We were a motley bunch, panting and groaning in rows on the courtyard outside the sect’s compound. Three people down, a stout young man had bent over and was emptying his stomach on the stone. If I’d eaten anything in the last two days, I was sure that I would have deposited it on the stone tiles in sympathy with him. The blisters on my feet throbbed in time with the rumbling of the unending storm below us. We’d climbed for three days up the mountain path, led by Wen Gao, the recruiter of the Seven Striking Thunder sect. Several prospects had already failed this first trial. Their exhausted bodies had been left alongside the trail where they fell, and Wen Gao had spared not even a glance in their direction. His eyes turned only upwards, to the mountain peak and the dark clouds that shrouded it.
Sixty prospects had reached the cloudline to pass into the buffeting winds and obscuring mists of the storm. Fifty of us emerged into the windswept courtyard. Although I had not seen the fate of the failures with my own eyes, the rattling of dislodged rocks and the screams had told most of the tale. Now, everyone tried to remember how to breathe, or attended to the wounds on their hands and feet while Wen Gao prowled among us. His beard had frizzed to a ridiculous degree in the storm-charged air. It would have been funny, if I’d had the breath to laugh. And if I couldn’t see his eyes. They were the eyes of an immortal: crackling with tiny bursts of lightning and as merciless as the storm.
As he passed by, I ducked my head, hoping to avoid notice. Instead, the movement caught his attention. The whisper of his robes fell silent. My breath caught, fear souring my mouth. The stories said that the immortals could strip away all illusion and deception with a glance. Had some part of my disguise slipped on the journey up the mountain?
Or had Wen Gao never been fooled at all, and had only put me through this torment so that he could kill me as a jest at the end of it? Even for the Seven Striking Thunder Sect, known for its dark inclinations, that seemed…petty. His voice had all the warmth of a winter blizzard. “You. Remind me of your name.”
I had to swallow the lump of fear in my throat before I could speak. “Zhou Hao, elder.”
“Look up when I speak to you.”
I jerked my chin up, forced myself to look into his cold, beautiful face. I was sure my own face was pasty with fear, coated with sweat and storm water. Despite my best efforts, my hair had come free from its binding and was an ugly wreath around my head. He sneered, looking me over. “How old are you?”
“Sixteen, elder.”
“You don’t look that old. Master Xu of Tiangshou recommended you, didn’t he?”
He had taken enough note of me to remember that. I’d made a sacrifice to the god of thieves and secrets before undertaking this journey; now I prayed she smiled on my audacity and had prevented him from confirming that recommendation with Xu. I could only give a curt nod in response; if I opened my mouth, I knew my teeth would chatter and betray my terror.
Wen Gao snorted. “Senile old man. Most others Xu has recommended quit before we reached the storm line. Show me your hands.”
I hesitated. Some cultivators knew secret techniques to read your entire life, even your past lives, from the lines of your palms. My heart fluttered in rising panic. How had I ever thought I could infiltrate a sect of immortals?
I extended my hands with the air of one going to the executioner. He made an irritated sound, grabbed my wrists and twisted until my bleeding palms faced the sky. I hissed as his thumb dug into one of the bloody scrapes. I didn’t look down as he studied them; I knew what he’d see. I’d lost two fingernails when the storm had pushed me off the trail and I’d had to scrabble for a hold on the rain-slick rocks. There were splinters in my palm I hadn’t yet had the chance to pick out. The skin was gone on the outer border of my left wrist. The clouds had been so dense I’d had to drag my hand against the rock face just to ensure that I wasn’t walking out into thin air.
His gaze crawled over my battered flesh. I braced myself for denunciation. Or would he simply kill me where I stood and move on, my pitiful attempt at deception already forgotten? Wen Gao did neither of these things. Instead, he placed one of his fingernails, the pointed tip gilded and gleaming, against the raw flesh where one of my nails had torn. He pressed down. In the general chorus of agony that was my body, I would have thought one more hurt wouldn’t matter.
I would have been wrong. A hot needle of pain shot straight up my arm and tore a gasp from me. One corner of his mouth turned up. “Such discomfort you have suffered to come here, Zhou Hou.” His eyes lifted, caught and held mine. “Why?”
My mouth worked. I knew that I looked like a landed fish; one of the prospects to my side snickered. But the question froze the words in my throat. Wen Gao waited, but not patiently. His nail continued to press down and bright red blood welled up around the gold. I forced the answer past my fear. “To become immortal.”
“If that is the only answer you have, then you would have been better not to waste your time. Immortality is the path. What is your destination, boy?”
“I–I don’t—”
Wen Gao dropped my hand and rocked back on his heels. Something about the motion had all the deadly anticipation of a viper, rearing back to strike. He lifted the fingertip stained with my blood, and pointed it at my forehead. “Useless.” To the others, watching with expressions that ranged from horrified to gleeful, he said, “This sect has no use for the lost. Without a goal that you hold more dear than your life, you shall die here. Let this waste of space illustrate your fate, should you falter.”
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A cold blue glow sparked at his fingertip. He began to sketch a spell sequence in the air. I blurted, “Vengeance!’
He paused, finger remaining raised, a brush needing only a stroke to seal my death. “Go on.”
I had never meant to reveal so much. Not so soon. Not ever, until I stood triumphant over the corpse of my enemy. Now, I chose my words with caution. I had to reveal the passion and convince him that I belonged here–but I could never tell him, or anyone here, the whole truth. My voice shook and I hoped he heard the rage as well as the fear. “I seek vengeance. The one who has wronged me has traveled far on the path of cultivation. I must become stronger than they are. I have to make them answer for their crimes against me.”
The dark storms in Wen Gao’s eyes seemed to pause as all his attention focused on me. “And for your vengeance, what will you sacrifice?”
I met his eyes. “Everything.”
Silence pooled around the two of us. I think even the prospects to either side of me stopped breathing. One corner of Wen Gao’s mouth turned upwards. “We shall see.” He dropped his hand, the gathered qi dissipating into the air. He continued his survey of the line without a backward glance.
I locked my knees before I could pitch forward and smash my face into the cobblestones out of sheer relief. Beside me, one of the other prospects drew a ragged breath. “I’m glad he didn’t ask me that,” he muttered. It was hard to imagine Wen Gao feeling the need to - the young man was at least six feet tall, muscular and bearded. Any sect would have been happy to have such a strapping specimen. He even looked less exhausted than the rest of us.
I shook my head, and whispered back, “What would you have said?”
He flashed a grin. “I just want to fight. Anyone who’s better than me. Stronger. I want to figure out what makes them strong, and take it. Until I’m the strongest one there is.” His eyes gleamed with a delight that was as good-natured as it was unhinged. He gave me a look over and winked. “Probably won’t need to worry about fighting you anytime soon.”
I couldn’t help it; the laugh escaped unbidden, and I clasped my hand over my mouth to keep it from attracting unwanted attention. My skin tasted like blood and burned against my lips. We both froze when Wen Gao - almost at the end of the line - glanced over his shoulder. As he moved on, I dared to say, “Probably not. Who are you?”
“Han Fu, but most call me Zhuzhu.” He laughed, one hand over his mouth, as I made a point of craning my head back to take in his height. “When I was born, I was very small and very fat. ‘Look at this little pig’, my father exclaimed when I was shown to him. It stuck.” He shrugged, then smiled. “I remained short and fat until I was fifteen. So you, too, may grow one day.”
“There are benefits to being small,” I muttered, for all that I actually wished for a hand of height and another quarter of a dan of muscle. There was no avoiding the fact that I was one of the shortest prospects in the courtyard. Between that and Elder Wen’s challenge, I could feel the gazes of the other prospects, weighing what use or threat I could be to them.
Zhuzhu chuckled. “That is only what the small say,” he said, but there was a boisterous lack of malice to it that teased a smile from me. He reached out and punched me lightly on my shoulder. “Stick with me. We’ll make you strong. And when you are strong, we’ll fight, and I’ll kill you honorably.”
He laughed, so I laughed too, but it didn’t feel like a joke. Further conversation was interrupted by the squealing of the sect gates as they moved. They were the largest such gates I’d ever seen, and the most elaborate. Even the magistrate’s estate at the heart of the city at the foot of the mountain couldn’t match their lacquered splendor; the twisting storm dragon relief with its scales of pale blue jade and eyes of clustered rubies represented a wealth beyond that of mortals.
Five men stood just inside the threshold of the sect compound. The prospects murmured, and those who still had the energy tried to straighten and look presentable before these, the Elders of the Seven Striking Thunder sect. I recognized them, of course. How could I not? In my village, we had been carefully taught their names and appearances so that no child would cause accidental offense to the immortals, should they deign to notice us. Such was the life of mortals living in territory claimed by a sect known for its short temper and vengeful nature.
In robes of black and gold was Xiongxiong, the Raging Bear. He was at least as large as Zhuzhu in height, and even wider in girth. His shoulders could have given prize-winning hams a run for their money. He grinned as he took in the battered faces, reached out with an elbow to nudge the man next to him and whisper. With a sour look, his target shook his head, a waterfall of white hair falling around his shoulders. Lian Lu, the Alchemist, was beautiful - except for the deep acid scars that ran from the peak of his hairline and down the left side of his face. His eye on that side had been replaced with an artifact; the ice blue stone glowed as it swept the ranks of the prospects. I almost ducked behind Zhuzhu to escape its gaze.
Whatever he found in his study, it seemed to displease him. His lips thinned as he looked away. The third man, standing at ease at the center of the line, would have been recognized as High Elder of the sect by the elaborate dragon robes that flowed restlessly around him, even if his hair - long and unnaturally red, just like the gleaming scales that mottled his skin - hadn’t been sufficient on its own. Liekong Zhi Long was the name I knew him by: the Dragon of the Sundered Sky. He had other titles, and the giant polearm slung casually on his back had earned its own name as well: Yun Lueduo Zhe, Cloudreaver. He barely looked at the prospects, being otherwise deeply engaged in a quiet conversation with the man to his other side. Perhaps ‘man’ was the wrong word. From the curling horns to the scarlet eyes and pointed teeth, there was no mistaking the fourth elder for anything but one of the Oni - the demonic people that harried the Empire of men without mercy. Siwang Geshou, the stories called him: Death Singer. If he had a name from his own people, I surely didn’t know it.
But my eyes skipped right over him. Because there were five elders of Seven Striking Thunder, and the last stood at his ease, onyx hair falling carelessly over the shoulders of his emerald green robes. An ugly joy surged within me as I studied his handsome, reserved features. Aches momentarily faded as purpose burned away the pain and I couldn’t help but clench my fists, even as it drove splinters deeper into my skin. My oath roared in my head and it took every drop of my will to keep from screaming aloud the accusation and challenge that would only end in my death. Still, it reverberated in my mind like the toiling of temple bells.
Sun Feiyun! I, Zhou Hui Ying, last daughter of my family, will see you dead.