Yin and Yang: A Fool's Beginning (33 page)

It couldn't be Garl, right? He hasn't threatened her
again, right?

I catch myself. Again? Do I honestly believe he's
done so before?

I can't keep letting
Yin and Castor cast aspersions against the General. The General is
one of the greatest men I have ever met. In fact, it's easy to say
that I've modelled my life in part on him. So if he turns out to
be
. . . some kind of monster,
what does that make me?

It takes too long to sift through my thoughts, but no
matter how much they assail me, they can’t get rid of the
curiosity. So, soon enough I find myself marching forward.

It's not an angry march, just determined.

She resolutely keeps her back to me and continues to
practice. She doesn’t have the power nor the fluidity of movement
that she did yesterday. In fact, she looks exactly like an
uninspiring recruit. She keeps dropping her fan, and for some
reason, her shoulders are permanently hunched in, throwing her off
balance.

I still have my sword in my hand, and I realize that
far from getting any practice done today, once again, I'm letting
myself be distracted.

No. I'm not letting myself be distracted. I'm
choosing it. I want to find out what's going on here. As I decide
that, some of the guilt shifts.

I clear my throat.

“Go away,” she says
in a small voice that barely carries.

“Open your shoulders.
You're throwing yourself off your balance.”

She doesn't reply. But as she twists on the spot, I
see that she does look at me at least. With narrowed, wary eyes,
she considers me quietly.

“You need to keep
every move centered otherwise you will never be able to follow
through with any power,” I say.

Again she watches me. As she does, I swear she tries
to open her shoulders a little.

I'm starting to
realize that no matter what I say, short of a direct order, I am
not going to make her go back to her room. As I watch her shift
about,
practicing as best she can, I
realize maybe she’s doing what I am—trying to distract herself.
From what, I can’t say. But the fact is apparent.

So rather than trying to stop her, I'll help her.

“You need to change
your center of balance. You press far too far forward. You leave
yourself open to attack,” I note as a walk around her.

She shoots me a grumpy look, but at least it isn't a
fearful one.

“You're trying to
follow your power as you push it into the fan,” I suddenly note,
clicking my fingers as I do. “That's what's overbalancing you. As
you push the magic out, you try to follow it. You can't. Just let
it go. You need to remain centered and balanced,” I
continue.

That terse look transforms into an interested
one.

. . .
.

Does the great Yin realize I have something to
teach?

Even though I don't want it to be, it's a humbling
thought. Despite the fact she’s unrefined, she is unquestionably
powerful. I don't need Garl's interest in her to prove that fact.
I've seen it with my own eyes. When I saved her yesterday from the
fan, I felt how much magic she had pumped into it. It was almost
unimaginable.

Castor, it seems, did a brilliant job in training
her.

But perhaps not a perfect one. Despite how legendary
the man is, he's still only one man. The benefit of being somewhere
like the Royal Army barracks is that there are many people to draw
on. Many experiences, many styles.

Yin tries to follow my advice, but soon trips,
stumbling as she swears.

If Mae were here, she would probably snap at Yin that
swearing is not ladylike. Yet for some reason, I can't help but
slowly smile.

She sees, and she
rolls her eyes, but soon enough she gets back to
practicing.

“Your movements are
too closed; they need to be more open. I know you have more power
than that, use it,” I command.

She presses her teeth against her lips, narrows her
eyes, and looks more focused than before as she does what I
say.

She is loosening up a little. Her shoulders are no
longer as hunched in, and as she twists and jumps and leaps,
there’s more balance in her moves, and she lands far more solidly,
no longer wobbling like a leaf in the wind.

There’s still something off kilter though. As I watch
her practice, I surreptitiously stare at that bandaged left
hand.

She is moving too fast and producing too much magic
for me to see how white her skin is. Yet I swear it's still the
color of powdered snow.

What has she done to it?

Was I wrong? Did I simply fail to see the injury
yesterday? Has it become infected?

As I think through
the possibilities, I draw into silence, and as I do, Yin's moves
become less
centered again.

She lands from what should have been a solid flip,
twists on her ankle, and teeters to the side. Though she rights
herself before she can trip and slam against the cobbles, she looks
bitterly disappointed.

Not in me. In herself. Though if you’d asked me this
morning, I would have said I have nothing in common with Yin, I
recognize that emotion.

I've spent the last several days being nothing but
disappointed in myself. From questioning Garl, to being unable to
control myself around Castor, I'm learning I'm much more emotional
than I once thought I was.

It's clear that for
whatever reason Yin is unsettled, she can't forgive herself
either
. “Stop holding yourself back,” I
suddenly advise, “I know you have much more power than that. And
you have the whole square to practice in. Use it.”

“I thought I wasn't
meant to. I'm just a woman, after all,” she says, her gaze
darkening as she does, “I thought we were meant to stand still and
look like statues.”

I open my mouth. Then I close it. I have to be
careful here. Though I have stepped in, I am not Yin's primary
trainer. Mae is. If I start teaching her things Mae won't approve
of, it won't go down well.

Yin stops
practicing, and I can tell she wants to cross
her arms, lean back against something, and glare at me. Considering
there’s nothing to lean against and it appears as if her left hand
is injured, she shakes her head instead. “Castor never cared that
I'm a woman. All he cared about was whether I could
learn.”

I open my mouth again. I honestly don't know what to
say.

There are certain traditions in the Royal Army, just
as there are traditions in the Kingdom at large. I know them, in
fact everybody knows them, so there's no point in explaining them
now.

And yes, those
traditions in part center
on the proper
behavior of women.

But as Yin challenges
me, I can't find the words to support those traditions. The
arguments that should be there, just
. . . don't sound right.

She places her right
hand on her hip and stares at me
. “I
don't get it. Shouldn't we all just try to be as powerful as we can
be? We're in the army, right? So why would you hamstring your
female soldiers, just because you prefer them to stand still and
look pretty? I've only been here for half a week, and have only
been training with Mae for a few days, but let me tell you, you
can't properly defend yourself when you're like that. You get
armor,” she points at my breast plate, which is shining in the
mid-morning sun, “you get a helmet, you get a sword,” she lifts her
hand and emphatically gestures at the sword still in my left hand,
“and I get a dress,” she plucks at the fabric. “And you expect me
to go into battle? What kind of sense does that make? Do you want
to lose? Or is it irrelevant to you if a woman dies?”

I blink back my surprise now. I wasn't expecting
this. When I decided to help train Yin, it was a spur of the moment
thing. I wanted to help distract her from whatever was going on in
her head. Now her familiar fire is returning, and I'm not sure how
to deal with it.

“Nobody wants women
to die,” I say, picking over my words carefully, my voice staccato
and breathy.

She snorts. Then she
plucks at her dress again,
emphasizing
how thin the fabric is by scrunching it up between her fingers.
“Then give me some armor. Or do you think I'm too weak to carry it
around? If I am, I'll get stronger. Men aren't the only people who
can get stronger,” she adds in a powerful voice.

I swallow
uncomfortably
. “It's just . . .
not done. While there are women sorcerers in the Royal Army, when
it comes to battle, they are never on the front lines. They are
support troops. You don't need armor, because you will not be
directly facing enemies.”

She stares at me, and
she shakes her head
. “Then why have us at
all? What on earth are you doing with trained troops you can't
fully utilize? And how much does it cost you to make some freaking
armor for us? Or is the cost not a monetary one? Is it a social
one? An ego one? Are you that scared that a woman could prove
herself to be equal to men, that you won't give her the
chance?”

I swallow again. I know the arguments I need to draw
on. They're the same arguments I've been taught my entire life.
Women have a place. They are weaker than men, less intelligent,
certainly less objective. Whilst they have a place at home and a
necessary position in society as mothers, they have no place on the
battlefield.

Though I want
to
say this to Yin, I can't.

. . .
.

I know exactly how she is going to react. She isn't
going to be convinced, and worse than that, she’s going to try to
prove me wrong.

Perhaps she knows
what I'm thinking, because she tilts her head to the side and
shakes it once more
. “What's more
important to you? Winning a battle or preserving your own sense of
masculinity?”

“Both men and women
have positions. The Royal Army,” I begin.

“Is clearly satisfied
to give itself a disadvantage. Who cares what tradition says? I'm
telling you that I'm better off practicing to win, not practicing
to be like a woman.”

“I . . .” I
trail off. I have been uncomfortable before—I haven't always been
the cold, calm, emotionless Royal Army sorcerer I want to be. Right
now, I'm completely floundering.

I have no idea what
to say. Other than
. . . it
just feels wrong.

It just feels wrong.

“Whatever you're
thinking, it isn't good enough. I'm telling you, Captain Yang, I
don't need this,” she gestures with her fan, closing her left hand
around it, and for the first time not cradling it as if it's
injured, “I need that,” she points to my sword. “So why can't I
have it?”

She looks directly at me, and though I try to meet
her gaze, I can't. Instead I shuffle back, neatening my helmet with
one hand as if that will help me somehow.

“Mae keeps telling me
I don't know my place. She's right. Because the place she wants me
to fit into doesn't make any sense. How can you expect me to save
people if you won't let me save myself from your outdated
views?”

. . .
.

As she says the term
“
save people,” something happens to her
voice. It takes on such a strange quality that I can't begin to
describe it. It's not just otherworldly, it's almost
. . . divine. It's such a peculiar way to describe it,
but nothing else fits. It seems bigger than her, bigger than me,
bigger than everything.

Coming from a source beyond mere humans.

. . .
.

Suddenly I'm reminded of the odd comment she said
yesterday. In order to regain a true understanding of my magic, she
wanted me to talk to Gaea.

But humans can’t contact the Great Spirit.

Yet as I listen to her reverberating words, I wonder
if just maybe Yin can.

As soon as I think that, I dismiss it. It's
impossible. Only the Savior can summon Gaea.

“Don't just stand
there, say something. Tell me why I can't be like you,” she says
directly, still pointing at the sword.

“. . .
Because it isn't done,” I say, “because it doesn't feel
right.”

She looks
. . . disappointed.

It makes me feel sick. Guilty even.

“That isn't a reason,
Captain Yang,” she says in a small voice, “it's an excuse. I can't
save people if you won't let me,” she says again, her voice
becoming even smaller. She also starts to lose the confidence her
argument has given her. I watch her start to withdraw again, her
left hand dropping to her side as she slowly stares down at
it.

She looks defeated.

So I hand her my sword.

I don't know what I'm doing.

I know it's wrong; all of my training tells me it is.
Yet, I hand the sword over anyway. Something compels me to. It's
not the same compulsion that seized me yesterday when I told Castor
everything I knew about Yin. This one is different. It seems to be
flowing through me from a higher source.

The true spontaneity of soul.

She looks up, her expression startled.

“Take it,” I say
simply.

She does.

Though the sword is heavy, her arm and shoulder brace
against it, and her fingers close around the hilt. She holds it
with her left hand, and I see, right before my eyes, as the white
skin between the bandage and her bracelet becomes gradually less
pale.