prisons were built under mountains; they were either out in the Baghra Desert or in the dungeons of the Empress’s palace.
And Jiang hadn’t asked what the Chuluu Korikh was. He’d asked who was imprisoned there.
What kind of prisoner couldn’t be held in the Baghra Desert?
She pondered this until she had an unsatisfying answer to an unsatisfying question.
“Unnatural criminals,” she said slowly, “who have committed unnatural crimes?”
Jun snorted audibly. Jima and Yim looked uncomfortable.
Jiang gave a minuscule shrug.
“Fine,” he said. “That’s all I have.”
Oral exams concluded by midmorning on the third day. The pupils were sent to lunch, which no one ate, and then herded to the rings for the commencement of the Tournament.
Rin drew Han for her first opponent.
When it was her turn to fight she climbed down the rope ladder and looked up. The masters stood in a row before the rails. Irjah gave her a slight nod, a tiny gesture that filled her with determination. Jun folded his arms over his chest. Jiang picked at his fingernails.
Rin had not fought any of her classmates since her expulsion from Combat. She had not even watched them fight. The only person she had ever sparred against was Jiang, and she had no clue if he was a good approximation of how her classmates might fight.
She was entering this Tournament blind.
She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath, willing herself to at least appear calm.
Han, on the other hand, looked very disconcerted. His eyes darted across her body and then back up to her face as if she were some wild animal he had never seen before, as if he didn’t know quite what to make of her.
He’s scared, she realized.
He must have heard the rumors that she had studied with Jiang. He didn’t know what to believe about her. Didn’t know what to expect.
What was more, Rin was the underdog in this match. No one expected her to fight well. But Han had trained with Jun all year. Han was a Sinegardian. Han had to win, or he wouldn’t be able to face his peers after.
Sunzi wrote that one must always identify and exploit the enemy’s weaknesses. Han’s weakness was psychological. The stakes were much, much higher for him, and that made him insecure. That made him beatable.
“What, you’ve never seen a girl before?” Rin asked.
Han blushed furiously.
Good. She made him nervous. She grinned widely, baring teeth. “Lucky you,” she said. “You get to be my first.”
“You don’t have a chance,” Han blustered. “You don’t know any martial arts.”
She merely smiled and slouched back into Seejin’s fourth opening stance. She bent her back leg, preparing herself to spring, and raised her fists to guard her face.
“Don’t I?”
Han’s face clouded with doubt. He had recognized her posture as deliberate and practiced—not at all the stance of someone who had no martial arts training.
Rin rushed him as soon as Sonnen signaled them to begin.
Han played defensive from the start. He made the mistake of giving her the forward momentum, and he never recovered. From the outset, Rin controlled every part of the bout. She attacked, he reacted. She led him in the dance, she decided when to let him parry, and she decided where they would go. She fought methodically, purely from muscle memory. She was efficient. She played his moves against him and confused him.
And Han’s attacks fell into such predictable patterns—if one of his kicks missed, he would back up and attempt it again, and again, until she forced him to change direction.
Finally he let his guard down, let her get in close. She jammed her elbow hard into his nose. She felt a satisfying crack. Han dropped to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Rin knew she hadn’t hurt him that badly. Jiang had punched her in the nose at least twice. Han was more stunned than injured. He could have gotten up. He didn’t.
“Break,” ordered Sonnen.
Rin wiped the sweat off her forehead and glanced up at the railing.
There was silence above the ring. Her classmates looked like they had on the first day of class—startled and bewildered. Nezha looked dumbfounded.
Then Kitay began to clap. He was the only one.
She fought two more matches that day. They were both variations on her match with Han—pattern recognition, confusion, finishing blow. She won both of them.
Over the span of a day Rin went from the underdog to a leading contender. All those months spent lugging that stupid pig around had given her better endurance than her classmates.