Chapter 17

Ying and Ye-kan whirled around, horrified to find Master Gerel standing by the open doorway. The muscles on the right side of his face were twitching uncontrollably, his eyes almost bulging out of their bony sockets as he glared at them. Under the eerie illumination of the lamp in his hands, the scrawny guild master in his blood-red robes looked like a harbinger from hell.

"This is a misunderstanding," Ye-kan cried out, waving his hands about in the air in rampant denial. "It's not what it looks like!"

"Is that right?" Gerel walked into the workshop, setting the lamp down on the nearest surface with a loud clunk. The flame within flickered, casting ominous shadows against the walls. "Two apprentice candidates, skulking about a guild master's personal workshop in the middle of the night, trying to break into locked cabinets. Pray tell me, what am I misunderstanding?"

Ying gulped, her mind frazzled by the guild master's sudden appearance.

"We were on our way to the apprentice workshops to do some extra practice because we couldn't get to sleep, and we thought we saw someone sneaking out of your workshop so we came over to check," Ye-kan explained, his voice trembling. "We were only trying to make sure nothing was stolen, that's all."

Ying glanced sideways at her companion, grateful for his quick thinking. She remained silent, keeping her head bowed.

"Don't try to trick me with your cheap excuses!" Gerel bellowed, eyes flashing dangerously. "You think I don't know what you're here for? You're trying to steal the question for the second test!"

The both of them vehemently shook their heads, dropping to their knees.

"We weren't trying to do anything of that sort, Master Gerel," Ying said.

"And you think I'll believe that?"

"Master Gerel, think about it, why would the two of us do something like that?" Ye-kan said, looking up and holding the guild master's gaze. "Min is here under the fourth beile's nomination, and I am representing the Bayara clan." He reached for his waistband and withdrew a circular white jade pendant, holding it out on the palm of his hands. "If we get caught attempting to cheat—which we undoubtedly will, given the astuteness of your good self and the other masters—we would have sullied our clan names and the beile's reputation. We have much more to lose by doing that than by failing the test altogether."

Ying turned to look at Ye-kan, awed by his cleverly worded explanation. The earlier fear and panic had vanished from his eyes, replaced by a degree of confidence that reminded her of Ye-yang and the other Aogiyas. Blood ran thicker than water, and in this moment Ye-kan's pedigree shone through.

The prince's words seemed to have some effect, as the anger on Gerel's face subsided. He solemnly studied the jade pendant that Ye-kan had shown him. The Bayara clan was one of the wealthiest clans on Fei, having built their riches off their monopoly of the salt trade. They also happened to be one of the guild's biggest sponsors.

An uneasy silence set in.

After a long, torturous moment, the guild master said, "Seeing as the padlock is still intact and the test scroll within remains untouched, I shall grant the two of you the benefit of the doubt. However, entering a guild master's workshop without prior permission is still a punishable offense." His thin lips curled upward in a cruel smile. "For that, you shall receive twenty strokes of the rod in front of all the other candidates, as a lesson to anyone else who might be thinking of taking a night gander."

"But the second test is in three days!" Ye-kan protested, his face reddening with indignation. "And you can't do that, because, because—"

"Because what?" Gerel snapped. "Don't test my patience. This is already a lenient punishment. Unless you'd rather I expel you from the guild?"

Ye-kan pursed his lips together, the artery at his temple pulsating visibly. Then he deflated, shoulders sagging in resignation. Ying reached out and patted the back of his hand as a form of comfort, but the aggrieved boy immediately pulled it away.

After Gerel let them leave, the prince stormed back toward the dormitories in an incensed rage. Ying chased after him.

"Ye-kan, I'm sorry," she said, reaching out and catching hold of his shoulder.

The boy shrugged her hand off, whirling around to face her. "If you're sorry, then tell me, what were you doing rummaging around Gerel's workshop? What were you looking for? Did Ye-yang put you up to this?" he demanded.

Ying's expression dimmed at the mention of Ye-yang. She had heard nothing of the expedition to Fu-li since he left, and the silence left her apprehensive.

"No! It has nothing to do with him." She hesitated, chewing on her lower lip as she contemplated whether or not to let someone else in on the whole truth. She couldn't. Too much was at stake.

Ye-kan was too innocent and naive, and he didn't deserve to be involved in her schemes more than he had already been tonight. "Gerel was right, I wanted to cheat for the second test because I wasn't confident of clearing it on my own mettle," she lied. "You know how it went for the first test. If it hadn't been for the High Commander showing up unexpectedly, my name wouldn't have made it to the list."

"I see. So this is how it's going to be." Ye-kan's jaw tightened, his fists clenching by his sides. "I thought we were friends, Ying, but I guess I thought wrong." Swinging his sleeves, the fourteenth prince turned and marched off, disappearing down the long corridor.

Ying leaned her back against one of the stone pillars, letting the disappointment in those words, the hurt she saw in Ye-kan's eyes, steep in her heart and mind. But she couldn't have chosen otherwise. She couldn't tell him the truth, if only to protect him from being dragged into this treacherous whirlpool she was trying to navigate.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Three days later, the forty-one apprentice hopefuls were gathered at the Order's airship repair yard, lined up in neat rows while they awaited the arrival of the guild masters. Sweaty palms and chattering teeth formed a bizarre juxtaposition as the young men sought to assuage their own nervousness in the blustery cold.

It was an unusually cold day for Antaran summer, with flakes of snow drifting down from the gray skies above. "An inauspicious omen from Abka Han," someone said.

Ying stared blankly ahead, physically present but mentally on a separate plane of existence. The hetian jade pendant pressing against her chest provided a helpful dose of warmth, but at the same time, it reminded her of the heavy burden weighing down in her mind. The dull, throbbing pain at the back of her calves didn't help.

She had spent the past two days lying prone on the dormitory bed after enduring the twenty strokes of the rod that Gerel had meted out. It was a miracle the bones in her legs hadn't been broken. Still, it was better than having a beating dealt to her back, which would have required her to disrobe—making it impossible for her to keep her act up.

"Do you want to sit down? Conserve some energy for the test," Chang-en suggested helpfully from behind her.

Ying shook her head. She knew her face was ghastly pale, and the sensation of light-headedness struck her every now and then, threatening to make her pass out on the sandy ground, but she had to make it through today. She needed more time in the guild, more time to uncover the secrets harbored within its walls.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Ye-kan standing three rows away, looking similarly off-color. Ying had a newfound respect for him. There were many choices that would have made his life easier—telling Gerel the truth about their night escapade, revealing his Aogiya identity in exchange for pardon, returning to his comfortable life as a prince—but he did none of that. Instead, he had gritted his teeth silently while the heavy wooden rod landed over and over, glistening sweat gathered upon his brow as he suffered through the pain. And he must still be suffering now, the same way she was.

The guilt ate away inside her. It was her fault that Ye-kan had to put up with the shame.

A large carriage trundled through the imposing gates of the shipyard, the sound of its wheels grinding against the sand and the low whistle of its steam engine distracting Ying from her thoughts. The carriage's occupants alighted in a stream of maroon.

Gerel led the pack, as always, and walked up to the solemn lineup of apprentices-in-waiting. In his hand was a scroll, identical to the one that had carried the question for their first test. When he caught sight of Ying, ashen but present, he grimaced, then cleared his throat dramatically.

"We are gathered here for the second test in the guild's apprenticeship trial," he started. "After today, only half of you will remain."

An anxious buzz went around, panic and dread draining the color off the faces of the young men.

"The trial of the heart is a team challenge—because the guild does not build its achievements upon the backs of individuals alone. If you are accepted into the guild, you are expected to work well with your brethren, and to be humble and receptive toward the teachings of the masters."

"That's assuming the teachings are worth receiving," Chang-en whispered, a cheeky smirk on his face.

"If you are sharp of mind but weak of heart, then you will not be a right fit for the Engineers Guild, and your journey will end here," Gerel said as he undid the black string holding the scroll. "The task for today's test is"—he shifted his fingers, and the parchment unfurled, revealing a column of inky characters—"for each team to repair an unknown problem plaguing an assigned airship. Master Kyzo has ensured that every airship is different, which means that cheating will not be possible. You have three sticks of incense worth of time to complete this task."

A senior apprentice brought out three large sticks of incense, shoving them into the large bronze tripod filled with ash.

"Work together and employ what you have learned in Construction, Materials, and Design. The work that Master Kyzo and his fellow engineers do on a daily basis here at the Order's airship yard is one of the guild's key responsibilities, so all of you should take this seriously if you hope to join our ranks. For this test, your groups have been preassigned."

Gerel rattled off a list of names, to the groans and squeals of the test-takers. They had been grouped into fours or fives, with each group assigned a number that would correspond to an airship berth. Ying had been grouped with An-xi, both a blessing and a curse. Chang-en moved to join Ye-kan's line.

When he was done assigning groups, Gerel gestured to the senior apprentice, who promptly lit the first incense stick with a fire starter. A mad dash to the respective berths ensued, with some overzealous candidates resorting to pushing their competitors to waste a little time.

Ying dragged her feet toward her berth, stopping at the edge of the airship's inflated ballonet. The silver insignia of the cobra painted onto coal black now filled her with uncertainty instead of awe.

"Hurry up, Min!" An-xi hollered from the ship's deck. "You're wasting time!"

Tearing her gaze away from the snake, she clambered up the rope ladder and joined the others on deck.

Before they could start repairing anything, they needed to identify the fault. The boys flew into a frenzy, with the overbearing An-xi naturally assuming leadership and shouting out orders to the rest. While they were still scrambling all around the ship, there was an ominous groan and the entire hull began to rock.

Ying and the others immediately rushed to the bulwarks. She recognized that motion—it was a sign that the airship was about to lift off.

"What's going on?" someone cried.

The ropes tethering the airship to the ground had already been thrown off their pegs, leaving the ship free to ascend toward the skies. In the vicinity, all the other airships that carried the trial candidates had also been similarly released, each one slowly beginning to rise.

"Boys, I know Master Gerel said you have three sticks of incense, but if you ask me, that's a little generous," Master Kyzo chortled, his belly bouncing up and down with amusement as he surveyed the looks of shock and horror on the faces of the young candidates. "Now quit gawking and get to work. You don't have all day, y'know!"

There was a moment of stunned silence—then panic ensued.

"What are we going to do!"

"What if we don't manage to repair the fault in time? You don't think the ship will actually crash…Will it?"

"Well, hurry up then! You heard what Master Kyzo said. We don't have time!"

As the airship gained altitude, temperatures on deck plunged to frosty levels, but none of the candidates had a mind to care about how blue their lips were turning or how tiny ice crystals were forming upon their eyelashes. They scoured every inch of the ship, until—to their dismay—they found themselves squeezed into the tiny engine hold, staring at a smoking engine.

An engine malfunction was one of the worst possible faults that could blight an airship, because it was the singular most complex piece of machinery on board, responsible for keeping the ship's propellers spinning and the ballonet inflated. Wooden cogs and metal bolts and axles of all shapes and sizes surrounded a seemingly innocuous gas furnace, forming a complicated map that whirred and spun with impeccable precision.

The engine was the heart of the airship, and when the heart could not beat—the ship was as good as dead.

"Heavens save us," one of the boys muttered, pointing at a smoldering cog.

"Looks like a kaen gas explosion. It won't be long before the engine stops running altogether," An-xi said, looking equally devastated. "We're going to have to take it apart and fix in new parts from scratch—before we hit the ground."

"But where are we going to find new parts when we're airborne?"

The team of four exchanged distressed glances, the sizzling of the ruined engine sounding like the beating of funerary drums to their ears. What is it like to die in an airship crash? Ying wondered, then she quickly shoved the thought out of her head.

She had not come all this way to die.

"The parts of an engine are not uncommon. We might be able to find them in other parts of the ship," she said.

Engine study had been covered extensively while they were on repair and maintenance duty with Master Kyzo, and Ying had spent many sleepless nights studying airship plans. Unlike many of the other candidates, she never had the luxury of receiving tutelage in airship engineering—her family had not been wealthy enough to own one—so she had to put in double the effort to catch up.

Hopefully those lost hours of sleep would be of some use today.

"An-xi, there should be some pistons that we can use in the ship's boiler room, right?"

The petite boy stared at her in silence for a brief moment, then he frantically nodded. "Yes, yes," he replied, "the boiler pistons will be the same size as the ones we need for the engine."

Every airship had at least one large boiler, responsible for supplying hot steam to all the cabins for heating purposes through a series of bamboo pipes. Keeping warm was the least of their concerns now.

"And there'll be spare gears in the kitchen!" An-xi added with a flourish, his eyes lighting up. There was a small pulley system that allowed the ship's cooks to send food from the kitchen to the various cabins, but that could easily be dismantled.

They sprang into action, dashing to the respective areas of the ship to retrieve the parts they needed. By the time they regrouped, the engine was already spluttering to a stop. The propellers began to slow.

"We have to disassemble the engine and repair it with the replacement parts as quickly as we can," Ying said. "Once the engine stops, we'll only have less than half an incense worth of time before the gas in the ballonet runs out." When that happened, the ship would no longer be able to remain suspended, sending them plunging to their deaths.

No one moved. The other boys—including An-xi—were trembling from head to toe.

"Damn it," Ying swore, her brows knitting into a frown. As unsure as she was, she would have to take the gamble and do it herself. She reached for the first smoking cog and ripped it out.

An-xi let out a strangled cry. "Do you know what you're doing?" he squeaked.

"No, not really. Is that what you want to hear?" Ignoring the pain from the searing metal against her fingers, Ying disassembled the engine, leaving behind a gaping hole where the gears should have been. Charred remains of the old parts lay in a sorry pile by the side. "Tell me where the parts need to go," she said.

When An-xi didn't reply, Ying turned and grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him hard. "Listen to me, Niohuru An-xi, I need you to tell me where each part should go. I've never touched an actual airship engine before—but you have. Your clan builds these damned things."

"A-a-according to the Annals, we'll first need to fix the pistons into position before we start assembling the inner gears, which need to connect to the axles leading out to the propellers," An-xi said. He held out a piston, pointing to the left corner of the engine's case. "There."

Ying did as she was told, fixing piston after piston, gear after gear. Soon, the rest of her team shook themselves out of their shocked state and moved to help, fishing for the correct parts or lending a hand to tighten screws and cogs.

"Always start from the inside and work your way out. Big gears alternate with smaller ones—they're complementary. Support one another," Ying's father's voice echoed in her head from a distant memory.

She remembered sitting out on the grass in front of his workshop, blowing dandelions while her father tinkered with the broken ship engines that the village merchants brought over for fixing. She never understood why her father did all this labor for free, but he would patiently explain that payment didn't necessarily come in the form of coin. By helping the merchants fix their engines, he earned the chance to hone his craft, to become an even better engineer.

"You see those fancy airships up in the skies?" he once said, pointing at a fleet that had just floated by. "They run on engines too. Remember, the principles are the same. Inside out, big and small, keep going until you complete the entire puzzle."

"Big and small, just like you and me!" the younger her had said, gleefully picking up two gears from her father's toolbox. "I'm the little gear, and A-ma's the big gear."

"That's right, my precious lamb. Big and small, you've got to have both in order to make things work."

"I think we need a larger gear," she said to An-xi, pointing to the box of parts sitting near his feet. They had reached the final step, and their next move would decide whether or not they succeeded in passing the test—and staying alive.

"But the Annals said two small, followed by one large."

"Give me the big one," Ying repeated firmly.

An-xi hesitated for a moment, then he did as she said, passing over the largest gear in the box.

Droplets of sweat trickled down the sides of Ying's face as she carefully slotted it in. The gear clicked into place. Holding her breath, she signaled to one of the others to start the engine.

A loud hum filled the room as the machine roared to life.

All of them ran out of the engine hold and back onto the upper deck.

"The propellers are spinning again!" An-xi shouted with glee.

Ying looked up, watching as the black ballonet started to refill with kaen gas. The silver cobra straightened, rising like a malevolent creature from the depths, its slit-like eyes lording down upon them.

We did it, she thought, relief washing over her. A-ma, can you see this? I did it.

"Hey, look over there," her teammate called out, pointing out from starboard side. "That other airship looks like it's in trouble."

There was another ship in the vicinity, with plumes of black smoke issuing from its portside sail—or where its sail should have been. Instead of having two bamboo-battened wings extending outward from the hull, the airship only had one outstretched, leaving it tilted heavily to one side. Left unresolved, the tension in the ropes tethering the ship's hull to its ballonet would eventually cause them to snap.

"Theirs must have been a fault with the sail's extension and retraction mechanism," An-xi remarked with a contemptuous smirk, his earlier anxiety nowhere to be seen. "Looks like someone's going to fail their trial."

"Fail? If they fail, they die," Ying retorted. "We have to do something."

"That's part of the risk involved in attempting the guild's apprenticeship trial. They all knew what they were signing up for, so whose fault is it if they die?" An-xi folded his arms across his skinny chest and sat down squarely on the deck. "It's not like we can do anything to help them anyway."

Ying could hear desperate shouts coming from the other airship—shouts belonging to Ye-kan. The young prince was often yelling at others in the guild, so she could recognize the shrill pitch of his voice anywhere.

That's Ye-kan and Chang-en's ship…

She glanced at her three teammates, but all of them were looking elsewhere, refusing to engage.

"Fine. If you won't do anything to help them, then I will," she declared. She marched over to the ship's steering apparatus and placed her hands on the large wooden wheel. With a deep breath, she spun the wheel to the right. Their ship veered sharply to one side, almost knocking all of them off their feet.

"What do you think you're doing?" An-xi shrieked. He ran over to her and tried to pry her fingers off the wheel. "Stop this! You'll get us all killed."

"If we stand by and watch our friends die, then maybe there's a special place in hell reserved for us too. Niohuru An-xi, is your heart really made from stone?"

The boy froze, then he looked past her shoulder at the other ship. Ying knew he could see them too, clinging to the masts and ropes as they made a last-ditch attempt to repair their faulty ship—before they were flung off the deck altogether and sent plummeting to the ground. Those weren't strangers. Those were people who they had lived with, laughed with, struggled with through the hardships of these trials. Those were their friends.

She felt his grip over her fingers loosen, then his arms fell back to his sides.

"We can buy them some time," she said.

"How?"

"I need your help. I'm going to bring our ship alongside theirs. Once we're close enough, I'll give you the signal. Retract our starboard sail."

"What?" An-xi's eyes bulged. "But that'll throw our own ship off balance!" he exclaimed.

"Not if we get the timing right. When our sail is pulled back, we'll need to quickly lash the two ships together." That way, they would be forming one massive vehicle out of the two airships, with one sail from each helping the entire behemoth maintain stability.

When the realization dawned, An-xi ran toward the huge wooden levers on the starboard side of the deck, readying himself to pull in the sail. The other two boys scrambled to unwind mooring rope from the airship's iron bollards, positioning themselves by the bulwark.

Ying kept her eyes fixed upon the closing gap between their airship and the next, trying her best to steady her shaky hands on the steering wheel. The howling winds whipped across her cheeks, as if trying to warn her against the mindlessness of what she was doing. She held her breath and waited.

"Now!" she yelled.

An-xi leaned his entire weight onto the lever, and the loud, rhythmic clicking of the retracting sail could be heard amid the tangle of shouts from both the boys on the other ship and those on their own. Almost immediately, the airship rocked to the side, and the two hulls rammed violently against each other.

"Quick, tie the ships together!"

Abandoning the wheel, Ying rushed to help with the ropes. On the other ship, Ye-kan ran over to help her. Even as no words passed, the tacit understanding between them was perfectly clear. Over and under, over and under, they worked swiftly together until the final length of rope was used and the last knot secured. The wooden planks of the airship hulls creaked and yawned, like two giant beasts straining to free themselves from each other.

But the knots held.

"It worked?" Ying heard An-xi's voice echo from what felt like an infinite distance away, muffled by the buzzing in her ears from the adrenaline coursing through her veins.

Sliding down the deck to Ye-kan's side, Chang-en leaned against his ship's rail, exhausted but grinning from ear to ear. He wagged a finger at her and said, "Aihui Min, I honestly don't know if you're a genius or plain reckless, but whatever it is, I'm glad you're it."