1. A NAME BEFITTING

Some think the gods walk this realm.

For once, the peasants are not wrong.

Gods do exist, in forms from bees to children. Many dynasties ago, I preferred floating through the skies as a cloud myself. Those days feel like a distant dream as I groan on the ground, biting dust.

"Aiya, Lotus! I know you have more fight left in you!"

Above me is the face of Xin Ren. My lordess, swornsister, and current sparring partner who just knocked me on my back.

Ren offers me a hand. I grab it and—grunting—pull myself up. Around us in the training field, our soldiers are supposed to be drilling, supposed to being the key words. Hard not to watch your lordess fight her second-in-command, especially when said second-in-command is losing as badly as I am.

"Is it the eye?" asks Ren, passing me my pole.

If only. Two working eyes wouldn't solve my biggest problem: I'm not really Lotus, slayer of tigers, nightmare of men. My name is Zephyr, god of weather, and I'm ashamed to report that I never thought to master the art of pole fighting in my forty thousand years of existence.

"Just tired," I reply, hoping Ren is too. She's already dueled three other soldiers, her way of reminding the camp that we're all equals, united in our mission to free Empress Xin Bao from Miasma.

And I, impostor of a warrior, am not exempt. My hopes are dashed as Ren steps back. "Again."

Again, we duel.

Again, I lose.

"Again," Ren says, and for a second I'm whisked back to Master Yao's porch, his fan smacking my shoulder as I pluck the zither.

Again! Play again!

But Ren is nothing like my former mentor. Even as I miss easy parries, she doesn't berate me, giving tips instead—Sweep. Hands apart. Stab. But some causes are lost from the start, and on the eighth bout, I'm too slow. Ren's pole whacks into my side—left, right, left. I back up. I can't block.

Then don't. Findthe pattern.The pattern Ren created on purpose. To onlookers, it's not obvious.

It is to Lotus. No cheating, Peacock! I can almost hear her shout, her blood boiling at the insult. No cheat—

I fall left after Ren's rightward attack, levering her pole down. Now finish it. I surge at her—and trip. Ugh—!

By fate or luck, I flail into Ren.

I smash my lordess into the ground.

Everything spins. Cheers of Lotus's name. My elbows—are crushing Ren's ribs. I scramble off. "Ren. Are you okay?"

No answer.

"Ren."

She opens her eyes and crosses them.

"Not funny!"

"I know, I know." Ren sits up. "I'm sorry. Though I did feel my life flash before my eyes. But I'm fine!" Her gaze is alight with laughter. Then it sobers. "And you, Lotus?" I sweat harder as she says, "You seem more than tired."

Is this it? Has Ren finally seen me for who I am?

"Have you been getting enough sleep?"

It'd certainly make my life easier, to be exposed as Zephyr.

It just wouldn't be worth Ren losing a swornsister.

"Six hours a day," I lie.

It's a respectable amount for a soldier, but Ren looks aghast. "No wonder. Remember what happened the last time I woke you up before dawn?"

Something mortifying, I'm sure. "Lotus will sleep more."

"Good. I order you to, as your lordess."

I help Ren to her feet, frowning as she pats her chest. If she's hurt, she won't say so, would brush it off if I pressed. She threw the fight because she knows the power of appearances. "Sorry about that too," she says, gesturing to her pole, but no apology is required. I understand. We're not all equal. Lose too many duels as Ren's swornsister, and the soldiers won't follow me into battle.

The same applies to Ren. Her position in the Westlands should be beyond dispute, down to her title.

That is the battle I must win before any other.

As Ren and I leave the training field, I catch Tourmaline's eye across it. She makes quick work of her opponent and walks over.

"Lordess," she greets, falling into step beside Ren.

"Tourmaline. How's Awl formation coming along?"

"We've perfected it."

"Good. And Flying Geese?"

While Tourmaline details our training progress, I watch Ren. The truth is I haven't been sleeping much at all. The nightmares keep me up—of Ren, dying, sometimes to Miasma, sometimes to Cicada. But it won't happen. I'm still Ren's strategist, even if I can't advise her directly. I glance over Ren's head and nod at Tourmaline.

Now.

"Lordess," the warrior begins as Ren observes the soldiers sparring in training field two. "About the coronation . . ."

Silence descends, heavier than the noon sun.

"My answer is the same," Ren at last says. "I will not assume my uncle's throne. I will only govern the people, as I have for the last two months, so that their lives aren't disrupted. Isn't that sufficient?"

It should be. The title of governor is a formality. The coronation? Worthless ritual and ceremony, if you ask me. Did Master Shencius? No. Order won't flow through the world unless a person's name befits their role, he wrote. Three centuries later, people still live by his words. It's why so many follow Ren: She has the surname Xin.

It must be why Ren, a traditionalist to her core, can't see past the name "Lotus" and to my soul underneath.

When Tourmaline doesn't answer, Ren turns from the training field and walks away.

We hurry after her.

"The people are nervous." Tourmaline does the talking, as we discussed. She's known more for her . . . sensibilities compared to Lotus. "Since marching down to Dasan, Miasma hasn't moved from it."

A shrewd play by the prime ministress, no doubt still burned by her loss at the Scarp. Rather than march into the mountainous, unfavorable terrain of the Westlands, she dallies in Dasan, trying to lure us out—

"Then we march on Dasan," Ren says.

"No!" I yell even as Lotus's blood spikes. Battle! Battle!

"No," Tourmaline repeats, blessedly calm. "Not yet. That's just what Miasma wants. A coronation would reassert your authority in the eyes of the populace without the need for battle. Your officialdom ought to match Miasma's."

Please, I think as Ren stops by the palisades of training field three. Assume the proper title.

"You forget something, Tourmaline." Ren's gaze swings to the warrior, then to me. "I never wanted this. I never wanted any of this." Her eyes burn into mine, and I swallow. I know. Asking Ren to celebrate her new office is like asking her to celebrate the bloody coup, Xin Gong's death, and the prophecy that's haunted her since childhood:

Xin Ren—she will betray her clan.

But what was portended has come to pass, and if Ren can justify filling in as governor for the people's good, she can justify a coronation. As she stalks into training field three—alone, Tourmaline and I not invited to follow—my mouth opens. Reason with her. My lungs expand.

"Even the cockroaches are calling themselves king!"

Ren marches faster.

I start after her—and am held back by Tourmaline. She catches my fist before I can register cocking it.

Maybe I really do need more sleep. I mumble some excuse about that and the heat, and Tourmaline gives my knuckles a sympathetic squeeze.

"All is not lost." Out in the field, the soldiers bow to Ren. "She's training the troops," Tourmaline says. "She could still be camping out at your shrine."

"Don't remind me."

"She wants to fight. Morale is high." Tourmaline tugs me away from the field and with her, through the rest of camp. "We can still march north"—I glare at her—"when the time is right. We still have our allies."

Ah, our "allies," who kindly repaid my diplomacy with an arrow to the back—not that Tourmaline knows, or Ren. It's like I told Cloud: Vengeance is for peasants. Strategists don't let yesterday's blood poison tomorrow's well. Why declare the alliance broken when I can repair it?

Can you repair it, though? goes a voice in my head, and I wish it were just the voice of doubt. You haven't been able to convince Ren to call herself "governor" when she's practically acting as one. Are you even still her strat—

"Shut up!"

"Zephyr?" Tourmaline blinks, and I kick myself for actually shouting my thoughts.

"Lotus," I remind her. "And it's nothing." Tourmaline looks unconvinced. "It was Cloud. I imagined her harping just now." Sorry, Cloud. "What do you think she's even doing in the Marshlands these days?" I ask as we take the path to the stables.

The clamor of camp fades, the air quiet like Tourmaline's voice. "If not dueling their generals, then challenging the magistrates to chess."

"Chess."

"She once mentioned beating everyone in her village."

Is that so? I smile. Cloud would be pleased to hear Tourmaline recounting her feats, but she shouldn't boast until she's beaten me.

"You're lucky she didn't see you today," Tourmaline goes on. "It reflects badly on me when you lose four duels in a row."

My smile capsizes to a scowl. Three, not four—but Tourmaline would notice Ren's throw, as my mentor behind the scenes. "It's Ren. She's too good."

"She trained hard."

"For years," I retort. Experience wins fights, not brute strength, and my experience is but months old. It wasn't too long ago that I ordered Tourmaline to poison Ren's cavalry, I think sulkily as we enter the stables—then guiltily when the horses whinny. Tourmaline checks over them—"my daily penance"—while I go to Rice Cake. He stares at me. Unlike most humans, he knows I'm not Lotus.

He has my respect for it. "You could look happier," I mutter, flicking his nose. He blows a snot bubble. "Point taken. You miss her, not me."

His answer is unspoken, like the words in my heart.

Imiss her too.I miss Lotus's spirit despite all the dirt I've eaten for it. I even miss Cloud. The empty stall next to Rice Cake's, where her mare would be, drives home her absence.

Would Cloud have better luck convincing Ren? I don't know, don't know how she is. She writes sparingly, sending only military updates to our camp. I should be glad. No additional word means no movement from the South.

Still, when a scout rushes into the stables, shouting, "Report!" I nearly seize him. Tell me it's from Cloud.

Then I realize it's the soldier I tasked with watching over our infirmary.

Come to me and me first, I told him, if anything changes.

Na?ve of me, to speak of change as an if and not a when.

"He's awake, General Lotus."

"Awake, you said." I whirl on the soldier. "Not gone."

Behind us is the infirmary bed, devoid of one masked, comatose Sikou Hai.

The soldier quakes. "H-he was just here."

Useless. My hand flies to my ax and the soldier thuds to his knees, pleading mercy. Lotus's reputation outlives her, but right now that's useless too. As Tourmaline and I stare at the pallet, we're both thinking the same grim thing. Ren despises the coup enough as is. What will she do if Xin Gong's surviving son reminds her that he wasn't collateral damage? As for Aster, Bracken, and all the other Westlands generals loyal to us because of Sikou Hai? Who would blame them for switching sides if they learned the truth of how their liege was brutally used to instigate the coup, then discarded?

Not I, the mastermind behind it.

"I'll handle it," I say to Tourmaline, and stride out. I spin, eye roving over our surroundings.

Where is he?I wonder—and not just to myself.

I thought you told me to shut up.

I take it back. I'm deeply, sorely repentant. Now, where is he?

No idea.Dewdrop's yawn vibrates through my skull. She flies out from my collar, stretching her wings, and I frown.

Find out.

Don't feel like it.She dodges my swat. Do that again, and I'll sting you.

Why are you being so difficult?Rhetorical. While I can't read minds like my bee god-sister, I can guess at hers. She's worried. The Masked Mother, empress of all deities, knows I'm here and enmeshed with the humans. One of these days, she'll punish me, but less severely for less meddling, or so goes the logic.

And I get it. I don't want to suffer a hundred lightning strikes over fifty. But if I'm going to suffer regardless, then let my time here count for something. Let me win, and if—gods forbid—I must lose, let it be to one person.

My true rival.

No offense to Sikou Hai, but he's not it. Now, where could he be? Where could he even reach? His study, all the way over in Xin City, is out of the question. As for the camp—the outhouse, the barracks, and the armory all yield nothing. Only the banyan path is left.

I stomp into the fig trees, clenching my ax.

You said we wouldn't be here for long, buzzes Dewdrop. Before you tookthis body, you said you were less than two steps from realizing your so-called Rising Zephyr Objective. But it seems like more. Your alliance with the South is not repaired. Here in the West, your lordess refuses to legitimize herself. As for the North—

March on them now, and we'd play right into Miasma's hand.

So?

We'd lose!

Dewdrop bobs, a bee's shrug. It's been a long time since you cared about winning.

I've always cared.

Not in heaven.

There was nothing to win there. And no one to win it for.

So Nadir and myself are "no ones" now.

You said that, not me. Point is, you don'tneed me.

Your Ren doesn't either. She isn't made for winning any more than you're made for pole fighting.I smart, but Dewdrop's not done. You could all but carry her to the top, and she still wouldn't take the empress's throne.

I never wanted her to take the empress's throne.

"Even the cockroaches—"

That was Lotus's temper speaking. But my aim is Ren's, liberate Xin Bao, and it hasn't changed since—since Ren beseeched me at Thistlegate to help her. But why am I defending myself to Dewdrop?

I never asked you for your assessment on Xin Ren, I think at my god-sister. I asked you to find out more information on the South since they betrayed us.

That would be interfering with fate.

Fate. Fate. Fate. I'm tired of hearing about it, tired of the sun—blinding me again—as I emerge from the banyans. My shrine lies just ahead. In and out I step.

No Sikou Hai.

I growl, and birds flee the nearest tree. Cowards, all of them.

Except for one. A bird that's not a bird, I see as my eye focuses, but a shred of white fabric caught on a branch.

Infirmary robe.

More shreds dangle from branches, deeper into the woods.

I follow the shreds, through the trees and eventually up the basin, cursing the guard soldier with every step. He's awake. Clearly, and has been for ages. I scan the ground as it rises, not sure if I should be searching for a person or a corpse. Will you at least tell me if he's alive? I think to Dewdrop.

She buzzes.

Fine. Be that way.I tear through a clump of brush with my bare hands, then cut through the next clump with my ax. It feels nice, chopping things, and too soon, the brush clears. The sky is a bright, bright blue over the cliff.

A figure in infirmary white sits at the edge.

I approach. Sunlight glitters off the river below. The current is quiet, this high up. Higher fly the birds, their conversations inaudible to us. It's the silence of a slingshot fitted with a stone, mine to release and control—

My boot lands on a pebble and it clucks.

"Took you long enough."

His voice is scratchy, unused for two months.

"Thought you'd be more careful," I say, closing the distance.

"Just to face death at your hand again, General Lotus?" Sikou Hai has eyes only for the tan stretch of Marshlands beyond the river.

I have an eye only for the back of his head.

Not my hand, I should correct. Your brother's. It was Sikou Dun who stabbed Sikou Hai at the wedding. Everyone saw. What they didn't see was how Sikou Hai's brother danced from my strings. He discovered the coup, flew into a rage, and drove a scim into Sikou Hai's chest because of my involvement—which I left no evidence of. I should tell Sikou Hai he's mistaken in his assumptions.

But a literati like Sikou Hai trusts his mind. He suspects me and always will.

It's gratifying, frankly, to be credited for my machinations.

"Let's settle this, General," Sikou Hai says, eyes still on the river. "Does my being alive help you?"

"I don't know." Sikou Hai is a loose end. I don't usually deal with loose ends. "Are you going to tell Ren?"

"About your role in the coup? Would you kill me if I did?"

"Depends." Cloud claimed to be the coup's mastermind so that Ren would send her, not me, to the Marshlands. I can't squander her sacrifice. "Maybe."

"I'd respect you more if you said yes."

I'm baffled by his words, then inflamed. "Why?" It's like this is all a game to him, and I'm the beast he baited with a trail of shreds. "Could you kill someone?" Don't yell—but I can't keep my voice down. "Actually drive a knife into them? Watch the life leave their eyes?" Close your mouth. "I didn't think so. Why should I be respected for bloodletting, then? Is it because I look the way I do? Well, let me tell you something, Sikou Hai: We're the same. I'm you. A—"

A strategist.

I bite down, sense finally damming the flood.

"I know." Sikou Hai's head turns. Away from the river. To me. His face is unmasked, his scars bare to the sun.

"I've known," he says, with emphasis, "ever since you spoke up at our meetings, planning the coup against my uncle. No—earlier. When you played the zither. From that alone, I knew you were more than a warrior.

"Of course, knowing is one thing. Admitting is another. I knew you were more, but I couldn't admit what that ‘more' was. I couldn't see your plans as tactics, until you dumped me in the forest." His voice turns sardonic. "Then I had plenty of time to come to terms with what you were."

Will he say monster or murderer?

"You're Xin Ren's strategist." Sikou Hai's gaze meets mine, and I can't move. He's sitting, pale and frail, and I'm standing like a boulder, but even boulders can fall off cliffs, and my heart teeters as he says, "I see that now. But I haven't heard of you." He breathes in and grimaces. "What is your sobriquet?"

Sobriquet.I don't know which to pick. Words. I seem to have forgotten how to speak them.

Then Lotus's temper flares, quick and decisive. "Zephyr."

My name is Zephyr.

I've seen two people react to my true identity. Tourmaline, despite believing in reincarnation, didn't know what to think. Cloud wanted to strangle me for taking Lotus's body.

Sikou Hai—he stands. "Zephyr," he repeats. "Disciple of Yao Mengqi. Master of the zither. Predictor of the weather. The wisest among us." His voice rasps, pained, reverent, awed. "You're a god among strategists."

At first, the only word I can hear is god. Then I realize.

He acknowledged me as Zephyr.

Sikou Hai kneels.

"Rising Zephyr." He stares up at me, eyes sunken but bright. "I've been a follower of yours for a long time. Please accept me as your disciple."

The wind stirs. Birds fly. I could too—I'm that light.

I've been seen.

It's the most powerful feeling.

Reality returns in the next moment. "Wait. Don't you want to know how"—I'm alive?—"or why"—I look like this? Does he believe in reincarnation? In deities?

"The impossible is possible with you," Sikou Hai says, resolute, offering nothing else by way of explanation.

Well.

I won't say no to worship.

Slowly, I lower my ax. A disciple. I've never had one. My own mentors—Master Yao, the poet, the chess master, the ex-imperial cosmologist—trained me so well, I've surpassed them. I'd sooner step in oxshit than have Sikou Hai surpass me.

But.

Sikou Hai is the only adopted son of Xin Gong's left. Ren will listen to him out of guilt if nothing else. I will finally have a mouthpiece for my plans.

"Rise," I say to Sikou Hai.

"Accept me first."

"Accepted. Now rise."

He bows, touching his head three times to the ground before rising—and staggering. I steady him. "We're going back." How is he still conscious? "No more leaving the infirmary without my permission."

Sikou Hai pulls free. "Tell me what I've missed."

"Later."

"No, now," Sikou Hai insists, and my eye twitches. "I've been incapacitated for too long."

"I'll tell you as we—"

—walk.

I walk, past Sikou Hai, gaze drawn to the river as something flows down it like a leaf, tiny from our elevation.

It's a skiff.

On it is a person, clad in black.

Crow.His smile slices through my mind. His bandaged hand, covering mine. I blink, and the memories vanish, leaving only the person on the river. The skiff comes ashore, our troops surrounding the lone passenger as he disembarks.

He bears something gilded in his arms.

A messenger.

"Come," I say to Sikou Hai, and he does, without argument. The pieces on the chessboard have changed, and I don't need to explain myself when I hoist him over my back like a sack of rice for expediency's sake. To advise Ren, we must stay abreast of every development.

It's imperative that we get back to camp.

And we do, just in time to see the messenger marched in by our soldiers. He's ushered before Ren as our generals and officials gather around.

"A gift from the North," he says, presenting a gilded box.

Ren accepts it.

She lifts the lid.

The camp goes silent.