By the time Jun made it back to the Golden Gate Inn, dusk had fallen and the great exterior gates of Xicheng had closed to the sonorous beat of the evening curfew drums. Inside the sleepless city, however, there was no dwindling of activity. Candlelight appeared in upper windows, lamps shone from balconies, fixed torches blazed from either side of the inn’s entrance and all around the courtyard. One of the doormen told Jun that the blind flutist and his daughter had already finished their performance in the main pavilion.
Jun hurried over to see if he might at least help with stage takedown, but he was too late for that as well. Ren was still in costume, wearing the blue-green gown with weighted sleeves that she was so adept at twirling into a maelstrom of silk. She was sitting on a nearby retaining wall with a cup of wine in her hand, deep in conversation with, of all people, Yin Yue.
What is Yin doing here? Jun suffered a moment of deeply annoyed confusion—couldn’t he get away from Prodigy Yin anywhere?—before remembering that Ren had invited Yin to watch her performance when they’d met on the Island yesterday.
Biting back a grumble, Jun walked up to them. “How was the show tonight?”
They looked up at him. The flash of irritation on Yin Yue’s face at having their conversation interrupted gave Jun a petty, momentary sense of satisfaction before the older student smoothly controlled his expression and turned away from Jun back to Ren. “It was flawless,” Yin said simply.
Jun felt his mouth falling open and forced it shut. Yin Yue was one of the most exacting people he knew. As a senior student and assistant instructor in the Iron Core school, he was spare and honest with praise, but he never failed to find the smallest details to critique—just like he had after Jun’s match with Tiger Peng. The other students respected his tough judgment because Yin was good enough not to rub his talent in others’ faces.
Who on earth was this Yin Yue?
“I’m sorry I haven’t come to see your matches yet,” Ren said, speaking to Jun and Yin together. “I’ll try to make it to the Island tomorrow. Today was a hard day for Sifu, so I had to stay with him. I didn’t doubt you’d both make it through the early matches, though.”
Jun tried not to let chagrin show on his face. Even though he wished she’d been there today, perhaps it was better she hadn’t witnessed his near loss in the first round. “No worries,” he said, trying to sound casual. “You have to take care of Sifu and think of your own performances, of course. Sorry I didn’t get back in time to help.”
“That’s all right. Yin Yue was here.”
Jun pretended he hadn’t heard. “I was delayed,” he added quickly. “There was a commotion in the street after the last match of the day. Some people started to protest against General Cobu, but soldiers came and shut it down. They didn’t do it gently either.”
Ren’s expression turned grim, and she took a swallow of wine. “It’s the talk of the city right now—how General Cobu is using the Guardian’s Tournament to cement power.”
Yin said gravely, “Fifty-six candidates withdrew from the tournament today. Three-quarters of those remaining have been eliminated. Only thirty of us are left. This is going to be the shortest, most brutal Guardian’s Tournament in recent memory.”
Jun crossed his arms. “I like the improved odds. Whoever beats Leopard to become the new Guardian will have the ear of the emperor and the respect of the country. He’ll be able to set the tournament right again and stop General Cobu from going on his power trip.”
After what he’d seen that evening, he needed to believe that was true. A man had been arrested, viciously beaten, and might lose his head for standing on a crate and saying in public what Ren had just said in the privacy of the inn’s courtyard. Jun had sat by with everyone else and watched it happen, knowing there was nothing he could do in the moment.
But if he became the Guardian, he could keep the Scroll out of Cobu’s hands.
To Jun’s surprise, Yin Yue nodded in agreement. “What happened today makes it clear there’s a lot more riding on the outcome of the tournament than any of us thought. Anyone who can stay in the tournament has a duty to do so now, for the sake of the country.”
Jun let out an incredulous noise. “You were the one who said we should pull out of the tournament this morning, remember?”
“I didn’t say that.” Yin Yue’s reply was pressed flat with barely contained irritation. “I questioned if we should compete. I decided to stay in the tournament because I felt like I owed it to Master Song and all those who’ve supported me.”
Jun couldn’t help rolling his eyes. “Get off your high horse, Yin. You stayed in because of your ego. You want to win as much as anyone else.”
Yin shot Jun a sharp look. “Of course I want to win. You can pursue a goal for yourself as well as for others. A new Guardian brings national attention to his martial school and style. If I won, I could start my own school with Master Song’s blessing and expand the Iron Core style all over the West.” It was clear, from his accusatory expression, that he was still personally offended by Jun’s disloyalty to their school.
“The title of Guardian and the nice house and servants are just superficial rewards. What actually matters is the lasting difference I could make on the martial arts community.” Yin breathed out tightly, his shoulders curling as he sat forward. His voice softened a touch but remained no less resolute. “Master Song has been like a father to me. I always hoped that one day I could be as influential a sifu to others as he was to me.”
Jun dropped his gaze to the pavers, shamed by Yin’s reply. He’d forgotten that Yin Yue’s father had passed away some years ago and that Yin lived at the Iron Core school even more than he did. Yin’s role as an overly earnest assistant instructor had been given to him, Jun had long assumed, simply because he was the top student and Master Song’s favorite, not because he had genuine dreams of teaching.
He only felt worse when Ren placed a sympathetic hand on Yin’s back and said, “It’s admirable to want to pass on what matters most to you to others and to create something enduring.”
Yin lifted a grateful smile. They were sitting quite close together, Jun noticed. Nearly as close as he and Ren had been on the roof of the Gate of Flowers Inn.
You’re being a jealous prick. Now more than ever, he didn’t appreciate his conscience taking on Sai’s voice. Ren didn’t owe him anything. Last night, he’d been the one to pull away first.
Still. He couldn’t keep down the sour tang of betrayal that rose to coat his tongue.
It wasn’t just Ren’s sudden interest in Yin Yue so quickly after meeting him that galled Jun so badly. There were other things she hadn’t been honest about. Her breathmark, for one. And additional facts were becoming clear—details he’d wondered about ever since that first evening at River Maiden.
Jun cleared his throat loudly, forcing Ren and Yin to look up at him. “The people speaking out against Cobu were part of a group called the Silent Flute Society.” He tried to keep his voice flat, and his eyes didn’t leave Ren’s face. “All of Sifu’s friends, the ones he’s been meeting with at different towns over the past month, who got us rooms at this inn, who trained me along the way—they all used the same salute that the protestors did today.” Hands rising to lips, fists pressed to hearts. “They’re part of the Silent Flute Society, too, aren’t they?”
He didn’t say the obvious part out loud. Yin Yue did it for him. Turning to Ren with an expression full of worry, he lowered his voice below any chance of being overheard. “Wait … You and your sifu are members of the Silent Flute Society?”
Ren’s gaze was unflinching as she shifted it slowly from Yin to Jun, but there was a sadness in her eyes that suggested she’d known he would make the connection eventually. She drained the rest of the wine in her cup in one swallow and set it aside, as if steeling herself for a conversation she didn’t want to have. “What do you know about the Silent Flute Society?”
“They’re unificationists,” Jun said, parroting what he’d heard from the soup vendor.
Yin Yue’s brow furrowed as he searched his memory. “They didn’t use to be. They started out as part of the Virtuous Rebellion, long ago. At least, that’s what I heard from my grandfather.” When Jun and Ren looked at him curiously, he explained, “My family’s mostly from the West, except for my grandfather’s side. His relatives were part of the Virtuous Rebellion. He never saw any of them again after the Snake Wall went up, but he would still tell us about the East sometimes.”
Jun had spent the past ten years trying his best to hide, or at least downplay, the fact that he was from the other side of the wall. He avoided talking about his mother and twin brother, he’d worked hard to lose his childhood accent, and if all else failed, he could shut up school bullies with his fists. He hadn’t imagined that both Ren and Yin Yue had their own connections to the East; he’d simply never bothered to ask.
Apparently, it was more common than he’d thought. A lot of people, it seemed, had lost someone in the separation but didn’t speak about it.
“Your grandfather’s right,” Ren said. “At the time, a lot of people supported the Virtuous Rebellion. They wanted the emperor to step aside for his son, and for future monarchs to have to consult and answer to a Council of Virtue made up of breathmarked representatives from every province. Most people didn’t imagine the country would end up being split apart.”
“That describes my grandfather and his family,” Yin said, nodding. “I remember he used to say the rebellion betrayed its members by negotiating for secession.”
“When the leaders of the Virtuous Rebellion and the emperor decided to divide Longhan in half, an opposing faction of the Virtuous broke away. They called themselves the Silent Flute Society. Some of them fled West before the Snake Wall was completed. Others stayed and tried to oppose the Council from within the East.” Ren’s gaze turned inward and distant. Her voice fell. “Like my parents. When they sent me away, it was to their allies in the West, so that I would be raised to continue the Society’s work from the other side of the wall.”
Jun spun away and paced three agitated steps in each direction. “Why didn’t you or Sifu Chang ever tell me any of this? This whole time?” His voice came out plaintive with bewildered accusation. He’d traveled with them for an entire month, had thought himself part of their troupe—but they’d never trusted him enough to share the true nature of their work.
Ren looked pained. She reached out an arm to him, but then let it drop guiltily back into her lap. “It wasn’t my place. I didn’t want you coming to the Guardian’s Tournament at all, remember? We already suspected that it would be far more dangerous this year. But Sifu said since you weren’t going to be dissuaded from competing, it was better not to involve you in anything that wasn’t your concern and might distract you from your training.”
Yin Yue looked between them, shifting uncomfortably at the rising strain in their voices. “Do you … want me to leave so you can talk about this alone?”
“Yes,” Jun said, at the same time as Ren insisted, “No.” She put a firm hand on Yin’s arm to keep him from going. “We’re all in this together now. I don’t want to keep either of you out, not anymore, not when you’re among the few left standing in General Cobu’s way. You ought to know what’s at stake and what you’re up against.”
She looked back up at Jun. Her eyes swam with an apologetic plea for understanding. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We should’ve trusted you, but it’s hard to trust anyone these days. The military views the Silent Flute Society as a threat. You’ve seen those posters they put up and heard the paranoia about traitors and spies.” She held on to her elbows. “We didn’t want to bring you into our fight. But the whole tournament’s been brought into it now.”
An uncertain silence fell heavy between them. Elsewhere in the courtyard of the inn, guests mingled and conversed and laughed, seemingly without a care in the world, but Jun felt as if the three of them remained in an awkward bubble—each of them at the tournament for their own close-held reasons and painfully unsure of where they stood with the other two.
At last, Yin Yue rubbed his hands down his thighs and said to Ren, choosing his words carefully, “I understand why you’d wish to honor your parents and continue their fight. But after what Jun saw in the streets tonight, it’s too dangerous to be here as part of the Silent Flute Society.” He reached out and took one of Ren’s hands in his own, his lips tight with concern. “As happy as I was to meet you, and as much as I want you to stay, it would be best for you and your sifu to leave Xicheng. At least until the Guardian’s Tournament is over.”
Jun swallowed a hard lump of confusion. He didn’t know how to feel or what to say. He couldn’t decide if he should feel hurt and betrayed by Ren, but he still hated the idea of her leaving. Yet he couldn’t disagree with Yin’s assessment either.
Ren looked back at Yin steadily. “Isn’t fighting in the tournament even more dangerous? Yet you’re both still planning to return to the Island tomorrow.”
“That’s different,” Yin insisted. “We know we might lose. We might be injured or killed by an opponent. But outside the arena, we’re Guardian candidates under the emperor’s protection. And we have so much to gain, for ourselves and others, if we win. What does working for the Silent Flute Society gain you that’s worth risking your life?”
Ren sagged a little as she studied Yin’s large, callused hands gently enclosing one of her own. She blinked hard, swiping at her eyes with the thumb of her other hand. “When I was little, I used to pray to the Blessed Consort every day that the Snake Wall would come down and I could be with my family again. I thought if I tried hard enough, she would listen. Everything I did, no matter how difficult it was, felt like I was working toward that happening.”
Jun’s guts twisted. He might’ve said the exact same thing about himself.
“But then…” Ren looked toward the inn. “Sifu became my family. I believe in what we’re doing. I want to see the country unified. Maybe I really will get to see my parents again, if that happens. But I’m not sure that’s even the most important reason for me anymore.” She smiled sadly. “I just want us to stop moving. To call a place home and live somewhat normal lives. For Sifu to finally be able to rest. That won’t happen until we achieve our goal.”
She squeezed Yin’s fingers, then pulled her hand free of his. “You’re both willing to risk everything for a greater dream, and it’s no different for me. As long as Sifu stays, so do I.”
Yin Yue didn’t look happy, but he didn’t say anything else to argue.
Jun brought his head up. “Where is Sifu?” he asked hoarsely.
Ren pointed to one of the upstairs guest rooms. “Second door on the right. He’s visiting with an old friend right now. He’ll want to talk to you, but…” She bit her lip. “Today was difficult.”
As much as he disliked leaving Ren and Yin alone together, he needed to speak with his instructor. Or rather, to confront him. With a reluctant backward glance, Jun went up the stairs.