by Cutter, Leah
“So I will secure my kingdom, controlling everything from one horizon to the other. I will be safe.”
Xiao Yen breathed deeply to hide her shiver. He sounded so determined. How could you control everything? It went against nature.
“Tell me about your most important battle,” she said. She had to keep his thoughts moving around, away from eating her soul, taking her strength too. There weren't enough souls in all the world to keep him safe, but he couldn't see that.
“That was the sword fight with Er Tso, the great general, who opposed my uniting the tribes. It lasted three days and two nights. People still tell tales of the night of the thundering ride, when I threw him from Mount Tang.”
Xiao Yen had heard this tale too, but in Young Lu's version, the good general had refused to fight Vakhtang, accusing him of being evil and an unworthy opponent. So Vakhtang had had the general poisoned, then trampled to death by his own horses.
“Did you ever learn Wu Xu sword form?” she asked, naming the only form she'd ever heard of.
“Yes, with both one and two swords,” Vakhtang said proudly.
Xiao Yen sighed. “I never learned how to use any weapons. I only ever learned the folding poses Master Wei taught us.” She looked at Vakhtang, forcing hope into her voice. “Would you teach me how to use a sword?”
Vakhtang laughed. “I don't think I want to teach you how to fight.”
Xiao Yen saw her opening. She lowered her eyes and looked back up at Vakhtang through her lashes, imitating how Bei Xi had looked at Ehran sometimes. “I don't know anything about men's swords,” she said.
Vakhtang laughed again, throatier. He'd understood her meaning. “I'll show you,” he said. “Come over to this side of the table.”
Xiao Yen laughed, trying to keep her tone clear and light, like a young girl at a picnic. “No, silly. That wouldn't be fair. I'll stay on this side. Wang Tie-Tie always said the best way to learn is by doing.” She pulled the two pins from her hair, letting it tumble down her back, and tossed one to Vakhtang, while she kept the other, the gold phoenix.
“Guard well!” Xiao Yen said as she flourished her hairpin. Then she reminded herself to smile. The phoenix was almost as big as her palm, and its beak poked into her flesh when she closed her hand around it. It felt awkwardly balanced.
A high-pitched metal-against-metal sound occurred when the two hairpins came together. Vakhtang grinned. Xiao Yen laughed and said, “Well done! Well done.” She brought her hand down then bent her wrist back, like the Snake Striking Wall pose that Master Wei had taught her. Vakhtang was too quick for her, and parried her blow.
She tried another light blow from the same side, and again Vakhtang stopped her. Then he reversed his angle, and pricked her wrist with his hairpin.
“Good blow!” Xiao Yen said, forcing a laugh.
Vakhtang grunted, as if that was expected. He attacked again, first from one side then the other, but slowly enough so that Xiao Yen could defend herself. He pushed his arm forward, forcing Xiao Yen to pull back, until she was defending herself almost in front of her chest.
Xiao Yen took a deep breath, breathing strength into her arms. She pushed her arm forward, now forcing Vakhtang to retreat. She tried to laugh. A squeak escaped. This was supposed to distract Vakhtang from subsuming her. He was far too serious. Now his defenses were up. He would think of her as a threat. The sound of metal on metal filled the air, a continual tinging, like from a copper shop.
The war spirit seemed to have possessed Vakhtang. His face was wiped clean of emotion. His eyes grew darker, large pools of black water, absorbing everything. His hand moved quickly, though in restricted motions. The white knots on his jacket expanded, growing closer together, in order to protect him from any blow.
Xiao Yen had to stop this. She was just going to have to distract Vakhtang that other way. She let Vakhtang push her back and hit her hand. The blow stung, and she dropped her hairpin.
“Oh sir! You've beaten me,” she said, lowering her eyes. “Will you come collect what you've won?” she continued, raising her head flirtatiously.
The stone held Vakhtang's face for another moment then it broke apart. He grinned and said, “Come here, little mage.”
Xiao Yen rose and walked around to his side of the table. Butterflies filled her stomach.
Vakhtang didn't rise. He reached up with one arm and grabbed hers, then pulled her down into his lap. “Oh, my sweet,” he said, breathing into her neck.
Xiao Yen wrapped her right arm around his back. Vakhtang kissed her neck, nipping and lapping at it, like a cat with a fresh bone. She hated his touching her; she hated anyone touching her, but she would endure it. She turned her head away from him, hoping he couldn't feel the trembling at her core. He sucked at her neck now, pulling the skin into his mouth.
She felt herself rise out of her body, as if she watched from a great distance. Time slowed down. She watched how her left arm stretched out across the table, the long sleeve brushing first against her thigh, coming up to the edge of the table, over the top of the table. Then her small white hand peeked out from under the red silk, the scar on the top of her hand flashing in the candlelight while she retrieved the hairpin.
Like a log freed from where it was stuck in a river, slowly her arm turned and came back toward her body, back toward Vakhtang, the end of the hairpin leading the way. She used the hairpin on his neck as if she was carving the first stroke of her name in a tree. Just one small stroke. The skin barely tore. Xiao Yen watched the blood in fascination as it welled.
Then time speeded up. Vakhtang stopped kissing her and made a choked sound. Xiao Yen stood up, her heart beating in her bruised throat. She dropped the hairpin on the table. The metal ends hissed and dissolved, as if dipped in acid.
Vakhtang stayed seated and stared straight ahead, his hands flat on his chest, pushing against it. His dark eyes filled with fear. At first, the side of his neck pulsed, as though a great heart beat under the wound. Then the skin swelled and ripped, as if something crawled under it, pushing against the hole, trying to escape. Vakhtang tried to speak, but his throat had been pulled too tight. He made one last hoarse intake of breath. Blue crept into his face as he choked. Then he didn't make any noise at all. The sizzling hairpin was the only sound in the room.
A vivid blue liquid crowded out the blood of his scratch, dripped down his neck and stained his jacket. Vakhtang froze then crashed down on the table, shattering a teacup. A soft sigh escaped and a scent like gardenias filled the room. It was similar to Bei Xi's scent, but sweeter, lighter.
Xiao Yen wanted to smile. Jhr Bei had escaped. She could now go to await rebirth.
While Xiao Yen stood in a tented room with a dead man.
Dogs barked outside. Xiao Yen heard the guards talking in the hall. She knew they wouldn't disturb their master for the sake of some broken pottery. They expected to hear sounds of violence.
She walked to the back wall and pulled the third cord.
Xiao Yen longed to run from the room. Instead, she forced herself to kneel at the end of the table, next to Vakhtang. Her knees felt as old as Wang Tie-Tie's. She arranged her gown over her legs, draping it in the most attractive way. Everything grew quiet. Xiao Yen folded her hands in her lap and listened to the silence death left in its wake. It had a different quality than a living silence: more was expected from it. Xiao Yen half expected Vakhtang to sit up, his face frozen in a grotesque grin.
He didn't move.
Xiao Yen sought her inner silence. She plunged deep into it, searching for a place where she didn't have to think, didn't have to feel. The river running through her calm place welcomed her, sucked her into itself, and held her.
She'd killed a man.
It didn't matter that Vakhtang had been evil, or that he'd ordered his soldiers to do unspeakable things to her. She'd killed him. She was no better than a foreigner or a barbarian. She didn't allow herself to think of Fu Be Be, or what she might say.
Dead silence in a c
old river was all that was left to her.
Chapter Sixteen
Bao Fang
“When will you come home again?” Gan Ou said.
Xiao Yen felt both gratitude and despair at Gan Ou's question. Gratitude that she'd asked the question while they were alone, and not in front of Fu Be Be or Wang Tie-Tie. Despair, because she could only answer the form of the question, not the essence.
“I'll be home again when I win enough contests,” Xiao Yen said.
“You mean you can't just come home when you want?” Gan Ou asked, incredulous.
“No. I have responsibilities at the school. I teach younger students to fold. And I have my own studies. All of us older students have much more work than time. So Master Wei makes us hold combats. After you win a number of them, you get to go home for a while. The person with the most losses takes your responsibilities while you're gone.”
“You battle?” Gan Ou said, shock raising her tone until it was almost a shriek. “The men?”
Xiao Yen shrugged helplessly. It was a major part of her school training now. Someday, if Wang Tie-Tie could convince someone to hire Xiao Yen, it would be her job to defend property or people. Gan Ou and her mother would never understand, or accept a woman fighting.
Maybe they were right to be ashamed.
Xiao Yen pushed the thought aside.
Gan Ou stared at Xiao Yen for a moment, then deliberately turned her back on her younger sister and walked out of their old room. Xiao Yen closed her eyes, hoping that maybe by blocking the sight she could escape the pain.
No wonder she consistently lost contests for the first half moon or so after she visited her family.
* * *
“Guard well!” Xiao Yen called, using the traditional phrase Master Wei had taught them.
Fat Fang didn't reply. He stared into the small, egg-shaped arena that lay between them. The walls were wooden, about the length of Xiao Yen's arm. Each end of the oval pointed at a student. On Fat Fang's side lay a cherry-colored ribbon—the prize of their contest.
A short dog stood at Xiao Yen's end of the arena, golden brown along the flanks, mud brown around its head. It loomed over the scorpion waiting at the other end. The dog's left lip curled in a snarl. The short dark hair along the back of its neck stood straight up. The scorpion waved its tail at the dog, like a daring boy with a pendant. The dog lunged and snapped up the scorpion in its mouth.
Before the dog could bite down with its sharp canines, the scorpion flexed its tail and stung the dog on the side of its snout. The dog opened its mouth, letting the scorpion fall and scuttle back to the end it was protecting. The dog stood shaking its head, opening and closing its mouth.
A high-pitched twitter came from behind Xiao Yen. She jumped, then forced her shoulders down, taking a deep breath to squelch the flame of anger that surged through her. She had to admit the dog looked humorous standing there, working its jaw like that. That didn't give Bing Yu, Fat Fang's sister and her former friend, any right to laugh.
Xiao Yen took another deep breath and focused on her dog again. It had to get beyond Fat Fang's scorpion to the ribbon, the prize the scorpion guarded. If her dog could just grab that ribbon, Xiao Yen would win a contest. She'd lost almost every contest the students had held for the last three moons, much longer than usual after coming back from visiting her family.
The dog stared at the scorpion, showing its teeth. It bunched up its hind legs, almost like a cat, then leapt at the scorpion. This time it got stung on its tender nose.
Again and again the dog attacked the scorpion, trying to get past Fat Fang's creation to the goal. Every time it was stung, beaten back.
The soft ding from the water clock indicating that the hour had passed brought Xiao Yen back to the room. She'd lost. Again.
She looked to where Master Wei stood at the end of the table, in front of the altar. He wore a long dark blue robe, embroidered with circles of lucky white bats. His face was expressionless. Maybe, because she'd tried so hard, maybe, this time she would . . .
Master Wei turned his head and indicated that the contest had gone to Fat Fang. Xiao Yen watched with envy as Fat Fang took his paper creation up to the brazier on the altar and placed it on the fire, releasing whatever spirit he had captured with his folding and animating. Fat Fang smirked at her as he took his seat and picked up the prize ribbon. Then Xiao Yen burned the remains of her dog.
Xiao Yen heard a rustle of silk behind her, footsteps that approached, then stopped. She forced herself to turn around. Bing Yu stood there, looking as if she wanted to say something. She wore an iridescent robe of lavender silk, covered with a pattern of intertwining gold grapevines, representing wealth and fruitfulness. Between her petite nose and the paleness of her makeup, Bing Yu looked more like a perfect statue than a living person.
Xiao Yen bowed and said, “Thank you for watching this unworthy person battle your successful and talented brother. Though we do not deserve the grace of your presence, I beg you to come again, and soon.”
“Though this unmeritous person wouldn't presume to give you advice . . .” Bing Yu paused, turned her head to look at Fat Fang then looked back at Xiao Yen out of the corner of her eye.
Xiao Yen said what was expected of her. “I would greatly appreciate any advice you may deign to give me. But you do not have to give advice to this undeserving person. Do not trouble yourself.” Xiao Yen's voice went down on the last phrase, the ritual words turned personal. She couldn't win a contest. She wasn't a worthy mage.
“Come,” Bing Yu said, slipping her hand into the crook of Xiao Yen's arm, like her sister Gan Ou did. “Let's go for a walk in the courtyard, and talk.” She turned the pair of them and bowed to Master Wei, saying, “That is, if your esteemed master will allow us.”
Master Wei said, “Please. I grant Xiao Yen permission to walk with you instead of watching the contest between Fat Fang and Long Yen.”
Xiao Yen bowed low to hide her bristling, then turned with Bing Yu and walked out into the courtyard. Master Wei had found reasons for Xiao Yen to not watch the other students compete more than once. How would she learn if she couldn't observe them? Master Wei had told her to observe herself more. What did that mean?
Bing Yu asked after Xiao Yen's family as they walked across the sunny courtyard. Xiao Yen told her of Gan Ou's wedding, and that her sister was expecting again. Xiao Yen was careful to not mention that Gan Ou had taken to her bed. She'd lost the second child late in her pregnancy, and so was being extra careful this time.
Bing Yu, on hearing the name of Gan Ou's husband, exclaimed, “Oh! We're cousins now!” She looked meaningfully at Xiao Yen.
Xiao Yen replied politely, “Really?”
Bing Yu explained, at great length, how their families were related through a second cousin on her father's side. “This means that we'll never be more than cousins,” Bing Yu finished with a pointed look at Xiao Yen.
Xiao Yen didn't understand what she was supposed to see.
Bing Yu sighed dramatically, like a heroine portrayed by a street performer, then tugged on Xiao Yen's arm, leading her to the far corner of the courtyard. She looked around, as if making sure they were alone. Finally she turned back to Xiao Yen. “Do you think Gan Ou, and the baby, will live?” Bing Yu asked, enunciating clearly, making each word a separate, hard spike.
Xiao Yen took a sharp breath, too shocked to speak. Of course, Wang Tie-Tie and Fu Be Be were worried. No one ever spoke of such things aloud. To say evil was to attract it to you.
Before she could recover, Bing Yu asked, “How about my brother, Fat Fang, eh? Do you ever want to ‘hide the pearl' with him?”
Xiao Yen put her hand over her mouth. What could Bing Yu mean? She'd never . . .
Bing Yu inclined her head toward Xiao Yen. “Now you know how I felt when I saw you competing. Your attacks are as clumsy as my words. You're unbalanced. You have too much yang, not enough yin. You attack with aggression, head-on, like a man. You need to think more like a wom
an. You need to attack sideways, like a crab.”
Xiao Yen pondered what Bing Yu had said. Was that what Master Wei had meant by learning from observing herself? Was that why she no longer won contests? The boys were coming more into themselves, becoming men. Xiao Yen had no one to guide her, no other women living at the school to help her, no one at home to talk with.
Xiao Yen stood still, feeling the solid tiles beneath her feet, letting their cold seep through her soles, letting herself become stone. She created the best creatures of all the students in the school because she followed nature. She needed to tap into that same spring for her animations. Not to create better creatures, but to lend them part of her own spirit as well.
Bing Yu fluttered next to her, like a butterfly in a breeze. She didn't know quiet. She felt connections though, and thought sideways. Like meandering water, she always got to her goal, though sometimes through a seemingly backward course.
Xiao Yen bowed deeply to Bing Yu.
Bing Yu started to talk again, telling her things she'd heard in Bao Fang: of the rumor that the head priest at the White Temple had a new mistress; of the sighting of a gold dragon that would mean good crops that year; and of the rain that would or wouldn't come.
Xiao Yen listened but didn't comment, trying to see where Bing Yu was leading, trying to think outside of the straight lines of boys and devils.
* * *
This time a fat crab, twice the size of Xiao Yen's palm, faced Fat Fang's scorpion. It scuttled sideways toward the scorpion, then at the last minute, pivoted and slashed at the other creature. The scorpion stung the crab's hard shell to no avail. The crab pushed with its claw, trying to move the scorpion out of the way, seeking the ribbon. The scorpion gave some ground, then rushed forward again, its mandibles under the crab, lifting the crab up so only one set of its legs touched the ground. The scorpion pushed like an old man with a shovelful of dirt until the creatures were halfway across the arena.
When the crab got all of its legs on the ground again, it scuttled away from the prize, then with amazing speed changed direction and went straight for it. The scorpion barely got in front of it in time.