Skysong Sect stretched across three hills and the space between them where the sound of water made statues shiver. Its outer gate was carved from a single meteorite. The characters over it said a dozen things in a dozen scripts and still meant nothing as much as to the elderly gatekeeper whose eyebrows had learned to waggle in three dimensions.
"Names," he said, not looking up from his book. "Ages. Specialties."
"Bai Ningxue," Ningxue said. "Twenty-three. Sword."
"Mu Ziyu," Ziyu said. "Twenty-six. Alchemy, poison, telling the truth when it's funny."
"Long Ruyan," Ruyan said before he could be asked, which sent the elderly gatekeeper's eyebrows up. "Twenty-four. Merchant, traveler, and if you check your storage sheds later and find that rare wine has evaporated, that is a coincidence. I am here to, ah, observe."
"Observe what?" the gatekeeper asked, writing.
"The sort of boy who opens the Dragon Gate in the middle of a fishing district," Ruyan said, and pointed at Su Xuan.
The gatekeeper looked up, at last. His eyes were clearer than a mountain lake.
"Su Xuan," Su Xuan said. "Nineteen. Generalist."
"Generalist," the gatekeeper repeated, and tasted the word like a sour plum. "Means you are not good at anything."
"He's good at opening things," Ziyu murmured.
He was good at that. He had a talent for keys.
"Trials begin at dawn," the gatekeeper said. "No killings. Minimum property damage. Maximum humility."
They spent the night in the outer guest hall, where fifty other hopefuls pretended not to study each other. Su Xuan slept as if someone had thrown a cloak over him and the cloak was full of old stories. In the morning they went to the outer arena.
The first trial was a standard—cross the Formation Garden without getting bitten, reversed, or looped. The second was a duel. The third was a measure of heart.
They did not think Su Xuan impressive. He was not particularly tall. He did not wear a sword. His robe was a poor copy of the sect pattern, bought off a rack in the market for three coppers and an apology. The elders in the stands looked past him towards the boys with tiger pelts and the girls with swords like ice-water.
The Formation Garden was a field of waist-high grasses and paper kites that were not kites. They were the skins of illusions peeled thin and tied on strings. The ground was inscribed with a silk-thread web of light that waited for careless feet. A handful of candidates entered and came out walking backward or kissing their own shadows. One got swallowed by a friendly pond and came back out amphibious.
Su Xuan watched the pattern as a patient doctor watches an old man breathe. He studied the pulse. He saw the trick. He smiled very slightly.
He stepped into the grass and walked without walking. The Wheel spun. The Formation Path recognized him the way an old dog recognizes its first master's whistle. He placed his feet where the ground was almost ground. He lifted his hands where there were almost strings. He whispered to the paper kites and made them think they were clouds, and clouds don't bite people because they don't have mouths.
He came out of the Garden untouched. The elders didn't look past him after that.
The second trial paired him with a boy named Sun He, a high-shouldered bruiser with wrists like hammers and a spirit beast tattooed across his chest that only sometimes turned its head to look where he told it to. Sun He swung his spear like he meant it and snarled like there was honey in it.
Su Xuan touched the Wind Path and stepped so that the spear found no purchase. He touched the Thunder Path and let it lick the tip of the spear and run up, not to Sun He, but to the ground beneath Sun He's back foot, which slid. He touched the Dragon Path and wrote a line in the air: here is your limit. Sun He discovered that when he tried to cross that line, his foot forgot it was a foot and became a memory instead.
In three moves it was done. Su Xuan eased the boy down gently so his neck didn't bounce. The elders nodded.
The third trial was simple. An old stone, cracked like chapped lips, stood in the center of the arena. Place your hand upon it, said the elder with the voice like a bell, and show us your heart.
Su Xuan placed his palm on the stone. The Ten Thousand Path Wheel wheeled. The stone hummed and glowed too bright. When it dimmed, the old characters on its face had rearranged themselves to show a single sentence:
Vow: To find the one who betrayed his Dao and cut the knot at the root.
The arena went quiet. In the stands a woman in a veil pulled it down a fraction, once. It was not Qinglian. It was someone she owed, or someone who owed her. The Wheel's spoke of Karma turned a tiny fraction and clicked.
"Accepted," said the elder, eyes regretful for something Su Xuan could not name. "Remember that hearts are watched."
He bowed.
The trials ended with customary tea. Bai Ningxue sat across from him with the stillness of a sheathed sword. Mu Ziyu laced her cup with something that made her smile a little too widely and tasted like licorice. Long Ruyan drank as if she were trying to trap lightning in her throat.
"You are not what you look like," Ningxue said.
He could have said the same. He did not.
"Skysong will be a roof for a little while," Ziyu said. "But you're a traveler, not a tenant. I can smell it."
"Because he opened the Gate," Ruyan said. Her pupils were narrow, and she was watching him the way a cat watches a snake and decides it is a toy. "You have dragon on you."
He did not deny it. The azure bone in his chest hummed in agreement like a plucked string.
"What do you want?" Ningxue asked.
"Vengeance," Su Xuan said, and shut his mouth as the word left. Not because he was ashamed of it, but because he knew it was only the top of the well. Beneath it lay water, cold and deeper than he could yet see.
"That is a path," Ziyu said softly, all laughter folded away. "Don't let it be the only one."
Ruyan leaned forward. A drop of tea hung from her lip and did not fall. "When you are ready to climb," she said, "come to the Qilong Range. There is a Gate there that is not made of water and sky. It is made of bone and oath. If you push it, it will push back. If you break it, I will introduce you to my mother."
"Your mother," Ziyu said. "Should I be frightened?"
Ruyan's smile showed a tooth that was not entirely human. "Only if you are prey."