Chapter 17: The Boat

Three of them.

Boar Neck in front with the club. One behind me with a short iron bar. One on my left, skinny, holding a knife like he’d used it before.

All of them bigger than me. Or at least wider.

I did the math. Seo-rin would’ve been proud.

Three Third-raters, maybe one Second. Me, Third-rate on a good day, with four kinds of yin braided in my belly that I’d learned how to braid about an hour ago.

I could run. I’m good at running.

Except both ends of the alley were blocked.

"The Baek boy," Boar Neck said, tapping the club on his palm. "Elder Gu says hi. He says you like other men’s wives. He says you won’t be climbing any more walls."

"Can we talk about this?"

"No."

He swung.

And something weird happened.

I saw it coming.

Not like in a movie. Not slow motion. Just... I saw his shoulder drop before the club moved. The exact same way Instructor Cha’s shoulder dropped every single time before she put me on my back twenty times in a row.

My body moved before my brain did. Left foot back. Hips turned. The club whooshed past my ear so close I felt the wind.

Two seconds.

I lasted two seconds.

Then the guy behind me hit me in the ribs with the iron bar.

All the air came out of me. I went down on one knee in the fish guts. Something cracked. I really hoped it was the bar.

"Hold him," Boar Neck said. "Left leg first."

The skinny one grabbed my arm. I did the only thing I could think of. The dirtiest thing in the world.

I kicked him right between the legs.

He made a noise like a stepped-on goose and folded in half.

I got one foot under me. The braid in my belly was spinning so fast I felt sick. Boar Neck lifted the club over his head with both hands—

And a sword came out of the dark.

Curved. Fast. Singing.

It went right through the club. Not over it. Not around it. Through. The top half spun off and clattered against the warehouse wall, and Boar Neck was left holding a stick about as long as a chopstick.

He stared at it.

We all stared at it.

Ayla stepped out of the shadows.

Barefoot. White dress. Gold hair loose and wild. Sword held low and easy in one hand like it weighed nothing.

She wasn’t smiling.

"You," she said to Boar Neck. "You touch him."

"Lady, this isn’t your—"

She moved again. I didn’t see it. Nobody saw it. And then there was a thin red line across the back of Boar Neck’s hand, and his half-club was on the ground, and the tip of her sword was resting in the hollow of his throat.

"In my country," Ayla said, "we hang horse thieves. This is my horse."

The guy with the iron bar was already running. The skinny one was crawling.

Boar Neck looked at her. Looked at me. Looked at the sword.

"This isn’t over, Baek," he said.

"Is over tonight," said Ayla.

He backed away. Slowly. Then fast. Then he was gone.

Ayla flicked the blood off her sword. Slid it home. Turned around.

And slapped me across the face.

"OW—"

"STUPID." She grabbed my collar and hauled me up. "The bookkeeper tells me. Black Boar. Docks. And you walk past the docks? At NIGHT? ALONE?"

"The ferry was closed—"

"STUPID HORSE!"

And then she kissed me.

Hard. Desperate. Her hands all over my face, my neck, my ribs — I yelped — then she pulled back and looked at me with her eyes shining, and I realized she was shaking.

Not from the fight. From being scared.

For me.

"You came looking for me," I said.

"Of course I come looking for you." She shoved my chest. Then pulled me back in. "You are late for drinking. You are never late for drinking."

[Target: Ayla.]

[Desire — MAXIMUM.]

The window flashed. Bright. Like it was pulsing with her heartbeat.

The nearest place that wasn’t a fish-gut alley was a little fishing boat tied at the end of the dock. Somebody’s sampan. Flat bottom, woven roof, a pile of nets in the back. The river slapping gently against the sides.

Ayla dragged me into it and pushed me down on the nets.

"Ribs," she said, very serious, and pulled my robe open.

There was a huge purple bruise blooming along my left side. She hissed through her teeth when she saw it. Then she leaned down and kissed it. Softly. So softly it didn’t even hurt.

Then she kissed a little higher.

Then a little lower.

"Ayla—"

"Quiet. You almost die. Now I check every part still working."

The boat rocked under us. Every time she moved, it rocked. The moon was coming through the gaps in the woven roof in thin silver stripes, falling across her bare shoulders as she shrugged the white dress down to her waist.

She looked like something out of a painting. Gi-chul would’ve cried.

I reached for her. She caught my wrists.

Then — and I swear this had never happened to me in either life — she pulled the sash off her waist, wrapped it around both my wrists, and tied them to the boat’s wooden rib above my head.

Tight.

"No," she said, when I tested the knot. "Tonight you don’t pin anybody. Tonight I pin YOU."

"Is this a desert thing?"

"This is an angry-woman thing."

She climbed on top of me. The boat tipped hard to one side and water slapped up over the edge and splashed us both. She didn’t even flinch. Her gold hair was hanging down around my face like a curtain, her breath was hot, and her eyes were still a little wet.

"You scared me," she said quietly. "I don’t like being scared."

"I’m sorry."

"Show me sorry."

I couldn’t use my hands. So I showed her the only way I could.

She gasped.

The boat rocked.

She gasped again, louder, and grabbed the edge of the woven roof with one hand to steady herself, and the whole thing creaked like it was about to come apart, and somewhere out on the dark river a night heron squawked in protest.

The braid in my belly was going crazy. Her desert wind was pouring in so fast it felt like a sandstorm. Hot. Wild. Swirling around the bruise in my ribs like it was trying to burn it out.

[Harmony active: Ayla.]

[Injury detected. Yin directed to repair.]

Wait. It does THAT too?

I didn’t get to think about it for very long.

I woke up because something was poking my face.

A heron. Standing on the edge of the boat. Pecking at my ear.

I sat up so fast I hit my head on the roof.

The sun was coming up. Gray and pink. Ayla was sprawled on the nets beside me, naked, hair full of fish scales, snoring. My wrists were still tied. Loosely now — the knot had slipped — but still tied.

And the dock was gone.

There was no dock.

There was just... river. Wide brown river. Reeds on both banks. Rice paddies. A water buffalo staring at us from the shore.

Somewhere in the night, the boat had come loose.

We’d been drifting for hours.

"...Ayla."

"Mm."

"AYLA."

She opened one eye. Looked at the river. The reeds. The buffalo.

"Ah," she said. And closed her eye again.

I wriggled my hands out of the sash and touched my ribs. The bruise was still there. But smaller. Yellow at the edges instead of purple. Like three days of healing in one night.

[Refinement: Ayla — 31%.]

Thirty-one. It was nine percent yesterday.

I looked down at her, sleeping in a stolen fishing boat with fish scales in her hair, after she cut a man’s club in half for me.

God, I love this life.

It took us two hours to pole the boat back to Hangju. We stole it. We returned it. The fisherman was standing on the dock screaming when we got there. Ayla paid him with a silver coin and a smile, and he stopped screaming.

I ran straight to the academy without changing my clothes.

Tae-man was waiting at the gate. He took one look at me — fish scales, a bruise on my ribs, a red handprint on my cheek, smelling like river mud and cinnamon — and just closed his eyes.

"Bro. What now."

"Black Boar jumped me at the docks. Ayla cut a guy’s club in half. Then we fell asleep in a boat and drifted to the countryside."

He opened his eyes. Stared at me.

"And yesterday," he said slowly, "you got into Gi-chul’s MOM’S palanquin."

"...Yeah."

"Gi-chul’s MOM. Madam Gwak. The one who gave that speech at the donors’ banquet about the moral decline of young men. That Madam Gwak."

"She’s... nicer than she looks."

He grabbed his own hair with both hands.

"The blonde. The physician. The bookkeeper. Gi-chul’s mom. Instructor Cha’s giving you PRIVATE LESSONS. Bro, you’re collecting them like... like..."

"Like what?"

"Like spirit stones! Like some cultivator in a cave hoarding spirit stones!"

Honestly? That was closer to the truth than he’d ever know.

Then a shadow fell over us.

A disciple from the headmaster’s office. Older. Stiff collar. Very bored.

"Baek Mu-jin?"

"...Yeah?"

"Headmistress Hwang wants to see you. Now."

Tae-man and I looked at each other.

The headmistress. Of the whole Hangju branch. I’d never even spoken to her. I’d only ever seen her from a distance, at ceremonies, on the high platform. Tall. Silver hairpin. Robes the color of plums.

"What does she want?" I asked.

The disciple shrugged. "Something about a sponsorship from the Gwak family. And a report from the east docks this morning." He looked me up and down, at the fish scales. "About a fight."

Shit.