Why was she still talking? Why was she still here?
The corner of Altan’s mouth quirked up in a terribly attractive grin, which set her heart beating erratically. “What a rebel.”
She flushed, but Altan just turned away and completed the form.
“Don’t let me stop you from training,” he said.
“No, I—I came here to think. But if you’re here—”
“I’m sorry. I can leave.”
“No, it’s okay.” She didn’t know what she was saying. “I was going to—I mean, I’ll just . . . bye.”
She quickly backed out of the garden. Altan didn’t say anything else.
Once she had closed the garden gates behind her, Rin buried her face in her hands and groaned.
“Is there ever a place for meekness in battle?” Irjah asked. This was the seventh question he had posed to her.
Rin was on a streak. Seven was the maximum number of questions any master could ask, and if she nailed this one, she would ace Irjah’s exam. And she knew the answer—it was lifted directly from Sunzi’s Twenty-Second Mandate.
She lifted her chin and responded in a loud, clear voice. “Yes, but only for the purposes of deception. Sunzi writes that if your opponent is of choleric temper, you should seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak so that he grows arrogant. The good tactician plays with his enemy like a cat plays with a mouse. Feign weakness and immobility, and then pounce on him.”
The seven masters each marked small notes into their scrolls. Rin bounced slightly on her heels, waiting for them to continue.
“Good. No further questions.” Irjah nodded and gestured at his colleagues. “Master Yim?”
Yim pushed his chair back and rose slowly. He consulted his scroll for a moment, and then gazed at Rin over the top of his spectacles. “Why did we win the Second Poppy War?”
Rin sucked in a breath. She had not prepared for this question. It was so basic she’d thought she didn’t need to. Yim had asked it on the first day of class, and the answer was a logical fallacy. There was no “why,” because Nikan hadn’t won the Second Poppy War. The Republic of Hesperia had, and Nikan had simply ridden the foreigners’ coattails to a victory treaty.
She considered answering the question directly, but then thought she might try a more original response. She had only one shot at an answer. She wanted to impress the masters.
“Because we gave up Speer,” she said.
Irjah jerked his head up from his scroll.
Yim raised an eyebrow. “Do you mean because we lost Speer?”
“No. I mean it was a strategic decision to sacrifice the island so that the Hesperian parliament might decide to intervene. I think the command in Sinegard knew the attack was going to happen and didn’t warn the Speerlies.”
“I was at Speer,” Jun interrupted. “This is amusing historiography at best, slander at worst.”
“No, you weren’t,” Rin said before she could stop herself.
Jun looked amazed. “Excuse me?”
All seven masters were watching her intently now. Rin remembered too late that Irjah had disliked this theory. And that Jun hated her.
But it was too late to stop. She weighed the costs in her head. The masters rewarded bravery and creativity. If she backed off, it would be a sign of uncertainty. She had begun digging this hole for herself. She might as well finish.
She took a deep breath. “You can’t have been at Speer. I read the reports. None of the regular Militia were there the night the island was attacked. The first troops didn’t arrive until sunrise, after the Federation had left. After the Speerlies had all been killed.”
Jun’s face darkened to the color of an overripe plum. “You dare accuse—”
“She’s not accusing anyone of anything,” Jiang interrupted serenely. It was the first time he’d spoken since the start of her exam. Rin glanced at him in surprise, but Jiang just scratched his ear, not even looking at her. “She’s merely attempting a clever answer to an otherwise inane question. Honestly, Yim, this one has gotten pretty old.”
Yim shrugged. “Fair enough. No further questions. Master Jiang?”
All the masters twitched in irritation. From what Rin understood, Jiang was present only as a formality. He never gave an exam; he mostly just made fun of the students when they tripped over their answers.
Jiang gazed levelly into Rin’s eyes.
She swallowed, feeling the unsettling sensation of his searching gaze. It was like she was as transparent as a puddle of rainwater.
“Who is imprisoned in the Chuluu Korikh?” he asked.
She blinked. Not once in the four months that he had trained her had Jiang ever mentioned the Chuluu Korikh. Neither had Master Yim or Irjah, or even Jima. Chuluu Korikh wasn’t medical terminology, wasn’t a reference to a famous battle, wasn’t some linguistic term of art. It could be a deeply loaded phrase. It could also be gibberish.
Either Jiang was posing a riddle, or he just wanted to throw her off.
But she didn’t want to admit defeat. She didn’t want to look clueless in front of Irjah. Jiang had asked her a question, and Jiang never asked questions during the Trials. The masters were expecting an interesting answer now; she couldn’t disappoint them.
What was the cleverest way to say I don’t know?
The Chuluu Korikh. She’d studied Old Nikara with Jima for long enough now that she could gloss this as stone mountain in the ancient dialect, but that didn’t give her any clues. None of Nikan’s major prisons were built under mountains; they were either out in the Baghra Desert or in the dungeons of the Empress’s palace.
And Jiang hadn’t asked what the Chuluu Korikh was. He’d asked who was imprisoned there.
What kind of prisoner couldn’t be held in the Baghra Desert?
She pondered this until she had an unsatisfying answer to an unsatisfying question.
“Unnatural criminals,” she said slowly, “who have committed unnatural crimes?”
Jun snorted audibly. Jima and Yim looked uncomfortable.
Jiang gave a minuscule shrug.
“Fine,” he said. “That’s all I have.”
Oral exams concluded by midmorning on the third day. The pupils were sent to lunch, which no one ate, and then herded to the rings for the commencement of the Tournament.
Rin drew Han for her first opponent.
When it was her turn to fight she climbed down the rope ladder and looked up. The masters stood in a row before the rails. Irjah gave her a slight nod, a tiny gesture that filled her with determination. Jun folded his arms over his chest. Jiang picked at his fingernails.
Rin had not fought any of her classmates since her expulsion from Combat. She had not even watched them fight. The only person she had ever sparred against was Jiang, and she had no clue if he was a good approximation of how her classmates might fight.
She was entering this Tournament blind.
She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath, willing herself to at least appear calm.
Han, on the other hand, looked very disconcerted. His eyes darted across her body and then back up to her face as if she were some wild animal he had never seen before, as if he didn’t know quite what to make of her.
He’s scared, she realized.
He must have heard the rumors that she had studied with Jiang. He didn’t know what to believe about her. Didn’t know what to expect.
What was more, Rin was the underdog in this match. No one expected her to fight well. But Han had trained with Jun all year. Han was a Sinegardian. Han had to win, or he wouldn’t be able to face his peers after.
Sunzi wrote that one must always identify and exploit the enemy’s weaknesses. Han’s weakness was psychological. The stakes were much, much higher for him, and that made him insecure. That made him beatable.
“What, you’ve never seen a girl before?” Rin asked.
Han blushed furiously.
Good. She made him nervous. She grinned widely, baring teeth. “Lucky you,” she said. “You get to be my first.”
“You don’t have a chance,” Han blustered. “You don’t know any martial arts.”