We come to a stop in a secluded grove. The temple before us is small and unassuming, with a shingled roof and faded crimson paint peeling in long strips from its walls. Its stone base is shaggy with moss. Overhead, a great banyan tree towers, casting everything in murky green light.
“I’ll wait for you here, Mistresses,” Chiho says as we leave the carriage.
I shoot Wren a curious glance. She must have known chaperones wouldn’t come into the temple with us.
The two of us make our way inside in silence. Immediately, the lingering smoke of incense tickles my throat. Something about temples always makes me feel as though I can’t make any noise, but even if I wanted to, I sense Wren’s energy, tense and coiled, and it keeps me quiet, too. We pass through a prayer room with gold idols set atop a shrine, both earth and sky gods staring down at us with in an array of smiles and grimaces. I rub my hands over my arms. I could swear their eyes were tracking us.
Unlike the other temples, this one is deserted. Our footsteps fall loudly in the quiet as we come to a courtyard at its center. The roof must have caved in long ago, dust motes dancing in the light slanting in between the hanging roots of the banyan. A shiver trickles down my back. I’m half expecting ghosts to peer out from lonely corners any second.
Wren leads me through more prayer rooms to an archway at the back of the temple. Just as we duck through, she slips her hand in mine. Pleasure bubbles through me—whipped aside the next instant by what we find beyond the arch, which is so unexpected and beautiful that it takes my breath away.
We’re in a small, walled garden. The stone of the wall is crumbling, green with moss and winding vines, the paving beneath our feet cracked by weeds. This place seems even more forgotten than the rest of the temple, forlorn and lusterless.
Except for the tree.
In the middle of the courtyard is a tree unlike any I’ve seen before. Though its trunk is like that of a normal maple, with old, grooved bark of deep brown wrapped around knotted branches, the leaves that adorn it are paper. Enchanted paper. Despite the still air, the leaves flutter and rustle as if caught in a wind, humming with the golden light of magic, each one with something written across it.
I move closer and reach up for one. The leaf thrums gently under my fingers. A whir of air blows from the branches, ruffling my hair and clothes as I read the characters painted on it in delicate brushstrokes. “Minato.” I glance at a few of the others. “Rose. Thira. Shun-li.” I look over my shoulder at Wren. “They’re girls’ names.”
She nods. Wordlessly, she leads me round the back of the tree. She stands on her tiptoes and draws down one of the branches, showing me a leaf near its tip, so small it looks like a teardrop.
“Leore,” I read. My eyes flick up. “Who is she?”
“She was,” Wren replies, “my sister.”
There’s a pulse of silence. The walls of the courtyard seem to take a step inward, and something inside me goes very still.
“I thought you were an only child.”
“I am,” Wren replies, “and… I am not. The Hannos aren’t my real family.”
My stomach gives a jolt. “Then who are?”
“The Xia,” she answers simply.
Simply, as though she hadn’t just spoken the name of the most infamous warrior clan in all of Ikhara.
A clan that was wiped out years ago.
“I was adopted by the Hannos when I was just a year old,” Wren starts. “Before that, I lived with what was left of the Xia in the eastern mountains of Rain.”
We’re sitting under the boughs of the paper-leaf tree. The air is golden and warm from the glow of its magic, and it feels safe here with Wren, as if the tree’s branches could protect us from the rest of the world. Our fingers are twined together. While she tells me her story, Wren’s thumb skates across my palm, drawing hidden words upon my skin.
“I’m guessing you already know,” she starts, “that the Xia were once the most prominent warrior clan in Ikhara. It’s the unique form of martial arts they practiced, mixing physical movements with qi manipulation, that made them so famous. The Xia were warriors and shamans, both of the mortal world and the spiritual. Their skills were so legendary that many of the clan leaders sought to build relationships with them, enlist them to their causes. But the Xia lived by the strictest moral code. They only offered aid to those who they truly believed were deserving.”
I nod. Tien told me stories of the Xia, how powerfully they shaped Ikharan history. “I wasn’t sure whether to believe her,” I say. “I thought the Xia might just be some legend she made up to frighten me.”
“To a lot of people, that’s all they are,” Wren agrees. “A legend. Something talked about in whispers and rumor. Before, they could move freely without fear of persecution.” Her voice cools. “But the Night War changed everything. Before the war, the Bull King of Han—the original Demon King—reached out to the Xia to aid him in his quest to conquer the kingdom. He’d always been a great admirer of their skill, though much of it was darkened by jealousy. He didn’t just want them to help him. He wanted their abilities for himself. He’d already hired shamans to train him in using magic as a weapon, trying to mimic their fighting style. But the Xia trained their children starting from a young age. They made them understand how to call magic forth and use it in a way that respects the power of nature. They never asked for more than they could give. Unlike them, the Bull King was impatient. He tore at the earth’s qi rather than nurture it. Tried to bully it to his will.
“Unable to master magic himself, the Bull King requested a meeting with the Xia to persuade them to join his army. They’d already heard of his violent way of rule, but out of respect, two of their warriors met with him. They listened to the King’s plans but eventually declined to help. They knew better than to put their power into the hands of a ruler like him. But the King wouldn’t accept it. Furious at their refusal, he captured the two warriors and took them prisoner, torturing them for information about their clan.”
“Couldn’t the Xia have fought him off?” I say. “They were the strongest warriors in all Ikhara.”
Wren’s lips are tight. “The King planned for that. He knew that a few guards were no match for the Xia, so before the meeting he readied a small army of both shamans and sword-masters. He used their combined strength to overpower the two warriors.”
She falls silent, and I sense her anger. Her fingers grip mine a little tighter, her pulse racing against my own.
“Nobody had attempted to capture the Xia before,” she goes on. “Just as with duels between clan lords, there was an unwritten code. An understanding that whatever the outcome, if it was fought fairly—either with words or swords—it should be honored. The Xia’s decisions were to be respected. So to attack them outside of battle, to capture and torture them for information they would not freely give…” She rakes in a sharp inhale. “It was dishonorable. Something the gods would surely punish.” A muscle tics in her neck. “But it seems the heavenly rulers had decided to stay out of mortal affairs. Week after week, month after month, the Bull King’s armies tore through Ikhara, killing clan leaders and breaking apart alliances.”