The art of prophecy, p.26
The Art of Prophecy, page 26
“Sting is in the hands of the man who burned our city to the ground and sank it beneath the Grass Sea.”
“It was a choice made and made freely, one I would make again for what it bought our people. I do not regret it.” Sali didn’t believe him. Ariun didn’t sound like he believed it either.
The two reached the small island where a group of men and women were waiting expectantly, sitting along the wooden benches lining the perimeter of the bamboo pavilion. The Council of Nezra—thirteen in all—were all relatively well dressed and well nourished. Sali did not recognize any of their faces, although that wasn’t surprising. She had spent more time in the past decade sleeping under the open sky of the Grass Sea than next to her home’s hearth.
Ariun took his seat at the head of the pavilion. “Fellow advisers, Salminde the Viperstrike and Will of the Khan.”
Sali bowed. “Council of Nezra.” By the looks on their faces, they expected her arrival and were not particularly pleased with it.
“Welcome, Salminde,” said a gray-haired woman. “The Council of Nezra welcomes back to her hearth one of our great warriors.”
Sali studied each face closely. None, save for Ariun, looked like they ever had their sides shaved. “What happened to the old council?”
Ariun made a noise that sounded like choking. “The former council refused many of the Zhuun’s demands after the capture, so they were made an example of.”
“So this is a puppet council then,” she spat.
“We maintain order. And we lead our people,” the woman replied firmly. “A necessity we hope you see the wisdom of as well.”
That was as far as the pleasantries went. The conversation immediately took a turn.
“Why are you here in Jiayi?” the young man next to the woman practically demanded. “You are a Will of the Khan, yet you still survive him. Why have you not returned to the Whole?”
“I will decide when my service to the khanate has concluded.” The ice Sali put in her voice brooked no disagreement. “In these unseen times, I believe I can better serve our people alive than dead, so I pledged myself a Soul Seeker.”
The council grumbled.
“This is unprecedented,” said the woman.
“Outright dangerous,” a wrinkled man wearing Zhuun garb snapped.
“Blasphemy,” added another in shaman’s robes.
Sali bristled, annoyed. She was really tired of hearing this from everyone.
Ariun held up a hand for silence and asked. “And your search for the reincarnation of the Khan has brought you here?”
Sali met his gaze and nodded. “It has.”
“And is that your only objective here?” asked a councilman to her left.
Sali raised her chin and recited. “The Eternal Khan of Katuia is the salvation of our people. His return is all that matters. Your cooperation is required.”
For months following her Return, Sali had journeyed throughout the Grass Sea searching for survivors of Nezra, combing refugee camps, following whispered rumors and faint leads. She once even allowed herself to get captured by a band that had turned to raiding. Bit by bit, through each survivor’s spoken memories, she aggregated the individual stories to paint a picture of the battle’s aftermath.
“These are indeed unseen times for the Children of Nezra,” said the woman. “The only way we can exact our vengeance is by persevering. It took many months for this council to form and forge an agreement with the land-chained. The peace we’ve achieved required many meetings and conciliatory efforts. Only recently has this council returned a semblance of calm and stability to our people. We will not see that progress disrupted.”
“Even in chains?” Sali growled.
“Even as servants,” the young man cut in aggressively.
The events following Nezra’s downfall were even more devastating than the battle. Sali had heard firsthand the stories of survivors who managed to escape the forced march to their internment at the commandery.
The old woman was the only one who sounded sympathetic. “All we can do at this time is see to the welfare of our people. Anything else,” she said with resignation in her voice, “will take time until a political solution can be found.”
Sali swallowed her fury. If this council was the voice of her people, then her people were truly defeated. It appeared most of the upper castes of the city were no more, likely by Zhuun design. Sali wondered why the survivors of Nezra had not resisted and risen up, but she also recognized that she had not experienced what the survivors had to endure. She had not had to spend every day of the past three cycles trying to survive in this alien land with dead earth beneath her feet.
The worst part of all this was how the spirit shamans had forsaken her city. The majority of Nezra had died protecting it. Most who survived the battle were captured and marched to Jiayi, and interned here as indentured servants. Sali’s soul ached not to have fought alongside her people. As a term of the armistice, the spirit shamans had agreed to indenture the survivors to Jiayi and General Quan Sah, the general commanding the army that destroyed Nezra, now the governor of Jiayi for his victories. If Mali was still alive, she would be here.
“Now that we have come to an understanding,” the woman continued. “What does the Soul Seeker require?”
“I need a list of every child under the age of eighteen.” There were no limitations on whom the Khan would inhabit next, but it had always been a child. Once discovered, they would go to Chaqra to be trained by the spirit shamans, and then take part in the ritual to become the next Eternal Khan on their eighteenth birthday. Jiamin had been fourteen when he had been discovered.
“Done,” the woman waved. “We will take a census and send word. Anything else?”
“That would be all, for now.” Sali heart-saluted and turned to leave. She made it halfway across the bridge when heavy footsteps caught up to her. “Wait, Salminde.”
She stopped and met him halfway. “Ariun.”
“I just wanted you to know you have my support,” he began.
“You did not come after me to tell me this.”
He walked alongside her across the pond to the end of the bridge. “This council is the only voice our people have with the Zhuun. While we all wish to live free on the Grass Sea one day, fate has determined otherwise. It has taken almost a year for the council to carve a voice with the Zhuun. We’ve stopped beatings and executions. We had the afternoon curfews moved to the rise of the first moon, and have negotiated free passage between the districts. It is this council that ensures our people have food, clean water, medicine, and supplies.”
“Our people owe you a debt of gratitude for keeping us together and safe.” Sali meant it. “Speak frankly.”
He stopped at the end of the bridge. “I need an assurance from you. The council has worked too long and too hard to establish the small peace that we now enjoy. The Children of Nezra are in no position to support an uprising. We are barely keeping things together as it is, and cannot lose our meager gains. Do I have your word that you will not cause trouble while you are here?”
Sali parceled her words out carefully. “You do what you think best, and I will do the same.”
He grabbed her arm as she turned to leave. “That’s not good enough.”
She stared at his hand until he let go, and then continued walking. “It will have to be, for now.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SCHOOL LIFE
Jian sped toward the acupuncturist’s clinic as fast as he could. He waved his bloodstained hands wildly as he navigated the crowded streets. “Eyes up. Pay attention! Emergency! Out of the way!”
Most paid him no attention, nor bothered to move out of his way. The few who did look up just stared curiously. A few intentionally got into his way.
Jian had learned to expect this in his first weeks in Jiayi, when just about everyone kept knocking him down or bowling him over. At first, he thought people didn’t notice him because of his plain brown robes—the only set he had. It was later that he realized it was because they didn’t care. Some even did it for fun. That was when he had learned that this was a city of asses. All the vendors, war artists, soldiers, couriers, people walking about, all of them. All asses. Jian veered to the side to avoid an oncoming cart, moving as quickly as he could with his back pressed to a wall. He bounded over a couple of dogs who growled and nipped at him. Even the strays here were asses too.
He skidded to a stop at a busy intersection and was nearly trampled by a pair of mounted magistrates. To make matters worse, the officer, noticing him standing so close with his disheveled, stained robes, took him for a beggar or thief and kicked out. Jian fell into the mud and sputtered. He wiped the grime off his face and scowled at being submerged in ankle-deep goo. At least it covered up the bloodstains from Xinde’s wound. Jian barely had time to sit up before having to dive aside to avoid another cart. That one didn’t stop either.
“You rancid egg!”
Remembering the urgency of his errand, Jian picked himself up out of the hole and continued running, weaving among carts and rickshaws as he passed the Kati District. A whole city of Kati had arrived earlier in the day, and now the traffic around their district clogged everything. Jian shied away from an approaching group, suddenly wary of so many of his former enemies surrounding him.
“You’re not the stupid Prophesied Hero anymore,” he muttered under his breath as he hustled down the street.
It took almost two hours for Jian to make his way to the Saffron Tenet District on the other side of town, where most of the medical buildings were situated. Master Kui’s clinic was located alongside a dozen other acupuncturists on a street known as Needle Row. Jian had questioned why all of these similar professionals were clumped together in such a way. It didn’t make any sense for everyone in Jiayi to have to go to one place for their services. Xinde had explained that Duchess Sunri planned everything as if it were an army camp, so everything was grouped together in the interest of efficiency. For administrators, not people who needed services.
Jian barged into the clinic, swinging the door open with a loud bang. Meehae was standing in the center of the room staring at a red circle the size of a child’s fist painted on the wall a few feet away. She paid him no notice.
“We need—” he huffed, slightly out of breath.
“Shh.” Meehae threw up a hand. “I just need a second.”
“But—”
“It’s three seconds now, Hiro.” The apprentice acupuncturist dipped her hand into a pouch hanging at her side and made a quick throwing motion.
Jian didn’t notice anything at first, and then he saw four thin needles sticking out of the wall a good hand’s length to the left of the red dot. Meehae scrunched up her face and tried again with her other hand, landing four more needles just above the dot. She fired two more times, landing clusters of needles to the right and to the bottom right.
Jian whistled. “That’s pretty good—”
“Stupid miserable slick little dot,” she swore loudly, stomping over to the wall and plucking each needle out.
“Wait, were you trying to hit the red mark?”
“You hush. I want to see how well you do flicking needles.”
Jian wanted to tell her that Master Luda’s eagle style utilized metal chopsticks as throwing weapons, and of course Jian was an expert, but he obviously couldn’t. It probably was the wrong thing to say even if he could.
Then he remembered why he came. “Keinde’s hurt, I mean, he hurt—”
Meehae looked nonplussed. “Keinde? Who’s that? Do you mean Keiro? Why are you coming to me about him? His school has their own doctor.”
“I mean Xinde. He’s hurt badly. Keiro cut him with a saber across the chest.”
Meehae had her bag in her hand and was halfway out the door before Jian had even finished the sentence. He followed after her.
“What happened to my Xinde?” she demanded.
“Xinde won the fight, and then Keiro cheated and pulled a saber and slashed Xinde across the chest.” He struggled to keep pace alongside her as she raged down the street. The passersby gave Meehae one look and jumped out of her way.
“Blast that putrid hairless cantaloupe head and his stink breath. How deep is the wound? Is my Xinde conscious?” Meehae didn’t slow when they reached the intersection. Shockingly, none of the traffic struck her.
“That’s awfully possessive of you. I don’t know how bad. There was a lot of blood.” Jian became alarmed. “Are you sure you can handle this? What about your master?”
“Master Kui is with a client’s dog.”
“Dogs get acupuncture?”
Meehae shrugged. “She branches out when business is slow.”
Fortunately, the Rose Ridge District was not far from the Saffron Tenet District. A large worried crowd had already gathered at the entrance to the infirmary. Jian escorted Meehae, pushing through. A wave of relief washed over the students when they noticed her.
“The doctor’s here,” someone said. “About time.”
“Wait, that’s Meehae, the apprentice. Where’s the real doctor?”
She stopped at the doorway and slammed her bag on the floor. “My master’s busy. I’m here to take care of it.” The looks of relief quickly turned back to concern. She shooed the crowd clustered around her. “Everyone, get back. You’re making me nervous.”
Meehae slid the door open and went inside. Jian caught of glimpse of Auntie Li standing over a pale, prostrate Xinde, pressing down on his chest. The door slid closed with a loud thunk. The worried crowd, no longer held at bay, surged forward and surrounded the door. A few students went around the side to peek through the windows.
The door slid open a sliver a moment later. Meehae poked her head out, scowling. “I can hear all of you breathing. Don’t you have anything better to do?” Apparently not, because no one moved. Meehae sighed. “Just keep it down.”
Master Guanshi stormed into the courtyard a moment later. “His hairless rat drew a saber in the middle of an open-hand duel? What is shriveled scrotum Shiquan thinking? Does he want to go to war? With me? We used to be friends! I sent that man a grand opening flower arrangement! I’m going to run his little operation right out of Jiayi! Gwaiya, Cyyk, Kabi, break open the armory.”
The rest of the riled-up students scattered with whoops and cheers. Some rushed to the back to do as the master had instructed. Others went to the training shed, returning with armfuls of padded leather jerkins. Cyyk and Kabi carried out two buckets of staves while Mooyan hugged a collection of sabers. They looked like they were preparing for war.
Jian stayed at the steps to the infirmary along with three other novices, unsure if he should participate. He watched as the others donned their tunics and helped one another tighten their straps, chattering excitedly among themselves, working themselves up into a frenzy. He frowned, disapproving of how excitable everyone was.
Jian used to spend hours in the arena anteroom with his personal guards before his training sessions. Every one of his guards was a skilled and decorated veteran. He always marveled at how they could be so calm and collected before their fights, not like this undisciplined bunch working themselves up into exhaustion.
His attention shifted to Wonna and her older sister and senior, Gwaiya, checking each other’s armor. He could see this fight was important to them, to all the students at the school. They cared deeply about Xinde and about Longxian. This was why they were so agitated. Jian’s personal guards had always been relaxed not because they were grizzled veterans, but because his training sessions were a joke. He was a joke to them, to the masters, the dukes, to everyone, just a spoiled brat they were earning liang babysitting.
No one at the Celestial Palace had cared about him. That was why it had been so easy to discard him after their worthless prophecy broke. No, that wasn’t true. Uncle Faaru had cared about Jian, loved him even, and he had paid for that affection with his life.
“Hey, Hiro, what are you doing standing there?” Cyyk walked over and tossed him a padded leather vest. “You’re a scrawny runt. This should fit you.”
A sharp rebuke jumped to Jian’s tongue, but he hesitated. Cyyk was insulting him, true, but the tone felt different. Not that it mattered. He didn’t really belong at this school. This wasn’t really his fight. He was just hiding from Mute Men and assassins. Getting involved would only risk his cover.
The bigger boy glanced over his shoulder. “Are you coming or not?”
All that reasoning was completely discarded the moment Cyyk asked. Jian threw on the tunic without hesitation. “Of course. I’ll be right there.”
Jian would not admit it, but all he had been waiting for was for someone to ask. As the Prophesied Hero, he had always stood alone. He was supposedly special, different, and everyone at the palace had treated him that way. Jian hadn’t realize just how terribly lonely it had been until right now. For the first time, he felt a sense of camaraderie. He was excited to be part of something. He hungered for more.
“We depart!” barked Guanshi. He carried a tall ax with an elongated blade, an heirloom named the Steed Slayer. He signaled for Longxian to form behind him. The large group was about to file out the gates when a loud voice cut through the chatter.
“Where do you think you’re going, Master Guanshi?” Auntie Li’s voice carried all the way across the courtyard. She stepped out of the infirmary with her fists on her hips.
Guanshi froze and looked very much like a student caught stealing sesame dessert balls from her kitchen. “I’m taking care of business.”
“I’ll crack your head if you take another step.” She stormed up to him shaking her finger. “You met with the magistrates just yesterday promising to minimize the violence between schools, and now you’re going to personally feud with Shiquan? Are you missing a yolk?”
