Sheer physical exhaustion enabled Jun to fall asleep for a few hours. When he awoke, it was still dark, but the sky was paler, presaging the arrival of dawn. For a minute, he didn’t remember where he was or what had transpired the previous evening. Then it all came back to him at once. He shut his eyes tight, curling into a ball on his side, clenching his fists, as if by shutting out the world for a few seconds, he could pretend none of it had happened.
Quietly, he dressed in the dark and packed his few meager belongings. Better to leave now and be at the city gates when they opened, before the streets filled with people going the other direction, when he might be recognized and questioned for leaving. He paused before opening the door, looking back at the single bed where Ren slept shielded from sight by the folding screen.
Jun took a few silent steps to the side and peered around the edge of the screen. Maybe it wasn’t proper, but all he wanted was a last glimpse of Ren, in case he never saw her again.
The bed was empty. Jun whirled around; Yin Yue’s sleeping roll was also unoccupied.
Jun threw open the door to the room. Yin was sitting on the curb of the covered walkway in front of the inn, his back to Jun, long arms draped over his knees. “She left already,” he said without turning around. Before Jun could ask: “I didn’t see her. She was gone when I woke up.”
“You managed to sleep, at least.”
“Barely.”
Jun walked over and stood next to Yin. The sky was just beginning to lighten, the weather starting to cool. The first leaves to fall from the elm tree overhanging the guesthouse littered the walkway and the tiles of the clay roof. The smell of bread rolls fresh out of the steamer wafted from the kitchen. It seemed, deceptively, like a normal morning.
“Ren can take care of herself,” Jun said. “She put me on my back more than once while sparring. I wasn’t going easy either. She can disguise herself well, too. She’ll be fine.”
Yin nodded slowly, as if doing his best to believe Jun’s assurances. “You know her better than I do. You worked at the opera house and traveled with her here all the way from Cheon.” The note of resentment in Yin’s voice would’ve been amusing to Jun under other circumstances. Yin hesitated. “Were you … Was there anything…”
It occurred to Jun that he could ruin Yin Yue’s day by lying, but he couldn’t find in himself any desire to do so. “No,” he said. When Yin responded with skeptical silence, Jun added, “Look, Yin, I’m not blind, or a eunuch, but Sifu Chang is like a father to her, and he was there the whole time. And I was concentrating on getting ready for the tournament. She obviously had things on her mind, too. Silent Flute Society plans that I didn’t know about. She wasn’t impressed that I invited myself along.”
Yin Yue’s shoulders came down slightly. “I didn’t have anything else on my mind besides the tournament either. It’s all I’ve thought about for months. I didn’t expect … all this to happen.”
“That makes two of us.”
Yin stared pensively into the distance at nothing. “When my father died, it was completely unexpected.” There was a rough quality to his voice, as if he didn’t really want to be talking but was doing it anyway. “I was twelve, and my youngest sister was just a baby. My father was training as usual with a group of best friends, including Master Song, when he just … collapsed. It was a very hot day, so at first they all thought he’d fainted from exhaustion, but he didn’t get back up. He was the strongest man I knew, a martial artist in the prime of his life, but it turns out he had a heart defect no one knew about, and it killed him suddenly.”
Jun was aware that Yin’s father had died several years ago, but he’d never heard how, and he’d never bothered to find out. Now he felt like an ass for not knowing, and he couldn’t think of what to say, how to respond to someone sharing an old grief when his was so fresh.
“I didn’t know that” was all he could come up with.
Yin finally turned over his shoulder to look at Jun. “I understand why you have to go,” he said. “And I know it doesn’t feel like you can do anything right now. Even after the mourning period, I felt like I couldn’t get through the day, much less go back to training. But then I realized … I couldn’t afford to waste time. None of us know how long we have to live. We have to do what’s important while we still have the chance.”
It was strange, Jun thought. If he’d known that family tragedy drove Yin Yue to become the top student and compete in the Guardian’s Tournament, that Yin was loyal to Master Song and the Iron Core school for such personal reasons—would he have been as jealous and resentful of the other student all these years? Would he have trained so hard every day to overtake him?
With an odd pang, he realized he owed as much to his rival as he did to his instructors.
Yin Yue met Jun’s eyes with an expression that was solemn and searching. “You could stay and fight,” he said. “Men have deferred their mourning periods before due to military service, extenuating circumstances, or extraordinary hardship. This situation would seem to qualify.”
The irony of Yin Yue trying to convince him to fight in the tournament was so great that Jun felt the urge to laugh and cry at the same time. “Our situations aren’t the same, Yin,” he replied harshly. “You obeyed your father’s wishes and followed in his footsteps. It’s not your fault he died. In my case…” His face contorted, and he turned away so Yin couldn’t see.
When he could speak again, he said, “I’m not sure I even want to be the Guardian anymore. I wouldn’t have believed I could ever feel this way. I wanted so badly to win the tournament and prove that I was the best martial artist in the country, but now … I think there are more important things to be than a good fighter. Like a good person. A good student. A good son. I … didn’t figure out that part first.”
He walked past his old schoolmate, pausing for a moment. “Good luck today, Yin. I mean it. I hope you become the Guardian.”
EACH step that Jun took toward the gates felt heavy, as if he were climbing uphill, his steps dragged down as if by invisible sandbags heavier than the ones Master Song used to make him carry during training. Soon he was going decidedly against traffic, as streams of early risers made their way toward the center of the city, eager to secure prime viewing spots on the Island for what would be the last and most exciting day of the Guardian’s Tournament.
A little boy ran smack into Jun’s legs. He looked up, startled and frightened. Jun smiled to reassure the boy. The child grinned back. “Are you going to see the Guardian’s Tournament?” he asked. When Jun shook his head, the boy said, “Why not?! The Guardian is the strongest, bravest, best warrior in the whole country! He guards the Scroll of Heaven and keeps the land safe. I want to be the Guardian when I grow up.” Without waiting for Jun’s response, he ran off after his family.
Jun watched the boy hurry away with no idea that he might soon be witnessing General Cobu’s mad henchman brutally and publicly murdering someone in the arena so his master could take control of the West. That someone could be Ghostface or Yin Yue.
Suddenly, Jun felt as if he needed to sit down.
His stomach reminded him that he hadn’t eaten yet, so he slid onto the stool in front of the nearest food stall and ordered a large bowl of congee with chives and egg. He ate, mechanically shoveling the food into his mouth and barely tasting it.
“You must be the Little Dragon.” The diner who’d taken a seat on the stool next to Jun pointed excitedly to the red leather band still tied around Jun’s left wrist. “You’re not Leopard or Ghostface, and I saw Prodigy Yin, so you must be Little Dragon Li.” Jun put his other hand over the band, covering it guiltily, but the man said cheerily, “Good luck today! I hope you win.”
Jun had no wish to get into a conversation, and he certainly didn’t want to explain himself to a stranger. “Uh, thanks,” he muttered, glancing over. He was surprised to see the young man take off a helmet and set it down beside him before loosening a leather breastplate with the emblem of three white feathers. “You’re … one of the White Phoenix Guard,” Jun said.
“I work the night shift at the southern watchtower right over there,” said the man, pointing at the gates that Jun was intending to exit after breakfast. “Normally, I’d be going to bed now, but not today. Going straight to the Island. A friend of mine went there yesterday afternoon to save us a good spot near the front of the arena.” He scratched the bit of stubble on his jaw that barely counted as a beard. “Some folks are saying we shouldn’t go watch the tournament this year because it’s not right that they changed the rules at the last minute, but there’s going to be a new Guardian whether we like the rules or not, so I might as well see who it is, don’t you think?”
The city watchman looked as if he expected Jun to agree with him. Jun concentrated on finishing his meal so he could escape the conversation as soon as possible, but his silence didn’t discourage the man. “I was really hoping Ghostface would make it to the final,” he said. “He’s everyone’s favorite, so far as I know. No offense, though! I think you have a lot of people cheering for you and your short punch. Bam!” He punched the air an inch in front of himself.
“Ghostface could still make it to the final,” Jun pointed out. “He’s undefeated so far.”
“Not likely,” said the man. “The Sixth Division did a sweep of the city last night, seizing people they said were part of the Silent Flute Society. First they picked up that musician they called Blindman Chang. I saw the notices about that. Rumor this morning is that they captured Ghostface. Or a few people that might’ve been Ghostface.” The watchman grimaced and jerked his chin toward a couple of Cobu’s soldiers standing on a street corner. “I don’t like it. Soldiers taking over the capital, stepping all over the White Phoenix Guard like we’re second-rate.”
All the moisture left Jun’s mouth. Had Ren’s friends in the Society been picked up in Cobu’s crackdown? Where was she now? Was she safe? There was no way to know.
As for Ghostface … Jun held up his wristband. “Ghostface has this, just like I do. It’s the emperor’s protection. General Cobu’s soldiers can’t harm him as long as he’s in the tournament.”
His fellow diner shrugged. “The rules have been changed already; what’s to say that hasn’t been changed, too? If Ghostface is detained somewhere, he’s not showing up to fight today, so he forfeits his match, and then he’s out of the tournament, right? They can do whatever they want to him, or them, whoever they are.” He sighed. “Like I said, it’s a real shame we won’t see him in the finals, but I suppose that could be good for you, right?” He tucked into his bowl of porridge.
If neither Jun nor Ghostface appeared for their fights, there would be only one match to decide the next Guardian. Yin Yue alone would fight Leopard. The result could seal the fate of Sifu Chang and Ren and the Silent Flute Society members and sympathizers. It would determine the integrity of the Guardianship. One fight was the difference between peace and war.
Jun got up and began to walk away. The guard called after him, “Hey, you’re headed the wrong way!” but Jun ignored him, putting one foot in front of the other without looking back.
As the first rays of dawn broke over the wall, the drumbeats began, ten seconds apart, signaling the imminent opening of the city’s gates. Carriages, wagons, and foot travelers were already lined up along the bottom of the watchtower. Jun saw the corpse wagon, conspicuous with its white painted sides and the fact that other vehicles and people kept well away from it.
The sight of the wagon and the aura of morbid finality around it made Jun stop in his tracks in the middle of the street. People flowed around him like water around a stone.
His father’s body was on that wagon. Along with other corpses, wrapped, preserved, and perfumed against the stench of decay, destined for their final resting places. Ahead of him was a long journey with only the company of his grief and the silence of the dead. At the end of it, there would be … What would there be?
Jun tried, for the first time, to wrap his head around what would come next. After he laid his father to rest, he would pass three long, lonely months of mourning, then have to emerge and figure out how to atone and put his life back together in a way that made some semblance of sense. Even though he’d left without any notice, maybe if he begged, the director of the opera house would take pity on him and give him back his job. Maybe he could work his way up to stage assistant or maybe a stuntman. Or he could set aside martial arts and study, try to make a different life for himself, one Li Hon would approve of.
Whatever he did, though, he would be doing it alone.
After the Aspects had broken up his family, he’d been devastated. But there had been somewhere to go, a next step to take, and the hope of a better future to hold on to. He’d still had his father, still had a family. He had none of that now. He’d already lost his mother and his twin brother, and now his father. If he went through that gate, he would lose Ren. Despite his forced optimism the previous evening, he knew in his gut that it was true. The tournament had brought them together, and in leaving, he was leaving her and Sifu Chang to their fates. And while Jun had never considered Yin Yue a friend, they had been schoolmates for a long time, and Yin had asked him to stay—because he knew he might die today. And Jun realized, suddenly, that he very much did not want Yin Yue to die.
The drumbeats quickened. The line shuffled forward as White Phoenix Guards began to draw the massive gates open. On the other side of the arch, Jun could see the press of people, all of them waiting to rush into the city. The wheels of the corpse wagon began to move.
A tremor started in Jun’s legs and traveled up his spine and into his shoulders. He felt as if he were shaking apart, a single stalk of bamboo caught in the violence of a typhoon.
Going back to Cheon would not bring his father back. It would only, over time, alleviate his own guilt. And if he left his friends to fight and possibly die on their own, he would add more shame on top of what he already carried. An inarticulate moan rose and stuck in his throat.
Blessed Consort, give me strength. I don’t want to lose anyone else.
Jun approached the corpse wagon as it rolled slowly forward. He pressed his fingers to his lips and touched them to the place where his father lay enrobed, offering up a fervent, silent prayer for forgiveness.
Then he turned back around and began to run. As he passed the food stall where he’d eaten breakfast, he heard the White Phoenix Guard shout, “See you on the Island, Little Dragon!”