Jun was brought before a rack of short bladed weapons—knives, dagger-axes, tiger hook swords, crescent blades, wind-and-fire wheels with wickedly sharp spikes. An officiant explained to him that each round of the tournament going forward would feature a different weapon category, so as to test each candidate’s overall proficiency. If Jun made it through this match, he would have to choose a different weapon for his next fight.
There would be no next fight, not for him. Win or lose, he had his father’s life to think of. Jun’s mind swam with indecision. Simple is better. Don’t overthink it. The knife wasn’t flashy, but he knew how to use it well. If Hsu knew better than him, so be it.
Ordinarily, he would eat a little, hydrate, and rest on the cushioned seats, doing some of the breathing exercises Chang had taught him before beginning his prefight warm-up routine. Now, he couldn’t eat or sit still or think about anything other than his father burning with fever and struggling to draw in air. Jun paced back and forth like a trapped animal.
What if his gamble failed? Or if Doctor Lim didn’t fulfill her side of the deal? Even if she was good for her word, what if she couldn’t do any more than the other doctor?
Outside, a collective gasp went up from the crowd. A multitude of voices screamed along with the victorious fighter in the arena. “And once again, the indisputable winner is Leopard!” bellowed the announcer.
Two arena attendants hurried past the competitors’ pavilion, carrying Leopard’s opponent on a stretcher slung between poles. The man was quite dead, one side of his head bloody and deformed by a skull-cracking blow from a spiked club. Jun’s eyes passed over the grisly sight without registering its import.
The result of the match was a stark contrast to the one that had gone before. Jun had heard from Doctor Lim that Yin Yue had won his fight against a high-kicking adept of the Whirling Leg Sect by landing a solid but nonlethal blow of the tonfa to his opponent’s chin. Jun had heard the crowd roar their approval for noble Prodigy Yin.
They cheer for honorable men and sadistic bastards alike, Jun thought. He didn’t know where Yin had gone after his match, but it was just as well he hadn’t come back to the competitors’ pavilion. Jun wouldn’t have known what to say, and the last person he wanted to break down in front of was Yin Yue.
Where was Ren? Was she with Yin? He thought about trying to find her, to beg her to go to the inn and look after his father until he got there, but searching for her when it seemed as if half the city was packed into Warrior’s Park felt impossible. No time.
An attendant came to escort Jun to his fight. He glanced over his shoulder at Doctor Lim, holding her gaze, reminding her of their bargain. The doctor blinked nervously and gave him a short nod of assurance.
The Gold Arena was situated directly in front of the emperor’s raised platform and the gates of the Pearl. All the other arenas behind it now sat empty, and the watching crowd was arrayed in rows upon rows of raised benches that had been erected on all sides. Jun didn’t pause to take in the crowd or raise his face to the platform where the Scroll rested, waiting for a worthy Guardian. He strode straight across the bloodstained ground, the knife in his hand steady with grim, impatient purpose.
Hsu the Boss stepped into the arena. The man was lean and sinewy, and his slanted eyebrows and sharp nose gave him the look of a bird of prey. He twirled his hooked blade expertly before falling into the light-footed stance of an experienced knife fighter.
Jun didn’t hear any of what the announcer said to introduce the match, nor the chanting of the crowd. The cacophony of noise was a meaningless white hum echoing in his head. He glanced to the side of the arena where a scribe sat at a table, ready to record the details of the fight so they could be copied and conveyed by messengers throughout the land and preserved for posterity. A row of unlit joss sticks stood waiting upright in a rectangular pot of sand, each one marking one minute of the fight.
Should he try to throw the match quickly? Win Lim the money with his immediate defeat? Even as Jun turned the once unthinkable idea around in his head, he rejected it. And not only because the idea of giving up without even trying was anathema to every fiber of his being. Other people in the competitors’ pavilion had seen him talking to the doctor before the fight. If he surrendered to Hsu too easily, it would be suspicious. He couldn’t help his father if he and Lim were arrested for bet fixing. And if he allowed himself to be badly injured or killed, how could he be absolutely sure the conniving doctor would keep her word?
No, he would have to win this. And fast.
Without seeking, his eyes found Ren, not seated on a bench but standing right at the sideline. She gave him an encouraging smile, but at the sight of his grim expression, the smile wavered and fell off her face, replaced with confusion and concern.
The crowd shushed in eager anticipation as the gong sounded.
The Boss slid forward with smooth efficiency, left leg and hand leading, his knife held poised behind his guard, ready to dart into any opening with a slash or stab. He circled Jun patiently, staring straight into his eyes with an intense squint of concentration. Hsu was clearly waiting for Jun to make the first move.
Jun had intended to strike as soon as the gong sounded, but seeing Hsu confidently anticipating his attack, he hesitated. When blades were involved, any foolish opening move might be one’s last. If he acted recklessly, Hsu would cut him down before he knew what had happened.
A spike of fear raced through Jun’s limbs, locking them in place. His throat went dry. What a fool he was, to gamble his father’s life on something as unpredictable as a knife fight.
The spectators voiced their frustration as seconds dragged on without movement from either fighter. Hsu’s supporters shouted, “Cut him up! Show that boy who’s the Boss!” Others jeered, “What a whole lot of nothing from someone who calls himself the Little Dragon.”
Do something! Jun screamed at himself, as if willing his feet to step off a cliff. Before time runs out and you fail Baba like you’ve been doing your whole miserable life. Without thinking, he glanced over at the scribe’s table and the first lit joss stick, already burned down by a third.
Hsu chose that moment to attack. He sprang forward with four swift cuts in a row, his knife flashing too quickly for the eye to track: slashes forehand and backhand, thrust to center line, another crosswise slash. Jun barely managed to evade being stabbed in the chest, and Hsu’s last move sliced through his shirt and opened up a cut across his midsection. It wasn’t terribly deep, but the stinging pain preceded the frightening sensation of blood streaming down his belly, soaking into the tops of his pants.
He’s too good, Jun thought in a panic. I can’t win.
Hsu pressed forward, coming on fast and hard with another flurry of knife attacks, flowing smoothly from one move into the next. Jun evaded and countered, using his left hand to block and deflect the onslaught of cuts while throwing slashes and thrusts of his own with the right, but he seemed unable to break out of being on the defensive. It was all he could do to keep up. His pulse skyrocketed and sweat broke out on his face. When he was too slow, Hsu slashed him across the right arm, cutting through his sleeve and narrowly missing his elbow.
Jun cast about frantically for a way out of the worsening situation. There was no escape from the arena and from the bind he’d put himself in. There was only one thing to do: drop the knife and yield. Lose the fight, but do it quickly enough for Lim to win the bet and agree to save his father. He had to do it now, before the three minutes were up.
A roar built in Jun’s head, blotting out all other thoughts. The knife shook in his hand.
Hsu the Boss paused, weapon poised, for just a second, as if he’d been watching and waiting to see the moment of defeat come into Jun’s eyes. As if he’d been expecting it and was giving Jun the opportunity to surrender.
The unsettling revelation hit Jun like a thunderbolt.
Hsu’s narrowed stare was far too perceptive.
He’s doing this to you. A whisper in Sai’s voice.
At times during the past month of training with Sifu Chang, whenever Jun was sluggish, when he was too tense, when he became rushed or careless in his impatience to win, when he became frustrated or tired, or, most of all, when he was burning his energy too fast and hard and thus sacrificing control, efficiency, and stamina, Chang would stop in the middle of a sparring exercise and ask, “What’s happening with your Breath?”
Jun took several quick steps backward, out of Hsu’s range. He drove his awareness inward, sought out his own Breath, found it curled inward and cooling, gloomy and listless, not his usual energy. He seized it with his will and roused it, as if physically giving himself a hard shake.
A veil seemed to lift from Jun’s eyes. His focus returned, and with it, a single overriding thought: I will not defeat myself.
Jun gripped the knife, fixed his gaze on the Boss, and attacked.
Hsu seemed to realize that something had changed. He curved his spine away from Jun’s first three confident slashes, but the fourth one opened a gash across his collarbone, drawing blood. Hsu countered with a thrust, the blade darting for Jun’s face, no restraint, a bald attempt at a killing blow. Jun knocked the man’s knife hand upward with his wrist and snapped a kick into Hsu’s stomach, pitching him forward.
Hsu turned his momentum into a lunge, aiming to slash Jun across the inside of the thigh, opening a main artery and watching him bleed out. He didn’t get there fast enough; as soon as he went low, Jun kicked him in the head, clipping him across the temple and sending Hsu sprawling to the ground. The crowd roared. Before Hsu could scramble dazedly to his feet, Jun was on him, stomping his heel down on the man’s right hand. The knife spasmed from Hsu’s grip and he howled as the bones of his hand broke.
With a jolt of vindictive satisfaction, Jun kicked Hsu’s weapon far out of reach, then kicked him again in the ribs and the head. The Boss swayed on his knees, barely conscious, but somehow grabbed Jun’s arm with both hands. “You haven’t won yet,” he slurred through a mouth filled with blood. “It only ends with surrender or death, and I’m not surrendering.”
The entire crowd was on its feet, shouting encouragement. Jun could feel the air over the arena vibrating with energy. Time was running out; any second now, this would all have been for nothing—unless he ended the fight. He pressed the tip of the knife to Hsu’s throat. It punctured the skin, drawing a welling bead of blood. He hadn’t killed anyone, not yet, but now he was going to have to. He wanted to. In this arena, you had to be a killer. Like Leopard.
Do it. A voice that didn’t feel like his own, or Sai’s. What are you waiting for?
His father’s face flashed into his mind.
Peaceable, sorrowful Li Hon, who lay dying far from home because of a foolish son—he’d never killed anyone, had only ever wanted to use martial arts to improve himself and others.
Jun drew his left fist back and slugged Hsu across the jaw, knocking him onto his back and straight into unconsciousness. Panting, Jun dropped the knife to the ground at his feet.
“The victor, by knockout … Li Jun the Little Dragon!” bellowed the arena official.
Jun whipped his head around to the scribe’s table. The third joss stick was burned down to a stub. As he stared, the tiny red flame went out, the thin curl of white smoke vanishing.
Three minutes.
A wave of reaction from the stands: cheering from some, disappointed groaning from others. Perched near the scribe’s table, Doctor Lim’s accomplice let out a whoop, his gap-toothed grin filling his face as he collected his winnings. Jun’s eyes traveled past Ren’s bewildered relief and up to the head platform.
To Jun’s surprise, General Cobu raised his hands and clapped.
Hsu the Boss stirred and groaned. Slowly, gingerly, he got to his knees and raised a defeated but resentful glare to Jun. “How did you do it?” he wheezed, bitter confusion dripping from his voice. “No one else was able to shake off the fog I put on them.”
The crushing doubt and panic, the fear and anger and carelessness, and then at the end, the maddened desire to slit Hsu’s throat. In the moment, he’d known something was very wrong, but now, with his head clear, the understanding knocked Jun back a pace. “You were using a breathmark ability on me.”
Hsu sat back and pulled up his left trouser leg to reveal a mottling of orange scales on his calf. He dropped the hem of his pants back down. “I’m not that good a fighter,” he admitted sullenly. “But I’ve always been able to make my opponents perform worse than me. Those who face me lose heart, can’t concentrate, make mistakes. That’s how I was able to get this far.” The man looked Jun in the eye with bitter admiration. “Until you. You came into the arena with more doubt and fear in you than anyone else I’ve fought in the tournament so far. It was easy for me to amplify. But somehow, you shook off my influence. How?”
Jun looked down at the weapon he’d dropped to the ground. If Master Chang had not spent innumerable hours teaching him to recognize when he was out of control and how to rein in and harness his Breath, he wouldn’t have stood a chance against Hsu’s manipulation. If he hadn’t been trying to win for his father instead of himself, he wouldn’t have been able to think beyond his own raging emotions and might’ve given in to the bloodlust of the moment.
“I had a good sifu,” Jun said, “who told me that the only way to master others is to master yourself first.” He gave a slow shake of the head as he stared down at his opponent. “Why, though? Why would you try to make me kill you, at the end?”
Hsu slumped. Blood from the cut on his collarbone was running down the front of his body, staining his shirt and trousers and dripping into the sand. “It’s like Leopard said. You win or you die. I’ve failed and I can’t ever show my face to my master again.”
“You were wrong when you said you’re not a good fighter,” Jun told him. “Even without your breathmark ability, you were the most skilled knife fighter I’ve seen. With it, you were truly formidable. You have nothing to be ashamed of, and if your master is ashamed of you, then you ought to find a new master. Or become your own.”
Hsu looked up at him with grudging admiration. He extended his uninjured left hand and Jun pulled him to his feet. They stood with hands still clasped. “I hope you defeat Leopard,” Hsu said fiercely. “I wanted to fight that monster, even if he killed me. I wanted to see if there was enough doubt in his black heart to turn against him. Now you’ll have to beat him for me.”
Jun swallowed and turned away. I can’t. But he didn’t have time to explain.
Ren was there as soon as he ran out of the arena. She took him by the arm, heedless of staining her hands with his blood. “What’s wrong? Are you all right? You weren’t yourself at all back there.”
Her expression was so acutely worried it was all Jun could do not to crumple and fall against her. “My father,” he whispered. “He’s here in the city. I have to get back to him before it’s too late.”