"What shall we do tomorrow?" Dawn Star asked, while she laid out her bedroll.
The light of their campfire was beginning to simmer into a low boiling red, a light that bubbled in the ring of coals. Above them were the stars. Wu could see the Old Man with the Pipe, the Ox and the Cart, and the Scorpion from where she lay. They were familiar sky deities from childhood and like the Water Dragon, they were silent too.
"I'm going into the marshes." Wu hadn't known she was going to say it, but now that she had, she felt better for it. She had come to Two Rivers for a reason. The sooner she completed her task, the sooner she could be free of its chain.
"You are losing speed because you are bringing your arm across too high."
Wu adjusted her form and tried again.
"Yes. That is it." Wu finished the form with the Crimson Tears blades and Khana nodded. "You are a master now. I am glad the Tears have found a worthy owner."
Wu put the blades away and wiped the sweat from her face with the back of her sleeve. It was not getting any cooler. She couldn't wait for the rain. "And I am glad you decided to come back and watch this fight, since it meant that you would hone my training further."
The other woman looked uncomfortable for a moment. "I should not have stayed. Coming back to this Arena has made me lose my place..."
Wu was looking for her place too. "What do you mean?"
"I only mean that I hope you win against Iron Soldier." And from the way Khana said it, Wu did not think she meant in the most honorable way possible.
Khana bowed and wished her luck and Iron Soldier made his way onto the sand for his practice time. He ignored her as Khana did him. Wu followed Khana out of the empty Arena.
"This is where we part for the evening. Qui told me you are under lock and key and I will not eat here anymore."
"I understand." An attempt at poisoning would have that affect on Wu's dining choices as well.
She bowed low out of respect for the woman, a respect that exceeded most of what she had for her other Arena opponents, and went back into the bath area that was reserved for the fighters.
Wu changed out of her training clothes and ordered one of the slaves to make sure it was clean by morning. She soaked in the baths for as long as her skin could stand it, then longer still, musing on the Crimson Tears. Khana had told her what was engraved on the side of the blades and she could not get it out of her mind. The words danced there, never resting, likes leaves in a storm.
"The innocent are cut down with the guilty; the brave die beside the craven; the blades do not weep for the dead," she whispered in the empty room.
She wondered how many innocent she'd cut down with the guilty. Wu was not stupid enough to believe that she was free from that crime in her quest to free Master Li.
Yet if she were truly on the Path of the Closed Fist, it should not matter to her. If they were not strong enough to defeat her or smart enough to get out of her way, then they had gotten no less than they had earned.
Like the blades, she would not weep for the dead. She had too much to do. She reached for the robe on the edge of the tub and dressed.
When she opened the door of the baths to go into the hallway, she could hear the rain. The entire building was cooler now. She walked up the creaky stairs to her room and stepped inside. The rain pattered loudly against the clay tiles of the Arena and she listened to it through the open window that looked out onto the sand where she would fight tomorrow.
She was sweating. This would not be a rain that took away the heat. It would be worse tomorrow during her match. She watched the sand on the Arena floor being shaped by the wind that stole in through the cracks in the walls, but up here, she felt absolutely -
Wu felt the presence in her room and punched at it before she saw it. She connected solidly with muscle, but missed with the second strike and hit the wall with her fist. She lashed out with her foot but missed again.
Wu went for the closest weapon at hand, ready to fling a candlestick at the assailant. Kai Lan couldn't possibly have been as foolish as to send assassins into her room. That would be stupid.
"Don't be stupid. It's me."
Zu's voice. She put the candlestick back on the table and flexed her fingers, glad that the darkness would hide her grimace. Her knuckles were going to be bruised tomorrow.
"You should focus on your real enemies." His disembodied voice, came out of the darkness like one of the many spirits she'd put to rest. "You will soon have too many to count if you insist on this plan."
"Pardon me if I include a person hiding in the dark in my bedroom on my list of possible enemies," she said. She found the matches lying on the table and lit the candle. Zu squinted against the sudden light and shielded his face, as if he were unaccustomed to such brightness.
"I have a match tomorrow and if Qui catches you in here, I will be disqualified." She hoped that would be the end of it, but he did not go to the door.
"And if I didn't come tonight, you would lose for sure tomorrow. I could see you second guessing yourself while you were training with the Easterner." She was not surprised that he had been watching her and Khana. He continued. "You cannot do that and win your fight - or survive the Assassins. They will smell the indecision on you and come at you like wolves."
"Let them come then. I've killed worse things than wolves." But he was right and she knew it. She just could not shake the feeling of being torn apart by a wind that wasn't even there.
He came closer. And she, curse her muscles, took a step back. He did not smile like she thought he would and his voice was surprisingly kind when he asked, "Wu, what are you afraid of?"
Lying was pointless; he had already seen through her thin bravado. "I am afraid of failing Master Li and Dawn Star. I am afraid of myself, of my weaknesses. I am afraid of changing into one of the people that destroyed my life. I am afraid of it all."
"You know my feelings on going to the Assassins' lair." He paused for a long moment and the room was filled with the sound of rain on clay tiles. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, but no less sure. "But of the many things you are, you are not weak. If you are to succeed, you must not fear your own power. You must not falter and you must take every chance you are given to be ruthless. It is the only way you will survive."
"But I could stay, couldn't I?" She stood straighter, trying to put strength into her words. "I could stop right now, stay in the Arena. I could make a livelihood out of fighting. Dawn Star and I could live in the capital. We'd have enough to be comfortable and I'd never have anything to do with the Assassins. There would be no need for me to go to the Necropolis, not until I died at least..."
Wu continued. "But I can only do that if you - if anyone - could promise me that I won't regret leaving my master to die and my home unavenged."
He shook his head. "No one who knows you could promise you that."
"Then help me, Zu," she pleaded. Part of her railed against the weakness of begging, but the rest of her didn't want her shadow to twist when there was no breeze. The rest of her knew that if anyone could stop her from going too far, it would be him. "You know about them. You could - "
"Do not tell me what I could do!" Zu sounded as he had in the plagued forest, when she'd questioned the purpose of the Assassins. "You don't understand. Even if I did tell you everything I know, I don't know if it would be enough to get you out of their lair alive and...unchanged."
She remembered that she was not the only one who fought demons. "I do understand. And I won't ask for your help again, if you say you cannot give it."
He looked at her, half-accusing, half-appraising, like she had done something wrong, but had done it very well. "There are some days that I am sure I know who you are. And then you go and say things like that and I know that I do not know you at all."
Suddenly wind lashed rain into her room, pulled at the curtains, and tugged at her robe. The candle guttered, throwing shadows everywhere. Wu ignored it, glad that the flickering light was obscuring her shadow which had begun to dance on its own again. She adjusted her robe, her hand pulling at the collar to bring it up over her bare shoulder.
It was a small gesture, but Zu's gaze did not leave her hand until she said his name. When his eyes flicked up, an unreadable curtain fell over his features, but for that one second, she had thought she had seen...
You must not fear your own power.
Wu stepped forward. She had only used hand to deal hurt and injury to others in past days, but it had done other things once.
You must not falter.
She reached out to touch his face and he did not move away. Her fingers traced the scar that went from his cheekbone to the edge of his lips.
And you must take every chance you are given.
When he closed his eyes, she whispered his name. It was a question and a hope.
"Wu...don't do this."
Wu pulled her hand back slowly. She didn't run, though every muscle in her body screamed to get away from her shame. She didn't look away because that would be weak. She half-bowed as he moved past her and locked the door behind him as he stepped into the dark hall. She leaned against it and took a slow breath.
And she did not cry. That - on her cheeks - that was humidity.