The rest of the water trials passed in a haze. The night when they were told to swim against the current in the swift-flowing river. The duel with nets. Demonstrating competence in signaling to other riders. Sometimes there would be a day between them, and sometimes many days. And before Tané knew it, the final trial was on top of her.
Midnight found her in the practice hall again, coating the blade of her sword with clove oil. The smell of it cleaved to her fingers. Her shoulders ached and her neck was rigid as a tree stump.
This sword could win or lose her everything tomorrow. She could see her own bloodshot eyes in its flat.
Rain drizzled from the rooftops of the school. On her way back to her quarters, she heard a muffled laugh.
The door to a small balcony was open. Tané glanced over the balustrade. In the courtyard below, where pear trees grew, Onren and Kanperu were sitting together, heads bowed over a game board, fingers intertwined.
“Tané.”
She startled. Dumusa was looking out from her own quarters, dressed in a short-sleeved robe, holding a pipe. She joined Tané on the balcony and followed her gaze.
“You must not be envious of them,” she said after a long silence.
“I am not—”
“Peace. I envy them too, sometimes. How easy they seem to find it. Onren, especially.”
Tané hid her face behind her hair.
“She excels,” she said, “with so little—” The words lodged in her throat. “With so little.”
“She excels because she trusts in her skill. I suspect you fear that yours will slip between your fingers if you loosen your grip for even a moment,” Dumusa said. “I was born a descendant of riders. That was a great blessing, and I always wanted to prove to myself that I was worthy of it. When I was sixteen, I stopped everything but my studies. I stopped going to the city. I stopped painting. I stopped seeing Ishari. All I did was practice until I became principal apprentice. I forgot how to possess a skill. Instead, the skill possessed me. All of me.”
Tané felt a chill.
“But—” She hesitated. “You do not look the way I feel.”
Dumusa blew out a mouthful of smoke.
“I realized,” she said, “that if I am fortunate enough to become a rider, I will be expected to answer the moment Seiiki calls. I will not have days of practice beforehand. Remember, Tané, that a sword does not need to be whetted at all hours to keep it sharp.”
“I know.”
Dumusa gave her a look. “Then stop sharpening. And go to sleep.”
The final trial would take place in the courtyard. Tané broke her fast early and found a spot on the benches.
Onren came to sit beside her at dawn. They listened to the distant rumble of the thunder.
“So,” Onren said, “are you ready?”
Tané nodded, then shook her head.
“Me, too.” Onren turned her face into the heavy rain. “You will ride, Tané. The Miduchi judge us based on our performance across all of the water trials, and you have done enough.”
“This is the most important,” Tané murmured. “We will use swords more than any other weapon. If we cannot win a fight in a school—”
“We all know how good you are with a blade. You’re going to be fine.”
Tané twisted her hands between her knees.
The others trickled outside. When everyone was present, the Sea General emerged. The servant beside him craned on tiptoe to hold an umbrella over his head.
“Your final trial is with swords,” the Sea General told them all. “First, the honorable Tané, of the South House.”
She stood.
“Honorable Tané,” he said, “this day you will face the honorable Turosa, of the North House.”
Turosa rose from the benches without hesitation.
“First blood wins.”
They walked to separate ends of the courtyard to collect their swords. Gazes locked, blades unsheathed, they walked toward each other.
She would show him what village chaff could do.
Their bows were small and stiff. Tané gripped her sword with both hands. All she could see was Turosa, his hair dripping, nostrils flared.
The Sea General called out, and Tané ran at Turosa. Sword clashed on sword. Turosa shoved his face so close to hers that she could feel his breath and smell the tang of sweat on his tunic.
“When I command the riders,” he hissed, “I will see to it that no peasant ever rides a dragon again.” A clangor of blades. “Soon you will be back in that hovel they pulled you from.”
Tané thrust at him. He stopped her blade just shy of his waist.
“Remind me,” he said, so only she could hear, “where it was you came from?” He shoved her sword away. “Do they even give names to shit-heap villages?”
If he thought to provoke her by insulting the family she had never known, he would be waiting a thousand years.
He swung at her. Tané parried, and the duel began in earnest.
This was no dance with wooden swords. There was no lesson to be learned here, no skill to be refined. In the end, her confrontation with her rival was as quick and ruthless as having a tooth pulled.
Her world was a torrent of rain and metal. Turosa sprang high. Tané sliced up, deflecting his downcut, and he landed in a crouch. He was on her again before she could breathe, sword flashing like a fish through water. She matched every blow until he feinted and punched her in the chin. A brutal kick to the stomach sent her sprawling.
She should have seen that feint from leagues away. Her exhaustion had been her undoing. Through the droplets on her lashes, she glimpsed the Sea General, observing them without expression.
“That’s right, villager,” Turosa sneered. “Stay on the ground. Just where chaff belongs.”
Like a prisoner awaiting execution, Tané lowered her head. Turosa looked her over, as if to decide where it would hurt most to cut her. Another step brought him within reach.
That was when her head snapped up, and she swung her legs toward Turosa, forcing him into a leap to avoid them. She impelled her body away from the ground and whirled like a windstorm back to her feet. Turosa repulsed her first blow, but she had caught him off his guard. She saw it in his eyes. His footwork turned clumsy on the wet stone, and when her blade thrummed toward him again, his arm came up too slowly to block it.
It shaved his jaw, soft as a blade of grass.
A heartbeat later, his sword gashed open her shoulder. She gasped as he jerked away from her, teeth bared and slick with spittle.
The other sea guardians were straining to see. Tané watched her opponent, breathing hard.
If she had not broken the skin, this fight was lost.
Slowly, rubies welled from the line she had drawn. Trembling and drenched, Turosa touched one finger to his jaw and found a smear, bright as a quince blossom.
First blood.
“The honorable Tané of the South House,” the Sea General announced, and he was smiling, “victory is yours.”
No words had ever sounded sweeter.
When she bowed to Turosa, blood oozed like molten copper from her shoulder. His face wheeled from the shallows to the depths of anger. He had fallen for the trick—a trick that should have fooled no one—because he had expected weakness. As he looked her in the face, Tané knew, at last, that he would never call her village chaff again. To call her that would prove that chaff could grow taller than grass.
The only way to save face was to treat her as his equal.
Under the cracked-open sky, the descendant of riders bowed to her, lower than he ever had.
