19. INTO THE GORGE

Iawait you, Plum.

Of course, if it were up to Plum, she wouldn't come. Not for a letter.

But Miasma will open it first just like she does for all of Plum's correspondence, and every detail will haunt her. Plum wishes to kill her. Plum told Crow about her dreams.

Crow, a dead person, wrote the words.

Depending on Plum's standing, Miasma will either order an execution or a test of loyalty. If the latter, Plum will be sent to the Xianlei Gorge, bait used to draw out bait, and she won't come alone. Soldiers will accompany her, on standby to kill both her and Crow. By the empire's hands, or mine, Plum will die. Her time starts dwindling the second I post the letter. It'll take two weeks for it to travel to Plum, then ten days for her to travel the seventeen hundred l to the Xianlei Gorge.

I must cover twice the distance, riding behind our front lines in the Marshlands.

And I will. Never mind that my longest journey as Crow almost killed me. I was steamed, slashed by bandits. Now I just have a lingering cold. It's nothing, really—

I hack through the first four nights in a row.

"Same old," I tell the soldiers summoned to my tent by the ruckus. "Same old."

I try to cough quieter afterward, to no avail.

"Lie on your left side."

I don't reply, or move. I don't know what I'm waiting for until Crow says, "Or cough up a lung. Whichever you please." Then I realize it's just to hear his voice again after so many days of silence.

"Why should I trust you?" I strain to see him in the dark, my snap diminished as a whisper. I have the tent to myself, but better still if the soldiers didn't think I was sick in the head as well.

"It's my body," Crow says flatly.

"That's trying to kill me."

"Just do as I say."

Huffing, I roll left.

The cough subsides.

Half a shí chén later, it's back with a vengeance.

Brilliant advice, I think witheringly to Crow as I crawl over to my bundled belongings and fish for the medicine balls Cicada packed for me. They're good for you, she said.

She neglected to mention that they taste like dung.

"I wouldn't recommend them," Crow says after I spit them out. I glare in his general direction, gagging, which leads to more coughing. Hells.

I leave my tent before I rouse the others again. The night envelops me, clammy like clay. Beside us rushes the Mica; we're just southwest of Bikong. Halfway there.

Don't you dare give up on me now, I think to Crow's body, coughing freely once I'm at the river. Convenient that we're near one; when I release my mouth, my palm is splotched with blood.

Ugh."How did you let yourself get to this state?" I mutter, crouching to rinse it off.

"You caught the cold."

"You pushed me into the lake."

"You didn't change out of your robes afterward."

"You—!" My finger shakes, pointed at Crow, then stills. Is it the moonlight, or has he faded more?

Who cares? Not me. I jab my finger again. "You work too hard!"

"Didn't you? Aren't you now?" Crow says, voice soft as I'm gripped by another coughing fit. "Who else would know my troubles as well as you, burdened by Xin Ren?"

"So you admit—" cough "—Cicada is—" cough "—a burden."

Cough-cough.

"No more than any Southlands ruler would be, by virtue of our position."

"Oh yes," I gasp out. "You're so burdened by your fertile land." But even as I say so, I can build Crow's case. The South is resource rich; they attract pirates. The land has known stability; its people have more to lose. Their queen wants sovereignty, but a continent united is the surest path to peace, if previous dynasties are any evidence.

Regrettably, I do know Crow's troubles. We're the same, something I've always relished, but now, all I can see is Crow's face at the top of the steamer, so composed, so unresistant. He was more than ready to sacrifice himself for his kingdom, just like his first lordess.

I want to tell him he'd be a fool to follow in her footsteps.

Instead I say, "Trade away too much of your health now, and you won't live to enjoy any of your successes."

"I don't seem to be living already."

I look to him; his eyes aren't angry. I remove my hand from the water. Stand.

Crow remains beside me.

I'm not forgiven. Not for putting Cicada's life in danger, or for stealing Crow's body.

I won't be in this lifetime.

But as the river rushes on, carrying snowmelt from the Northern mountains, I wonder if it's possible, in the time I have left, for us to coexist. Like now. By the water.

This quiet within us.

"What if," I start, "I told you that you could have your body back, after Ren wins the war?"

"Is that a promise?"

"A hypothetical. What would you do, after?"

The river burbles.

"I don't know," Crow says after a painfully long moment.

"Why did you alert me to the tea?"

"I don't know."

"Why did you ask Cicada to spare me?"

"You were interesting," Crow says plainly, his answer throwing me. I was expecting another I don't know. I could live with an I don't know. "You say I work too hard, and I thought so too. Then I met you and saw just how much a person could live to work."

It should be a compliment, but it doesn't feel like one. A draft rises from the river, blowing goose bumps over my skin.

Nothing escapes Crow's notice. "May I suggest a cloak?"

"I'm already sick."

"Take it from me that it's possible to get sicker."

"So?"

"I'd rather not listen to you cough until dawn." Then Crow shifts away from me. The chill reduces by a marginal amount, but it's the gesture that warms my face. Before he can notice that too, I turn from him and the river.

It's a crime that he can still act so considerate.

"And what will you do after the war?" Crow asks, following as I stride away.

"What does it matter to you?"

"Why wouldn't it? You are my sun, my air, no?"

I snort as Crow uses the words I put in his mouth. "Perhaps I'll teach chess. Or the zither. Perhaps I'll be one of those old crones who plays both in some tavern, the next time we cross paths."

"Perhaps," Crow says, and it's a beautiful word.

Then my guard rises. He's being too nice. The last time he was, he lied about Cicada's diminutive. I walk faster, back to the camp. The horses whicker at me—nostrils flaring when Crow skirts too close. "There now," I murmur to a mare while glaring at Crow. The mare nuzzles my palm, and my chest tightens. Rice Cake would never. I hope he's safe, fed, happy. He's lucky to be away from the war. Here, he'd be saddled with the equipment and grain funneled to us from Sikou Hai's and Ku's front lines. Each wagon is as precious as an army itself, and my lungs feel better as I count them. Maybe, now, I can finally sleep. I pass the last wagon.

And turn back to it.

I'm tired. I imagined it.

But then—again—the wagon's burlap covering moves.

Slowly, I approach. Wild animal. Ghost. When the burlap moves next, I rule out ghosts. Spirits can't influence the physical world to such an extent. I reach for the covering with one hand, my other going to the knife at my broadbelt.

Only then does Crow speak up. "She won't hurt you."

She.

I yank off the covering.

"K—" My fake cough quickly turns real. As I hack, Ku sits up. Grain spills off the wagon, raining onto the ground.

"Xiao—qiu?" I finally manage. How long has Crow known without telling me? Long enough, seeing as these wagons arrived two days ago. Good to know he's still the bane of my existence. "Does Cicada know you're here?"

Ku doesn't speak, as if the answer is obvious. She hasn't changed in this regard. Where someone else might use three words, Ku will use one or none. She jumps down—another rainfall of grain—and a familiar anger brews in me. How has she eaten? How has she slept? What is she thinking?

"You need a helper," she says before I can begin.

No. It's not safe.

But I'm not her sister. I never was, and she always knew it. The child she was died with Qilin. The real Qilin. I was the impostor.

Just like now.

I'm sorry, I think, as I slip into the persona of Crow, her mentor. I'm sorry, Ku.

November.

"Listen to me, Xiaoqiu." She stares at me, and I sigh as I imagine Crow might before capitulating to his disciple. "When we reach the Xianlei Gorge, we'll reencounter Cloud."

"I don't like her."

"I don't either. But we must put on an act, like you did when I came to visit South with—" Zephyr. "—Miasma's delegation. I'll wear the mask and you must act like I'm not Crow."

I hold her gaze until she nods.

"Come now. You must be cold."

I lead her to my tent, where Ku immediately curls up in the corner. I watch her drift off to sleep, then look up at Crow. What has Ku told him of me, if anything at all? I want to ask, but the moment we had by the river is gone. I'm back to the camp, back to tricking everyone. That includes Ku. Cicada is the only person I haven't stolen from her, and suddenly, I remember Crow's words from before.

And November? Ku?He'd stared at me, derision filling his eyes when I failed to realize that by harming Cicada, I'd also be harming Ku.

But how good is Cicada for Ku? She defended Ku before the Southlands advisors, but she also entrusts too much to her, sending her to Ren on her own, then to the Marshlands. She won't hesitate to use her, just like she used Crow as a spy in the North.

As for me? Even if I care about Ku, I won't hesitate to end her lordess if my hand is forced.

Heavens willing, it won't be.

Past the river, the floodplain dries up. Limestone deposits form ravines.

Soon, we're riding through defiles so narrow, only a single soldier can fit through at once.

Out the other end, we face a series of hills, interlocked like waves and frothed with trees.

The Xianlei Gorge.

South of here is the Westlands.

Northeast is the capital, which Ren will soon reach with Cicada.

And just ahead is Cloud. I retrieve the clay mask from my belongings and put it on, becoming the masked advisor Cloud saw beside Cicada in Taohui. Otherwise, she'd kill me first and ask questions later.

"Southern chaperones!" she greets when we reach her encampment. "Just what I wanted!"

Nice to see you too, Cloud.Truly. I'm glad she looks well.

"We're only here to assist," I say, facing her horse to horse as my troops stream around us.

Cloud eyes my mask with open distrust. "More like get in the way."

Only in the way of fate. "It's my recommendation that you relocate your soldiers."

Currently, Cloud has all her forces camped atop the highest hill. I almost broke out in hives when I saw the setup. If I hadn't witnessed Cloud's fated death, I'd believe she was digging her own grave.

"Why should I?" Cloud challenges. "Everyone knows to take the high ground."

"When you have the element of surprise. But that?" I jerk my chin at the hill. "You'll be besieged in less than a day."

"Let them try. My soldiers can break out of anything."

"Can they?" My mask is hot, I'm tired and sick, and damn it, why won't Cloud listen? "I suppose they did help you escape Bikong."

I've gone too far; I know it even before Blue Serpent swings to my neck. "Say that again."

I keep silent.

"Say it!"

"Water." Ku's voice, behind me. She rides up and says, "There's no water on the hill. They'll cut you from your supply when they surround you."

"You." Cloud frowns. "You're Zephyr's sister."

"Three days," Ku goes on, giving no indication she's heard Cloud. "Less, maybe, before your troops go down the hill to escape death by thirst. They'll slaughter you then."

It's true, all true. I just wish Ku had broken it to Cloud a bit more . . . delicately, considering her blade's location. Slowly, Cloud lowers Blue Serpent from my neck—

Shing!

—and swings it out leftward.

"Move camp!"

As soldiers rush to carry the order to the hill, Cloud urges her massive mare toward me. Mine stomps the ground, uneasy, as they close in.

"Let me be clear: I'm listening to her, not you." Cloud trots past me. Behind me. "I don't care if you're the most senior advisor of the Southern Court; I don't trust people who hide their faces." She rides up my other side, her mare's tail swishing into my thigh. "Mention Bikong again, and not even your strategist can save you. You got that?"

I nod, keeping my eyes forward as Cloud rides off, sunlight winking off her crescent blade as if in promise.

"Beast." My gaze digresses to Ku. She too stares at the warrior. She worries for Crow in a way she never did for Zephyr. I should be sore, but instead I smile. Beast. Cloud would laugh at the weak insult.

"Go with Cloud," I tell Ku. "She listens to you."

And Ku listens, somewhat, to Crow. Her lips pinch, but she rides after the warrior. As she does, Crow asks "Why don't you tell Cloud who you really are?" He hovers beside me, unperturbed as soldiers march through him. I try not to focus on how faint he is; at least his voice is still clear, unfaded, as he says, "It'd make things easier to tell her. Unless she hated you as Zephyr."

You're not far off the mark.

"But that doesn't seem quite right, given her anger at Taohui over Zephyr's death. So why the secrets?"

Guess away, Crow. I watch as Ku catches up to Cloud, her figure small compared to the warrior's, but even Cloud's shrinks as she rides on, leaving me where I am.

My hold tightens on the reins.

You'll take care of Ren just fine without me, won't you, Cloud?

I turn my horse around.

You'll all be just fine once I clinch our victory.

As Cloud moves her troops off the hill, I ride up it and assess the rolling geography, the ravines and defiles like the ones we squeezed through, imposing and ancient.

It looks like a landscape sculpted by a god.

Maybe Nadir was once here.Something in the air reminds me of her. My heart aches with longing, then anger. She tried to wipe my memories.

She's not my sister.

"What are you looking for?" asks Crow as I scan the land with renewed focus. "Maybe I can help."

"You, helping."

"Who saved you again from the bandits?"

"You just didn't want your body to burn."

"So my services are not altruistic." Crow's shoulders lift, his shrug elegant. "I help you when it helps me."

"Why would our campaign here help you?"

"Maybe I want to end the senior registrar too."

That gives me pause. Crow did watch me write the letter to Plum word by word. He knew I was luring Plum West, but for what? I was under no obligation to tell him, and evidently, he didn't need to be told.

"It's not personal," he goes on, and I look to him, his form so terribly translucent in the sun. "But I always did think that she'd be a force to be reckoned with down the road."

Crow hasn't had the benefit of reading the fates, and yet he's deduced the concealed enemy. He's the strategist for me to beat—except I've already beaten him. We're not really on this hill together. "What makes you think so?" I ask, trying for indifference even as I imagine what could have been, had I condemned Plum from the start.

"She has that rare and troublesome ability to endure."

"Better than even you?"

"She's done it longer than me, that's for certain," says Crow, cavalier, and I swallow, dropping my gaze back to the land.

Remorse is craven.

Remorse is useless.

I will not be its hostage.

Truthfully, I don't know what I'm looking for. To wield a weapon, you must move with it, maximize its nature and not fight it. This is especially true for wielding terrain. My eyes roam over the ravines and valleys, riven with shadows.

One shadow, in particular, is contoured like a calabash gourd.

I steer my horse down our hill.

"Where are you going?" Cloud hollers after me as I pass her line of moving soldiers.

"To survey the vicinity."

"We have scouts for that!"

Ignoring her, I ride in the direction of the shadow, arriving at the mouth of a gorge. And what a gorge it is—cliffsides taller than even Bikong's walls, entrance so wide that a rider wouldn't know they've entered a gorge at all until they reach the narrow middle. From there, the gorge flares into a second, smaller segment, rounded out by a dead end. At the terminus, I glance to the cliffsides. A ledge snakes up to the top. It's narrow, and after a tight turn—"Whoa," I ease my horse—I summit the cliff. I look back down at the gorge I traveled through and empty my mind of everything but its unique shape.

A stratagem rushes in.

"Burning House," says Ku, riding up beside me.

"My thought exactly."

Like a house, the gorge has limited exits. Set it alight, and Plum will be as good as dead once led in. Cloud's scouts put the middle-aged woman, along with an empire legion, at seven hundred l away two days ago. That gives us just two days to execute my vision. We'll have to work without sleep. Fine by me. Not like I was getting much anyway. Through the night, under "November's orders," I oversee the soldiers, striding through the gorge as logs are carried in and trenches dug, coughing loudly whenever I see a yawn.

"You!" barks Cloud, and I turn to see her storming down the gorge. Have I overdone the coughing? No—Cloud has only met Crow twice, and never during a flare-up. She closes in—swerving as I spit out a mouthful of blood.

"Stop that!" she yells as I wipe the bottom of my mask. "You're hurting morale, and my people need sleep if they're to fight."

"Finish the work here," says Ku, joining my side, "and they won't need to fight."

Cloud's eyes narrow. Like most warriors, she prefers to battle it out in the open. She leaves the gorge, but reenters an hour later atop her mare. "All of you, to bed!"

Before I can protest, fresh troops flood in from Cloud's rear, replacing the ones leaving.

She rides in after them, assessing our progress. At the dead end, she turns to me and Ku. "A trap," she says, a notch between her brows, and I remember the time Cloud released Miasma from one of mine. Master Shencius forbids killing by way of snare, she'd said loftily, and I'd wanted to kill her by snare.

But Cloud is not the Cloud from before. War remakes everyone. "You can't expect to annihilate an entire legion this way," she says to me and Ku, and I correct her.

"Not after the legion. Just the leader."

"How do you plan on luring the senior registrar this far?"

"With me."

"You."

"Yes."

"And she's going to be so concerned with you that she won't notice all of this?" Cloud waves a hand at the hay we've lashed to the sides of the gorge.

"She will." Ku and I speak in tandem, deepening Cloud's frown.

"What's one elderly Southern advisor to the senior registrar? Wait. Don't tell me—an old flame."

Cloud guffaws while I smart at "elderly" and Ku says, "He's my mentor."

"So your mentor is going to start over there"—Cloud jabs her glaive at the gorge's entrance, coin-sized from where we stand—"and lead their leader all the way to over here as bait."

Of course. Who else? It's my stratagem—

"No," says Ku. "I will lead the registrar through the first bulge."

"What? No! It's—"

"My idea," Ku says over me, and I look to Cloud. Surely she'll think Ku is too weak.

But Cloud doesn't protest, and come morning, Ku's mind is unchanged. When a scout puts Plum at five l away, she seeks out Cloud.

"Station yourself and your soldiers on the cliffs, above where the gorge narrows before the second bulge." Ku then faces me. "You go with her."

"What's your plan for leading Plum through the first bulge?" I press.

"Formations."

I wait for Ku to say more.

No words follow.

"What did you expect?" Crow asks me. "She's your sister. Why explain the stratagem to us lowly bystanders?"

I can't reply to Crow in front of Ku, not until I ride away. And I ride away. I know my once-sister. Wars are easier to win than arguments with her.

"Did you just insult your disciple?" I ask Crow once we're out of earshot.

"No. I don't ascribe to that school of mentorship. I assume you do? See," says Crow when I glower. "Now that's an insult. She might take after you, but I never said that was a flaw."

"We're not actually related."

"You still shaped her."

Shaped? Even my ego knows better. I slap the reins and trot up the gorge side, joining Cloud's soldiers hidden among the foliage above the second, smaller bulge. Should Plum look up, she won't see us.

Come on.Anticipation crowds out the air in my lungs. I've read the beats right so far—read that Plum would come, and with an army. Below, Ku's soldiers fill the first bulge. Ku rides out at their front, and for once, I can understand her state of mind perfectly well.

Come on.

Our banners ripple in the breeze. Everything else is still, the tall cliffs like sentinels.

Sound reaches us first, that of armor, hooves, and weapons, amplified by the ravine. A glint of lamellar becomes a shimmering sea of thousands; enemy soldiers flow into the fatter segment of the gorge, and joy flows into me. The more troops Miasma's diverted here, the fewer Ren and Cicada will meet at the capital.

But then the ranks fill in completely.

Still no Plum.

Have I miscalculated? At the thought, Cloud's voice rakes through my head. When did you become such a defeatist?

When I died twice, Cloud. You should try it sometime.

Then an undulation goes through the ranks. Shields reflect the sun as they move, revealing a rider in purple.

Plum rides out and stops a hundred strides from Ku. "Declare yourself."

"November, Cicada's strategist."

"Move aside, child."

Ku stays put. "Are you Plum?"

"Who else could I be?"

"I've never seen you before. Prove that you are Plum with your knowledge of formations."

"This is no game, child," snaps the senior registrar.

"Prove that you aren't an impostor here to bait out my mentor."

"Have him come out and confirm my identity."

Ku doesn't speak or move.

From my vantage point, I can't see Plum's expression, but I can imagine her exasperation. Formations are the equivalent of a chess match on the field, strength decided without blood needing to be spilled. Ren didn't have enough trained soldiers for me to deploy, when I still lived as Zephyr. Now we have the numbers, but does Ku have the skill? Does she know the flag and drum signals? The trifold, tenfold permutations?

Down below, Plum shifts on her horse. There's no blood cost to formations, she must be thinking, just time. She's come this far. Might as well.

"Awl!" she orders, and her lines devolve into noise and shapelessness, before a formation emerges with a sharpened front and narrow obliques. The last shield thuds into place.

The gorge falls silent.

Ku's order is too quiet for me to hear, but I watch her troops array in a reverse image of Plum's; middle sinking into a V, obliques dense and thick. Flying Geese.

The correct response to Awl.

Plum calls out a permutation; the sides of her troops extend, as if they're going to meet Ku's. How will Ku answer?

Permutation Five, I think, and it unfolds, Ku having already called it.

On and on this goes. Plum questions. Ku answers. "You taught her this?" I ask Crow.

"I did."

You did well.

"She always wanted to be better than you," Crow says, and it's the first time he's acknowledged Ku ever speaking of me—the first time anyone has. Self-consciously, I adjust my mask.

"At what?"

"Chess, be it in the field or on the board."

"I never played her."

"She watched you."

"I never—"

Played at all, at the orphanage.But then, faintly, a memory pulses. A toy merchant had caught Ku stealing; I, too slow, was seized in her place and about to be hauled off to the magistrates when I'd seen the chessboard in the stall. Though I'd never played—had only watched some street-side games—I'd challenged the merchant. Win, and I'd clear my name.

I didn't win. The merchant had stared at me across the stones on the board, and I'd run. He didn't chase. Why? I'd lost, but did he see who I could be, and not who I was? Had I broken whatever concept he held of me as an orphan, like Ku now breaks my concept of her? Because she is no longer Qilin's dependent or sister. She is November, the Southlands strategist, and down in the gorge, she's been slowly drawing Plum's soldiers deeper, the forward movement masked by her formations.

Without realizing it, Plum has neared the second segment.

"Clear this final formation," Ku says to Plum, "and you may pass through to find what you seek."

At her flag signal, shields form concentric circles. A maze materializes out of our soldiers; Plum looks to hers, behind her. None move forward. They're here to monitor her, not protect her.

Whatever Plum did for Miasma to spare her life, it's still not enough to recover the favor she lost.

But this test of loyalty is, and the prospect of passing it must be what draws Plum forward. Alone, she enters the pathways formed by Ku's soldiers, and for a moment I wish I were among them. I'd kill Plum then and there, happy to violate the most sacred rule of formations—that they should remain bloodless. Then I tame my heart. Plum will die, and so will a number of empire soldiers while we're at it.

This is Ku's moment. She is the strategist.

While Plum works through the maze, I ride down the cliff. I still my horse behind Ku's final lines, and wait.

Plum rides out—and shortens her reins. My lonesome self on a horse faces her, and I'm quickly outnumbered as her soldiers thunder in behind her.

"Declare yourself !" Plum calls.

I think of Lotus, announcing herself by name. I see Cloud dueling Leopard in front of Bikong, a legend in the making. I used to be like them. Not a warrior, but every hair on my head, every feather in my fan, every outplay and outwit belonged to the Rising Zephyr.

I could be no one else.

Now I am simply no one. My deeds won't be attached to my name after all is said and done.

That's fine, so long as I win.

You lose, Plum.My hand rises to my mask.

I tilt it up.