Chapter 12: The Eating Circle

The morning of the second duel, Hao Min woke with an idea.

If the Broken Circle made metal brittle, what happened to the rust it produced? Rust was the death of metal, but it was also a substance. It had weight. It had texture. It had been metal once. It had been blood-touched iron, sword steel, plow blade. It carried memory of what it had been.

Hao Min took a rusted nail and drew a full circle around it. The nail crumbled into flakes. Then, instead of brushing the flakes away, he drew a second circle around the first, a circle that contained the rust.

He waited.

The rust flakes stirred. They moved toward the center of the second circle. They climbed onto his fingers. He felt a warmth that was not quite heat. It was the same warmth he felt in his chest when the circle worked, but sharper, more immediate.

He pressed his hand to the floor and pushed himself to his feet. He moved across the room faster than he should have. His ribs did not hurt. His knee did not ache. His body felt like it belonged to a younger man.

Then the warmth faded. After perhaps twenty breaths, he was himself again. Tired. Sore. But not damaged.

"What did you do?" Sao asked. She had been watching from the doorway.

"I ate the rust."

"That is disgusting."

"It is useful." Hao Min looked at his hand. The rust flakes were gone, absorbed into his skin. "The circle consumes the rust. The rust gives me speed and strength for a short time."

"And after?"

"After, I pay."

He paid within the hour. A fever came over him like a wave. His skin went hot. His vision blurred. He spent the afternoon shivering under a blanket while Sao pressed cool cloths to his forehead and Zhen fed him bitter tea in small sips.

"Fool," Sao said.

"Yes."

"You will die from your own tricks."

"Perhaps. But not today."

By evening the fever broke. Hao Min was weaker than before, but alive. He had learned the cost. The Eating Circle gave him a borrowed body for a short time. The debt was paid in fever and fatigue.

"How long?" he asked Zhen.

"How long what?"

"How long does the borrowed strength last?"

"Twenty breaths, perhaps thirty. Long enough to close a distance. Short enough to trap you if you rely on it." Zhen handed him broth. "You are buying speed with your health. It is a bad trade unless the alternative is death."

"The alternative is often death."

"Then it is a good trade. But only then." Zhen sat beside him. "You have three circles now. Wide, Tight, Broken, Eating. Four tools. That is enough to kill most men. But you are not most men. You are a man who wants to fight cultivators."

"I want to stop being afraid of them."

"Same thing." Zhen was quiet for a moment. "Use the Eating Circle only once in the duel. If you use it twice, you will not survive the night. If Bao forces you to use it twice, surrender. There is no shame in surviving."

Hao Min drank the broth. "I have surrendered enough."

"Then do not surrender. But do not die for pride either. Pride rusts faster than iron."

Sao appeared in the doorway with more water. Her face was worried, though she tried to hide it.

"You look terrible," she said.

"I feel terrible."

"Good. That means you are still alive." She set down the water. "I sharpened your stick. The one for drawing. In case the brush does not work tomorrow."

Hao Min looked at her. "Thank you."

"Do not thank me. Thank me after you win."

"I will try."

"You cannot use it in the duel," Zhen said.

"I know. It would kill me before Bao could."

"Then why learn it?"

"Because I may need to close distance in a hurry. Because I may need to run. Because having a thing and not using it is better than needing a thing and not having it." Hao Min drank the last of the tea. It tasted of roots and regret.

Zhen nodded. "You were a good officer once. That is why."

"I was a good officer because I followed orders."

"No. You were a good officer because you prepared for orders that had not yet been given." Zhen took the cup away. "Drink. Rest. Tomorrow you fight."

Hao Min drank. He did not rest.

Instead he practiced the sequence in his mind. Step into the circle. Feel Bao's boot soles crack on the brittle earth. Close distance while Bao is off-balance. Strike the sword hand. If the sword falls, win. If the sword does not fall, take the blow and use the Tight Circle on the blade.

There were too many steps. Too many chances for failure.

But it was a plan. And a plan was better than waiting to die.

Sao came and sat beside him.

"If you die tomorrow, I will take your rust and sell it."

"That is fair."

"And I will tell people you were not as stupid as you looked."

"Generous."

She was quiet for a moment. "Do not die. You owe me for the water."

Hao Min almost smiled. "I will try to remember."

He slept finally, and did not dream. Or if he did, he did not remember.