Most of Fanxing City’s vendors were already set up by the time Xueyu turned onto the street at the top of Zhongxin Market with his entourage. It was a convoluted and bustling place, full of old men whose dealings only centered around digging up discounts, merchants hungry for the back and forth of a haggle, women looking to buy gems from scoundrels looking to sell at three times their value, children running amok, people yelling, confusion swollen in the air forever and always. Rows of ramshackle buildings and lean-tos propped up by last weeks handyman specials were dotted between more reputable establishments—there was no apparent rhyme or reason to the market’s layout; there was no sense to be made when row after row, block after block, was packed full of unique neighbors shifting daily.

Xueyu typically came to the market by himself. It was a frequent stop on days he spent training the Tian children, filling the leftover time before he was due back on the mountain to attend to his own students. Each time he strode down those avenues stacked and packed with rolls of spices from faraway lands and precarious towers of old chinaware from the dusty pantries of grandmothers no more, he was reminded of his every attempt to convince Jiling to come with him, her every refusal for the sake of her more important duties; he was reminded of how he would always bring back an apple or a plum, sweet and ripe, for his favorite pupil coalesced of shadows. Some things changed—that boy would now see all the hectic wonder of his place for himself and pick out his own treats—but some things remained the same: Xueyu expected they would be returning to Skyline Manor to retrieve the high priestess on their way home.

Halting their march before the crowd grew too thick, the master swordsman twisted around to his two younger disciples and offered them a pair of coin purses.

“Here,” he said, “For you to buy what you want.”

Chongwei, the older of the pair, wasn’t ungrateful but she certainly made it seem like she was with the face she pulled across her features, unimpressed with the item’s weight.

“Do we all get the same amount?” The teen looked up at her teacher with dark eyes, hair bobbing over the smooth curve of her cheeks. “I bet Lai gets way more than us.”

“Laike doesn’t get his own purse.” The response was curt and matter of fact. Xueyu was already tired of the pair’s cooperative hustling.

“Doesn’t mean he doesn’t get more than us,” Jiewei announced, brushing blonde hair over her shoulder. She looked askance at the Tian’s daughter. “Mizi, is it fair that master Xueyu gives more money to Lai than to us? Just ’cause he’s a boy?”

“I think that reinforces harmful sexist behaviors,” the youngest of the three now-best-friends voiced her agreement, nodding emphatically as she crossed her arms. “Boys and girls are equal—they should get the same fair pay!”

Xiaoxu covered his mouth with his hand to hide his grin. He almost felt sorry for his teacher—so often Xueyu was the target of his sister’s antics but now it seemed there were three taking potshots at the unprepared swordsman’s expense.

“This isn’t a fair pay situation.” The older man looked down to the gaggle of girls. “You have not worked to earn the money you hold in your hands. This is a gift I have given you. These are coins I have earned and am passing on because I care about you and want you to have a good time today. Are you both going to look me in the eye and tell me that it is not good enough?” He tilted his chin up and to the side. “If you prefer, we can return to our priestess’ side and you can both tell her all about how I’ve given you money and freedom and how unhappy that makes you.”

Jiewei was quick to cave, chin tilted down in a dejected wilting show. “We were just teasing, dad,” the blonde girl whined. “It’s so sweet how much you care about us—”

“—but you should still pay your interns,” the little royal interrupted as she grabbed the two girls by their hands. Miyan had business to accomplish, after all, and she preferred to do her business over a hefty serving of tsua-bing.

Xueyu shook his head, smirk appearing more like a grimace collected in one corner of his straight line mouth, amusement easily bitten back. He watched the girls head off under the princess’ guidance before turning to the heir of the Tian clan’s throne.

“Well,” Xueyu said, “Guess you’re stuck with me, Young Master Xiaoxu.”

“I refuse to believe I’m stuck with you,” the regal young man replied, his voice practiced for command and court but somehow retaining the cadence of a more humble disposition. Xiaoxu was a mirror of his father in every way but age. “It is my honor to remain in the casual company of a man so learned.”

“My prince is very kind.” Settling into an expression less mordant, the swordmaster began walking the same direction as the three girls before they were engulfed by the market’s crowd. Of all the Tian children, he appreciated Xiaoxu the most: the boy was respectful and rational. Xue appreciated the eldest heir’s genuine and serious demeanor, believing the boy would make a very competent ruler when that eventual moment of succession came to pass.

He regarded the young man with something like fondness as they strode, deferential stride always maintaining its proper place in proximity to the youth of higher status.

“I hope my Prince has been well recently?”

“Fortune has been kind to me; but it is my master’s teaching that grants what I take the most pride in,” Xiaoxu grinned, excited for the opportunity to show his tutor the fruits of his first arena victory. He loosed his right bracer till he could show the now augmented pale star sapphire artifact embedded in his wrist just beyond the heel of his palm. “I managed to beat the protector attached to this vitality and control module. I just had it attached to Boon’s relic.” A black pearl was freshly embedded in his wrist, connected to the glinting lavender gem that held the code of the Prince’s sword via three fresh golden threads.

Xueyu lingered upon the sight of the implant, tracing its pathways and admiring the expertise with which it was set. A pleased smile quickly shaped his mouth. “Aaah, congratulations. This is wonderful news. I am so proud to hear of this success and regretful that I was unable to witness the victory. Was this challenge difficult? I would be honored to hear the tale of my prince’s success, if he would be willing to recall it for me.” The formality of the swordsman’s speech was tailored to their setting: public venues required proper appearances.

Drifting toward the front of a nearby tea shop, the eldest Tian took a seat at an empty table towards the front as he refastened his bracer. Once Xueyu had taken a seat across from him and the shopkeeper brought them tea along with a couple of shaped almond paste confections, Xiaoxu grinned. He began his recount amongst the whispers of the crowd eavesdropping on the Prince’s tale.

“So we had just tamed the artifact’s keeper, a tricky black serpent—it was me, Feng Quan, Ren Li, and Ren Fei…”

x x x

“Ah—Quan? Quan!! What the fuck—FUCK!” Fei was wide eyed, barely maintaining his balance as his teammate’s sword whizzed just past his face. His head whipped around, looking wildly for the blonde on the battleground. The crowd gasped, screaming curses at the sudden betrayal—though a quiet cheer erupted from a small section of the crowd sitting near the Feng clan’s pale haired patriarch and his suddenly disgruntled first husband. “Is the artifact messing with you? Are you okay?!”

“Shut the fuck up, Fei,” the oldest child of the Feng clan spat as he twisted on his heels, elegant despite the ignobility of his retort. He stood tall and regal, carried himself like he was royalty in his own mind as he looked down upon the young thing before him, haughty disdain shaping the gentle sloping of his overcritical eyes. “The world will crush you if you leave your heart so open, you know.”

“Hey, fuck you. Don’t talk to him like that.” Fei’s brother, Li, abandoned his prince’s side to step up for his kin, walking in front of him. Despite their shared blood, the Ren children were stark contrasts—each clearly taking after only one of their parents. Li had a rounder face, sharper eyes, a snappier tongue like their hard-nosed father; Fei was longer, more slender, softly shaped by his exuberant sweetness, a beautiful copy of their mother. Li pushed his younger sibling back toward the Tian heir, fiercely loyal to both blood and allegiance, always ready to get involved if either were being assailed.

Quan’s ivory hair fell forward over his shoulder as he rolled his eyes. His red and gold uniform projected a flush of life onto his wan cheeks, svelte frame lifting his sword to point its glistening edge directly at the youngest of the Ren line and re-up his threat. “Whatever. Just give me the pearl so I don’t have to embarrass you in front of all these people.”

What had once been a team, previously bonded by the threat of an old world demon hard coded into a tiny black pearl, was breaking down.

“Why are you doing this, Quan?” Fei shouted down the straight tang of the blonde’s sword as Xiaoxu caught him. “We beat it together! We said we were going to decide who installed it together!” Fei was the youngest fighter of the four, optimistic despite his father’s best efforts to instill a sense of vigilance in him. Whenever the boy was wounded by betrayal, he felt it too keenly, and it was always Li who provided reprisal.

“He planned this—” Xiao growled as he helped the young Ren right himself, glaring at Quan around the obstruction Li provided. “He fucking planned this from the start. Hold it tight, Fei. Don’t let it go.”

From across the arena in the Quan family balcony all dressed in scarlet phoenix and peony flags, a pretty blonde girl waved a red and gold kerchief in the breeze, leaning over the edge of the balcony as her father and his husband watched on.

“Quan!” she shouted, grinning wide. The girl was a vision of beauty, platinum hair in loose curls over her pale shoulder draped in lucky red silk. “Win it for me!”

“Yila—sit, my child, sit,” her father chided with his rough laugh as he motioned for his daughter to sit down.

“No daddy,” the red clad girl snapped back at her father before she sighed dreamily, looking back to the fight. “Quan needs his luck.”

Much like in stories of races from an ancient world long dead, the arena was a notorious betting ground. Each week unveiled multiple opportunities to go against chance in an arrangement of fights: there were challenges for conquering raw artifacts and the feral abnormalities protecting them, there were individual skirmishes for acquired relics between different teams and their clans, there were contests of punishment for Fanxing’s most heinous criminals, fight-or-die feuds full of pomp and circumstance and plenty of gore.

As lines were drawn clearer and clearer, a hand-altered board above the fighters’ entrance and exit was updated to display current parties, standings, and odds. Bookies methodically and constantly roved the audience of rowdy onlookers, collecting wagers based on any given moment and for the likelihood of any possible outcome—matches like these had the propensity to change in the blink of an eye, betrayal was common and encouraged and rewarded with larger payouts. Despite favor and alliances, the crowd always proved that, above all, it loved a good show.

Down at the center of the arena, the blond boy made a face, a show of overexaggerated doubt pulling at his brows and lips. “Mmmm, nope. I don’t recall that agreement. Do you, Li?”

Quan’s eyes snapped to the older of the Ren boys. Even in the shadow cast by the walls of the arena they were shimmering pools of gold atop umber depths, a hypnotic sway of silent siren beckoning, an enticing chime unheard to all but the fighter he addressed. As Li watched, blinking softly as if to clear some blurriness in his vision, he swore he saw patterns. He swore the world broke apart into fractured fractals: a perfect mathematical kaleidoscope of their colorscape broken down by sacred geometry, pinpoint spirals and engrossing lines, specks unseen but surely, surely, hovering there right before him, around him, enveloping both him and the representative from Feng clan in soft persuasion.

“Li, do you recall the agreement?” Quan asked aloud again, voice heavy with intent as he yanked the eldest Ren boy to him, spun him around so he could look his fragile brother in the eyes with his answer.

“No,” Li replied simply.

“Fascinating,” the blond hummed, “Perhaps you should help your boy see the truth of the situation, then. With your weapon.”

Li was woozy as he began to oblige, steps reminiscent of something not his own while his blade shook in his hand’s frail uncertainty.

“Li…?” With a trembling voice, Fei watched his brother turn—watched him change his mind instantly with such a simple suggestion. The man who approached him with sword in hand was no longer Ren Li: he was an extension of Feng Quan’s will wearing his brother’s skin. “Li! Don’t listen to him—”

Xiaoxu grabbed Fei and shoved him back. Objectively, the Tian prince was the stronger swordsman—he’d held back both Li and Fei in sparring matches under Xueyu’s watchful eye, so he was confident he could manage Quan and a Li-shaped Quan puppet. Could he? Quan was good—really good—but Xiao could do this. He could do this. He really could. He was ready. He was so ready. He was going to fuck Quan up. This would be easy. This was—

A deep breath had him accepting the truth and it shuddered through the Prince’s lungs. He wasn’t ready. He couldn’t do this. He could not do this. This was impossible. Oh fuck—

“Fei—” Xiao stepped back into Fei as Li advanced. He held Boon aloft before him glinting mercury warnings in the light. “Fei—do it back, do it fucking back—!”

“Okay okay!!” Fei stammered, focusing hard on his brother.

He closed the space between himself and Quan in his mind, adorned himself in his posture, his predator stance—wore his blonde hair and his cruel smirk. He placed Quan’s gold coin eyes over his own basalt stare, wrapped himself in the warmth of Yila’s cheering, the gut tingle of his sister’s all consuming love, a father’s pride, a cloudy desire for a not-father’s approval.

“Li,” Fei demanded with Quan’s voice in his mouth, his eyes that glinted like money. “You remember the agreement and you are yourself. You only want to hurt Feng Quan for being a fucking dick!!”