Jian Lei's POV"Another dead root," Elder Fang said, and the whole square laughed before I even lowered my hand.I stood on the testing platform with my palm still pressed against the cold stone, waiting for the crystal to glow the way it had for every other boy my age. It stayed grey. It stayed dead. Somewhere behind me I heard my aunt mutter that she'd told everyone this would happen, that a boy born on the coldest night of winter was never going to carry heaven's favor."Step down, Jian Lei," Elder Fang said, not unkindly, which somehow made it worse. "You're wasting the sun."I stepped down. My legs felt like someone else's.Nineteen years old and I had failed the root test six times now. Six years of standing on that platform while younger boys, boys who hadn't even grown into their own height yet, made the crystal burn gold or blue or green. Six years of the same elders shaking their heads like I was a crop that refused to grow no matter how much water they poured on me."Maybe

Jian Lei's POV"There's someone out there," Sun Hao whispered, and his grip on my wrist tightened enough to hurt.I followed his gaze to the tree line, where the shadows sat wrong, too solid, too still for branches moving in the wind. For a long moment nothing happened. Then a shape detached itself from the dark and walked toward the firelight, hands raised, palms open, the universal gesture of someone who wanted to be seen as harmless.It was Old Peng's grandson, Tao, barely fourteen, out of breath like he'd run the whole way from the eastern pass."Elder Sun," he gasped, "there are men at the checkpoint. Three of them. They stopped my uncle on the road and asked him questions.""What kind of questions," Sun Hao said, releasing my wrist but not relaxing."About a boy," Tao said. "They asked if anyone in the village had a son born with a mark on his shoulder. A red mark shaped like a flame."The fire seemed to get very loud in my ears.I had a mark like that. I'd had it since birth, t

Jian Lei's POVWe broke through the treeline and the sky over the outer farms was already orange."No," Mei Lin'er said, the word torn out of her.Fire had taken the Hu family's grain stores, flames climbing fast up the dry thatch, and figures moved between the burning buildings on horseback, torches in hand, driving frightened animals and screaming villagers alike ahead of them like they were herding cattle. These weren't Elder Fang's strangers asking quiet questions at a checkpoint anymore. These were bandits, and they'd stopped pretending to be anything else."That's not my grandmother's shrine," I said, scanning the chaos, my chest tight. "That's the Hu farm. That's Zhou's house past it.""The horn came from further up," Mei Lin'er said, already moving toward the shrine path, but I grabbed her arm."Wait. Look." I pointed toward my own house, further down the slope, where a rider had broken off from the main group and was circling the small yard with a torch raised. My mother's ho

Jian Lei's POVI didn't run.I don't remember deciding not to. I remember my legs simply refusing the order, turning me back toward the yard instead of away from it, and I remember reaching Sun Hao's side just as his knees finally gave out beneath him."No, no, no," I said, catching him before he hit the ground, his weight far lighter than it should have been for a man who'd carried himself like something ancient just minutes ago. "Stay with me. Elder Sun, stay with me.""Foolish boy," he said, and even now, blood dark across his robe, there was something almost fond in it. "I told you to run.""I don't listen to good advice," I said, and my voice broke apart on the last word.The rider who'd struck him down was already turning his horse for another pass, and beyond him I could see two more shapes closing fast through the smoke, drawn by the noise, drawn by whatever signal had told an entire raiding party that tonight was the night worth burning a village for."Jian Lei," Sun Hao said

Jian Lei's POVThe rider who fled didn't stop running until he reached a camp two ridges over, though I wouldn't learn the details of what happened there until much later, pieced together from things Old Kui and Wen Kui would both eventually tell me. I only knew, standing in that burned yard with Sun Hao's body growing cold in the dirt, that whatever had happened tonight was already traveling faster and further than I was.The bandit captain, a broad man named Rao who'd led the raiding party from a hidden staging point at the base of the mountain, listened to his scout's account without interrupting once. When the scout finished, shaking, still smelling of smoke and fear, Rao didn't ask him to repeat it."Gold eyes," Rao said instead, quiet, like he was testing the words in his own mouth to see if they made more sense out loud. "Fire that ate a man down to nothing in seconds. And the boy still standing after.""I saw it myself," the scout said. "I'm not lying, captain, I know how it s