Yin and Yang: A Fool's Beginning (24 page)

She doesn't jerk back as I leap beside her, grab the
arm holding the fan, and direct it towards the sky.

Though she twitches back at my sudden move, I won't
let her break my grip, and she twists into my chest.

Then the magic escapes.

In one brilliant shot of lightning, it leaps into the
air. It has so much power that it actually shoots through the
clouds, pushing them back in a circle.

With a resounding boom like thunder, the last of it
dissipates.

I let her hand drop.

She doesn't move
away. She leans there, right against me, shaking
. “What?” she breathes sharply.

I push back, releasing my hand from her wrist and
letting her arm drop.

I watch her stare at
the fan, her face contorted in fear and shock
. “What just happened?” she asks again, her voice barely
more than a whisper.

I try to answer, but can't find my words. They’re
lodged far below my churning emotions.

Finally someone speaks, but it’s neither myself nor
Yin.

Instead Mae comes
darting into the yard, as the rain starts to
abate
. “You fool,” she
shrieks.

Yin doesn't even look up. An angry Mae is bearing
down on her, and all she does is stare from the slowly smoking
remains of her fan then up at me.

I try to hold her gaze, but can't. I jerk to the
side, clear my throat, and stare into the sky instead.

Mae reaches Yin, her
ferocity making her cheeks a wild red like powdered
ruby
. “You idiot,” she snarls through
clenched teeth, “you could have killed someone. How dare you be so
foolish. You ignored my warning about the fan,” she
begins.

“You never warned
me,” Yin says in a quiet, far off tone as she stares up at the
point where her magic parted the very clouds.

“Do not speak back to
me. I told you during our first lesson that there is a limit to how
much magic you can push into a fan.”

“You told me to watch
and copy; you didn't tell me anything about the fan,” Yin answers,
still distracted by the clouds above.

They are
. . . thinning. Whereas once they'd
been thick and dark, now they are dispersing with a quick
wind.

“How dare you,” Mae
snarls. “You endangered Captain Yang and yourself.”

“I was in no danger,”
Yin answers quietly, still looking at the clouds, her lips parted
and her gaze lost in the sight above.

Mae gasps. She moves forward to slap Yin.

I jerk in front of her grabbing her hand.

I tell myself it's not because I'm trying to protect
Yin. Just the opposite, in fact—I'm protecting Mae.

Mae stares at me, but doesn't try to yank her hand
free. She raises her head haughtily and waits for me to drop
it.

I do, and I stand back quickly. Not to the side—I
take a step back towards Yin, ensuring I'm still blocking her from
Mae.

I should say something, but I can't. Instead I
concentrate on the light drizzle touching my neck, and Yin's gaze,
because I know she's staring at me.

Just as Mae looks as
though she wants to push around me to get to Yin, Garl descends
down the sta
irs and into the
square.

I stare at him, but try as I might, I can’t fathom
his gaze. It has an intense, concentrated quality. What it means, I
can't guess.

It leaves me feeling cold though as he moves easily
around me to get to Yin.

I stiffen, my body wanting to act on its own, wanting
to take a step back so I stand before her, blocking her off once
more.

It's mad. It makes no sense. Yet I can’t deny what I
want to do.

Still, I control myself.

Twisting to face her, I watch Yin warily stare at
Garl.

At some point she dropped her fan, and Garl now
descends slowly on one knee to pick it up. Thoughtfully he turns it
around in his hand, inspecting the damage with a few swipes of his
thumb.

Yin flinches.

Garl keeps inspecting the fan, then he hands it to
her.

She takes it from him with a trembling hand.

I wait for him to speak—and it's clear everyone else
does too. But he doesn't. He turns and walks through the
puddle-covered square, his heavy boots splashing through the water
as he marches back up under cover without a word.

Mae looks from me
towards the General. She snarls a quick
,
“I'll deal with you later,” before running off after
Garl.

I should follow them.

Princess Mara is waiting.

The Savior.

Yet I can’t walk away.

Yin stands there, her hand still trembling from when
Garl handed her the fan. For the very first time since meeting her,
she looks small.

“I didn't
. . . know,” she manages.

At first I'm surprised she's actually trying to
explain herself to me. I would have thought she would merely cross
her arms, turn her back, and tell me we're done here.

“I didn't know,” she
says again in a quiet voice, looking up at the sky.

Though it would be easy enough to believe
Mae—considering how hot-headed and rebellious Yin is, I can't.

While Yin is hot-headed and rebellious, I doubt she’d
do something so dangerous knowingly. Castorious Barr would have
taught her how to look after herself.

“It's not your
fault,” I find myself saying.

I mean it.

I don't try to make her believe I'm being genuine—I
am genuine.

She looks up at me. That usual hard edge to her stare
is gone, and she looks vulnerable.

“You should get out
of the cold,” I suggest in a whisper.

“And go where? Back
to my room? Won't the General . . .” she shudders. “Won't
he punish me?”

I open my mouth.

I don't know what to say.

Garl reacted
. . . strangely. If he'd been angry at
her apparent lack of care, he'd hidden it well. No, if anything,
he'd been impressed.

His gaze had been calculating, not menacing.

Involuntarily, I shiver.

Yin
notices
. “I thought you Royal Army
sorcerers couldn't get cold?”

She could be taunting me, but the quality of her
voice is too worn out.

“We don't, and I'm
not,” I answer. “That was just close,” I add before I realize
it.

At first she looks unconvinced by my words, but as I
admit my true feelings, she looks up.

“I . . .
should go,” I manage. “Just head back to your room. I'm sure your
training will be cancelled today, considering what's about to
happen.”

Though she still
looks fragile, her brow crumples in confused
interest
. “What's happening? Mae said
some princess is coming. Is she inspecting the barracks or
something?”

I feel
insti
nctively irritated as she says “some
princess,” but I don't draw her up on it. Neither do I answer her
question.

She has no need to know why Princess Mara is coming
here.

She looks at me
expectantly, then sighs
. “Fine, I get it;
I'm not worthy enough to know. Sorry I almost killed you,” she
mutters as she moves passed me, her waterlogged clothes sticking
around her.

“You almost killed
yourself,” I correct automatically.

She glances at me
from over her shoulder
. “I would have
been fine.”

I can't help but
laugh. It's half frustrated and half disbelieving
. “The fan would have discharged all your magic back into
you.”

She presses her lips
together and shrugs
. “I would have been
fine.”

Frustration starts to
rise in my belly
. “You would have killed
yourself. You need to be more careful.”

“Why? So General Garl
can figure out what he wants to do with me? I saw how he looked at
me when he handed me that fan.”

My mouth is open, but the words won't come out.

I know what I should say, but I can't. So I close my
lips in frustration and stare at her.

Again it's like I'm staring into the fire, waiting
for it to engulf me.

But the fire quickly dies. Yin turns around, sighs,
her shoulders dropping forward sharply, and then she begins to walk
off.

That's when I notice her bandage has slipped off her
hand. I lean down to pick it up, staring over at her left hand as I
do.

It seems unharmed.

I'd been informed that she'd cut herself badly in her
fight with the illusionists. According to one of Garl's guards, her
hand had been soaked in blood.

Now, in the brief glimpse I get of it, it appears
unharmed.

“Hold on,” I say as I
rush up to her.

She turns with a
terse look in her eyes. Raising an eyebrow, she
asks
, “what?”

Silently I hand her the bandage.

She barely glances at what I'm handing her. She
reaches out with her left hand.

I lock the bandage in her hand, then quickly reverse
my grip, grasping her wrist gently but firmly as I raise it up.

She jerks back, and her move is strong. I get to see
as much of her palm as I need, though.

There's no cut. It's completely fine.

“What are you doing?”
she asks, her breath short.

“Where's your
cut?”

“It healed,” she says
in a choked voice.

I nod. I hand her the bandage.

She hesitates, then snatches it off me.

“I'm leaving now,”
she whispers as she grips the bandage firmly in her left hand and
hurries off.

She doesn't once look back. I, however, don't take my
eyes off her until she disappears into the building.

. . .
.

Either Garl was
wrong—and her hand was never covered in blood, or
. . . what?

Am I to believe such a serious injury could just heal
so quickly?

Feeling confused, I shake my head.

I jerk back and realize I have somewhere to be.

Yin has distracted me from a far more important task.
I must get to the Princess.

I run forward, my wet boots slapping against the
equally wet stone.

It is time to begin my day. Or, rather, my
destiny.

From now on, I will watch over and organize Princess
Mara's training. I will help make her into the Savior.

With that thought pounding in my mind, it should be
easy to keep all others at bay.

. . .
.

I can't though. As I race through the square, I turn
to face the buildings, scanning over them until my eyes lock on the
one where Yin's room is.

The way she moved in
the rain was
. . . more than
incredible. Beyond words, really.

She's proving to be far more powerful than I'd first
thought. And just maybe, more powerful than Garl thought too.

I want to tell myself I didn't see that calculating
look in his eyes, that I didn't feel how cold and dark his emotions
were when he faced her.

But that would be a lie.

Instead I race forward, trying to push all of that
away.

It's like pushing into a wall of water though—my
hands slip through and flounder.

Yin

For the first time, they don't take me back to my
room. I'm expecting them to lock me in there for the rest of the
day.

They take me to
some
. . . library
instead.

I pass other soldiers, but they aren't the usual
surly guards I'm used to. They appear, well, smarter. Though I'm
not really confident, I think from the insignia on their uniforms
that they're officers.

There are numerous wide tables dotted through the
large room, and books and scrolls line the walls, long wooden
ladders reaching up to the ceiling.

“Study,” one of my
guards tells me as he points me roughly in the direction of a
floor-to-ceiling bookcase.

“Study?” I
repeat.

“Read,” the guard
says slowly, as if I'm too simple to understand what that
means.

I roll my eyes and walk forward.

I'm intensely aware that the officers in the room
pause what they're doing to look up at me. They don't exactly shoot
me friendly glances as I walk amongst them, rubbing my arms as I
do.

I'm still sopping
wet, and I trail water everywhere until some bright spark
says
, “she's too wet to be in here. She
could damage the scrolls. Take her to dry off.”

Just as my guards move in, I shrug my shoulders,
bring my arms out wide, and force the magical heat to rise on my
skin. I don't send it surging out, burning everything in my path. I
pump out enough to dry my clothes and skin.

As the last wisps of
steam cascade off me, I smile at the surly
officer
. “Is this dry enough for you,
sir?”

He looks disgusted and moves away.

I smile as he does.

The last thing I want to do right now is go back to
my room—which is no doubt where my guards would have taken me to
dry off.

Though my room has become my only sanctuary in this
god-forsaken place, I can't spend another full day in there. I'd go
mad.

I'd far rather spend it in this library.

While Castor had his own collection of ancient
scrolls, they could only teach me so much. As I stand there and
stare at all these books, I can't help but smile.