Water.
For a moment, Jun was transported back to his childhood; he remembered the chill, foreboding wind that had accompanied Water and Compass when they’d arrived at his parents’ door. His boyish curiosity and excitement quickly turning to confusion and shame. His mother’s tears, his father’s bowed head, Sai hanging on to his hand for the last time.
The early memories were scored indelibly into his mind. His life divided by that one encounter into before and after.
Perhaps he hadn’t recognized the woman because he hadn’t wanted to.
And she was different from the Aspect of his childhood memory. Water had been a novice back then, a junior partner. Ten years later, she was a master with her own apprentice.
Jun gaped, speechless, but only for a moment. Then he blurted, “My mother. Do you know how she is? Where she is?”
“Your mother, to my knowledge, still resides in Yujing,” Water replied calmly.
Jun’s heart jumped in his chest—She’s alive, she’s out there—and just as quickly, it clenched in on itself like a poked oyster. She doesn’t know Baba is dead. There’s so much she doesn’t know. So much I have to tell her …
Jun swallowed thickly. “And Sai … Is he an Aspect now? Like you?” He was suddenly desperate to know everything. All the years of accepting their absence, enduring his father’s sadness, locking away hope and moving on, because that was what was necessary—Jun had built a wall inside himself that he’d been sure was strong.
With Water standing before him, it was crumbling, shaking him as it fell.
Yin Yue was looking between Water and Jun, his brows drawn together in suspicion and bewilderment. “You … know each other?”
“Not exactly. Jun was only a little boy when I came to collect his brother for the Council,” Water explained.
Yin swung his head around to Jun. “You have a brother?”
“His name is Mirror,” Water told them. “He’s a highly accomplished Aspect, one of the few breathmarked chosen by the Council to reside in the Sun Pagoda as one of its Keepers.”
Sai, the older twin, the one born with a breathmark and a destiny—of course he’d made something of himself in the East. A strange, nameless mess of feelings—shame and pride, resentment and longing, curiosity and unease—rose up and swallowed Jun’s voice.
I knew you’d move on, Sai. You don’t even have the same name anymore.
“It’s startling.” Water’s straight, thoughtful gaze rested on Jun. “Despite being raised apart, you’re as identical as you were back then. When I first saw you in the arena, I could barely believe my eyes. You look and sound just like him. You move like him as well. Even for a twin, it’s uncanny.”
“You have a twin?” Yin exclaimed. “Who’s breathmarked?”
Water’s partner cleared her throat. “Sister Aspect, perhaps proper introductions are in order.” She swiveled her head, eyes narrowed, scanning the riverbank for pursuers. The current had carried Jun far enough away that the rickety bridge was no longer in sight. The cloudless blue sky overhead and the vibrant forest on all sides made it hard for Jun to believe he’d very nearly been murdered by gangsters in such a peaceful location.
Water inclined her head. “My apologies. Prodigy Yin, in answer to your question, we’re from no school that you would know of. We are Aspects of Virtue, trained in the Sun Pagoda in Yujing. You may call me Water. This is my apprentice, Lure.”
“We’re grateful to you for saving our lives,” Yin said, but his expression had turned wary and he was looking at all of them, including Jun, with trepidation. “But I don’t understand why you’d do so. You’re spies from the East, and you’re in enemy territory. Why would you help us, or trust us?”
Lure gave her mentor a surprisingly arch look and crossed her arms, as if, despite having fished Jun from the Dengu River, she, too, would like to hear why it was worth the effort.
Water’s smile was as mild and enigmatic as it had been years ago. “Because Blindman Chang asked us to.”
Jun sucked in a breath. “I saw you meeting with him at the Golden Gate Inn. How do you know Sifu Chang?”
The Aspect took a moment to straighten her sleeves, as if deciding how to answer. “I was sent by the Council to gather information on the threat from the West,” she explained, “but that’s not the only reason I was in Xicheng.” She looked straight at Jun, touched the back of her hand to her lips, then closed it into a fist and pressed it to her heart.
“You’re a member of the Silent Flute Society.” Jun’s voice dropped to a whisper even though there was no one else nearby to hear them.
“If my superiors and colleagues learned the truth, I would disappear overnight and never be heard from again,” the woman said matter-of-factly. “The Silent Flute Society is even more heavily persecuted in the East than it is in the West. The Council views it as a criminal organization founded by traitors to the Virtuous Rebellion.”
“Sister Aspect,” Lure hissed, grabbing her partner’s arm and shooting Jun and Yin dubious looks, “we shouldn’t speak of this, not to Westerners we barely know. Chang might’ve been mistaken about them, and besides, he’s no longer here to vouch for them. With war coming…”
“With war coming, allies are all the more crucial.” Water took her apprentice’s hand and gently lifted it from her arm. “No one has worked more tirelessly for the Society or sacrificed as much as Blindman Chang. I have faith in his judgment.”
“But—” Lure began to protest further.
Water took her partner by the shoulders and looked into her face with more heartfelt concern and pleading than Jun would’ve thought a senior Aspect was obligated to give any apprentice. “My intuition usually leads me true. Will you trust me on this?”
Lure opened her mouth again, then shut it. She reached up and clasped Water’s wrists for a moment before releasing them with a sigh and nodding reluctantly.
Water turned back to Jun. “Chang told me of his hope that you would become Guardian of the Scroll of Heaven. A young warrior from both East and West, strong of Breath, beholden to no faction, but with a noble heart and good intentions. A Guardian who could inspire the people and forestall the tide of war.”
Yin Yue lowered his eyes to the ground.
Jun fought to keep the grimace of shame off his face. “Sifu Chang was wrong to say that. I wasn’t able to guard the Scroll of Heaven for even a single day. All I did was become the convenient scapegoat General Cobu was looking for to start mobilizing his troops.”
“General Cobu is not the only one hoping for war,” Water said sadly. “Some members of the Council believe in maintaining isolation, but there are others who see the Virtuous Rebellion as ongoing and incomplete until the emperor of the West is overthrown and the Scrolls reunited in the Sun Pagoda. They would be eager to declare hostilities in the name of self-defense.”
Jun felt a chill climb through his battered body. “Is my brother one of them?”
Water hesitated. “Mirror is a loyal and dutiful Aspect,” she said simply, which was all the answer that Jun needed. The chill settled into a cold, apprehensive lump.
He and Sai had once been alike and inseparable.
But the version of Sai that Jun still spoke to in his head, the one that sometimes replied in his brother’s voice—that person was a fiction. A piece of Jun’s identity he couldn’t relinquish.
The Aspect named Mirror was a stranger. Maybe an enemy.
“Guardian or not,” Water said, “Chang saw something in you, just as I did ten years ago. And Prodigy Yin, it appears to be Dragon’s will that you’re as much a part of this as any of us.”
“Or maybe it’s just my own bad luck and lack of good sense,” Yin murmured quietly.
“Do you know where Sifu Chang is now?” Jun took an eager step toward the Aspects. “Cobu said that he escaped. Did the Silent Flute Society get him out?”
Yin Yue’s head snapped up. “And what about his daughter? Is Ren safe?”
Water held up her hands in a calming gesture. “I don’t know any more than you do. I can only hope they’re both free and under protection.”
“You weren’t part of their escape plan?” Yin could not hide his disappointment.
Water shook her head. “I couldn’t take part directly in any of the Society’s actions in Xicheng. The risk was too great that my identity as an Aspect would be jeopardized. My mission was to gather and share information. After the tournament was over, I had to leave the city as quickly as possible, in order to return to the East and report back to the Council.”
“Now that the Scroll has been stolen, it’s all the more urgent we return,” Lure insisted. “Cobu’s supporters are spreading the news loudly and widely that the East is responsible. The Council will say it’s a fiction concocted by the West to justify invasion.”
“Neither side has the whole truth,” Jun muttered, thinking of Yama, out there pursuing his own agenda and fanning the flames of war. “But that doesn’t matter to any of them.”
“One thing I don’t understand,” Yin Yue said, frowning. “How did you find us? It wasn’t a coincidence that you were waiting here at the same time as the Moon Righteous Sabers. Or that Lure was already perfectly positioned to shoot down onto the bridge.”
Water placed a proud hand on Lure’s back. “You have my apprentice to thank for that. She has the ability to track anyone, no matter where they are or how far they’ve gone, so long as she has an item that has recently belonged to them.”
Lure rummaged in her bag and pulled out a piece of ragged brown fabric, handling it gingerly and with some distaste by one corner, so as not to touch the half of the scrap that was stained with dried blood. Jun stared at it, puzzled, for several seconds, before realizing that it was part of the shirt he’d worn in the arena during his final match with Leopard.
“What in the eighteen hells?” he exclaimed. “How did you get that? And why?”
After waking up in the Guardian’s Residence, he’d idly wondered what had happened to his old clothes. He’d assumed they’d been so filthy and damaged, no longer worthy for a Guardian to wear, that they’d simply been tossed out or burned.
“There’s a brisk business in selling souvenirs from the Guardian’s Tournament,” Water explained. “After all, people come from all over the country for the occasion, and they want to bring something back with them to prove they saw the Guardian win the final match.”
Doctor Lim. She’d been brought to the Guardian’s Residence to treat Jun; he remembered her manipulating Breath to heal his injuries before he fell asleep. She sold my clothes?
“These scraps were going for one hundred copper yun apiece,” Lure said. “Locks of Leopard’s hair were going for sixty-five, and a nobleman won an auction for the broken spear you used for six hundred and fifty.” She shrugged. “Sadly for the buyers, I think the items this year lost a lot of value overnight.”
Jun and Yin Yue stared at her and the bloody scrap of fabric she was holding with a mix of wonder and disgust. Lure stuffed the rag back into her bag. “And you wonder why the Council teaches us that the West is crass and vile?”
“The Council of Virtue tasked us with getting into the capital and gathering information about the Guardian’s Tournament and the threat from the West,” Water explained. “That included learning as much as we could about the new Guardian and obtaining something that would enable Aspects to track him down and assassinate him, if and when the Council gave the order.”
Jun took an involuntary step backward.
“Don’t worry,” Water assured him. “Now that you’ve lost the position of Guardian and been branded a traitor, the Council has no reason to want you dead.” She gestured eastward. “If you renounce the West and cross the border under our escort, they would welcome you as defectors.”
Jun gave a pained laugh. Cobu had accused him of collaborating with Eastern agents and placed a hefty bounty on his head for treason. After all those lies, Jun was about to prove the general right after all.
“Without a Guardian or anyone else to stand in his way, General Cobu is in control of the country.” Yin Yue squared his shoulders and closed his hand into a fist. “Anyone who opposes Cobu will be labeled a traitor. So count me as one, too.”
“I’ll be spoken of in the same breath as the traitor brother, Shin Di,” Jun said quietly. “A hero on one side of the wall, a villain on the other.” The words pained his heavy heart. He didn’t want a single sliver of additional fame.
What he wanted was for his father to be alive. For the two of them to be back in Cheon where he would train contentedly by day and watch Ren dance onstage at night.
But that was an impossibility. A life he might’ve chosen before he snuck into Chang’s wagon. He hadn’t known, in that moment, what he was giving up.
Ren had, though. She’d tried to warn him, to make him think of what he could lose.
Yin said optimistically, “The Moon Righteous Sabers saw you fall into the river after being stabbed. With any luck, they’ll report back to Cobu that you’re dead. If his soldiers spend time searching for a body, that’ll buy us time to get to the wall.” Yin turned to Lure eagerly. “Once we’re in the East, can you find Ren the way you found us?”
“Only if I have something that recently belonged to her,” said the younger Aspect. She touched the backs of her scale-mottled hands. “It has to have a lingering hint of her Breath. I can only seek one person at a time.”
Yin Yue shifted hesitantly from foot to foot, then reached into an inner pocket of his shirt and pulled out a tightly folded square of fabric. He let it fall open into a length of gauzy yellow silk and handed it over to Lure reluctantly. Jun realized that it was one of the scarves from Ren’s wardrobe, one of the many that she spun around her body as she danced to her sifu’s flute music onstage in the center of a colorful maelstrom.
“Will that work?” he asked, sounding as if he were trying to suppress his hopes.
Lure held the item carefully for a moment. Jun thought she was going to smell it, or press the fabric to her skin, but the young woman only closed her eyes and tilted her head, frowning a little with her lips pursed, as if she were listening to a whisper only she could hear. “Yes,” she said, opening her eyes. “This will work. I’ll need to keep it.”
Jun shook his head in amazement. Breathmarks were uncommon enough that, other than Sai, he hadn’t personally known anyone with dragonskin until he’d met Sifu Chang. In the past month, however, he’d encountered more people with Dragon’s blood than he could’ve imagined, each of them with unique and enviable gifts.
How different Sai’s life must’ve been from his, to be surrounded by other Aspect initiates, living in a community where being rare and gifted was the norm. What must it have been like, to be effortlessly accepted by classmates instead of taunted by them, to so quickly replace one twin with many other brothers and sisters instead of waking alone?
The thought was like a bite out of a raw bitter melon.
“What about your ability?” he asked Water. “When you fought the Sabers, you used Iron Core style as if you’d trained in it all your life. And Whirling Leg. Tiger Spirit as well.” It was impossible for any person of her age to have trained to mastery in so many disparate styles—there wasn’t time in a single life to do that. Water wasn’t even from the West; she couldn’t be a disciple at all those schools. The only explanation, as unlikely as it seemed, was that she’d acquired a repertoire of techniques simply from watching the Guardian’s Tournament.
Jun knew of only one other person who could do that. “You have the same ability as Sa—Mirror, don’t you?” The question came out flat and sour. “You can learn a skill just by seeing it performed.”
Dragon’s blood was so damned unfair. A few people were gifted with spectacular advantages that others could never hope for. This truth had galled Jun ever since he’d been old enough to understand that he and his twin were different, but it was even worse than he’d imagined, because if the Council of Virtue already had a perfect mimic, why had they needed to take Sai as well?
Water studied him as if sensing his thoughts. A touch of compassion softened the corners of her eyes. “My gift is not the same as Mirror’s,” she said. “His talent is … unique.”
“But how—”
“Dragon’s gifts manifest in strange ways,” she said. “When I was first brought to Yujing, I had no apparent talent. If it wasn’t for this—” She pulled aside the long braid of her hair and turned her head to reveal the stripe of pearly bronze scales in a single line running down the center of her neck. “—I wouldn’t have believed I belonged in the Sun Pagoda at all.”
Water’s words brought to mind what Ren had said to him on the roof of the Gate of Flowers Inn, what felt like an eternity ago. “I have the mark, but I don’t have any ability. There’s nothing special about me.” But Ren hadn’t been taken to the Sun Pagoda and assessed by the Aspects. She’d been smuggled away by the Silent Flute Society, denied a chance to discover Dragon’s gift.
Water’s gaze remained steady on Jun. “Some abilities take more time and insight to manifest in an understandable way. It seemed, at first, that I was simply a precociously lucky child. If something went missing, I would be the one to find it. If there was a problem, somehow I would be connected to the answer. If there was a dispute, others came to me because I always came up with a fair solution.”
Years ago, Water had been the one to propose exile for Jun’s father in lieu of forced labor. It had broken Jun’s family but saved Li Hon’s life and sent him to the West, where Jun had finally been allowed to train in martial arts.
Water said, “I have a gift of unlocking. Adapting. Seeing through what is blocked, and around what is in the way. I’ve studied the principles of fighting common to all the major styles in the East and West. Whirling Leg, Tiger Spirit, Iron Core … they are all merely different languages sprung from the same characters. By knowing the common words, I’m able to build an entire vocabulary. The right action comes to me at the right time. Does that make sense?”
“No,” Jun and Yin Yue said, nearly in unison.
“That’s not how anyone trains. It seems to me that you’d end up with a hodgepodge of copied techniques rather than a coherent fighting system.” Yin Yue rubbed the back of his head. Jun could tell from his frown that Master Song’s top student didn’t appreciate Water lumping the Iron Core school in with all those other, lesser styles. “But considering that your skills saved our lives, I’m hardly in a position to question them. Dragon’s blood is beyond me.”
“Not true, Prodigy Yin,” Water replied. “We’re all children of Dragon, no matter whether it shows on our skin, or where we’re from, or what gifts we each have. The Scrolls of Heaven and Earth were meant to guide all of us.” She turned her warm but inscrutable gaze back to Jun. “That’s why they’ve always been worth guarding.”
Jun bowed his head. His body felt leaden and tired, but his heart thumped with a grim sense of purpose. He’d crossed the wall once before. He’d lost loved ones, had his life upended, rebuilt himself, and risen, one fight at a time.
“See you back home, Little Dragon.”
“I’m ready to go with you to the East,” he said. “But there’s something I need to do first.”