They retreated to the shade of the wagon to rest and have their midday meal. Ren unwrapped steamed buns, dried fish, and a tin of pickled vegetables procured from the kitchen of the Phoenix Inn earlier that morning. Although Jun protested that he had his own rations and it wasn’t right for him to take any of their food, Chang insisted he fill up. “After the amount of energy you expended last night and today? You need to eat, young man. I can also tell you didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Is that your breathmark ability?” Jun asked. “You can see things without your eyes?” He didn’t want Ren to think he was being rude, but he was finding it hard not to keep staring at the scales on Chang’s face.
“In a way.” Without the blindfold, the flutist’s face looked younger and more expressive. He smelled the fresh white bread appreciatively before taking a big bite. “The dragonskin damaged my eyes at a young age, so I can only see light and color and vague shapes. But I can sense the energy of living things—people, animals, plants. Anything with Dragon’s Breath flowing through it.”
“So that’s how you could tell I was in the wagon, and how you’re able to fight so well,” Jun said. “But why wear a blindfold to hide your breathmark? And why keep your martial abilities secret?”
In the West, children were not recruited to be elite Aspects of Virtue as they were in the East, but being born with dragonskin was still a sign of great fortune and destiny, and most breathmarked people were proud of their gifts. Even those with very minor breathmark talents—such as the ability to attract butterflies—liked to think of themselves as closer to Dragon than the average person and weren’t usually shy about showing off the mark of divine favor. Depending on their abilities, many with Dragon’s blood achieved high positions in the imperial government, medicine, trades, and the fighting arts.
At his level of martial skill, Chang could easily be a master running his own school.
The flutist and his daughter turned toward each other, as if sharing a brief but silent conversation. Chang faced Jun again and ran a thumb thoughtfully over the thickened ridge of scales where his right eyebrow would normally be. “Have you ever met anyone else who’s breathmarked?” he asked.
A surprisingly strong tug of emotion made Jun swallow. Even after all these years, it was hard to be reminded of Sai. “A long time ago,” he said slowly. “When I was a boy.”
Chang nodded. “Dragon’s blood used to manifest more often, but fewer breathmarked children are born each year. As we become less common, we become less normal and accepted. Sometimes our abilities even arouse suspicion.”
Ren picked at the yellow grass, brittle and brown at the end of a long summer. Half a day’s journey northwest of Cheon, the skies were clear and blue, and the impenetrable Snake Wall was barely visible, merely a shadowy line along the horizon. “Remember the old legend? Supposedly, only those marked with Dragon’s blood can possess both the Scrolls of Heaven and Earth and use their wisdom to govern Longhan. With the Scrolls now divided in two opposing countries, and the emperor’s health in question, that’s … not always seen as a good thing.”
Jun crinkled his brow in confusion.
“Since the Snake Wall closed eight years ago and relations broke down with the East, there are people who want to keep anyone breathmarked away from power, and there are also those who would like to recruit people with breathmarks for their own purposes,” Chang added as he finished the last of the steamed buns and smacked his lips. “Me? I’d rather not be so recognizable. Better to be known only as Chang the blind flutist.”
“But your martial arts skills,” Jun exclaimed, unable to conceive of being as good a fighter as Chang and keeping it entirely to himself. “No wonder you were laughing at the idea of needing me for security. I’m not much use to you after all.” Jun’s shoulders slumped; he tried and failed to stifle a huge yawn. He was exhausted.
Chang grinned as he stood and picked up his bamboo cane. “We might not need a security guard, but who wouldn’t find it useful to know the next Guardian?” Jun couldn’t tell if the man was being sincere or teasing him.
Jun glanced sideways at Ren. She was shredding the lotus-leaf wrapping from their lunch into bits, and her lips were pressed tight together, as if she were trying, with difficulty, to swallow a large beetle that had crawled into her mouth. Jun’s heart sank. Was the idea of traveling with him really so distasteful to her?
When she caught Jun looking at her, she recomposed her expression. Wiping her hands and getting to her feet, she said tersely, “We’d better get back on the road.”
THEY rearranged the back of the wagon, tying some of the lighter items to the roof so there was enough space for one person to lie down. Jun fell soundly asleep, as Chang had predicted, lulled by the enclosed afternoon warmth and the swaying movement of the wagon.
When he awoke, it was to the sounds of an argument.
“You shouldn’t have agreed to bring him.” Ren’s voice was lowered but he could still hear it from the front of the wagon, indignant and insistent. “We don’t need him. We’re running enough risks as it is, and I’d rather not see him get killed.”
“You have too little faith, daughter,” Chang replied. “Perhaps his appearance is a last-minute gift from Dragon meant to help us, no?”
Ren fell sullenly silent for a moment before blurting with surprising heat, “Do you really have so little faith that I’ll be able to step up?”
“It’s not about my faith in you or anyone else.” Chang sounded much sterner with his daughter than Jun expected. “Who knows what will happen before or after we reach Xicheng. I trust my instincts when it comes to people.”
“Even after last time?” she demanded.
“Yes,” he replied sharply. “When I haven’t listened to my intuition, I’ve regretted it.” Abruptly, Chang raised his voice and called into the back of the wagon, “Ah, our new assistant is awake. Feeling better after a nap?”
Jun no longer had any doubt that the flutist could sense more about him than just his presence. “Much better, thanks,” Jun called back, stretching and sitting up. When he pulled back the flap, Jun found himself gazing upon dry yellow countryside bathed in the rose light of the descending sun. The quiet serenity of the landscape made it hard to believe the talk that this year had been the worst one for natural disasters in recent memory—not just drought and wildfires in the south, but earthquakes in the north and flooding on the western coastal plain.
Ren had fallen silent. It was hard not to feel hurt by how obviously she didn’t want him around. True, he hadn’t exactly asked permission to come along, and they didn’t know each other well, but they weren’t strangers either. He would’ve said they were friends.
It seemed she didn’t feel the same.
They’d turned off the main road and the wagon’s wheels were bumping down a dirt path overlooking a sluggish stream at the bottom of a wide, rocky creek bed. A town emerged: roughly twenty buildings, some of them large but no longer impressive, the paint of their lintels cracked and faded, the glaze of their clay roof tiles dirty and darkened. Mottled chickens pecked the ground, scattering reluctantly as Ren guided the wagon’s horses into what appeared to be the center of town—a modest market square bordered with cracked brick, the incursion of weeds kept in check only by regular trampling.
Curious children of various ages gathered around the wagon as it pulled to a stop, some of them dragging adults along in their wake. “Good evening, and may Dragon’s fortune find you!” Chang called out cheerfully from the front of the wagon. The blindfold was back in place, concealing the scales around his eyes. “In one hour, set aside your chores, bring your families, and enjoy music and dance that will lighten your soul and transport you from the worries and suffering of daily life.” An excited murmur arose from the townsfolk.
Jun was taken aback. Last night, the blind flutist and his daughter had performed in a grand opera house, its rows of cushioned seats packed with the city of Cheon’s wealthiest theatergoers. Surely, they needn’t stoop to entertaining a few dozen villagers in … whatever ass mole of a place this was.
Ren jumped down from the driver’s seat and began pulling out trunks and boxes from the back of the wagon.
Jun hopped out beside her and hurried to help. “No, not that one,” she exclaimed. She glanced at him impatiently and blew out a noisy breath that made it clear she thought his presence was throwing her entire pre-show routine into disarray. “Just get out of the way for now. Actually, no, here, take these folding backdrops and lanterns outside. Sifu will tell you where to set them up. Then stay out of the wagon so I can change and put on makeup.”
Ruefully, Jun did as he was told.
When Ren emerged in front of the gathered audience an hour later, it was as if a stranger had taken her place: a young, bearded man in a soldier’s tunic and leather armor, his hair stiffly tied underneath his helmet. Jun’s eyes were drawn to the emblem on the soldier’s breastplate—not one of the symbols of the twelve divisions of the Imperial Army, but a white chrysanthemum.
The image seemed deeply familiar to Jun even though, racking his memory, he couldn’t place where or when he’d seen it. As the townspeople fell silent and Chang lifted the flute to his lips, the answer finally came to Jun, jerking his spine straight with surprise.
The white chrysanthemum was the symbol of the province of Lushin. Jun had seen the floral design on road markers and on banners hung outside the offices of local magistrates, but only when he’d been a child and never after he’d moved to Cheon. Lushin Province was in the East, on the other side of the Snake Wall.
Why was Ren portraying a soldier from the very place Jun’s parents were from?
Music floated up into the open air, the clear, high notes a soaring call to glory. Ren danced the young soldier through an epic but ultimately tragic journey: the proud but sad departure from his family, a long march, cruel weather, and desperate, frenetically danced battles against invisible foes, until he lay onstage wounded and dying, reaching longingly toward his faraway home.
Ren was as talented an actor as she was a dancer; every expressive movement and the emotions that played across her face drew her audience into the story so convincingly that, for the time being, Jun forgot about the white chrysanthemum, his heart aching for the fictional soldier.
Chang’s flute played three final notes, each quieter than the next, before falling silent.
Jun blinked and shook his head, as if waking from a reverie. He’d seen Chang and Ren perform before, but never from so up close, in such intimate surroundings, under a darkening sky with stars flickering into view. How do they do it all? he marveled. Actors in the Cheon Opera House had assistants who handled their makeup and costumes, choreographers to direct their performances, and stuntmen like Jun’s father to do the dangerous physical work. Chang and Ren had only each other and the equipment out of their wagon. But it didn’t matter to the villagers that the show lacked theater acoustics or lighting. It seemed every man, woman, and child had come out in their plain homespun clothes to sit on the ground or on hastily arranged stools around the makeshift stage, and he saw them wiping away tears with the hems of their shirts and the backs of their hands, just as the rich patrons had done with their perfumed handkerchiefs.
“Good people of River Maiden, we pray you’ve found our humble skills diverting tonight,” Chang called out, rising from a deep bow. “If you enjoyed what you saw, speak well of us to everyone you meet. If you didn’t, remember that silence is a gracious virtue.”
Applause and laughter broke the last of the spell, and minutes later, before Jun could even finish putting away the props, the townsfolk brought out food: a pot of vegetables and fish stewed in a thin broth, bowls of rice, a basket of late-season peaches. Humble food, but enough of it for Jun to eat his fill. They refilled the travelers’ water flasks and handed Ren supplies for the road: salted meat wrapped in cloth, a warm blanket, lamp oil. Night had fallen; high above them, Dragon’s star burned fiery red in the sky, as it did every second year in the week before and the six weeks after Jun’s birthday.
“It’s good to see you again, Chang.” An elderly man with a long face and longer beard, whom Jun took to be the town leader, came over to Chang and greeted him by touching the back of his right hand to his lips, then his fist to heart. “What news do you bring?”
“Some good, some bad, my friend.” Chang returned the unusual gesture and the two of them stepped away to talk privately. Jun watched them for a minute, until Ren prodded him to help take down the stage and stow everything back in the wagon. The crowd of townsfolk began to thin as meals were finished and reluctant children were coralled back to their homes.
“We can stay in the barn tonight,” she explained. “The mayor offered his house, but he barely has room for his own family, so Sifu said we’d be fine so long as we have a roof over our heads.” She picked up a lamp and began to lead the way across the nearly empty town square.
“Shouldn’t we wait for Sifu Chang?” Jun asked. He’d never seen Ren leave Chang unattended. In Cheon, she was always by the flutist’s side, guiding him through doors, up and down stairs, across streets.
“He’ll be talking for a while,” Ren said, unconcerned.
Jun began to follow, then paused and glanced over his shoulder. Chang was sitting and speaking with the mayor and a small group of remaining townspeople gathered on benches and stools around the glow of a cookfire burning through its last logs. The flutist was leaning forward and nodding intently at the conversation. Nothing about him seemed tentative or incapable, and he didn’t give off the air of a traveling performer casually chatting with his audience after the show. It looked, from a distance, as if Chang were leading a serious meeting with the town leadership.
Only a few hours ago, Jun had been astonished to learn that the mild, friendly blind musician that he’d seen over the years was actually a breathmarked martial arts master. Now he was certain there was yet more to Blindman Chang and his daughter that he didn’t know.