Yin and Yang: A Fool's Beginning (7 page)

Before Yin showed up and demanded the release of
Castor, I had been negotiating with the man. Not once during that
negotiation did he mention her existence, though I had learnt of it
from other men in the village. Though I want to raise that point
with him now, all I can do is swallow again.

“Captain,” Shang
begins.

I pull up a hand to silence him. I can't afford him
saying anything that will inflame Castor. One look in that man's
eyes tells me that he is on the edge.

“You have my word we
will not harm her,” I say, trying to make my words
sincere.

I succeed. For that is something else I have been
trained in. By controlling my emotions, I can subtly alter the tone
of my voice, making it easier for people to trust me.

Though I rely on that
ability now, I do so with a heavy heart. There is something
. . . empty about it. In fact, there’s
something empty about my abilities in general. With such fine
control of my emotion, sometimes I don't even feel human anymore. I
often consider myself little more than my training and abilities.
Whatever soul I once had, I've spent years ignoring until it's
almost disappeared completely.

But there is one thing I hold on to. One ability. One
force.

Loyalty.

My father taught me that. Inadvertently, but he still
ingrained that lesson into my bones and blood.

My entire personality is devoted to my loyalty to my
kingdom, the men under my command, and my Queen. I tell myself,
practically every night as I drift off to sleep, that I will do
anything for them.

As I remind myself of that fact, I stand
straighter.

“You can trust us,” I
try, “I will vouch for her safety.”

Castor suddenly
laughs, but it isn't full of mirth. His derision is
obvious
. “I know how they train you
sorcerers in the army. I know not to trust a word that comes out of
your lips.”

I start to feel
frustrated, anger cracking through my emotional control, but soon
enough I take a breath and push it away
.
“You can trust me,” I say again calmly. “We have no intention of
harming your apprentice,” I choose my words carefully, “she appears
to be a powerful sorcerer, and the army can use any soldier it can
get right now.”

Again Castor laughs. He doesn't say anything though,
he shakes his head and stares at me.

I try to stare back, but all too soon find I can't
hold his gaze. So instead I find my head dipping to the side and my
eyes travelling back to the comatose woman behind me.

If she hadn't come charging into town, demanding the
release of her uncle, we would never have known about her. Perhaps,
that had been Castor's plan.

“Captain, we should
move out,” Shang insists again.

Once more I find it hard to pull my attention off
Yin. It isn't just because she’s a woman lying in the mud after
fighting an entire army unit. No, it's the strange, still sense
about her as she sleeps.

There's
something
. . . mysterious
about her. It goes beyond the fact she is a powerful sorcerer. My
own mother was a sorcerer, so I have little trouble accepting that
fact.

It's something more. Something I can't put my finger
on.

“Sir,” Shang insists
once more.

“Round up the men,” I
begin, yanking my gaze off Yin, “and secure them in the
cart.”

“And what about her?”
Shang points to Yin, and as he does, Castor's gaze narrows in on
me.

I’m fully aware that I have to be careful here.
Though I am relatively confident that my entire unit could take on
the great Castor Barr if we had to, I would rather this not descend
into all-out battle. I've already ruined more of this town than I
should have.

“Release her,” I say
carefully, “and take her to the cart. But be careful not to hurt
her. And allow Castor to travel alongside her,” I add, fearful
Castor will growl and threaten to rip my throat out
again.

I see Shang's expression sour. He knows full well
that’s a risk. But I don't have another option. I have to play a
very careful game here. We need Castor on our side, and if that
means letting him travel with Yin, then so be it.

Before Shang can
point out how stupid my plan sounds, I nod my
head
. “I will travel in the cart
alongside them,” I say to reassure him.

His expression hardly improves, but soon enough he
shakes his head, and then spreads his fingers wide. There's a
cracking, grating sound as the roots that once held Yin in place
suddenly coil back into the ground like hands disappearing into
long sleeves.

“Very well, sir,”
Shang says in a disbelieving tone as he moves down to pick Yin
up.

I watch Castor tense out of the corner of my eye. Yet
as Shang picks Yin up, Castor does not snap and attack.

I can see he wants
to
though.

Hell, I can feel the anger washing off him in
powerful waves. If I hadn't spent so many years controlling my
emotions, I'd be shaking in my boots.

But something, something is holding Castor Barr back.
Regardless of whether he wants to rip my throat out, as he puts it,
he's standing there.

I want to know why. In fact, I want to know
everything. From who she is to why on earth one of the greatest
warriors in the history of the Kingdom bothered to train her.

I'm not going to find my answers yet though,
especially not with Castor glaring at me with the power of 1000
suns.

Soon enough Shang loads Yin into one of the carts,
and they allow Castor to climb up beside her. Immediately Castor
loops an arm around her back, and allows her head to rest on his
shoulder. He's acting exactly like a protective father—a father
ready to take on the entire world if he has to.

It doesn't take long to load up the other men from
the village, but I insist they are all squeezed into one of the
other carts. I intend to travel alone with Castor and Yin. That way
there will be less variables. If there were other people crammed
into our cart, I wouldn't want to run the risk of Castor using them
as some kind of distraction.

The trip back to the capital should only take a day
and a half, but I command the soldiers to push our horses to the
limit. Not only can I feel the snow descending from the mountains,
but I want Castor and Yin firmly inside the Royal Army's walls as
soon as possible.

Still, it's going to be a long day, I realize as I
settle down on the narrow, uncomfortable seat of the cart. I feel
the horses turn around, and the cart jumps up and down as its
wheels negotiate the uneven road. The sound of their hooves and the
grating crunch of the wheels fills the cart, but it is somehow not
loud enough to mask Castor's breathing. It's deep, it's controlled,
and it is calm.

Which can't be said for me right now.

Captain Yang

I don't intend to rest. In fact, I have no intention
of closing my eyes, but as the journey continues, the boredom
starts to get to me.

I find my attention being drawn more and more towards
Yin. Her head rests against Castor's shoulder, rolling to the left
and right with every bump of the cart's wheels.

Her clothes have now dried, but her hair is still
caked with mud, and there are streaks of dirt covering her cheeks,
hands, and forehead.

“Stop watching her,”
Castor suddenly warns, breaking a silence that has lasted almost
five hours.

It surprises me, and I blink quickly, yanking my gaze
off her as if I were some boy caught staring at a girl he
admires.

“Who is she?” I
suddenly ask.

“She is my apprentice
in the study of herbs,” Castor replies plainly, but his tone is
still tight with anger.

Though I try to hold his gaze, I find my eyes
drifting back towards her every few seconds, as if I am waiting for
her to wake. But the sleep spell I put on her will not be lifted
until I choose to lift it. Yet, despite knowing that fact, I can't
shake the feeling she will suddenly snap to her feet and continue
her fight without pause.

Like all sorcerers untrained by the Royal Army, she
has a forceful personality. In the few words I exchanged with her,
I realized that. She is no doubt the kind of person who prefers to
burn through every obstacle in her path. Her willingness to fight
an entire army unit to protect Castor evidences that fact.

I am her opposite. The Royal Army teaches a sorcerer
to become cold and devoid of emotion.

A man dedicated to control can in turn control
others.

Yet, by denying and purging my natural emotions, I'm
left with nothing but an empty, cold void. On still nights, when my
mind is exceptionally quiet, I can feel the frozen embrace of my
training coiling through my veins, pushing itself out of the Arak
device around my wrist, extinguishing whatever warmth still remains
in my heart.

Recently, I've only been feeling all the colder. With
the changes in the war effort, and the new efforts at conscription,
I've been controlling my emotions more than usual.

It's taking its toll.

Without realizing it,
I begin to pump the fingers of my right hand. Instantly Castor
notices. He glances from my hand to my eyes, and a slow smile
spreads his lips
. “You're just a boy,” he
suddenly concludes.

“I'm the captain of
this unit,” I point out calmly. Or at least I try to make my voice
calm. I draw on my emotional control to keep my tone as even as it
can be.

But it doesn't quite work. There’s a single wavering
note of indecision rippling through my voice, and the more I try to
control it, the more it wavers.

Suddenly feeling uncomfortable, I shift back in my
seat, aligning my shoulders with the wall behind me, and keeping my
back as stiff and erect as I can. I need to remind Castor who's in
charge here. He may be almost two generations older than me, but I
am no boy.

That small smile does
not shift from his lips
. “You have no
idea what you're doing,” he suddenly concludes.

“I'm following
orders,” I say.

Castor slowly leans
forward, hooking an arm around Yin's back so she doesn't fall from
his shoulder
. “Yes you are, and that's
why you have no idea what you're doing. You're blindly loyal, and
will happily follow those orders just as long as you don't have to
think for yourself. Just as long as you don't have to develop your
own morality.”

I blink quickly, now
pumping my hand more and more
. “I am
loyal to my Queen and kingdom,” I repeat quickly, holding onto that
fact. After all, it's the most important fact there is.

Castor shakes his
head, laughing lightly
. “I see you've
been trained well. It seems the army still knows how to sap the
emotion right out of their sorcerers. They teach you to practice
magic by purging yourself of everything that makes you you,” he
notes as he shifts back, once again repositioning Yin so she
doesn't fall.

“I have emotions,” I
try to say calmly, “I am simply taught how to control them. I do
not follow my frustration and anger,” I note as I uncontrollably
glance at Yin, “I am trained to know better.”

“You're trained to be
empty,” Castor says as he shifts his head forward, dropping it
slightly as he looks unblinkingly into my eyes. He has dark brown
eyes, but right now they could easily be burning white as ferocity
concentrates within them.

“I'm trained to serve
my kingdom,” I say.

Then I pump my hand. Over and over again.

Sidestep your emotions, I tell myself. You are water
flowing around obstacles, you do not flow into them.

“You're trained to be
nothing more than a tool, a cog in a machine. You sacrifice your
life, and all you get in return is the myth of loyalty. Trust me
boy, I've lived that existence.”

“You have served your
country,” I say automatically.

“I don't need you to
tell me what I've done. I know,” Castor's voice rumbles deeply, and
I swear it's more alarming than thunder rumbling
overhead.

Shifting back in my chair, I call on all my training
to calm myself.

I can't let this man undermine me; that's what he's
trying to do.

“Tell me, what
happens when you stop pumping your hand?” he suddenly asks as he
points to my hand. “What happens when you run out of all those
little tricks they teach you to control your emotions? Is that when
you start to feel like a human? Like a man? Is that when the anger
and passion return?”

“I serve my country.
I do everything I can to be the best warrior I can be for my Queen
and kingdom,” I default to saying, the words slipping off my tongue
with practiced ease. These are statements I have made before and
statements I will make again.

“You are a toy, a
piece on a chessboard. Ultimately irrelevant,” Castor concludes
with vicious ease.

“I know what you are
doing, and I am impervious, I assure you,” I suddenly
stutter.

Castor's eyes grow a
little wider and his concentration intensifies. He doesn't once
blink, and he barely shifts the muscles in his cheeks and jaw as he
opens his lips a crack
, “I will tell you
what happens when you run out of tricks, boy. You feel. All the
emotion you once held at bay rushes back into you. A flood, a tidal
wave, a monsoon. Every drop of feeling will eat back into the soul
you've ignored for years, and drench it completely. I've seen it
happen before, and I've done it myself. If you know how, you can
break a sorcerer, and I assure you, boy, I know how.”