Ten Thousand Tragedies

Yi Wei stared at the door and had to fight not to hold her saber in a grip so tight that it made her fingers ache. There was a limit on how long she could stand there, though, and she smoothed out the wrinkles of her dress. For once she wished that her hair was longer, so that she had a moment more to dither here.

She was being ridiculous. She'd mocked Jin Qilong so often for being a hesitant milksop instead of the confident man that the patriarch was, and yet she was acting like him anyway. Yi Wei told herself to stop being stupid and just head in.

Still she lingered on the doorstep.

It wasn't even that she was nervous about meeting Lady Jin, necessarily. They'd talked before, and Yi Wei had told herself that despite her having been nervous, the conversations had gone well enough. Lady Jin had expressed a subtle sort of favor for her above all the others. There had been allusions - however veiled - that she was on track to serving in one of the special units of the Red Saber Battallion, maybe even receive instruction from the lady herself.

Her family had been part of the Red Saber Battallion ever since its formation a hundred seventy-five years ago. She had sworn to carry that line onwards to her own children, unbroken. If she had to be married off to that sad-sack Jin Qilong to make that happen, then she would.

Once those plans had seemed to have been built on foundations of solid stone. Jin Qilong wasn't much, although she supposed he was pretty enough, and Yi Wei had been a rising star. Shan Kong had been an annoyance but he was a countryside yokel. Once they all returned to the main branch and she got access to the resources that her father had promised her, then she'd outstrip his growth easily.

Then that wild dog Wu Hao had appeared and all of that had been messed up.

In the end, when the weight of the gazes from the uniformed men standing guard outside the small building became too much to bear, she knocked on the door.

"Who is it?" a voice called from inside the room. As usual, she couldn't glean anything from the lady's voice. There was no note of reproach at having been disturbed, for instance.

"It's me, Lady Jin," Yi Wei responded. She bowed her head. "You called for me."

"Yes," Lady Jin responded. "Come in."

Fighting off the last vestiges of nervousness, Yi Wei pulled the door open.

The inside of the room was gorgeously decorated, as she knew it would be. The elegance of it all would've taken her breath away if she'd had any left to take. The furniture had been artfully arranged to maximize the sunlight flooding in through the windows at one side of the room, which looked out over into the gardens and its trees. A small fountain rose just beyond the carefully curated hedges.

Yi Wei couldn't keep her eyes off Lady Jin, though. She was dressed in a beautiful red dress the color of fresh blood, her hair still faintly wet from the bath that she'd had earlier, her earrings shining with the glint of gold. Her servant girl had reported to her earlier this morning that several bodies had been carted out of the council room where Lady Jin had been, but the lady didn't bear any traces of having just slaughtered a few men as the rumors claimed she had.

She looked as if she'd just been posing for a painter, but the stack of documents that had been finished at one side of the table made it clear that she'd spent her morning productively. Much more productively than Yi Wei herself, who'd been speculating - gossiping, really - all morning about what was going on.

This was the woman that Yi Wei had wanted to serve under, her entire life. This was the woman that she had wanted to be, in every sense. She'd tried to imitate the way of talking, the imperious pronouncements, the wisdom and elegance emanating from every pore, and yet she felt that all she did was fail.

Trying not to make the sound of her swallowing too obvious, Yi Wei bowed to Lady Jin, and then waited, forcing herself to sit still. Like one of those dolls her mother had given her when she'd been a child. She hardly dared breathe.

Lady Jin gave her a thin smile in response. It wasn't a particularly cold smile, Yi Wei hoped - not that she was able to tell, anyway, because she'd never seen another kind of smile from the commander. With a wave of her hand she motioned at the seat across from her, then ignored Yi Wei sitting down gingerly. Instead, the lady resumed going through the documents arrayed in front of her. Her hands were either still or had turned into a blur as she flipped between pages.

Given a moment to think, Yi Wei took up the distraction eagerly.

As best as they could tell, something had happened this morning that had infuriated Lady Jin so much so that the council room had been declared off limits. No one was quite sure what that something was, and the few people who did weren't telling. Usually her source would be Jin Qilong, who was easily bullied into giving up some information, but Lady Jin's son hadn't been seen all morning, being absent from the usual training.

And he hadn't been the only one. Li Yanqing and Zhu Yelin hadn't been seen at all, due to the duel yesterday. That, at least, everyone was certain about, although she still wondered how that jerk Wu Hao had done it.

The last time she'd seen Wu Hao fight was when he'd taken on Shan Kong and shown off that he'd learned a Sky-grade technique from... somewhere. The memory of that insolent smirk of his when she'd brought it up still lingered in her mind. It seemed incredible that he was suddenly talented enough to take on two people of the same grade as him.

"Don't scowl," Lady Jin said absently. "Sit still."

Yi Wei bowed her head hurriedly. "Apologies, milady."

The sun that she'd so admired through the windows earlier had crept steadily along her back by the time that Lady Jin was finished. In an effort to ignore the faint strain in her legs as the time had worn on, Yi Wei had counted how long it took the lady to work - how many rapid strokes of the brush, how many times she'd dipped it into the inkwell to refresh the tip, how many papers Lady Jin had gone through. It was a bad nervous habit of hers that her father had always encouraged, saying any information was good information.

The entire time, she'd kept her back as straight as she could, her posture perfect and bearing poised to the fullest extent.

Lady Jin put the brush down, twisted her wrists slightly as if to rid herself of an ache, and placed the last document off to the side. She rung a small bell that had been placed on the desk, and as soon as she'd rung it a man appeared out of the shadows of the room.

"Commander," the man said in a rough voice. He was made in the mold of all serving Red Saber Battallion members: wide with muscle and emanating an intimidating air, and with the red saber patch prominent on his uniform robes. A long scar ran up his arm, which he showed off with pride.

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Every single member of the Battallion had scars like those, men and women alike. Yi Wei had learned from her father that they challenged others within their cohort to duels, just so they could get scars like those. Her father's scar was on his cheek, stretching from just beyond the lips. With some help from her mother they'd already planned out where hers would be: a small cut on the side of her neck, just like Lady Jin herself had. It'd be a sign of her devotion.

"Take these," Lady Jin said to the Battalion member, not even bothering to point at the stack of papers.

"Yes, ma'am."

The man picked up the stack of papers and then, without another word, sank back into the shadows. Where he went, Yi Wei couldn't have said, but she knew the name of the technique that'd been used. That had been the Bound-Crossing Step, the Sky-grade movement art that all of the Battallion were taught. She'd seen it in action a few times now and her father had promised to teach her earlier than she was supposed to learn it, if she could take the rest of the apprentices firmly in hand.

She didn't know if that promise still held.

When the quiet had returned, Lady Jin's eyes met Yi Wei's.

"Well," Lady Jin said. Her tone gave nothing away. "This entire situation didn't go quite according to plan, did it?"

Yi Wei bowed low.

"It's my fault," she said. She didn't want to shout or raise her voice at the commander of the Battallion, but some of her nervousness had leaked through anyway and she worried that it made her speak more loudly than she should have. "I apologize, Commander."

Lady Jin sighed.

"Leave all that aside, child. What are your opinions on Wu Hao?"

Yi Wei tried not to frown. Him, again?

"He's odd, Lady Jin," Yi Wei said, starting with the most basic one. "He's got this blank look on his face that makes him look... stupid. Like a thought's never entered his mind without leaving a few moments later. He's got no manners and he talks to everyone so insolently that it sometimes makes it seem like he wants to get killed. He gets angry when someone tries to teach him, for no real reason."

"Hrm," Lady Jin said. "Is that so?"

"But, also..." Yi Wei said, avoiding the lady's eyes.

"Yes?" she said, taking a sip of her tea.

"That changes when he gets into combat," Yi Wei continued. "And he - I don't think it's accurate to say that he blooms or anything, but it's more like he doesn't quite hold himself back anymore."

The tea cup was set down quietly, only a single drop remaining. Lady Jin looked at Yi Wei again, and then her lips quirked into something like a smile.

"I see," she said. "He's only alive during combat, then?"

"I suppose," Yi Wei said, admiring the way the commander had managed to put what she'd struggled to explain into words so neatly.

"That makes sense," Lady Jin said, and leaned forward slightly. "But I need more than what an average student can tell me, child. Tell me something that only you know."

Yi Wei opened her mouth to speak before she shut it again. What did she actually know, beyond the things everyone else knew? She'd tried to provoke him into fights in order to learn something about him that she could bring to Lady Jin, but he hadn't bitten the bait for once. She'd tried...

She'd tried very little, she thought bitterly. In her defense, she'd figured that he wasn't worth much at first. A puzzle, maybe, but one she thought she could dominate easily. And she just didn't like the way he looked at her. It was like he thought he knew better than her, like he was the more senior of the both of them, even though he obviously knew nothing of the world. He had an odd effect on Jin Qilong, too: when they were together something bizarre was always happening, and when they weren't Wu Hao was nowhere to be found and Jin Qilong was moping.

Her silence gave her away, though.

Lady Jin didn't sigh or frown this time, but her lips quirked decidedly downward. Yi Wei flinched back like she'd just been punched.

"I see," Lady Jin said again. "That's unfortunate. It shows a lack of diligence."

"My humblest apologies," Yi Wei said, her voice feeling small and thin even to herself.

"See that you do," Lady Jin said. "There will be others like Wu Hao in the future. We can't allow something like this to happen again."

Yi Wei bowed her head. She knew she wasn't supposed to, but there was a question that she had, that she'd been wondering about all morning.

"Ask," Lady Jin said, seeing her struggle.

"Others, lady Jin?"

"I have reason to believe," Lady Jin said quietly, "that this Wu Hao might have been a spy sent by one of the other wives, in an attempt to get close to my son."

Yi Wei's mind reeled. She hadn't considered it before, but it was obvious. It made everything about Wu Hao make sense when it really hadn't made sense before. The fact that he'd learned a Sky-grade technique from somewhere, his arrogance. He must have been a prodigy from some other branch, sent to sneak over and worm his way into their midst.

That little rat bastard, Yi Wei thought furiously. She couldn't believe he'd actually managed to trick her into believing he was as stupid as he looked.

"Don't look so sour," Lady Jin said, almost offhandedly. "This is a good thing, don't you see?"

"I don't understand," Yi Wei managed in response.

"Doing something like this means they consider my son a serious contender after all," Lady Jin stated. "What more could a mother want for her child?"

"I - yes, milady," Yi Wei sputtered. It was true - she hadn't fully considered all the implications yet. She bowed her head again.

"Stick close to my son in the future," Lady Jin told her. "He'll need someone by his side. You will be that someone, regardless of who else intervenes. Remember your vows, child, and remember what is on the line if you fail."

Yi Wei bowed so low her forehead touched the floor.

"Yes, commander!" she stated.

"Good," Lady Jin said. "You're dismissed, then. Start packing."

"Pack for what, commander?" Yi Wei asked.

Lady Jin cracked open the war fan fully, revealing the golden dragons that had been inscribed across the fan's side.

"I believe it's time we return to the main branch," she said. "We've spent more than enough time in this branch, and my son needs to start preparing for the trials of the ancestral grounds."

"The ancestral grounds?" Yi Wei asked, her head snapping up. That meant the Hall of Blades, at the very least. "Are you sure he's ready, Lady Jin?"

"He will have to be," Lady Jin said calmly. "Understand this, child. If this entire diversion accomplished anything, it was to show me that my son does have a glimmer of hope, after all. If so, then it is my duty as a mother to ensure that he takes every single possible step to becoming the clan heir he was always meant to be."

Her golden eyes focused on Yi Wei's, pinning her to the floor.

"Whether he wants to or not."