Dawn Star stood in the middle of the training ring and looked around, shading her face with her hand. "I wonder what Black Whirlwind is doing now."
Wu played the game and ignored their surroundings. "Drinking. Fighting. Whoring. At least two of those at once."
This was not their home. Their home had had beautiful trees, not burnt twigs that stood like chicken bones stuck in the ground. Their buildings had been humble and well-maintained, not wreckage in weeds.
Wu looked over at the main building, where Master Li had lived. The screens had been broken, giving the once imposing building a snaggle-toothed appearance. From what she could see inside, there was only darkness and shadows.
The cave was there. She wondered -
"I hope Sky is well." Dawn Star begin walking towards the area where the students quarters had been.
"Me too." Wu followed.
Wu stared at the Jade Heart. It pulsed steadily, releasing a soft blue glow with each beat. Such a small thing to control a raging river, such a small thing to contain such power.
She tore it from its restraints and the flash of light blinded her. The glow dripped through her fingers, and faded, as did the faint warmth the stone held.
"No words?" she asked her companion.
"I wasn't expecting you to do that," Zu said. He smiled, quick and not a little cruel, and she felt the heart in her hand pulse one last desperate time.
"I took your advice to heart. As it were." She pushed the stone into her pocket. "We have nothing left to do in Tien's Landing. It is time to go."
"I think that there's something else," he said quietly and looked up at the ridge. She saw shadows and movement where there should be none. She took the steps two at a time, so they would not be trapped on the stairs and out in the open.
The Lotus Assassins arrived just as she cleared the top. Wu recognized their leader, Inquisitor Lim, as he slithered his way to the front of the group. She only barely heard his taunts. Her blood was crackling in her veins and she felt the cold from the shadows, the valley, and the dead come to her fingertips.
"I don't know your face or if it might be worth anything to my Masters." Lim's good eye flicked away from her. "But you travel with the accursed Zu and his death may at least settle some old scores."
"What do you know of Sagacious Zu?" she blurted out.
Lim did not deign to answer her question. "Sagacious? Is that what you call yourself now? Hardly a worthy representation of the blood you spilled."
Zu's response was as cold as her hands. "You do not know me, assassin."
"Perhaps. But I know what you were. Not that it matters any more." The assassin gestured to those around him. "Enough talk. I will delay your death no longer! May your fall sate the anger of Death's Hand, will of the Emperor!"
The Inspector leapt at Zu.
Wu went for his entourage. She hadn't had many opportunities to use Storm Dragon and she relished the thought of making these clumsy soldiers, with their poor equipment and even poorer armor, dance for her. Fighting beside the assassins, they were children playing at 'Imperial Arena.' They died like men, though, with curses frozen in their mouth and her face burned in their open eyes.
The Assassins deserved to bleed and she unsheathed Fortune's Favorite. The first Assassin's fighting style reminded her of something - of someone - and she remembered Wen. "Black Leopard School?" she taunted. "I've seen it done better." The man's eyes widened and it was the opening she needed to drive her sword into his stomach. She stepped back and brought it overhead, decapitating the second Assassin who was trying to sneak up behind her.
Only Lim was left now. She stepped forward, but Zu saw her. "No!" he cried and the fury in his voice could be heard over the crack of his staff against Lim's armor. Her muscles surged with electricity, urging her to join the fight, but out of respect, she waited.
Her student-fighter eyes watched for false moves, for feint and subterfuge and for that moment when she knew who would win the fight and who would die. The staff gave Zu the advantage in reach but Lim was quick and knew how to move inside the strike range of the weapon. She watched Lim's poisoned hands, which shone with green phosphorescence in the gray light here in the shadow of the mountain.
If Lim gained the upperhand for a moment, she would join them. She'd rather weather Zu's wrath than his injury.
Then she felt it, she saw it, and she tasted it in her mouth. Lim was still fighting, but she knew he would die. The staff came around. She heard the bones crack and Lim misstepped. A rib had punctured his lungs, but he did not get a chance to draw a ragged, painful breath. The second crack was Lim's skull; Zu had stoved it in.
Congratulations died on her lips when she saw his ashen skin. "Zu, the poison - "
"I am familiar with the Viper style. Give me a moment and I will be fine." He found a seat on a broken stone and closed his eyes to meditate.
Wu then went to Lim's body. The rictus of his face gave him a particularly mad look. The shard of the amulet hung from his neck in a leather thong. His skin hadn't warmed it and she claimed it as her own. "I hope your spirit becomes quite insane," she told the dead man, as a final benediction.
Zu stood up when she approached.
"Rest. You aren't well," she urged.
He ignored her and leaned on his staff for support. "We should not linger here. If there are any assassins left in this area, they will come looking for their Master."
She looked at the path ahead, hating to prod, but wanting to know - needing to know every secret. She did not look at him when she asked, "Zu, I would like to talk about what Lim said."
"That is ... an old wound."
She waited. He would either continue or not. They walked in silence and then he said, "My departure from the Lotus Assassins was not gentle for either side. My immediate companions, those who were my brothers, fell by my hand."
She glanced at him and she saw the sadness there, but then it fell away. "Lim was not among them. He would have died if he was. I was labeled as the one who deserted, and I am occasionally recognized. The result is always the same. Another death. More blood spilled."
The next words were not for her. "Such a waste for a hatred they cannot even understand."
She did not understand either. She tried to, though. "It must be difficult to regret the deaths of so many."
"Regret?" He was scornful of her compassion. "I have no regret for killing anyone who challenged me of their own will. Death is a measurable cost of your actions. Some earn it sooner than others."
That was something she could understand.
"Strength is the way of things and death is the end or should be. Some do not respect either. They have enough of one to defy the other."
He was speaking in riddles and she could not blame it on the poison. "Enough of which? Strength or death?"
"Does it matter? Denying someone's strength is to place yourself above that person without merit. Denying death is to step outside the natural order. Both are harmful."
"Why did you leave the Assassins?" she asked. "Why do you hate them so much?"
"There is a place for the enforcer, the man or woman who brings death to those who have earned or otherwise deserve it. I consider that an honest calling."
She nodded. Some things, no matter how repulsive, had to be done for the sake of the Empire and for the sake of order.
He continued. "I did some harsh things while with the Lotus Assassins, but they no longer follow a path I recognize. They are a mirror of Death's Hand and he embodies corruption."
He had spoken to the air before, but now he looked her in the face. Anger and concern flickered in his eyes. "You will see as you get close to him. He draws out the worst in everyone and displays it for all to see."
His words were so certain, but she could not believe him now. She would have Master Li returned to her - or she would have revenge. "Death's Hand will fall like any other. You will see."
"You have no concept of the devotion of his followers," he scoffed.
She realized that he was right.
Wu could see that Hui the Brave was lost in thought. There were lines of weariness around the corners of her mouth that gave her face a pinched, tired look.
She looked up as Wu approached. "Did you get the piece of the amulet?"
Wu shook her head. "I have questions."
Hui's shoulders drooped for a moment. "More questions? I really don't know what else I can tell you."
Wu caught the sleeve of the waitress as she went by. "Tea for the two of us."
The waitress looked like she was going to argue, but she had a chance to take in Hui's armor and Wu's unconventional clothing. The woman wisely went back to the kitchen.
"I have questions about Zu," Wu said quietly.
The lines at Hui's lips drew tight and disappeared. "Everyone must have their private side."
Hui had said the same thing before when Wu had questioned her about Master Li. The woman certainly knew how to keep her counsel, but Wu was sick to death of secrets.
"My master trusted you and for that reason, I trust you," Wu began. She phrased her doubt carefully. "I don't know if traveling with Zu is what my master would want, not if he once was one of those who destroyed my home."
The waitress came with their tea. They sat in silence while the woman poured the tea for each of them. Hui reached for her stone mug first and regarded Wu over the edge of it. "Zu is an honorable man. Not a good man, perhaps, but an honorable one."
Wu took her mug and sipped the hot tea carefully. Hui's words were not what she wanted to hear, but were better than what she had expected.
Ever since she had stumbled across the man in the marsh, she had been torn between suspicion and respect. She would never have conjured Sagacious Zu's image had someone said 'hermit in a swamp.' But that is what she was given.
She had been ready to cut him down without a thought when she encountered him in the marsh; nothing would get in the way of her rescuing Dawn Star and punishing Gao. She had sworn at Zu for being a coward, then mistrusted him when his adamance had melted at the mention of Dawn Star. But he helped her find her friend and kill Gao; that was in his favor.
Things happened much too quickly after that. The flyers filled the skies like locusts and laid waste to their home. Master Li was missing. Her fellow students were dead or fled. Dawn Star was in tears. And the man she did not trust admitted that he had once been one of those people that had just destroyed her entire world.
"Do you trust him, Hui?" she asked.
"I trusted him enough - twenty years ago," the woman said.
"That was some time ago. And things change," Wu added quietly.
"They do." Hui picked up the teapot and moved it towards Wu's mug.
Wu covered the top with her hand. She stood up. "I found the amulet an hour ago, Hui. Thank you for your help. When I see Master Li again - "
"Say nothing." Hui stood up and bowed. "The amulet piece will tell him all he needs to know."
Wu watched Hui leave. The woman had refused her invitation to join them. She wondered where she would go and what kind of home she could find.
She paid for the drinks and then walked to the bottom of the hill in front of the teahouse, reflecting on her time in Tien's Landing. Mistress Vo and Jian the Iron Fist were waiting for her and they both told her that she must leave empty-handed. She was too chaotic for Vo and too harmonious for Jian.
"Another person who doesn't know their own mind," the old man sniffed.
"Don't listen to the old goat." The woman smiled. "There is a talent in being able to walk both paths, though I think you lean towards one rather than the other..."
Jian glanced at Wu. "And I would ask you, Vo, why you believe that when the dam is still very open."
Wu thanked them both and wished them luck in their game before leaving.
The others were waiting for her aboard the Marvelous Dragonfly. Dawn Star pulled her in as Kang began pulling levers and pushing buttons. The Dragonfly lifted into the air and from this angle in the air, the mud flats spread out in front of Tien's Landing - the river a flat ribbon of blue in the middle of the brown.
Perhaps it was the wrong thing to do, keeping the dam open, she thought, and it wouldn't be pleasant initially, but in the end, the people of Tien's Landing would be stronger for it.
Just like she and Dawn Star were becoming stronger.