The Unknown Arts 4: Early Years (IV) (Patreon)

Ruyi knew in a vague way that Jin meant a lot to people. But he was always just Jin to her. They grew up together. It was hard to idolize someone when you’ve seen them wet themselves.

So she wasn’t prepared for the warzone she walked into.

A huddle of guards shepherded her to the arena, pressed so tight to either side it was like walking a corridor made of iron and flesh. Like they were trying to spare her the sight of the filthy public. Certainly she wasn’t spared their sounds or their stench.

The arena loomed ahead, a mountain of steel and stone amid the festering wood of the Lower City. They marched her up a maze of staircases to arrive at an upper landing. It was a lot sparser here, and the folk here had actually heard of bathing.

She pattered up to the glass window—the fourth wall of the room—and stared out over the arena and the crowds smushed around it.  She hadn’t known there were that many people living in Jade Dragon City. She hadn’t known it was possible to fit so many people in one spot.

Their heads were like so many tiny foaming bubbles in a slowly boiling press. A chant rose up—Jin! Jin! Jin!—it felt so wrong to hear his name on their lips. They didn’t know him. But as Jin came out his tunnel the arena exploded with noise. With adoration.

Now the guards made sense. Two rows of them were spaced before dueling platform in a distended circle. They kept back the crowd, which was like seeing a furious river crash against a dam. They wanted to touch him, to grab him, to lick him, to get close to him, to get a piece of him. They wanted him.

“Hero!” Some were crying. “Hero!” Mothers offered up their children, jumping so they could be seen over the heads of the guard wall. Elsewhere a horde of folk missing limbs were rushing the guards. This, for a boy who got nervous during thunderstorms.

There was a spark of blue qi—a section of the guard wall flexed. Someone nearly burst through. They were caught, thrown back, bowling over a dozen grasping hands.

It was mad. It was awful. It was filthy. And yet—

It was, in its ugly way, utterly beautiful.

She saw the way they looked at Jin as he ascended the dueling platform. Felt the spirit running through the crowd, electric.

She blinked, and suddenly it was her mounting those steps, her staring out at a crowd; they were so happy to see her; they wanted her; they would do anything for her; she was their hero, and they loved her for it.

She blinked, and she was here again. Behind a wall of guards, hidden away. Watching as Jin smiled and the crowd smiled back. He had done nothing, and they gave him everything. What would it be like to be loved like that? He wasn’t even happy to be there. She could tell. She’d seen his real smiles. He was nervous, he was scared, he didn’t know what he had! It should be her. She felt horrible thinking it, but it was true.

His opponent was a foot taller. Somehow he seemed much shorter. Even by the way he moved, the slight slouch to his frame, the tension in his shoulders, Ruyi could tell it was too much for him. He couldn’t win—it was Fate. He fought Jin Yang; he stood in the path of prophecy.

He drew a sword. Jin drew his spear.

It was over in a matter of breaths.

The Yang family fire was nearly pure white. Not like a common flame, thrown in wanton blasts, but controlled, like hot tongs. Each time Jin stabbed him a white spot appeared—a white spot that wouldn’t stop burning. Each of his opponent’s slashes Jin dodged with a dancer’s grace. The crowd cheered his every movement, cheered him on as he brought his enemy to a knee, and when he raised his fist in victory she was afraid they might bring the building down.

They were all swept up in a massive wave of feeling—even her.

So swept up it took several seconds to react when an explosion tore a hole in the wall of guards, and dark shapes rushed through.

Then, as quick as they were to joy, the crowd turned to panic.

The window before her shattered. She pressed a hand to her cheek; the fingers came away red.

Then panic gripped her upper room too.

She could only watch, frozen, blood trickling down her face, as the shapes rushed Jin’s platform. And then her head burst with white light.

She was on the floor. Why was she on the floor? Jin—someone was attacking Jin! She got to a knee, gasping, screamed as a hot spear of pain drove through her ankle. Then something caught her in the back, threw her over; her head smashed against a table, clattered off the ground. Something cracked. Whimpering, gasping, she dragged herself to a knee. She had to fight—had to—

There was no one there. The room was a mess, chairs and tables overturned, the floor carpeted with shattered glass, and everyone had gone; footsteps echoed down the stairs. It took her a breath to realize what’d happened.

No one was attacking her. The crowd, running past her, had nearly knocked her out. It was so pathetic it made her furious. She tried to stand, but rage couldn’t fix a broken ankle. Howling, forcing back sobs, she collapsed to a knee. Jin—where was Jin?

She dragged herself to the gaping jagged window.  There was Father, in the middle of the field, the point of his spear shining like the rising sun. At his feet, sprawled and motionless, lay blackened burnt-out husks. Jin stood behind him. Rattled, but unharmed.

She blacked out relieved.

***

It took her a full week in bed to recover. A full furious week, lying in bed, head pounding, replaying the scenes on the pale wood ceiling, stewing in her impotence. She had healing potions, sure, but they didn’t work as well on her. They worked by boosting the body’s natural healing properties. And without qi hers were scarcely better than a toddler’s.

She almost wished she could say she was neglected. She wanted someone to be angry with. But Jin came every day with fruits and games and stayed as long as she wished. With how he acted you’d think she was the one who was nearly assassinated.   Father never visited. Not once. He was too busy taking meetings deep into the night. It hurt, but she was also glad of it. She desperately wished he wouldn’t see her like this. She could hardly bear to see herself like this.

The moment she’d recovered enough to hobble, she threw herself back into brewing. Jin thought she’d been obsessive before. He hardly knew what to make of her now. Alchemy was her last thought before sleeping and her first thought upon waking. She spent so much time in the plane of her mind, seeing shapes and colors collide, that he’d often have to call her name thrice to jerk her back to reality.

After that, a rotation of guards were placed at every entrance to the mansion.

There was talk of who did it—hushed whispers of servants, gossip among the guards. The Demon Cult, who worshipped humanity’s sworn enemies from the other side of the Tianlong Mountains. Four Core-grade demons had come, and Father had cut them down in a flash. As befitting the Lion of the West, they said. Old and grizzled, but he still kept his fangs sharp.

She and Jin weren’t allowed into the Lower City for years to come.

***

When she was thirteen, Gao finally let her try for her Alchemist’s License. For years she’d asked. For years Gao had said two things—first, that she didn’t need the Guild’s approval. And second, that she wasn’t ready.

Then one day, Gao said, “Eh. Why not? Try not to embarrass me.”

***

Today was her day. Or so everyone kept telling her.

All night Princess Song had tossed and turned in her four-poster bed; she’d hardly gotten a handful of hours of sleep before she’d been roused by her grinning father, otherwise known as the Emperor. “Today’s your day!” had been the first thing he’d said, this great big grin on his face, so full of pride, and she felt horribly sick.

Expectations—they’d trailed her since birth, like a shadow she could never be rid of. It came with being born princess of the Dynasty. Everyone had an idea of what you were meant to be. And every time she met someone, saw their bewildered disappointment as they tried to match the unkempt, bushy, slightly chubby girl before them with the perfect princess of their childhood fairytales, she wished she could dive down some deep hole in the earth and never come out.

Her only reprieve as a child was alchemy. She dug her nose into those ancient tomes—they were oddly comforting, full of musty old-timey smells and wonderful weird facts. She’d loved those tomes. She’d even found this gold-and-silver pentacle stuck to one of the pages. She’d worn it as a necklace ever since; it was her lucky charm.

Then Father found out, and expectations were heaped on her happy place too.

When she first started playing with her Alchemist’s kit at the age of nine, she was a ‘prodigy.’ When her Mind Power was tested at an 8.2 at the meager age of 14, she was a ‘genius.’

Now on the carriage speeding toward the Alchemists’ Guild, she was meant to claim ‘youngest titled Alchemist ever,’ too. Her father told all who’d listen and several who wouldn’t listen, even after she’d asked him to please, please stop, since the Guild test really was no joke.

But he was the Emperor, after all. His whole life he’d assumed ‘no’ meant ‘yes,’ but more coyly.

Her thoughts felt like water slipping through her fingers.

She’d read and reread the pages of the Encyclopaedia Alchemica until the letters began to blur. It didn’t help that every few seconds her carriage would hit a snag, jarring her out of the text. Her head was starting to hurt something awful. She groaned, kneading her brow.

“Relax,” said her tutor, Grandmaster Yin. “Breathe.”

“I’m trying,” she gasped.

“And that is the issue.” Yin smiled, placid as a sleepy cow. “Try less.”

“….I think I’m gonna puke—”

“You are perfectly capable of passing this exam. My girl, I don’t mean to flatter you when I say you are perhaps the most talented young lady I’ve ever had the pleasure of tutoring—ah. Oh, dear. About the puke—I had assumed you were speaking metaphorically. Does anyone have a mop?”

At least it was just her and Yin and a few elite guards. Father had initially suggested a parade with her at the fore, but she promised she’d throw herself off a building if he went through with it.

“Ah! We’ve arrived,” said Yin. Song took a deep breath, rubbed her lucky charm, and jerked to her feet.

She didn’t remember taking the steps down from the carriage and walking the road up to the Guild. But she must’ve done, since she now stood in a bamboo-walled waiting room.

“Your test shall begin shortly,” said the old receptionist lady. Her voice seemed to drift over from very far away.

“Okay,” squeaked Song.

There was someone else in the waiting room, legs crossed, inspecting her fingernails.

This—this was the image everyone had in their minds when they thought of a fairytale princess. Her hair fell in dark curtains around a face soft and hard at once; soft in the cheeks, the curve of the face, but her eyes were cold and cutting. When they were trained on her Song felt the urge to look away, as though staring directly at the sun.

The girl said something that floated right over Song’s head.  “Huh?” said Song.

“You here for the Test as well?”

“Test?”

“For the Alchemist’s License.”

“Ah—ah! Yeah…”

“Sit.” The girl nodded to the seat beside her—the only other seat there. Song did, feeling even more self-conscious than usual, which was really saying something.

Then the rest of the girl’s words snapped back in her brain.

“Wait—you’re taking the Alchemist Test too?”

“Yeah,” said the girl casually. So casually it made Song feel quite silly for having three-and-a-half nervous breakdowns in the past week. “What of it?”

“Um—how old are you? I don’t mean to be rude—”

“Thirteen.”

“Thirteen…?”

Song was seventeen, and she was meant to be the greatest genius the Dynasty had seen in a generation. Either this girl was incredibly capable or incredibly delusional. She wasn’t sure which was more frightening.

“Aren’t you nervous?”

“No.”

“…Why not?”

The girl gave a lazy grin. “Because I know what I can do. If they fail me, it reflects more on their standards than on my abilities.”

Song almost fainted. Delusional! Definitely delusional.

“I wish I had your confidence,” she said, laughing nervously.

The girl blinked. “I seem confident to you?”

“…Well…”

“Delusional, more like.”

Song choked. Had she said that part aloud? “I didn’t mean—”

“It’s alright.” But the gorgeous girl simply blew a strand of hair out of her face and grinned a grin as captivating as it was mad. “You have to be a little delusional if you want to do anything worthwhile. Delusion just means I live by my reality, not theirs. To Hell with what they expect of me. I’ll make my own way. Who cares, right?”

“Yeah…” breathed Song. “Yeah!”

The door popped open. The old receptionist lady peered in. “Ruyi Yang?”

“That’s me.” The girl swept to her feet. Even the way she stood up was cool.

“Good luck!” Song called. Without looking back, the girl threw up a wave. “Thanks, but I don’t expect I’ll need it.”

She paused on the threshold, looked over her shoulder, and winked. “I like your necklace.”

She was gone.

“Huh? Oh...”

Princess Song stared at the door.

Ruyi Yang was her hero.

//

A/N: This is the most joy I’ve had writing in a long while