She knew their names, of course—the White Tiger, the Black Tortoise, the Azure Dragon, and the Vermilion Bird. And she knew that they represented the four cardinal directions, but they formed only a small subset of the vast pantheon of deities that were worshipped in Nikan. This temple also bore shrines to smaller guardian gods, whose likenesses hung on scrolls draped over the walls.
So many gods. Which was the god of test scores? Which was the god of unmarried shopgirls who wished to stay that way?
She decided to simply pray to all of them.
“If you exist, if you’re up there, help me. Give me a way out of this shithole. Or if you can’t do that, give the import inspector a heart attack.”
She looked around the empty temple. What came next? She had always imagined that praying involved more than just speaking out loud. She spied several unused incense sticks lying by the altar. She lit the end of one of them by dipping it in the brazier, and then waved it experimentally in the air.
Was she supposed to hold the smoke to the gods? Or should she smoke the stick herself? She had just held the burned end to her nose when a temple custodian strode out from behind the altar.
They blinked at each other.
Slowly Rin removed the incense stick from her nostril.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m praying.”
“Please leave,” he said.
Exam results were to be posted at noon outside the examination hall.
Rin closed up shop early and went downtown with Tutor Feyrik half an hour in advance. A large crowd had already gathered around the post, so they found a shady corner a hundred meters away and waited.
So many people had accumulated by the hall that Rin couldn’t see when the scrolls were posted, but she knew because suddenly everyone was shouting, and the crowd was rushing forward, pressing Rin and Tutor Feyrik tightly into the fold.
Her heart beat so fast she could hardly breathe. She couldn’t see anything except the backs of the people before her. She thought she might vomit.
When they finally got to the front, it took Rin a long time to find her name. She scanned the lower half of the scroll, hardly daring to breathe. Surely she hadn’t scored well enough to make the top ten.
She didn’t see Fang Runin anywhere.
Only when she looked at Tutor Feyrik and saw that he was crying did she realize what had happened.
Her name was at the very top of the scroll. She hadn’t placed in the top ten. She’d placed at the top of the entire village. The entire province.
She had bribed a teacher. She had stolen opium. She had burned herself, lied to her foster parents, abandoned her responsibilities at the store, and broken a marriage deal.
And she was going to Sinegard.
Chapter 2
The last time Tikany had sent a student to Sinegard, the town magistrate threw a festival that lasted three days. Servants had passed baskets of red bean cakes and jugs of rice wine out in the streets. The scholar, the magistrate’s nephew, had set off for the capital to the cheers of intoxicated peasants.
This year, Tikany’s nobility felt reasonably embarrassed that an orphan shopgirl had snagged the only spot at Sinegard. Several anonymous inquiries were sent to the testing center. When Rin showed up at the town hall to enroll, she was detained for an hour while the proctors tried to extract a cheating confession from her.
“You’re right,” she said. “I got the answers from the exam administrator. I seduced him with my nubile young body. You caught me.”
The proctors didn’t believe a girl with no formal schooling could have passed the Keju.
She showed them her burn scars.
“I have nothing to tell you,” she said, “because I didn’t cheat. And you have no proof that I did. I studied for this exam. I mutilated myself. I read until my eyes burned. You can’t scare me into a confession, because I’m telling the truth.”
“Consider the consequences,” snapped the female proctor. “Do you understand how serious this is? We can void your score and have you jailed for what you’ve done. You’ll be dead before you’re done paying off your fines. But if you confess now, we can make this go away.”
“No, you consider the consequences,” Rin snapped. “If you decide my score is void, that means this simple shopgirl was clever enough to bypass your famous anticheating protocols. And that means you’re shit at your job. And I bet the magistrate will be just thrilled to let you take the blame for whatever cheating did or didn’t happen.”
A week later she was cleared of all charges. Officially, Tikany’s magistrate announced that the scores had been a “mistake.” He did not label Rin a cheater, but neither did he validate her score. The proctors asked Rin to keep her departure under wraps, threatening clumsily to detain her in Tikany if she did not comply.
Rin knew that was a bluff. Acceptance to Sinegard Academy was the equivalent of an imperial summons, and obstruction of any kind—even by provincial authorities—was tantamount to treason. That was why the Fangs, too, could not prevent her from leaving—no matter how badly they wanted to force her marriage.
Rin didn’t need validation from Tikany; not from its magistrate, not from the nobles. She was leaving, she had a way out, and that was all that mattered.
Forms were filled out, letters were mailed. Rin was registered to matriculate at Sinegard on the first of the next month.
Farewell to the Fangs was an understandably understated affair. No one felt like pretending they were especially sad to be rid of the other.
Only Rin’s foster brother, Kesegi, displayed any real disappointment.
“Don’t go,” he whined, clinging to her traveling cloak.
Rin knelt down and squeezed Kesegi hard.
“I would have left you anyway,” she said. “If not for Sinegard, then to a husband’s house.”
Kesegi wouldn’t let go. He spoke in a pathetic mumble. “Don’t leave me with her.”
Rin’s stomach clenched. “You’ll be all right,” she murmured in Kesegi’s ear. “You’re a boy. And you’re her son.”
“But it’s not fair.”
“It’s life, Kesegi.”
Kesegi began to whimper, but Rin extracted herself from his viselike embrace and stood up. He tried to cling to her waist, but she pushed him away with more force than she had intended. Kesegi stumbled backward, stunned, and then opened his mouth to wail loudly.
Rin turned away from his tear-stricken face and pretended to be preoccupied with fastening the straps of her travel bag.
“Oh, shut your mouth.” Auntie Fang grabbed Kesegi by the ear and pinched hard until his crying ceased. She glowered at Rin, standing in the doorway in her simple traveling clothes. In the late summer Rin wore a light cotton tunic and twice-mended sandals. She carried her only other set of clothing in a patched-up satchel slung over her shoulder. In that satchel Rin had also packed the Mengzi tome, a set of writing brushes that were a gift from Tutor Feyrik, and a small money pouch. That satchel held all of her possessions in the world.
Auntie Fang’s lip curled. “Sinegard will eat you alive.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Rin said.
To Rin’s great relief, the magistrate’s office supplied her with two tael as transportation fare—the magistrate had been compelled by Rin’s imperial summons to cover her travel costs. With a tael and a half, Rin and Tutor Feyrik managed to buy two places on a caravan wagon traveling north to the capital.
“In the days of the Red Emperor, an unaccompanied bride carrying her dowry could travel from the southernmost tip of Rooster Province to the northernmost peaks of the Wudang Mountains.” Tutor Feyrik couldn’t help lecturing as they boarded the wagon. “These days, a lone soldier wouldn’t make it two miles.”
The Red Emperor’s guards hadn’t patrolled the mountains of Nikan in a long time. To travel alone over the Empire’s vast roads was a good way to get robbed, murdered, or eaten. Sometimes all three—and sometimes not in that order.
“Your fare is going toward more than a seat on the wagon,” the caravan leader said as he pocketed their coins. “It’s paying for your bodyguards. Our men are the best in their business. If we run into the Opera, we’ll scare them right off.”