Chapter 990 — The Prince at the Gate

CHAPTER 990

The Prince at the Gate

“Harder!” Long Zhenlei shouted from the top of the wall. “You’re cutting like you’re afraid of breaking the air!”

The back courtyard of the Shuoyang tower was white with frost at dawn. Shi Feng stood in the middle of it with the grey Sword, running the Sunset-Splitting forms slowly, one cut at a time. His breath steamed. So did the Fifth Prince’s.

Long Zhenlei sat on the wall with his legs hanging down and his elbows on his knees. He was eighteen, broad in the shoulders, with a boy’s face and a strip of iron-grey cloth tying back his hair. Every time he got excited, small blue sparks ran across his knuckles and snapped in the cold.

He had come every morning for four days. Nobody had invited him.

“Why does the blade go red?” Long Zhenlei asked. “Is that fire, or is that the art?”

“Both,” Shi Feng said, finishing the cut.

“Which came first?” Long Zhenlei asked.

“The fire,” Shi Feng said. “I worked it into the sword art afterwards. The blade carries both together now.”

“Ha!” Long Zhenlei slapped the wall. “And why do you step on the frost and not the bare stones? I’ve been watching. You never touch the bare stones.”

“The frost slides under my foot,” Shi Feng said, and stepped again. “Riverless Step needs something that moves. Stone doesn’t.”

“Can you do it on thunder?” Long Zhenlei asked eagerly.

“I’ve never tried,” Shi Feng said.

“Try it on mine!” Long Zhenlei said.

“In six days,” Shi Feng said. “It’s in the terms.”

Long Zhenlei groaned and fell flat on his back on top of the wall.

He never asked about the inquiry. He never asked about Linghu Yan, the canal, the leave papers or his sister. Shi Feng had waited three mornings for the question, and it hadn’t come. The Fifth Prince wanted to know how a man moved, and nothing else in the world seemed to interest him.

Xie Yuejian stood under the wall behind him.

She was tall, in a plain white robe edged with blue, with a long sword on her back in an undecorated sheath. Her hands rested one on the other at her waist. In four mornings, she’d said perhaps twenty words, and every one of them had been about footwork.

“Your left foot lands late,” Xie Yuejian said.

Shi Feng stopped.

“When you fold space, you wait for it to open before you put your weight down,” Xie Yuejian said. “It’s half a breath. Against most people it doesn’t matter.”

“I started doing it while learning the fold,” Shi Feng said. “I was checking that it held. I don’t need to wait that long now.”

“Lose it before the lake,” Xie Yuejian said.

Long Zhenlei sat up on the wall.

“Yuejian!” Long Zhenlei protested. “You’re helping him!”

“I’m helping you,” Xie Yuejian said coldly. “A fight against a man with a late foot is a waste of a lake.”

Long Zhenlei thought about it, then nodded seriously, as if this were entirely fair.

Shi Feng deliberately shortened the timing. His half-open fold shut too early, and he caught his balance on his right foot. He wasn’t using his usual step; he was testing how soon it could take his weight. He adjusted it and tried again. The prince cheered both attempts.

Before he’d finished the second set, Deacon Lei Zhenhai came in through the courtyard gate.

The Thunder Abyss deacon wore the same Thunder Abyss grey as in Tianjing, but he walked differently in it now. He bowed to the prince, very low. Then he turned and bowed to Shi Feng, even lower.

“Master Shi,” Lei Zhenhai said, straightening slowly. “A fine morning. This deacon hopes the north agrees with you.”

“It’s cold,” Shi Feng said.

“Yes,” Lei Zhenhai said. “Yes, very cold.” He rubbed his hands together. “It reminds this deacon of that winter in Tianjing. The lane. Our first meeting. A memorable morning.”

“I remember it,” Shi Feng said, and wiped the grey Sword. “You left without your chain.”

Lei Zhenhai’s smile stayed on his face, but nothing else in it moved.

“The Valley has… since recovered the link,” Lei Zhenhai said.

“Did you queue for it?” Shi Feng asked.

“…” Lei Zhenhai’s mouth opened, and nothing came out of it.

Long Zhenlei nearly fell off the wall laughing.

“Uncle Lei!” Long Zhenlei shouted. “You tried to carry him off? You tried to carry off a 6 Mark in the middle of the capital?”

“He was a 4 Mark at the time, Your Highness,” Lei Zhenhai said stiffly.

“That’s worse!” Long Zhenlei said, delighted.

Lei Zhenhai remembered urgent business with the carriage and left.

Yan Lianbi came out of the tower an hour later with a sheet of paper and the expression of someone who’d been asked to count something unpleasant.

“Seven betting houses in Shuoyang have opened books on the bout,” Yan Lianbi said, holding out the sheet. “Six of them give His Highness three to one. The seventh refuses to take a bet against a royal.”

“Three to one isn’t bad,” Shi Feng said. “What does Pavilion rule say about a guest elder betting on himself?”

“It forbids it,” Yan Lianbi said.

“Then I’ll keep my money,” Shi Feng said.

“You should bet on me!” Long Zhenlei called down from the wall. “When two meet on a narrow road, the brave one wins!”

Nobody answered that. Xie Yuejian looked at the sky.

The prince left at noon, shouting that he’d be back at dawn. Shi Feng worked his left foot until dark. By the last set it came down without waiting, and the fold under it held.

At dawn the next morning, someone knocked on the courtyard gate.

It wasn’t the prince. The prince never knocked.

Pang Yue stood in the frost in his Lantern Guard coat, with his helmet under his arm. His face was grey.

“The witness is dead,” Pang Yue said.