As the palanquins wound past canals and over bridges, people turned their backs, as if they were unworthy to look upon the sea guardians. Among them were the fish-people, as commoners disparagingly called them in Cape Hisan—courtiers who dressed as if they had just walked out of the ocean. Some of them were said to scrape the scales off rainbow fish and comb them through their hair.
When Tané saw Ginura Castle, her breath caught. The roofs were the color of sun-blanched coral, the walls like cuttlebone. It had been designed to resemble the Palace of Many Pearls, where the Seiikinese dragons entered their slumber each year and was said to bridge the sea and the celestial plane.
Once, in the days when they had possessed all their powers, the dragons had not needed a season of rest.
The procession came to a halt outside the Ginura School of War, where the sea guardians would be sorted for the last time. It was the oldest and most prestigious institute of its kind, where new soldiers lodged and continued their instruction in the arts of war. It was here that Tané would prove herself worthy of a place in Clan Miduchi. It was here that she would exhibit the skills she had honed since she was a child.
Thunder rumbled overhead. As she emerged from the palanquin, her legs buckled, sore from being scrunched up for so long. Turosa laughed, but a servant caught her.
“I have you, honored lady.”
“Thank you,” Tané said. Seeing that she was steady, he held an umbrella over her.
The first of the rain drenched her boots as she walked with the others through the gateway, drinking in the grandeur of its silver leaf and sea-blanched wood. Carvings of the great warriors of Seiikinese history clustered under its gable, as if hiding from the storm. Tané spotted the long-honored Princess Dumai and the First Warlord among them. Heroes of her childhood.
A woman was waiting for them in the hall, where they removed their boots. Her hair was sleeked into a coiffure.
“Welcome to Ginura,” she said in a cool voice. “You have the morning to wash and rest in your quarters. At noon, you will begin the first of your water trials. In that time, you will be observed by the honored Sea General, and by those who may yet be your kin.”
Clan Miduchi. Tané thrilled inside.
The woman led them deeper into the school, through courtyards and covered passageways. Each of the sea guardians was shown into a small room. Tané found herself installed on the upper floor, near the other three principal apprentices. Her room looked over a courtyard, where a fishpond was churned to bubbles by the downpour.
Her traveling clothes reeked. It had been three days since they had last stopped at a roadside inn.
She found a cypress bath behind a windwall. Scented oils and petals floated on the water. Her hair fanned out around her as she sank into it and thought back to Cape Hisan. To Susa.
She would be fine. Like a cat, Susa had a way of always landing on her feet. When they were young and Tané had still made frequent visits to the city, her friend would steal pan-fried lotus roots or salt plums, dashing away like a fox if she was spotted. They would hide somewhere and stuff themselves senseless, laughing all the while. The only time Susa had ever looked afraid was when Tané had first met her.
That winter had been long and harsh. One bitter evening, Tané had braved a blizzard with one of her teachers to buy firewood in Cape Hisan. While the teacher argued with a merchant, Tané had wandered away to warm her hands by a bowl of hot coals.
That was when she had heard the laughter, and the broken voice crying for help. In a nearby lane, she had found another child being kicked around in the snow by urchins. Tané had drawn her wooden sword with a shout. Even at eleven, she had known how to use it.
The urchins of Cape Hisan were hardened fighters. One of them had pulled his blade up her cheekbone, aiming for the eye, leaving a scar shaped just like a fishhook.
They had beaten Susa—a starving orphan—for eating a cut of meat from a shrine. Once Tané had frightened off the urchins, she had beseeched her teacher to help. At ten, Susa had been too old to begin an education in the Houses of Learning, but she was soon adopted by a tender-hearted innkeeper. Since then, she and Tané had always been friends. They had joked sometimes that they might be sisters, since Susa knew nothing of her parents.
Sea sisters, Susa had called them once. Two pearls formed in the same oyster.
Tané pushed herself from the bathwater.
How she had changed since that night in the snow. If it had happened now, she might have decided that brawling with urchins was no way for an apprentice to behave. She might even have decided that the girl deserved to be beaten for stealing what was meant for gods. At some point, she had started to realize how fortunate she was to have the chance to be a dragonrider. That was when her heart had grown harder, like a ship collecting barnacles.
And yet some part of her younger self remained. The part that had hidden the man from the beach.
There would be no second chances if she was tired during her first day of instruction. Tané dried herself with linen, threaded her arms into the unlined robe on the bed, and slept.
When she woke, it was still misty with rain, but a stream of sallow light had broken through the clouds. Her skin had dried, leaving her cooler and clear-headed.
A group of servants soon arrived. She had not been dressed by anyone since she was a child, but she knew better than to quarrel.
The first trial would take place in a courtyard at the center of the school, where the Sea General was waiting. The sea guardians took their seats on tiered stone benches. The dragons were already here, watching them from over the rooftops. Tané tried not to look.
“Welcome to your first water trial. You have been on the road for days, but soldiers of the High Sea Guard have little time for rest,” the Sea General called. “Today, you will prove you can use a halberd. Let us begin with two apprentices whose learnèd teachers speak highly of their skills. Honorable Onren of the East House, honorable Tané of the South House—let us see who can best the other first.”
Tané rose. Her throat felt small. When she reached the bottom of the steps, a man handed her a halberd: a light pole weapon, its handle made of white oak, with a curved steel blade at its end. She removed its lacquered sheath and ran a finger up to its tip.
In the South House, the blades had been wooden. Now, at last, she could use steel. Once Onren had received her halberd, they walked toward each other.
Onren grinned. Tané wiped her expression clean, even as her palms dampened. Her heart was a trapped butterfly. The water in you is cold, her teacher had once told her. When you hold a weapon, you become a faceless ghost. You give nothing away.
They bowed. A hush descended in her mind, like the quiet that came at twilight.
“Begin,” the Sea General said.
At once, Onren closed the space between them. Tané whirled her halberd into both hands, the blades clashing together. Onren let out a short, loud shout.
Tané made no sound.
Onren broke the lock and paced backward, away from Tané, halberd pointed at her chest. Tané waited for her to make the next move. There had to be a reason Onren had been principal apprentice in the East House.
As if she could hear the thought, Onren began to spin her halberd around her body, passing it fluently over her arms and between her hands in a show of confidence. Tané tightened her grip, watching.
Onren favored one side. She avoided putting too much weight on her left knee. Tané recalled, distantly, that Onren had been kicked by a horse when she was younger.
Emboldened, Tané strode forward, halberd raised. Onren came to meet her. This time, they were faster. One, two, three clashes. Onren barked wordless threats with every attack. Tané parried her in silence.
Four, five, six. Tané snapped the halberd up and down, using the handle as well as the blade.
Seven, eight, nine.
When a downcut came, she wielded the halberd as if it were on a pivot—up at one end, then the other, shunting the blow aside and leaving her opponent exposed. Onren only just recovered in time to thwart the next strike—but when she thrust out her weapon again, wind hissed past Tané. One hand flew to her ear, seeking blood, but there was nothing.
Her distraction cost her. Onren came at her in a flurry of oak and steel, unleashing her considerable strength. They were fighting for honor, for glory, for the dreams they had nurtured since they were children. Tané clenched her teeth as she danced and dodged, sweat drenching her tunic, hair stuck to her nape. One of the dragons let out a huff.
The reminder of their presence stiffened her determination. To win this, she would have to take a hit.
She let Onren knock her arm with the handle, hard enough to bruise her. The pain went deep. Onren drove her weapon like a fish-spear. Tané leaped backward, giving her a wide berth—then, when Onren raised her arms for a final downcut, Tané rolled and swung hard for her weak knee. Wood snapped cleanly against bone.
Onren skidded with a gasp. Her knee gave way. Before she could rise, Tané had set her blade across her shoulders.