“Fei—” Xiao stepped back into Fei as Li advanced. He held Boon aloft before him glinting mercury warnings in the light. “Fei—do it back, do it fucking back—!”

“Okay okay!!” Fei stammered, focusing hard on his brother.

He closed the space between himself and Quan in his mind, adorned himself in his posture, his predator stance—wore his blonde hair and his cruel smirk. He placed Quan’s gold coin eyes over his own basalt stare, wrapped himself in the warmth of Yila’s cheering, the gut tingle of his sister’s all consuming love, a father’s pride, a cloudy desire for a not-father’s approval.

“Li,” Fei demanded with Quan’s voice in his mouth, his eyes that glinted like money. “You remember the agreement and you are yourself. You only want to hurt Feng Quan for being a fucking dick!!”

Caught in the ricochet of return suggestion, Li was only beginning to reclaim his mind’s clarity before being pushed out of the way and thrown on the ground by the attacker behind him. That blond boy dispatched the man between him and the other pair; his puppet’s vulnerability was easily played in a strategically placed blow that left the older Ren down. Just as Li began to look at his brother like he knew the young thing, knew their trials, their lives fully lived in the acute scrutiny of his narrowed gaze, he was gone.

The Tian Prince was the only thing standing between Quan and the artifact, and the arena was no place for any ceremony but the fight.

Quan rushed forward, long hair streaming in silken waves behind him, sword raised to strike Xiaoxu with the bullheaded aggression that dressed his every movement—both on the battlefield and off.

“Li!” Fei shouted hoarsely, black pearl artifact hovering a few inches over the youth’s rage clenched hands.

The Crown Prince knew: in order to make sure Li was okay, he had to reduce Quan to an albino smear in the red dirt.

Tian Xiaoxu was an obsessive learner, well-read by way of parental expectation, boredom, and access; in every volume on war and strategy, anger and wrath was always contrasted with discipline and calm.

If they are quick-tempered, insult them.

If they are angry, disturb them.

Quick to parry, the black-haired youth stayed where he was, neither pressing forward nor falling back, metal edges singing like bells as they traded lightning strokes. Xiao was careful to maintain his face—made sure to look bored and unaffected by Quan’s challenge even if keeping him at bay required all the skill the Prince had.

The Feng’s eldest son, in contrast, was a clash of emotion, a wellspring of fury and desire flowing from his desperate need to prevail over the reigning clan’s infuriating heir, to prove himself the better fighter and secure more treasure and status for his wealthy family’s coffers. He came at Xiao again and again, blow followed by another, doubled back then repeated harder and faster—relentless, determined.

His teacher, Ban, had warned him in training sessions time and time again to not lose himself to his feelings, but the lessons only ever took in brief spurts: the Fengs were a family full of spirit, always susceptible to the whims of their vacillating mental states.

Quan went high and when that blow was deflected, that inexhaustible man attacked in a flash from the side.

Deflecting the sidelong blow, Xiaoxu strafed right with his head held regal and high, graceful and slow in his circling of Quan’s frustration, baiting the pale Phoenix until he grew tired, until he burned all the way out.

“Why’d you flip, Quan?” the royal asked, measured and targeted. “Will your dads be upset if you don’t bring home a new toy?”

Most of all, that blond bred of new money and purchased class hated when the noble presented himself like he was better than all of the Fengs’ hard work because of birthright. To deep amber eyes full of jealousy, the angle of the prince’s chin was so insulting.

“I wouldn’t call it a flip,” Quan replied amid the singing metal of his strikes. “I did my part and helped best the artifact’s keeper. I’ve just decided to take it upon myself to move the deciding process along—and I much prefer a hostile takeover.”

Fingers wrapped tight around the grip of his sword, Quan spun around again. A long leg followed him this time, extended sweep graceful in his red and gold blur.

Xiao, by contrast, was all cloudy swirls of white and silver, muted blue and inky black. He fell back out of range but stopped just short of where Fei was occupied with the pearl.

“Fucking attack him! Li needs a medic, Xiao,” the slender water-mirror boy snapped when his older teammate was close, impatient and worried for his brother.

“Wait for it,” the Prince replied under his breath, eyes still trained on Quan. “Just keep holding—”

He could feel it in the blond’s wild stare, how his swing wobbled at the tail of the arc—this was no longer controlled, no longer a test of technical prowess. All Xiao had to do was find the nerve that would unhinge him entirely, find the thread that would leave Quan unravelled and gutted on the arena floor.

“Oh, Feng Quan—” Xiao grinned with his sword raised, pointed straight and true toward his aggressor. “You know, I heard my dad discussing a marriage proposal to Feng clan. Since we’re such good friends, you can trust I’ll take very good care of Yila. Everyone knows you love her so much.”

That, it seemed, was the sore spot he’d been looking for.

“Get her name out of your mouth,” Quan growled in the key of simmering rage, like that young heir to the throne would never be fit to have a taste of that pretty girl hanging over the upper box balcony for him and him alone. He didn’t wait for any snappy comebacks, no further threat of taking the Feng daughter forever behind the walls of the Tian family compound. Quan thrust forward with intent to remove the younger boy’s tongue himself so he’d never be able to speak of Yila again. The blond boy was being careless and egotistical—he had complete faith in himself. Maybe that was the problem: a child raised with everything he wanted would always want more. Feng Quan was a sponge; nothing ever just rolled off his back.

He thought he was better than common sense. He left himself wide open.

Finally, Xiao could strike;

finally, Quan was open;

finally, this could end.

Tian Xiaoxu darted forward, dodging Quan’s overzealous thrust, and caught the other man fast, arm wrapped under the blonde’s sword-bearing shoulder, palm flat against his back. They were close like lovers in that moment yawning adrenaline long between their scant distance—and why wouldn’t they be? Chest to chest and breathing in tandem, Boon’s hilt kissed his enemy’s stomach, blade bathed in Feng Quan’s hateful blood spilling hot and quick from his body.

Without delay, Fei was at their collective side, wrenching the blonde’s sword from his grasp to prevent retaliation. From the stunned crowd’s quiet, there erupted one long, keening shriek: Yila’s howl of anguish watching her brother bleed out onto the arena floor.

The Feng patriarch’s husband jumped up to catch the girl and reel her back in, wrapping her torment up in his arms and pulling her away from the sight of her brother so incapacitated. He scooped the girl up in full when space permitted, unwilling to chance any further delay or display.

“He’ll be fine, Yila. Stop being so dramatic,” her father said as he stood from his seat and turned to leave after the pair, rolling eyes replayed in the sneer of his tone, his frustration heavy from a battle lost.

Back in the center of the arena, Quan’s grasp relented beneath Fei’s manipulations and his keep over the transient blade faded. The sword broke apart into a spray of glitter, fineform crystals sparkling away into the air. He was a whimper in the wake of his snarling: a weak thing after all upon being forced to see the fragility of his life.

His arms moved to his silks and skin soaked a darker color than the bright vermillion of his dress. Quan closed his eyes, unwilling to look up at the nobility that triumphed over him.

Even as the crowd began to cheer the victory, even as Ren Fei held the black pearl high, aglow and spinning above his fingers, Xiao followed Quan to the ground, laying him gently in the dirt. His own sword had dissipated in a glass dust spray that left only a wound tract behind. The prince pressed his hand against the wound, willing the blood to reverse course, to remain in his veins until the medic arrived.

“It’s not too bad,” Xiaoxu promised his sometimes-friend, a rueful half smile gracing his elegant face. “I’m sorry it came to this. You know I would have let you have the pearl—but that’s never what these fights are about, are they?”

“It doesn’t matter. The crowd is thrilled.” The blond boy didn’t look even now, enveloped in the graciousness of the royal’s help. If he was the betting kind, he would have sworn his father put him up to this just to bet against him. “I appreciate your consideration in not causing me mortal harm. My Prince is kind, even in battle.”

It was often said that tough lessons were best learned the hard way. For Feng Quan, lessons were only learned when he felt like it and today he was feeling very stubborn.

• • •

Xueyu’s posture long ago relaxed into a casual slump, cheek propped atop his knuckles, tea no longer steaming. A crowd, too, gathered around, some silently as engrossed as the swordmaster, others murmuring to their neighbors in emphatic recounting of that same battle on the heels of the Prince’s story.

“Wow,” Xueyu’s eyes were alight, always happy to hear of his pupil’s wins. “It brings me great pride to know that my Prince is so skilled. Ah, what a great use of the tactics you’ve studied so thoroughly. You will truly be a great king when the day arrives.”

“A good fighter does not necessarily make a good king, and vice versa,” Xiaoxu responded with one finger up, dictating his father’s phrases in his father’s courtly tone. Now that the tale was over, the crowd began to disperse and the heir to the throne grinned, taking up his cold tea to have a sip. “I only hope Yuhui will be able to bring you the same sort of pride when he begins challenging in the arena, shifu.”

“Young Master Yuhui is full of promise,” Xueyu said, fully inhabiting those words he was deeply uncertain of. “I’m sure he will bring his clan and his teacher many moments of happiness.” The younger of the Tian boys was frequently distracted during their training sessions but the swordmaster only half blamed him—everything went wrong around the youth. Even for a man so practiced, Xueyu was often caught off guard by Yu’s probability askew.

“I must admit that it does surprise me to hear of Feng Quan’s lack of control.” The swordsman straightened his spine, chin inclining toward the sky. “His mentor is a formidable swordsman himself.”

“You can teach sword technique to a dragon for a thousand years but it will still decimate a village with flood when it loses its temper.” Xiaoxu was generally polite, but it was hard to mask the terseness behind his parable words. “He is very good—perfect form, strong, quick. You should see him fight, Gods, he really should have bested me.” Shaking his head, the royal boy stood, placing a few silver coins in the shopkeeper’s hand when he clasped it in his own—more than enough to pay for the pot of tea and the confections they hadn’t touched. “Honestly, if he didn’t have a sister, he would h—”

From a distance, a familiar boy’s yelping cry for help leapt up over the market and bounced over the rooftops. A commotion reverberated through Fanxing’s people—rumors of a fight, a did you see did you see game of word and mouth.

Xueyu was already on his feet headed toward the noise. When it faded, he followed the rumors of the crowd until another sound hit him: two men yowling, voices amplified by the alleyway in which they were wallowing. The swordmaster pushed through the horrified gathering of onlookers and released the grip of his weapon when he saw the reality of the scene. A pair of men were kneeling in their own blood, clutching bloody stumps where their right hands used to be.

He shoved the shoulder of a middle aged merchant next to him, insisting that a doctor be fetched. When he was on his way, Xueyu stepped forward to help stop up the wound of one of the men, removing a part of his belt to function as a temporary tourniquet. The man was hellbent on spouting curses for the shadowbrat boy who disfigured him between emphatic assurances that he had only been trying to be respectful to the middle child of the Tian clan.

Xueyu’s lips flattened into a hard line.