet. Layers of woven blankets were draped over his sweat-soaked body, but the one closest to his skin was half-frozen stiff. On the floor beside the bed, Yong Lei sat in Resting Meditation.

  The melting ice in the blanket fibers groaned as Raijin pushed himself up onto his elbows, fists balled loosely to keep from angering the cane welts any more than necessary. Unfortunately, curving his spine irritated the welts across his lower back. He hissed through his teeth. He thought he could feel at least one start bleeding again.

  Yong Lei’s eyes popped open, and his face lit up.

  “The showoff is awake.” He closed his eyes again and pretended to go back to his meditation, but he was clearly fighting off a smile. “If I’d known all it took to advance to Hail was being caned, I would’ve almost killed you unconscious ages ago.”

  “If you do it now, you’ll seem like a mirror-mimic,” Raijin said.

  “I know. I’ll have to come up with something else to get in trouble for.” Yong Lei cracked an eyelid and nodded at a scroll by the bed. “You’ve got a message. One of the Winds brought it from Grandmaster Feng.”

  Gingerly, Raijin picked up the scroll and unrolled it, trying to move his fingers as little as possible.

  Congratulations on your advancement. You are the youngest student to reach Hail level in the history of the Path of Darkening Skies. Your daily serving tasks will be awaiting you as always tomorrow morning.

  With a groan, Raijin let the scroll drop and pressed his face into the bed.

  “What’s the matter?” Yong Lei asked.

  Raijin handed him the message.

  As he read it, Yong Lei’s brows came together angrily. “You can’t do servant work like this. My father wouldn’t even work a borrowed ox like that. It’s not fair.”

  Raijin shrugged, then winced when the motion pulled at his lower back. From past experience arguing with Yong Lei, he knew it would be senseless to try to explain how rarely fairness entered into the ebb and flow of real life.

  “I’ll just have to do them,” Raijin said, setting his jaw. “If I don’t, I can’t stay at the school. That was the agreement.”

  “That’s what you get for progressing.” Yong Lei tossed the scroll aside angrily. “Good job, your reward is more work.”

  Raijin laughed.

  Soft footsteps approached his opposite side. He turned his head to find the physician Akidori marking on a piece of parchment clipped to a wood tablet and lowering herself to kneel by his bed.

  “Physical and spiritual exhaustion,” she said. “You overworked yourself. Have you eaten anything today?”

  “Not since lunch,” Raijin admitted. “I was too nervous to eat supper.”

  “You should have eaten if you were going to advance. Your body needed the fuel.”

  “I didn’t realize I was going to advance.” And he’d been anxious enough about being caned that he thought he would throw up anything he ate.

  She grunted and scribbled something on the paper. When she finished, she reached into a pouch on her belt and pulled out a pale orange-yellow pill.

  “One sunbright pill. Take by mouth and integrate until fully consumed. Usually requires about twelve hours for full integration.”

  “Sunbright?”

  Akidori glared at Raijin as if angry that she had to look up from her writing.

  “It mimics the effects of the sunbright serpent’s core stone,” she said, shoving it between his lips. “They’re not as strong as the real demon core, but they’re easier to make than to harvest, and they don’t require killing a beast. It took years of study to develop these, and they’re so valuable and coveted that only the most gifted and trusted of the physician’s apprentices are entrusted with the responsibility of bringing them to the newly advanced.”

  Raijin swallowed hard, forcing the pill down. It tasted like grapefruit and sunlight.

  “Does it speed healing?” he asked hopefully. Chopping wood and carrying water were going to be nearly impossible as he was.

  “No, it’s to purge impurities and diseases from your body and to refine your Ro. It’s customary for every Hail student who survives the progression.” She rose to her feet, scribbling on her parchment as she turned to go. “A bath will be provided for you when you’re finished. You’ll need it.”

  “Gratitude, wise physician’s apprentice,” Raijin said. He could still feel the pill sliding down his throat like a stone. It was currently in the stretch between his collarbone and his sternum.

  Akidori did not look back. “Integrate that pill.”

  Raijin let his face rest on the softness of the bed once more. He was the youngest student to progress to Hail in history, and he still might be kicked out in the morning.

  He turned his head to face Yong Lei.

  Yong Lei snapped his eyes closed and pretended to be meditating.

  “I admire your commitment to this joke,” Raijin said.

  “Gratitude,” Yong Lei said without opening his eyes.

  “How many hours is it until morning bell?”

  “Eight.”

  Akidori had said it usually took twelve to integrate the sunbright pill. But he didn’t have twelve hours. On a good day, his serving tasks took at least two hours.

  Wincing at the pain in his hands, feet, and back, Raijin sat up on the bed and got into Resting Meditation position, legs crossed, back straight, fists over his heartcenter. The welts in his back felt tight and burnt, and they pulled painfully at the slightest motion. It hurt to close his swollen fists, but he found if he held them perfectly still once they were closed, he didn’t cause any new irritation.

  He focused on the location of the sunbright pill. It had reached his sternum, just inches higher than his heartcenter. With a focus of will, he sent a thread of Ro to seek out the pill. When the two touched, the sunbright popped like a spark from a fire in wintertime, splitting in two, each progressively smaller spark popping in turn. He sent out new threads to each of the popping sparks, pulling their power into his heartcenter and integrating them into his body.

  As he began to draw the sparks in one at a time, his body heat increased until he felt certain his brain would boil. He split his focus, drawing the sunbright sparks in with one level of his attention and using the Sleet ability Dropping Temperatures to keep himself from combusting.

  Impurities began to seep through his skin, stinging the welts on his hands and feet and burning like acid in the wounds across his lower back, but he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t leave the pill unintegrated and hope to accomplish his daily tasks. The sunbright would cook him alive from the inside out. He had to finish integrating it into his body before dawn. He swallowed past a suddenly dry throat and sent out more tendrils of Ro, trying not just to keep up with the multiplying sparks, but to get ahead of them.

  At some point, he was aware of Yong Lei leaving. Another set of footsteps, which sounded too soft for his best friend and might have been Akidori, returned and then left. Then again. There were so many sparks by then that Raijin couldn’t comprehend the number and send Ro after them at the same time. He just kept his focus on doing what had to be done.

  Finally, with innumerable strands of Ro anchoring every single spark, the sunbright stopped dividing. Slowly, carefully, Raijin pulled the Ro back toward his heartcenter. It felt as if he were dragging tiny shards of broken glass along his pathways, but he didn’t let go.

  The first sunbright spark dropped over the edge into the churning Ro at the center of his being, lightening the load an infinitesimal amount. With it, his Ro grew stronger, brighter. The second followed, lightening the drag again and brightening his Ro. With each new spark he integrated, he sped up. Pulling them along still hurt, but the flare of intensifying
Ro was well worth the pain. And then he was dragging them in by the bunch.

  The last spark integrated, and his Ro flared in his heartcenter like an exploding star. He opened his eyes, grinning. He felt invigorated. As if he could run through his chores twice at top speed, then every single exercise and technique with the weights—twice the weights!

  His grin slipped as a fetid odor like a tannery pit topped with rotting peaches reached his nose. His robes were stained black with expelled impurities. He wiped some off his cheek with his fingers and grimaced in disgust. It was gritty and oily at the same time.

  Akidori, passing in her rounds, stopped and stared at him.

  “You’re finished integrating the sunbright? Already?”

  “Did I miss the morning bell?” he asked, wiping the black sludge on his already ruined uniform pants.

  “You still have an hour and a half before it rings.”

  One and a half hours. His mind tried to panic at the thought, but he pushed the worry away. Either he would finish his tasks in the allotted time or he would fail. Fearing the tasks themselves was of no use.

  Meanwhile, Akidori recovered herself enough to begin scribbling frantically on her parchment again.

  “How do you feel?” she asked.

  “Disgusting. You mentioned a bath.”

  “Of course.” She hustled away, still writing. “La-Min! Oni! Bring the impurities bath!”

  Twenty minutes later, Raijin limped out into the early morning darkness wearing a fresh gray uniform damp at the shoulders from his still dripping hair. But as he came to the shed where the yoke and water buckets were stored, a moving shadow startled him.

  Demon beasts occasionally migrated up from the forest below and attacked unwary students. With a wince, Raijin dropped into a fighting stance, adrenaline flooding his body and Ro coursing through the sunbright-raw pathways.

  The shadow stumbled out of the shed with a clatter of metal on wood.

  “These things are ridiculous. I can’t believe you have to fool with them every day,” Yong Lei said. He adjusted the yoke on his shoulders. “Now, where do I get the water from?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  PRESENT

  Batsai and Jun were understandably surprised when Koida entered the outer chamber from the hall door rather than her bedchamber’s door. They stared in confusion for a moment before the older man jumped to his feet.

  “Where have you been?” he demanded, sharp eyes scanning her for injury and finding only mud, rainwater, and disarray. “Out riding that hot-headed demon monster, trying to kill yourself? I’ve half a mind to turn you over my knee and give you the beating you deserve!”

  Koida’s mouth fell open.

  Then she launched herself across the room and into the gruff old captain’s arms, hugging him with all her strength. He smelled like hardened leather armor and the parchment of old scrolls, and she loved him with all her heart.

  Gradually, the shock seemed to wear off, and Batsai returned her hug.

  “Will you still be the captain of my guard when I’m married?” she asked, her voice trembling.

  “Your father is my emperor. It will be for him to decide whether I follow you to your new home or remain in his service,” Batsai said, rubbing her back with a calloused hand. “But if he decides against it, I may have to resign and become a wandering warrior.” He patted her roughly. “Wandering to wherever little dragons might go, watching over them.”

  She nodded against his chest, the fear finally starting to dissipate. If Batsai was with her, then nothing could harm her, not even chieftains with demonically powerful Ro. Batsai would never allow it.

  Though Koida desperately wished to curl up in the safety of her bed, there was no time. Her wet riding clothes were barely stripped off and replaced by a dry nightdress when Batsai knocked at her inner chamber’s door.

  “Your ladies in waiting are here to prepare you for the first night of your wedding,” he said through the door.

  The bottom fell out of Koida’s stomach.

  “Let them in,” she whispered, then had to clear her throat and repeat herself loud enough to be heard.

  “Hyung-Po and Qin have also arrived to take over for Jun and me,” Batsai said. “I’m going to get some sleep, but I’ll be back before you leave for the feast.”

  Koida pressed her palm to the door. “My thanks.”

  A moment later, her ladies fluttered in like a flock of excitable birds, chirping and flitting about with armloads of fragrant oils, jewelry, skin paints, and fabric. They threw open the balcony door and built up the fire in her brazier, filling the room with light and warmth as they worked.

  In the valley, the week of wedding feasts was traditionally seen as an opportunity for the bride’s family to show their power and wealth in a display that rivaled any send-off or receiving home of the armies. They brought in the best of foods both from the valley and imported from exotic lands, the most sought-after performers, and extravagant decorations, and they provided sumptuous treatment, not only for the guests, but for the bride and groom as well.

  The preparations for the night lasted much of the day. Every luxury of pampering and dress was lavished upon Koida. A silkwater bath to soak in, fragrant oils massaged into her skin and combed into her long brown hair, ground icestone-based skin paint. Tiered white, violet, and green jade necklaces, platinum coils for each of her fingers, and a matching set of platinum bell cascades for her hair. A flowing robe woven of the softest silk, dyed to match the iridescence of a peacock feather.

  Koida tolerated the ministrations without protest or comment. Her mind was elsewhere. Was the Ji Yu chieftain undergoing the same indulgences? Thinking back on their interaction just hours before, she had a hard time imagining him doing something as mundane as bathing or dressing. He seemed less like a human to her and more like a demon beast, a wild creature that would attack and kill at the slightest provocation.

  Worse, she recalled Shingti telling her that this demon’s people only took one wife. If they didn’t keep harems, either, that meant she would be the sole focus of his marital attentions. She had always looked forward with excitement to the day she would be intimate with an imagined perfect husband, but now her stomach turned. What sort of awful things might she have to endure at the hands of a creature who could freeze people with a single palm strike? A creature who now knew that he had been swindled by her father into accepting a deficient wife?

  “Is the second princess cold?” one of the ladies asked.

  Koida realized she was shivering hard enough to jangle the bell cascades in her hair.

  “No.” She swallowed and spoke with more certainty. “No, I am fine.”

  The lady nodded and returned to winding the coils around Koida’s fingers.

  The sound of Batsai’s return in the outer chamber was both a great relief and a cause for a new wave of terror. The hour had come.

  The ladies helped her slip on the platinum-trimmed shoes, then opened the doors. Koida imagined them as stable hands opening Pernicious’s stall so that he could race out into the night. She straightened her shoulders and stepped out.

  In the outer chamber, Batsai stood in his shining dress armor with a scowl on his face. The old bear sniffed and looked away, his dark eyes wet.

  A different type of panic jolted Koida’s heart. She’d never seen Batsai cry before.

  When she reached his side, she leaned in close and whispered, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” he growled. “I didn’t expect this day to come so soon is all.” He cleared his throat, then spun on his heel. “Fall in!”

  The rest of Koida’s escort, their ceremonial armor polished to a dull glow, jumped into action, startled out of their awed gawking by the razor’s edge in Batsai’s order.

  Silently, the small procession made their way out of Kodia’s residence and through the winding corridors to the royal waiting room outside the White Jade Feasting Hall.

  The emperor, Shingti, and Cousin Yoi
chi were already there. All of her family members looked as if they had spent the day undergoing much the same lavish attention Koida had endured. If they shared her frayed nerves, they didn’t show it. Shingti lounged on an embroidered couch, cooling herself delicately with a silk fan. Rather than the usual ceremonial Dragonfly armor she wore to court, tonight the first princess was draped in layers of aquamarine and violet fabric, set off in places by jewels and platinum. A silk wrap hung off her shoulders, exposing the portion of her vividly colored Heroic Record between her collar bones and the top of her dress robes.

  On the opposite side of the waiting room, Yoichi and Emperor Hao, the first in handsome white and plum robes and the second in gold-threaded ebony, were deep in discussion over an issue on which they clearly disagreed on. Yoichi spoke in low but forceful tones while their father shook his head.

  “No, absolutely not,” Hao said. “I won’t hear another word of it.”

  “But if you were to declare—”

  “As your emperor, I tell you no. The matter is closed.”

  Yoichi face went calculatedly blank. “Yes, Exalted Emperor.”

  For a moment, jealousy rose like bile in Koida’s throat. When her father didn’t want to argue with her, he changed the subject and pretended not to hear any further protests. He’d been doing the same since she was a small child. Yoichi, however, he respected enough to treat like any other adult who might appeal to his ruling on a matter.

  Then Koida remembered that she had less than a week’s time left with the people in the waiting room. The bitterness fled, and a desire to run to each of her family members in turn and hug them took hold. Everything was happening so suddenly that none of it felt real. Or perhaps it was just the lack of sleep skewing her perception.

  “Ah!” The emperor stood, taking her hand. “You’re well named the Lilac of the Valley, second daughter. Tonight, your beauty seals a powerful alliance.”

  Koida sunk into a bow. “It is an honor to serve my empire, Father.”

  “Of course it is,” Shingti said, rolling her eyes. “The sacrificial offering is here. Can we go put her on the altar now? I’m starving.”