Chapter 5: The Sword Trial

When Jae-ryeong woke, the bed was empty and the window was open.

On the pillow lay a white cup under a cloth, a small green vial, and a scrap of paper in a narrow hand.

"Cup first, you stubborn fool. I had it ready last night and you wouldn't let me give it."

"Green vial before the trial. It steadies the sword hand. Pour it yourself. S."

Under that, smaller, it said, "You didn't wake me. I forgive you."

Jae-ryeong read the note three times.

Then he drank the cup, and the cold behind his ribs let go.

For the first time in four days, his chest was only a chest.

He tucked the note inside his robe, against his heart.

The training ground sat on a stone terrace above the sect, ringed by pines and four hundred disciples.

Pil-gu sat under the white banner with the Council.

Three men waited on the sand with drawn swords.

Jae-ryeong knew two of them.

The first was the Council's old sword master, who had taught him to hold a blade at nine.

The second was a cousin.

The third wore a black cloth over the lower half of his face, and Jae-ryeong had never seen him.

"The trial is three bouts," Pil-gu said.

"A lord should be able to stand up for the sect. Do you accept?"

"I accept."

"Then drink the Council's cup, as the law asks, to prove you are sound."

A servant came forward with a silver cup.

Jae-ryeong looked into it.

The wine was clear.

Too clear.

"Whose wine is this?" he said.

"The Council's own," Pil-gu said, hurt. "Surely you don't suspect your own family."

Jae-ryeong thought of thorn wire strung across a ridge path at neck height.

He thought of a man bleeding on a gutter, saying they knew somebody was coming.

"I'll drink my own," he said.

He took out the green vial and held it up where all four hundred of them could see.

The silence was like a dropped plate.

"What is that?" the old sword master said.

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