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Fanxing city, separated from the hollow mountain that lurked distant in its periphery by a long shadow over the landscape, was just beginning to stir to life in the swell of morning. The Tian clan’s manor functioned as the sprawling heart of that land over which they ruled, perfectly sectioned between matters public and private. It was composed of snaking pathways, maze-like in their multi-directional slitherings between buildings and residences and the many halls meant for conducting business or pleasure or some combination of both. From an outsider’s perspective, it was a beautiful conglomeration of structures, a palatial expanse of an advanced world lost and remade into this iteration of civilization, accented by the argent aspects of its material in harmony with frore blue swaying banners strung throughout. From a viewpoint more internal it was much the same.
The sun finally crested over the walls of the Tian family’s compound, painting its light in golden swirls on a quiet pond built into the center of a small and isolated private courtyard. A youth of nineteen crouched before the water-mirror’s surface watching the reflection of fading camellias losing their petals to the morning breeze. Large chunks of flowers lazily cascaded up—not down, toward the earth—sent skyward and scattered like a reverse snow of vibrant red, behaving in total disregard of everything natural. The observer was the Tian family’s middle child, so named Yuhui: a boy who used to worry that he was cursed before deciding to just accept as much as fact. The garden he occupied long served as a refuge from staff and issues more stately; he often took delight in its solitude when he was actively shirking duties assigned to him, when he didn’t want to be found by those that were not already wise to his ways.
Beneath the pond’s surface, a well-fed fish scurried and hurried, likely agitated by the closeness of an omen its simple mind could barely understand. Nearby, tucked deep into the verdant cover of a rustling bush, a birdsong skipped like a midi melody on loop, 8bit chip-chiming in the repetitious call for a mate in the search for mid-morning love. Yuhui glanced up, but it was not the source of the song he found.
It was his elder brother, arms crossed, looking particularly dour.
Tian Xiaoxu was a tall boy, strong and quick, a perfect cross between his mother’s fury and his father’s grace. Where the royal family had cultivated a deep sense of honor and duty in the eldest child of their clan, he who was meant to ascend to leadership when the old guard passed, they subsequently permitted his younger siblings to run a little too free. It was evident in the cant of their shoulders: Xiao with his posture perfect, Yu with his spine arched like a cat.
“I’ve been calling you,” the Tian heir stated plainly, exasperation hidden beneath a practiced mask of apathy. Yuhui was a needle who delighted in getting under the eldest child’s skin. Xiao couldn’t give him the satisfaction. Regardless, he softened. “We received a message from the mountain. They’re bringing disciples today.”
Mouth a straight line on the verge of a flippant response, Yu’s dark eyes traced a circle away from his sibling—ground, pond, flowers, sky—before falling back upon him again, eyebrows furrowed.
“Disciples?” Dismay swelled within the tone of the younger boy’s question. “Why—for me or for you?”
“It’s your warding day,” the more dutiful of the pair spoke, almost amused by the tone of his brother’s incredulity. A taunting light crossed the prince’s brown eyes and he turned mock-thoughtful, looking up at the eaves, one hand stroking across his jaw. “Are you getting worse? Maybe the heart of the mountain can’t tame your ghosts anymore. Hmm…”
“How am I supposed to know? Nothing around me makes sense, nothing is predictable long enough to gauge whether an incomprehensible manifestation of chaos is just normal or worse.” The younger boy’s eyes narrowed as he stood and approached the short stairs to take him back inside the raised platform of the complex. “You don’t have to talk to me like that. I didn’t do anything to you… today.”
“Today.” Xiao laughed low, languidly following his brother, forearms resting on the rail surrounding the garden.
“Anyway,” Yu said, passing his brother, “I didn’t ask to be haunted, you know, this isn’t fun for me. In my last lesson with Master Xueyu, I almost cut Fei in the head just from trying to deflect an attack. How would you feel if you almost decapitated your best friend without even meaning to?” The edge of the boy’s sleeping robe drug a collection of ground detritus inside, dried leaves and shoots of crispy grass. Half of the morning was gone and that frivolous thing wasn’t even properly dressed yet.
The older boy looked up at Yu with a pout, a convincing show of apology on his face. “Everyone else is so careful around you, like you’re made of haunted glass—shouldn’t you be glad someone’s still willing to talk to you like you’re a person?”
The middle child shook his head pitifully, words retaining their dire lack of enthusiasm even as they trailed from a side room he briefly disappeared into. “Ah, of course. Of course, you’re right. Look at my noble brother Xiaoxu. See how he talks to his sibling like he’s a human being—my, what a hero. Someone give him a medal.”
Yuhui returned a moment later in clothes better suited for company, fabric hand-dyed the color of a far away sea reflecting the precipitous upset of a gathering storm, greyish blue, dark, deep. He ruffled his hair rather than properly fixing it.”Have you ever met any of the mountain’s disciples before? You’re going to come to the roof with me to check them out, right?”
“Why else do you think I’m here?” Xiaoxu held his head high, poised. He looked very believable when he played like he was better than these little games but all the Tian children had imps laced into their constellations, inextricable little demons that branded the whole lot of them troublemakers. With a half-grin, Xiao was up the steps to meet his brother more fully. “I already picked out a spot by the magnolia trees where the guards won’t see us from under the entry pavilion’s edges, come on.”
Grabbing Yu by the hand, Xiao moved briskly, tugging him along to the old maple that usually offered them their quick path onto the roof. He always went first, always offered his younger brother a hand up between the center branches that were spaced just a little too far apart. “I’ve met some of the younger kids when we’ve gone to temple, the priests, some of the acolytes, the older ones—but Xueyu’s disciples usually stay deep in the mountain. I’ve never met anyone from Luanshi who’s our age.”
“Hmm,” Yu hummed thoughtfully. He likewise knew little of that isolated mountain sect—he only knew the priestess, who was beautifully intimidating, and her swordmaster, who was brutally intimidating.
Still, if some of Yu’s unhappiest moments were when his older brother was terse with him, then some of his happiest were when that rule-bound boy indulged him in cooperative childishness. The uncertainty of the younger boy’s condition made him a cautious climber, but the stability of his kin helped him persevere. He hunkered down next to Xiao, ducking his head to peer through patches punched clear through tree cover, seeking glimpses of sky beyond their camouflage and eagerly waiting for that expected procession of hermits.
Before long, they heard horses in the distance—four of them.
The first was always Xueyu’s grey warhorse, broad and imposing like his master, followed by Jiling’s sleek black gaited stallion, ginger like a dancer, draped in the excess silk of her white robes. The next to approach the Tian family’s compound was a middleweight chestnut dappled mare with two girls sitting atop it—one relatively comfortable with the reigns in her hand and a terrified blonde clinging around her waist. The rear was, after a moment’s pause, taken up by a young man dressed in black, hair long and careless, trotting a pure white hot-blooded charger to greet the stable master waiting at the gate.
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“Oh, three of them?” Xiao murmured, looking at his brother. He liked to think he could tell when something was going to happen around Yuhui—thought he could decipher his moods or understand some warning from his posture, glean some awareness of a headache hidden behind his eyes. If he were honest, he would just admit he resigned himself to constant vigilance, dedicated himself to his brother’s safety whenever he was near. He placed a hand on the younger boy’s back, ready to catch him in case a roof tile suddenly gave way. “The message didn’t say how many were coming out. I wonder how many disciples Master Xueyu has.”
Xiaoxu’s brother was silent, eyes quickly scanning past the pair of faces familiar to focus on those who were not: the two girls who looked to be the same age as their youngest sister; the boy at the back, steadily approaching like a fog, black as the new moon night. The middle child of the Tian clan willed himself closer, extended his neck just slightly, leaned forward to a degree more precarious to get a better glimpse. He was fascinated in an instant, suffering through his electric heartbeat nearly pounding out of his chest.
Maybe Xiao could feel it. Maybe he could tap into his younger brother’s energies, sift past all the nonsense shouting false accusations through the mass confusion always whorling around his core. Maybe he could read his stuttering pulse, measure the degree to which his breath was broken by a sudden swell of nerves. Maybe he could see the way his brother swallowed just so, hard shift of his Adam’s apple moving below the thin skin of his slender neck. Yuhui wrung his hands together, bony fingers twisted up in each other, tying all the knots his stomach threatened. He squeezed anticipation from the air as though it were a tangible state of matter.
Maybe Xiao could see the way Yu’s sharp gaze softened in appreciation, could hear the boy’s exhale transform into the silken weave of the softest sigh when it fell past the tender parting of his lips.
“Come on Yu,” the older boy said, laughing. Of course Xiao knew the signs: he watched his brother fall in love with every pretty face he came across, watched his heart stutter at every second glance, watched him grow bored just as quick. The elder looked back to the group handing off their horses, voice tuned to a well-meaning tease. “What can you possibly think will happen there? He’s destined to be a priest or something—and you’re just unholy.”
“I can be holy, Xiao.” When Yu turned his head, his eyes never strayed from that black linen back of the pack boy. That wicked child full of rotten intentions and spur of the moment fantasies did his best to maintain some dignity amidst all his swooning, expression twisted by possibilities less than chaste despite the sureness carefully laced through his throat. “I can learn. Anything can happen. Around me? You should already know: anything can happen.”
“What are you guys looking at?”
Sudden and bright and completely without warning, the youngest of the Tian children was an alarm chime ringing loud down the hills from the safety of the magnolia branches, simultaneously breaking the pair’s concentration and annihilating their clandestine lookout. Wide eyed and curious, Miyan was peering at the distance between roof and tree, always so intent on joining her brothers whenever they might go. “What is it?” the teen repeated with zero regards for volume or secrecy. “I wanna look too!”
“Mizi!” Xiao gasped in surprise as he whipped around to look at their younger sister, unaware that he was already sliding down the roof tiles. “Stop—”
“Nono, let me go!” Yu cried out, unable to brace himself against the inevitability he scrambled to fight. “Xiao, let m— ”
It was too late. The pair of boys were sent tumbling toward the ground, landing with a loud thud of tangled bodies slamming into the main path, sound echoing cruelly through the entryway leading up to the palace’s interior. It could have been worse, right? They could have fallen upward like the camellia petals. They could have been launched into the sky and gotten stuck there or maybe died. Then Yuhui would never get the chance to meet or speak to the vessel of his sudden infatuation.
Of course, on the other hand, Yuhui would have to live with the knowledge that this was his first impression, ever an irrevocable instance of time that occurred only once. He groaned from atop his brother, gangly limbs slow to collect themselves under the hard stare of an expert swordsman with his fingers wrapped around his weapon’s grip, ready to protect his priestess.
The boy in black was just as quick. Immediately, he drew support from the shadows cast by the midmorning sun to summon his own vorpal dark to hand, a slow eddy of darkness slithering across the dewy daylight ground to lounge in blade shape, languid in their master’s hand.
Before Xueyu could call him to halt, the viper youth was already on the platform, black sword pointed at Yuhui’s pretty chin.
“Oh gods,” Xiao coughed, then gasped when he saw the assassin’s blade. “Fuck—”
“Enough, Laike,” the priestess called gently, light-warmed touch a calming presence at the interior edge of Xueyu’s elbow. She smiled at the boys pinned beneath her high-strung pupil’s instant response, unnaturally speedy when set between two shadows. “Good morning young master Xiaoxu, young master Yuhui.” A tile came crashing to the ground next to the group and the small woman swallowed her laughter, lips pursed to keep her stoic mein. “An unconventional entrance indeed.”
Yuhui’s eyes were wide, black drops of ink sitting stark atop pools of the purest white. His line of sight scaled Laike’s sword from tip to top, tracing the contours of the hand belonging to that boy who held it, up his arm and around the curve of his shoulder, moving quickly along his neck to his finely tuned features and his serious eyes. The younger of the Tian boys lingered in his stare, hopeful that if he didn’t acknowledge anything happening outside the narrow space their bodies occupied, then he would be able to live in this moment with this stranger until his heart settled and allowed him the time to catch back up with its rhythm.
“Sincerest apologies,” Yu muttered like he was the responsible heir of the clan, like he was talking only to the threat about to bleed him red all over the dusk of his moody blues. “I hope your journey from the mountain was pleasant.”
The young assassin’s hazel eyes narrowed at the polite response, heard the Heart of the Mountain’s command in the back of his head. Still his blade pointed downward. What did he find when he listened to this voice? Xueyu always told him to pick apart every detail in his opponents—
What did this opponent offer him?
He was being traced out like the contours of a painting, studied like a distant landscape dissolving in the sun, mirage heat lines dissipating in desert air. He was memorized, his sheet music tendons and pentatonic hands. When he listened to what this boy murmured before him, the quiet hidden tremble in his low tenor sound, he felt alone.
Laike sucked on the inside of his cheek as he grudgingly scattered his ember blade and, instead, offered his hand to help the prince to his feet.
When Yuhui took Laike’s hand and rose, his watch retreated, fading to demureness forced by his chin tucked in embarrassment.
“Thank you,” he said, turning to then help his sibling, glancing up the roof and its missing-tile damage, which the trio would surely be scolded for that same evening. He caught a glimpse of his sister in the tree branches where she remained, a shocked WHOOPS branded silent on her face.
Reflexes soothed by the touch in the crook of his arm, the knowledge that this possible attack was just the carelessness of curiosity gone wrong, the master swordsman’s arm returned to his side.
“Masters Xiaoxu and Yuhui, Madam Miyan,” Xueyu sternly announced, “Allow me to introduce you to three of Luanshi’s most skilled disciples: Laike, Chongwei, and Jiewei.” He gestured to each child in turn—the shadow stalker, the girl unafraid of horses, and then the blonde who was.
Laike bowed curtly to each in turn but his sidelong glances lingered on Yuhui even as he peered toward the wide eyed girl trying to descend from the magnolia tree without tearing up her dress. Before anything else could be said, the black-clad boy walked away, resuming his position at Jiling’s side, one step behind his teacher.
“We apologize for the disturbance,” the oldest Tian child said smoothly once recovered, bowing his head before his mountain elders. “We received your message from the birds this morning—we were simply anxious to meet your disciples. Sorry to surprise you.”
The youngest in the visiting pack, blonde curls about her face, jabbed her dark haired sister in the ribs with an elbow, pointing to the girl in the magnolia tree with a toothy grin.
Her older sister was already nodding, tell-tale smirk betraying the schemes rapidly forming in her mind, expression spread across sly lips tucked between the bobbing ends of her chin-length hair.
“I’ll show you inside—” Yuhui volunteered in a quick step forward, as if miraculously willing to take responsibility for the dull ceremony of greetings before his weekly warding. The boy nearly tripped over nothing in the further unraveling of his ability to maintain control over himself and the things around him, but caught his feet in an awkward stumble as he set off toward the wide steps leading up to the main house. “I’m sure my parents are looking forward to seeing you.”