Xueyu’s steps were brisk on the sliver-stone salvaged hallways leading him away from Jiling’s private chamber. He made quick work of the angled corridors, followed all their twisting and turning around sacred spaces until he hit the day in full. The large man stood in the main doorway of the mountain’s deeper recesses for a fleeting moment, watching the lazy rustling of the world beyond—its simple tuning so grand, its motions so slow that they were imperceptibly fast. A paradox, a puzzle: perfect.

The inner walls of Luanshi Sect’s mountain compound twisted some yards ahead of him, composed of stretches of dense rebar hammered into a more acceptable shape, metal bones of a fallen structure picked from her wreckage and reused to fit the purposes of a society built atop the echoes of former folly. Lungs full of the morning’s dewy air, he started down the broad stairs and down the path toward his training yard, turning just before the exit yawning before him. Xueyu dipped into a shadow-lined path between two smaller structures made of hand-mashed mud and steel. He emerged on the other side to his favorite sound—the complaints of one of his pupils being punished by the superior skill of a boy he considered his best.

The man was something of a teacher. He was an advisor and an envoy, an official and an emissary. He was Xueyu of the Blood-Blessed Blade, master swordsman and skilled assassin, protector of the priestess attuned to the whims of Yunji Mountain, headmaster of his own educational program that turned waifish orphans into skilled executioners. It was Jiling’s will that all forgotten children were welcome inLuanshi Sect, in their temple city lurking at the side of their massive mountain, but not all children were a good fit for Xueyu’s program. He took in only those that had the will to survive, those that had a certain spark in their eyes, a snarl upon their lips showing gleaming teeth—he took in the kids that looked like they’d been made hungry by the cruelty of the world, would readily eat its heart out, then still not be sated by such a feast.

He stopped on the boundary of his training ground and watched the action away from the clustered collection of onlookers, of peers interested to see if this sparring session would end with broken bones.

“Laike,” the older man called out, given name a command emphasizing his crisp summons.

“Aa—” the taller boy shouted, startled by the sound of his name uttered so sharp from the edge of the yard. He snapped to attention like a reprimand lurked around the way, spine straight and chin high.

“—AAAAAH,” the other boy finished, falling to the ground with his leg all wrong. It seemed whatever Laike had unleashed before their master’s interruption had followed through at full strength without his attention, leaving a femur snapped, it’s bright-eyed owner red faced and wheezing on the gravel.

The gathered crowd gasped as though surprise was an element better expressed through the effort of a collective. Xueyu, however, betrayed no emotion. True, maybe Laike could have couched his blows, but the other boy should have been better aware, should have been prepared for eventualities. This child would learn from his mistakes today or, if he didn’t, he would suffer through them again.

While a few in the circle of onlookers scurried forth to administer first aid, their teacher waggled a finger toward himself expectantly.

Laike’s black blade zipped back toward him like a dragonfly, mottled damascus steel like smoke in the light breeze. Catching it, the lanky boy so beckoned did as silently told, glancing over his shoulder only once as his blade dispersed to embers in his hand.

“Master Xueyu,” the boy greeted when he stopped before his elder, hands held respectfully together before him, chin dipped with his strange hazel eyes canted curiously up. Even if his voice was unwavering in sincerity, there was a precocious tilt to his head; even when he stood tall, there remained a troublemaker’s swagger in his step. “I am at your service.”

“You’re coming into town today,” Xueyu announced with a warmer tone, his voice softened in their nearness. “Jiling will introduce you to the ruling clan, the Tians. She will do her treatment on the middle child while I take Jiewei and Chongwei around the market.”

When the older man turned, it was understood that his best student would travel alongside him. His path took them back toward the way he’d come so they could prepare for the day’s journey into civilization.

“Is this agreeable?” The master swordsman tilted his chin toward the boy.

“Are we gonna eat food down there?” Lai seemed genuinely excited at the prospect, a briskness in his step keeping him at his mentor’s side. It wasn’t that they starved on Yunji mountain—quite the opposite. The orphan clan of Luanshi was well kept. The mountain compound, however, was entirely vegetarian, the dishes from mess all health foods meant to nourish the body and sharpen the mind.

Laike was desperately excited for meat and candy.

“Are they gonna feed us?” he demanded. “Do you have money? Are you gonna spend it on feeding me?”

Xueyu grinned in the face of his pupil’s singular focus, the brightness of the boy’s expression shaped by the possibility of all those treats wafting their savory scents into the air: steamed buns and simmering morsels stuck through with sticks; bright collections of crystallized sugars crackling in cellophane cages wrapped tight with tasseled tinsel and glittering all colors in the dayshine.

“If they don’t feed you, then yeah, I will.” The man looked ahead again. “You can have whatever you want—within reason.”

Even if Xue spoiled the tall youth at his side whenever he could, the rewards were neither undue nor extravagant—but then, Jiling would likely say he was being too sentimental there as well. Maybe he was. He looked at the boy with a fondness reserved for closer blood, the rigid lines of his stern expression contorting into a more compassionate shape.

“What exactly is reasonable?” the boy asked, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. “I work very hard. Reasonable should be generous. Really really generous.”

“Reasonable is what you can carry in your own pockets without having to resort to your shadows.” The older man quickly peered at the boy. “I would say that is ‘really really generous’.”

For Laike, prized disciple of the empty mountain, there was only one question left to ask:

“When do we leave?”

“Two hours.”

His answer was half stolen by the distant sound of shouting and the wails of a boy having the bones of his leg reset, howls echoing behind them, filling the space between the buildings and fully occupying the courtyard the pair left behind.