The landscape changed as they traveled north. Fields and fruit orchards gave way to stands of oak and poplar on rolling hills dotted with sheep and goats. They left behind the dry, smoky heat of the southern valley and faced cooler weather. As the month drew to a close, spending the night outdoors, even with a fire and wool blankets, grew too uncomfortable, and they began to stick more closely to the Imperial Road and its reliable access to posting inns.
Jun’s anticipation became more difficult to bear the closer they got to Xicheng. Smaller roads fed into the Imperial Road, which grew wider and busier with each passing day. The middle lane was reserved for messengers and for the military. A few times, contingents of armored soldiers on horseback galloped past, bright pennants snapping smartly behind them, the dust and thunder of their passing blowing over the slow-moving traffic in the outside lanes. “Make way, make way,” the bannermen shouted.
“Where are they all going?” Jun wondered aloud.
Ren aimed a scowl at the backs of the passing soldiers. “To the capital, like the rest of us. Those are soldiers of the Sixth Division. You can tell from the red flags. They answer to General Cobu. No doubt he’s summoned them to make his presence known in the capital during the tournament.” Ren’s words were tight with disdain. She flicked the reins over Po-Po and Smelly. “Anyone and everyone who’s important will want to be there—and be seen being there—when the next Guardian is chosen.”
That fact became apparent as the population of travelers swelled in the week before the tournament. Well-appointed carriages rolled past, carrying wealthy aristocrats and regional officials. These were invariably followed by an entourage of additional carriages carrying household members and staff. Chang’s heavily laden wagon trundled alongside merchants transporting their goods to market and better-off commoners riding horseback, their belongings carried behind them on pack mules or carts. Those with fewer means trudged on foot, lugging their possessions on their backs, willing to brave the cutthroat dangers of the big city for the chance to work, to beg, or even to steal from the well-heeled crowds that were sure to throng its streets.
Jun tried to identify other fighters on their way to the tournament. No doubt many of the competitors were already in the city, having trickled in over the past week or two. Candidates were arriving from all directions of the country into any of the eight major gates of the capital.
Jun saw a man with a shaved head, dressed in the black robes of a monk, riding a handsome horse and carrying two swords on his back. The other travelers on the road moved curiously but respectfully out of his way. Jun wanted to call out to him, to ask him his name and whether he was a Guardian candidate, but the man didn’t look like the conversational type. He soon pulled ahead and disappeared into the flow of traffic.
The next day, a procession of riders galloped past, shouting, “Make way, make way for the top Guardian candidates of the West!” Riding in the lead was a trio of tough-looking young men wearing white silk headbands and black tunics embroidered in gold. The man in the front carried an orange banner on a pole that fluttered dramatically behind him and read TIGER SPIRIT COMBAT SCHOOL. Behind the three candidates came an entourage of a dozen others. Jun studied them as they rode past proudly without giving Chang’s wagon a glance and forced foot travelers to hurriedly step off the sides of the road into the drainage ditches. A few glares followed the riders, but no one did more than grumble under their breath. The Tiger Spirit Combat School was obviously a large, prestigious school, wealthy enough to send three candidates to the tournament with an accompanying support staff. None of their three top students looked like the sort of person one would want to get into a confrontation with.
Jun chafed at the slow pace of Chang’s wagon, but it couldn’t be helped. To pay for Jun’s tournament entry fee and expenses in the city, they needed the money from every performance opportunity before they reached their destination. Near the capital, there were plenty of outlying towns and large, luxurious inns with pavilions and courtyards that gladly hosted performers who could attract and entertain guests. Chang and Ren played to packed audiences happy to spend money on rich food, fine wine, beautiful women, and good music.
Two hundred and sixty-seven copper yun. Jun felt like one of those miserly tax officials hunched over an abacus as he checked the ledger twice to be extra sure of his total earnings. He added the three hundred and six he’d taken with him from his father’s house. He needed six hundred yun for the entry fee and perhaps an extra twenty or thirty to get by in the city.
So close. One last good show is all we need.
At last, on a clear morning, they rounded a gentle curve in the Imperial Road and the wooded hillock they’d been skirting fell away from view like a curtain being pulled from a stage. Xicheng appeared as if summoned from the landscape, its massive rammed-earth walls rising four times the height of a man, the climbing sun dramatically lighting the red-and-gold banners flying over the watchtowers as the wide road unfolded toward the city’s tall gates.
With a shout of elation, Jun bolted to his feet from his seat beside Ren, swaying heedlessly and precariously with the moving wagon. “We’re almost there!”
“So, you can see the walls, eh?” Chang grumbled from the back of the wagon where he was resting. The flutist didn’t seem quite himself; there was a weary cloud over his usual energetic good humor. Last night, he’d played the flute as skillfully as ever but had lain down and gone to sleep early. For the past few days, he hadn’t sparred with Jun himself, merely watched and commented.
“People call Xicheng the brightest city in the world, but where there’s stronger light, there’re darker shadows,” Ren said quietly to Jun. “The capital is a dangerous place, especially for outsiders. It’s … not safe or comfortable for Sifu.”
Big cities were where he and Ren could play to the largest, wealthiest audiences and bring in the most income, but for Chang, urban spaces were overwhelming, a constant cacophony of noise and restless Breath, full of physical obstacles to impede, frustrate, and harm a blind man. Chang’s difficulties meant a greater burden on Ren in turn.
Jun wished there was more he could do to help. Over the past month, he’d picked up a number of habits from Ren—giving clear directions such as “the table is two paces to your left,” issuing warnings such as “the stage drops off five paces in front of you,” describing the food on Chang’s plate for him, “the spoon is on your right, the plate of pickles on your left, and the fish stew in front of you is very hot,” and never moving chairs or Chang’s belongings without alerting him. But there wasn’t anything Ren or Jun could do to dull the flutist’s powerful headaches when they came on, as they sometimes did when his uncommon senses were overtaxed.
“The Gate of Flowers Inn is only one li outside the walls,” Ren said, clearly keen to get them settled into comfortable lodgings for the night rather than attempt to make it through the city gates before the curfew drums sounded. “We can spend the night there and enter tomorrow morning.”
THE courtyard of the inn was bustling with guests, and the gardens that wound between the pavilions were fragrant with blooms of flowering orange trees and beds of peonies and lilac. The Gate of Flowers Inn was where travelers with money in their purses stayed if they arrived too late to enter before the drums signaled the closing of the city gates an hour after dusk, or if they wished for a night of diversion before facing important business in the capital the next morning. Those who couldn’t afford rooms, or who arrived after the inn was full, camped along the road in the fields nearby; after sundown, the smoke from dozens of cookfires rose between parked wagons and canvas tents.
Chang and Ren performed in the inn’s largest pavilion, with Chang playing a fast, rousing tune to accompany Ren’s acrobatic kicks, flips, and leaps in a show meant to celebrate the upcoming tournament. Her costume was striking—one half of it stark white, the other midnight black, divided straight down the middle. At the end, she spun free of the silk, dramatically emerging in a dress of shimmery silver that caught the light from the courtyard’s torches, winking like coins in the sun as she settled into a final elegant pose.
Jun watched from a corner alcove, applauding along with everyone else. Ren’s graceful moves and enthralling stage presence, paired with Chang’s stirring flute music, still tugged on his heart every time, no matter how often he saw them perform. There was something especially poignant for him about tonight’s performance—the last one before he entered the capital and seized his destiny in the tournament arena.
“Let’s hope we get just as impressive a show from this year’s Guardian candidates,” Jun overheard one official in blue robes exclaim enthusiastically to another.
The second official followed Ren’s exit from the stage with a disquieting frown, tugging on the end of his silver goatee. “There need to be more rules about politically subversive messaging in entertainment,” he grumbled.
“What are you talking about?”
“That dancer’s costume was obviously a political statement favoring appeasement and unification,” sniffed the official with the goatee. “Entirely inappropriate, given the times we’re in. The military has warned us against tolerating unpatriotic thoughts and behaviors that could weaken our national resolve and embolden the enemy.”
“Can’t you just relax and enjoy yourself for once, Gao?” the other, younger official replied, waving down a serving girl to refill their wine cups. “You talk as if the East is going to send their hypothetical breathmarked army surging across the wall tomorrow.”
Gao scowled in disappointment at his carefree colleague. “It’s complacent people like you who’re the problem and need to be reminded to take danger seriously.” He pointed to a notice stuck to one of the pavilion’s large black support pillars. In the rush to help Chang and Ren set up the stage and get ready for their performance, Jun hadn’t spotted the sign earlier, but now that the official pointed it out, he saw two more such notices in the pavilion.
BE ALERT! YELLOWSLEEVE SPIES OF THE EAST WALK AMONG US! Big, bold characters stood out above the picture of an evil-looking man with a face covered in red dragonskin, wearing a black tunic with yellow sleeves. The demonic villain’s eyes bulged over a mouth of sharp teeth and a spiked collar with a tag that read “Dog of the Council.” IT IS THE DUTY OF ALL LOYAL CITIZENS TO REPORT SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY TO MILITARY AUTHORITIES, the notice concluded in smaller brushstrokes.
Jun had no love for the Aspects, but he knew they didn’t look like the inhuman caricacture on the sign. In fact, there was one Aspect out there who looked exactly like him. Cruel classmates had called Jun a yellowsleeve spy enough times as a child that the sight of the words made him want to rush over, tear the notice down, and rip it to shreds.
Not important, he told himself, and not worth it. Certainly not tonight, when causing trouble at the inn might delay them getting to the last day of tournament registration. Besides, he had work to do right now; he needed to take down the stage, pack up the equipment, and tally their final earnings. The audience tonight had been large and well-heeled. With any luck, he would at last have all the money he needed, and a little to spare.
Jun strode away from the two officials, back to where Chang sat on a stool next to their cashbox. Behind him, he heard Gao’s colleague end their argument with a dismissive laugh. “You’re overthinking things as usual. All I saw tonight was a beautiful woman dancing.”
The beautiful woman in question was at the moment being approached by an overly interested audience member, a young man with a crooked nose who cajoled, “Lovely miss, come sit next to me. My friends and I have a table with a spot waiting just for you.”
All thoughts of the officials and the distasteful posters fled Jun’s mind. “I’ll handle this,” he said to Chang, and stepped into the admirer’s way before the man could get near Ren. “Don’t bother the lady,” he suggested firmly.
“Or what?” the man retorted, looking Jun up and down irritably.
Jun shrugged. “Or I’ll bother you back.” He was half a head taller than the other man, and a month of physical work and hard training had only bettered his Iron Core style physique. He wasn’t worried, not unless the man brought half a dozen of his friends over.
The shorter man scowled and took a grudging step backward, apparently coming to an unfavorable conclusion about his chances of getting past Jun. “Relax,” he said, opening his hands placatingly and changing his tone, “I didn’t mean anything untoward. I only wanted to express my appreciation for the performers.”
“You could do that with coin,” Jun reminded him.
“Of course, of course.” The man pulled a string of copper yun from a pocket of his tunic and, without even counting it, handed it to a stooped, gray-haired stranger standing nearby in a long traveling coat. “Kind sir, will you please do me a favor and place this in the cashbox up there next to the flutist? Tell the lady it’s from a devout and honorable supporter.” He watched the elderly man shuffle up and bend over the cashbox, then turned back to Jun and sneered widely, as if to say, There, happy? before wandering off through the courtyard.
“I’ve told you before, you don’t need to do that,” Ren said, coming up to Jun after the man was gone. “I’ve sparred with you and put you on your back before, remember? If any of the guests gives me trouble, I can handle the situation. And they’ll be tossed out of the inn.”
“Sure, but why risk damaging your dress?” Jun said, indicating her fine silk costume. “I did promise I’d be your security guard, and the main purpose of a guard is to make assholes think twice before they try to do anything foolish.” It wasn’t the first time a suspicious man had come up wanting to see Ren after her performance. Usually, the presence of Sifu Chang deterred them, but when it didn’t, Jun figured it was his job to do so more convincingly.
At least this most recent one had apologized in the most useful way possible—with money. Jun took the satisfyingly heavy box and walked Ren to her room. Despite her assertions that it was unnecessary he escort her, she always let him do so. “Don’t worry about Sifu, I’ll help him back, too,” he promised.
When Jun turned around, she called out to him quietly, “Jun, look.” Ren pointed up into the sky, where the fiery light of the Red Star shone twice as bright as any other. “It’s your star.”
Dragon’s Eye, gazing over the walls of Xicheng. Heaven was watching the Guardian’s Tournament. Watching him. A nameless pang of emotion and yearning stole any reply Jun might’ve made. The tempestuous influence of the Red Star had often felt to him like a curse, something that adults in his life faulted him for and that he could never escape.
But Ren saw it as a blessing. A sign of fortune and greatness that could be. Her smile warmed him from head to toe before she shut the door.
Jun went back to the pavilion to dismantle the stage and complete his other duties. The two officials had departed so he was spared more of Gao’s pontificating, although the ugly posters still bothered him—he hadn’t seen them in Cheon or earlier on the journey. Had they gone up recently, he wondered, or were people near the capital more fearful of the East?
“Something bothering you?” Chang asked, perhaps noticing his silence.
He thought to mention the notices to Chang, but the flutist couldn’t see them, and Jun didn’t feel like describing them in detail. Besides, his instructor looked hunched, as if he wanted to be in bed an hour ago. “Nothing,” Jun replied. “Just hard to believe we’ve come all this way.”
Chang put a hand on his shoulder. “I won’t be much help to you from now on,” he said apologetically. “But you know everything you need to know.” He patted Jun’s shoulder tiredly. “And whatever you don’t know by now wasn’t that important anyway.”
Jun helped the weary flutist to his room, stowed their equipment back in the wagon, fed and watered Po-Po and Smelly, and returned through the courtyard, gazing thoughtfully up at the stars, thinking of tomorrow. When he brought his head back down, he saw Ren standing outside the door to his room, her face a mask of misery.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” Jun exclaimed, rushing up and taking her by the arms. He thought instantly about the man with the crooked nose.
Wordlessly, she led him into her room next door and showed him the open cashbox. Jun stared in appalled disbelief. Earlier in the evening, the box had contained all their earnings from the past month of performances—the money they needed to live off of, that Jun needed to be able to compete.
Now it contained a pile of smooth gray rocks.