Chapter 10: Clear Water

The Discipline Elder turned his head and looked straight at her across the lanterns.

"Good evening, carrier," he said. "Sleep well. You have a semifinal."

Lian went on up to the pool and drank, and she didn't sleep at all.

In the morning Guan Shuo won the first semifinal without his opponent ever touching him.

He bowed to the tiers, and his sleeves fell to his knuckles, and Jade Spring stood up and cheered him.

Then it was her turn.

The new lines on the Cloud Stage had been filled with white chalk so the five sects could admire them.

"A blessing on the stage," the Discipline Elder told the tiers. "Clear Water, against demonic arts."

Lian's opponent from White Crane was a tall young man with a long ash-wood spear and a clean, careful face.

He bowed to her politely.

She stepped up onto the stage.

The chalked lines lit pale blue under her straw sandals.

The burn in her changed.

All month it had been fire.

Now it felt like being scrubbed from the inside with wet sand.

Thin gray smoke began to rise from her sleeves.

It came out of the cuffs at her wrists and curled up past her shoulders into the sunlight.

In the front ring of the tiers, someone said, "Ash."

The word went around the Cloud Stage.

The bell rang.

The White Crane disciple lowered his spear and came at her carefully, watching the smoke.

Lian pushed a strike at him from ten paces.

Nothing went out of her palm.

The ash came up out of her skin as smoke instead, and the lines under her feet glowed brighter, eating it.

She pushed again, and smoke poured off her hands, and the slab in her belly ached.