DedicationThis is for Iris ContentsCoverTitle PageDedicationMapPart IChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Part IIChapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Part IIIChapter 21 Chapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24Chapter 25Chapter 26AcknowledgmentsAbout the AuthorCopyrightAbout the Publisher Chapter 1“Take your clothes off.”Rin blinked. “What?”The proctor glanced up from his booklet. “Cheating preventionprotocol.” He gestured across the room to a female proctor. “Go with her,if you must.”Rin crossed her arms tightly across her chest and walked toward thesecond proctor. She was led behind a screen, patted thoroughly to makesure she hadn’t packed test materials up any orifices, and then handed aformless blue sack.“Put this on,” said the proctor.“Is this really necessary?” Rin’s teeth chattered as she stripped. Theexam smock was too large for her; the sleeves draped over her hands sothat she had to roll them up several times.“Yes.” The proctor motioned for her to sit down on a bench. “Lastyear twelve students were caught with papers sewn into the linings oftheir shirts. We take precautions. Open your mouth.”Rin obliged.The proctor prodded her tongue with a slim rod. “No discoloration,that’s good. Eyes wide open.”“Why would anyone drug themselves before a test?” Rin asked as theproctor stretched her eyelids. The proctor didn’t respond.Satisfied, she waved Rin down the hallway where other prospectivestudents waited in a straggly line. Their hands were empty, facesuniformly tight with anxiety. They had brought no materials to the test—pens could be hollowed out to contain scrolls with answers written onthem. “Hands out where we can see them,” ordered the male proctor,walking to the front of the line. “Sleeves must remain rolled up past theelbow. From this point forward, you do not speak to one another. If youhave to urinate, raise your hand. We have a bucket in the back of theroom.”“What if I have to shit?” a boy asked.The proctor gave him a long look.“It’s a twelve-hour test,” the boy said defensively.The proctor shrugged. “Try to be quiet.”Rin had been too nervous to eat anything that morning. Even thethought of food made her nauseated. Her bladder and intestines wereempty. Only her mind was full, crammed with an insane number ofmathematical formulas and poems and treatises and historical dates to bespilled out on the test booklet. She was ready.The examination room fit a hundred students. The desks werearranged in neat rows of ten. On each desk sat a heavy exam booklet, aninkwell, and a writing brush.Most of the other provinces of Nikan had to section off entire townhalls to accommodate the thousands of students who attempted the exameach year. But Tikany township in Rooster Province was a village offarmers and peasants. Tikany’s families needed hands to work the fieldsmore than they did university-educated brats. Tikany only ever used theone classroom.Rin filed into the room along with the other students and took herassigned seat. She wondered how the examinees looked from above: neatsquares of black hair, uniform blue smocks, and brown wooden tables.She imagined them multiplied across identical classrooms throughout thecountry right now, all watching the water clock with nervousanticipation.Rin’s teeth chattered madly in a staccato that she thought everyonecould surely hear, and it wasn’t just from the cold. She clamped her jawshut, but the shuddering just spread down her limbs to her hands andknees. The writing brush shook in her grasp, dribbling black dropletsacross the table.She tightened her grip and wrote her full name across the booklet’scover page. Fang Runin.She wasn’t the only one who was nervous. Already there were soundsof retching over the bucket in the back of the room.She squeezed her wrist, fingers closing over pale burn scars, andinhaled. Focus. In the corner, a water clock rang softly.“Begin,” said the examiner.A hundred test booklets were opened with a flapping noise, like aflock of sparrows taking off at once.Two years ago, on the day Tikany’s magistracy had arbitrarily estimatedto be her fourteenth birthday, Rin’s foster parents had summoned her intotheir chambers.This rarely happened. The Fangs liked to ignore Rin until they had atask for her, and then they spoke to her the way they would command adog. Lock up the store. Hang up the laundry. Take this packet of opium tothe neighbors and don’t leave until you’ve scalped them for twice whatwe paid for it.A woman Rin had never seen before sat perched on the guest’s chair.Her face was completely dusted over with what looked like white riceflour, punctuated with caked-up dabs of color on her lips and eyelids.She wore a bright lilac dress dyed with a plum-flower pattern, cut in afashion that might have suited a girl half her age. Her squat figuresqueezed over the sides like a bag of grain.“Is this the girl?” the woman asked. “Hm. She’s a little dark—theinspector won’t be too bothered, but it’ll drive your price down a bit.”Rin had a sudden, horrifying suspicion of what was happening. “Whoare you?” she demanded.“Sit down, Rin,” said Uncle Fang.He reached out with a leathery hand to maneuver her into a chair. Rinimmediately turned to flee. Auntie Fang seized her arm and dragged herback. A brief struggle ensued, in which Auntie Fang overpowered Rinand jerked her toward the chair.“I won’t go to a brothel!” Rin yelled.“She’s not from the brothel, you idiot,” Auntie Fang snapped. “Sitdown. Show some respect to Matchmaker Liew.”Matchmaker Liew looked unfazed, as if her line of work ofteninvolved accusations of sex trafficking.“You’re about to be a very lucky girl, sweet,” she said. Her voice wasbright and falsely saccharine. “Would you like to hear why?”Rin clutched the edge of her chair and stared at Matchmaker Liew’sred lips. “No.”Matchmaker Liew’s smile tightened. “Aren’t you a dear.”It turned out that after a long and arduous search, Matchmaker Liewhad found a man in Tikany willing to marry Rin. He was a wealthy merchant who made a living importing pig’s ears and shark fins. He wastwice divorced and three times her age.“Isn’t that wonderful?” Matchmaker Liew beamed.Rin bolted for the door. She hadn’t made it two steps before AuntieFang’s hand shot out and seized her wrist.Rin knew what came next. She braced herself for the blow, for thekicks to her ribs where bruises wouldn’t show, but Auntie Fang onlydragged her back toward her chair.“You will behave,” she whispered, and her clenched teeth promisedpunishment to come. But not now, not in front of Matchmaker Liew.Auntie Fang liked to keep her cruelty private.Matchmaker Liew blinked, oblivious. “Don’t be scared, sweet. This isexciting!”Rin felt dizzy. She twisted around to face her foster parents, fighting tokeep her voice level. “I thought you needed me at the shop.” Somehow,it was the only thing she could think to say.“Kesegi can run the shop,” Auntie Fang said.“Kesegi is eight.”“He’ll grow up soon enough.” Auntie Fang’s eyes glittered. “And yourprospective husband happens to be the village import inspector.”Rin understood then. The Fangs were making a simple trade: onefoster orphan in exchange for a near monopoly over Tikany’s blackmarket in opium.Uncle Fang took a long draught from his pipe and exhaled, filling theroom with thick, cloying smoke. “He’s a rich man. You’ll be happy.”No, the Fangs would be happy. They’d get to import opium in bulkwithout bleeding money for bribes. But Rin kept her mouth clamped shut—further argument would only bring pain. It was clear that the Fangswould have her married if they had to drag her to the bridal bedthemselves.They had never wanted Rin. They’d taken her in as an infant onlybecause the Empress’s mandate after the Second Poppy War forcedhouseholds with fewer than three children to adopt war orphans whootherwise would have become thieves and beggars.Since infanticide was frowned upon in Tikany, the Fangs had put Rinto use as a shopgirl and opium runner since she was old enough to count.Still, for all the free labor she provided, the cost of Rin’s keep and feedwas more than the Fangs cared to bear. Now was their chance to get ridof the financial burden she posed. This merchant could afford to feed and clothe Rin for the rest of herlife, Matchmaker Liew explained. All she had to do was serve himtenderly like a good wife and give him babies and take care of hishousehold (which, as Matchmaker Liew pointed out, had not one but twoindoor washrooms). It was a much better deal than a war orphan likeRin, with no family or connections, could otherwise hope to secure.A husband for Rin, money for the matchmaker, and drugs for theFangs.“Wow,” Rin said faintly. The floor seemed to wobble beneath her feet.“That’s great. Really great. Terrific.”Matchmaker Liew beamed again.Rin concealed her panic, fought to keep her breathing even until thematchmaker had been ushered out. She bowed low to the Fangs and, likea filial foster daughter, expressed her thanks for the pains they had gonethrough to secure her such a stable future.She returned to the store. She worked silently until dark, took orders,filed inventory, and marked new orders in the ledger.The thing about inventory was that one had to be very careful withhow one wrote the numbers. So simple to make a nine look like an eight.Easier still to make a one look like a seven . . .Long after the sun disappeared, Rin closed the shop and locked thedoor behind her.Then she shoved a packet of stolen opium under her shirt and ran.“Rin?” A small, wizened man opened the library door and peeked out ather. “Great Tortoise! What are you doing out here? It’s pouring.”“I came to return a book,” she said, holding out a waterproof satchel.“Also, I’m getting married.”“Oh. Oh! What? Come in.”Tutor Feyrik taught a tuition-free evening class to the peasant childrenof Tikany, who otherwise would have grown up illiterate. Rin trustedhim above anyone else, and she understood his weaknesses better thananyone else.That made him the linchpin in her escape plan.“The vase is gone,” she observed as she glanced around the crampedlibrary.Tutor Feyrik lit a small flame in the fireplace and dragged twocushions in front of it. He motioned for her to sit down. “Bad call. Badnight overall, really.” Tutor Feyrik had an unfortunate adoration for Divisions, animmensely popular game played in Tikany’s gambling dens. It wouldn’thave been so dangerous if he were better at it.“That makes no sense,” said Tutor Feyrik after Rin recounted to himthe matchmaker’s tidings. “Why would the Fangs marry you off? Aren’tyou their best source of unpaid labor?”“Yes, but they think I’ll be more useful in the import inspector’s bed.”Tutor Feyrik looked revolted. “Your folks are assholes.”“So you’ll do it,” she said hopefully. “You’ll help.”He sighed. “My dear girl, if your family had let you study with mewhen you were younger, we might have considered this . . . I told theFangs then, I told her you might have potential. But at this stage, you’respeaking of the impossible.”“But—”He held up a hand. “More than twenty thousand students take the Kejueach year, and hardly three thousand enter the academies. Of those,barely a handful test in from Tikany. You’d be competing againstwealthy children—merchants’ children, nobles’ children—who havebeen studying for this their entire lives.”“But I’ve taken classes with you, too. How hard can it be?”He chuckled at that. “You can read. You can use an abacus. That’s notthe kind of preparation it takes to pass the Keju. The Keju tests for adeep knowledge of history, advanced mathematics, logic, and theClassics . . .”“The Four Noble Subjects, I know,” she said impatiently. “But I’m afast reader. I know more characters than most of the adults in this village.Certainly more than the Fangs. I can keep up with your students if youjust let me try. I don’t even have to attend recitation. I just need books.”“Reading books is one thing,” Tutor Feyrik said. “Preparing for theKeju is a different endeavor entirely. My Keju students spend their wholelives studying for it; nine hours a day, seven days a week. You spendmore time than that working in the shop.”“I can study at the shop,” she protested.“Don’t you have actual responsibilities?”“I’m good at, uh, multitasking.”He eyed her skeptically for a moment, then shook his head. “You’donly have two years. It can’t be done.”“But I don’t have any other options,” she said shrilly.In Tikany, an unmarried girl like Rin was worth less than a gayrooster. She could spend her life as a foot servant in some rich household —if she found the right people to bribe. Otherwise her options weresome combination of prostitution and begging.She was being dramatic, but not hyperbolic. She could leave town,probably with enough stolen opium to buy herself a caravan ticket to anyother province . . . but where to? She had no friends or family; no one tocome to her aid if she was robbed or kidnapped. She had no marketableskills. She had never left Tikany; she didn’t know the first thing aboutsurvival in the city.And if they caught her with that much opium on her person . . . Opiumpossession was a capital offense in the Empire. She’d be dragged into thetown square and publicly beheaded as the latest casualty in theEmpress’s futile war on drugs.She had only this option. She had to sway Tutor Feyrik.She held up the book she had come to return. “This is Mengzi.Reflections on Statecraft. I’ve only had this for three days, right?”“Yes,” he said without checking his ledger.She handed it to him. “Read me a passage. Any will do.”Tutor Feyrik still looked skeptical, but flipped to the middle of thebook to humor her. “The feeling of commiseration is the principle of . . .”“Benevolence,” she finished. “The feeling of shame and dislike is theprinciple of righteousness. The feeling of modesty and complaisance isthe principle of . . . the principle of, uh, propriety. And the feeling ofapproving and disapproving is the principle of knowledge.”He raised an eyebrow. “And what does that mean?”“No clue,” she admitted. “Honestly, I don’t understand Mengzi at all. Ijust memorized him.”He flipped toward the end of the book, selected another passage, andread: “Order is present in the earthly kingdom when all beingsunderstand their place. All beings understand their place when theyfulfill the roles set out for them. The fish does not attempt to fly. Thepolecat does not attempt to swim. Only when each being respects theheavenly order may there be peace.” He shut the book and looked up.“How about this passage? Do you understand what it means?”She knew what Tutor Feyrik was trying to tell her.The Nikara believed in strictly defined social roles, a rigid hierarchythat all were locked into at birth. Everything had its own place underheaven. Princelings became Warlords, cadets became soldiers, andorphan shopgirls from Tikany should be content with remaining orphanshopgirls from Tikany. The Keju was a purportedly meritocratic institution, but only the wealthy class ever had the money to afford thetutors their children needed to actually pass.Well, fuck the heavenly order of things. If getting married to a grossold man was her preordained role on this earth, then Rin was determinedto rewrite it.“It means I’m very good at memorizing long passages of gibberish,”she said.Tutor Feyrik was silent for a moment. “You don’t have an eideticmemory,” he said finally. “I taught you to read. I would have known.”“I don’t,” she acknowledged. “But I’m stubborn, I study hard, and Ireally don’t want to be married. It took me three days to memorizeMengzi. It was a short book, so I’ll probably need a full week for thelonger texts. But how many texts are on the Keju list? Twenty? Thirty?”“Twenty-seven.”“Then I’ll memorize them all. Every single one. That’s all you need topass the Keju. The other subjects aren’t that hard; it’s the Classics thattrip people up. You told me that yourself.”Tutor Feyrik’s eyes were narrowing now, his expression no longerskeptical but calculated. She knew that look. It was the look he got whenhe was trying to predict his returns at Divisions.In Nikan, a tutor’s success was tied to his reputation for Keju results.You attracted clients if your students made it into an academy. Morestudents meant more money, and to an indebted gambler like TutorFeyrik, each new student counted. If Rin tested into an academy, anensuing influx of students could get Tutor Feyrik out of some nastydebts.“Enrollment’s been slow this year, hasn’t it?” she pressed.He grimaced. “It’s a drought year. Of course admission is slow. Notmany families want to pay tuition when their children barely have achance to pass regardless.”“But I can pass,” she said. “And when I do, you’ll have a student whotested into an academy. What do you think that’ll do for enrollment?”He shook his head. “Rin, I couldn’t take your tuition money in goodfaith.”That posed a second problem. She steeled her nerve and looked him inthe eye. “That’s okay. I can’t pay tuition.”He balked visibly.“I don’t make anything at the store,” Rin said before he could speak.“The inventory isn’t mine. I don’t get any wages. I need you to help me to study for the Keju at no cost, and twice as fast as you train your otherstudents.”Tutor Feyrik began to shake his head again. “My dear girl, I can’t—this is—”Time to play her last card. Rin pulled her leather satchel out fromunder her chair and plunked it on the table. It hit the wood with a solid,satisfying smack.Tutor Feyrik’s eyes followed her eagerly as she slipped a hand into thesatchel and drew out one heavy, sweet-smelling packet. Then another.And then another.“This is six tael worth of premium opium,” she said calmly. Six taelwas half of what Tutor Feyrik might earn in an entire year.“You stole this from the Fangs,” he said uneasily.She shrugged. “Smuggling’s a difficult business. The Fangs know therisk. Packages go missing all the time. They can hardly report it to themagistrate.”He twiddled his long whiskers. “I don’t want to get on the Fangs’ badside.”He had good reason to fear. People in Tikany didn’t cross Auntie Fang—not if they cared about their personal safety. She was patient andunpredictable as a snake. She might let faults go unacknowledged foryears, and then strike with a well-placed poisonous pellet.But Rin had covered her tracks.“One of her shipments was confiscated by port authorities last week,”Rin said. “And she hasn’t had time to do inventory yet. I’ve just markedthese packets as lost. She can’t trace them.”“They could still beat you.”“Not so badly.” Rin forced a shrug. “They can’t marry off damagedmerchandise.”Tutor Feyrik was staring at the satchel with obvious greed.“Deal,” he said finally, and grasped for the opium.She snatched it out of his reach. “Four conditions. One, you teach me.Two, you teach me for free. Three, you don’t smoke when you’reteaching me. And four, if you tell anyone where you got this, I’ll let yourcreditors know where to find you.”Tutor Feyrik glared at her for a long moment, and then nodded.She cleared her throat. “Also, I want to keep this book.”He gave her a wry smile.“You would make a terrible prostitute. No charm.” “No,” said Auntie Fang. “We need you in the shop.”“I’ll study at night,” Rin said. “Or during off-hours.”Auntie Fang’s face pinched together as she scrubbed at the frying wok.Everything about Auntie Fang was raw: her expression, an open displayof impatience and irritation; her fingers, red from hours of cleaning andlaundering; her voice, hoarse from screaming at Rin; at her son, Kesegi;at her hired smugglers; at Uncle Fang, lying inert in his smoke-filledroom.“What did you promise him?” she demanded suspiciously.Rin stiffened. “Nothing.”Auntie Fang abruptly slammed the wok onto the counter. Rin flinched,suddenly terrified that her theft had been discovered.“What is so wrong with getting married?” Auntie Fang demanded. “Imarried your uncle when I was younger than you are now. Every othergirl in this village will get married by her sixteenth birthday. Do youthink you’re so much better than them?”Rin was so relieved that she had to remember to look properlychastised. “No. I mean, I don’t.”“Do you think it will be so bad?” Auntie Fang’s voice becamedangerously quiet. “What is it, really? Are you afraid of sharing hisbed?”Rin hadn’t even considered that, but now the very thought of it madeher throat close up.Auntie Fang’s lip curled in amusement. “The first night is the worst,I’ll give you that. Keep a wad of cotton in your mouth so you don’t biteyour tongue. Do not cry out, unless he wants you to. Keep your headdown and do as he says—become his mute little household slave until hetrusts you. But once he does? You start plying him with opium—just alittle bit at first, though I doubt he’s never smoked before. Then you givehim more and more every day. Do it at night right after he’s finished withyou, so he always associates it with pleasure and power.“Give him more and more until he is fully dependent on it, and onyou. Let it destroy his body and mind. You’ll be more or less married toa breathing corpse, yes, but you will have his riches, his estates, and hispower.” Auntie Fang tilted her head. “Then will it hurt you so much toshare his bed?”Rin wanted to vomit. “But I . . .”“Is it the children you’re afraid of?” Auntie Fang cocked her head.“There are ways to kill them in the womb. You work in the apothecary.You know that. But you’ll want to give him at least one son. Cement your position as his first wife, so he can’t fritter his assets on aconcubine.”“But I don’t want that,” Rin choked out. I don’t want to be like you.“And who cares what you want?” Auntie Fang asked softly. “You area war orphan. You have no parents, no standing, and no connections.You’re lucky the inspector doesn’t care that you’re not pretty, only thatyou’re young. This is the best I can do for you. There will be no morechances.”“But the Keju—”“But the Keju,” Auntie Fang mimicked. “When did you get sodeluded? You think you’re going to an academy?”“I do think so.” Rin straightened her back, tried to inject confidenceinto her words. Calm down. You still have leverage. “And you’ll let me.Because one day, the authorities might start asking where the opium’scoming from.”Auntie Fang examined her for a long moment. “Do you want to die?”she asked.Rin knew that wasn’t an empty threat. Auntie Fang was more thanwilling to tie up her loose ends. Rin had watched her do it before. She’dspent most of her life trying to make sure she never became a loose end.But now she could fight back.“If I go missing, then Tutor Feyrik will tell the authorities preciselywhat happened to me,” she said loudly. “And he’ll tell your son whatyou’ve done.”“Kesegi won’t care,” Auntie Fang scoffed.“I raised Kesegi. He loves me,” Rin said. “And you love him. Youdon’t want him to know what you do. That’s why you don’t send him tothe shop. And why you make me keep him in our room when you go outto meet your smugglers.”That did it. Auntie Fang stared at her, mouth agape, nostrils flaring.“Let me at least try,” Rin begged. “It can’t hurt you to let me study. If Ipass, then you’ll at least be rid of me—and if I fail, you still have abride.”Auntie Fang grabbed at the wok. Rin tensed instinctively, but AuntieFang only resumed scrubbing it with a vengeance.“You study in the shop, and I’ll throw you out on the streets,” AuntieFang said. “I don’t need this getting back to the inspector.”“Deal,” Rin lied through her teeth.Auntie Fang snorted. “And what happens if you get in? Who’s goingto pay your tuition, your dear, impoverished tutor?” Rin hesitated. She’d been hoping the Fangs might give her the dowrymoney as tuition, but she could see now that had been an idiotic hope.“Tuition at Sinegard is free,” she pointed out.Auntie Fang laughed out loud. “Sinegard! You think you’re going totest into Sinegard?”Rin lifted her chin. “I could.”The military academy at Sinegard was the most prestigious institutionin the Empire, a training ground for future generals and statesmen. Itrarely recruited from the rural south, if ever.“You are deluded.” Auntie Fang snorted again. “Fine—study if youlike, if that makes you happy. By all means, take the Keju. But when youfail, you will marry that inspector. And you will be grateful.”That night, cradling a stolen candle on the floor of the cramped bedroomthat she shared with Kesegi, Rin cracked open her first Keju primer.The Keju tested the Four Noble Subjects: history, mathematics, logic,and the Classics. The imperial bureaucracy in Sinegard considered thesesubjects integral to the development of a scholar and a statesman. Rinhad to learn them all by her sixteenth birthday.She set a tight schedule for herself: she was to finish at least twobooks every week, and to rotate between two subjects each day. Eachnight after she had closed up shop, she ran to Tutor Feyrik’s house beforereturning home, arms laden with more books.History was the easiest to learn. Nikan’s history was a highlyentertaining saga of constant warfare. The Empire had been formed amillennium ago under the mighty sword of the merciless Red Emperor,who destroyed the monastic orders scattered across the continent andcreated a unified state of unprecedented size. It was the first time theNikara people had ever conceived of themselves as a single nation. TheRed Emperor standardized the Nikara language, issued a uniform set ofweights and measurements, and built a system of roads that connectedhis sprawling territory.But the newly conceived Nikara Empire did not survive the RedEmperor’s death. His many heirs turned the country into a bloody messduring the Era of Warring States that followed, which divided Nikan intotwelve rival provinces.Since then, the massive country had been reunified, conquered,exploited, shattered, and then unified again. Nikan had in turn been atwar with the khans of the northern Hinterlands and the tall westerners from across the great sea. Both times Nikan had proven itself toomassive to suffer foreign occupation for very long.Of all Nikan’s attempted conquerors, the Federation of Mugen hadcome the closest. The island country had attacked Nikan at a time whendomestic turmoil between the provinces was at its peak. It took twoPoppy Wars and fifty years of bloody occupation for Nikan to win backits independence.The Empress Su Daji, the last living member of the troika who hadseized control of the state during the Second Poppy War, now ruled overa land of twelve provinces that had never quite managed to achieve thesame unity that the Red Emperor had imposed.The Nikara Empire had proven itself historically unconquerable. But itwas also unstable and disunited, and the current spell of peace held nopromise of durability.If there was one thing Rin had learned about her country’s history, itwas that the only permanent thing about the Nikara Empire was war.The second subject, mathematics, was a slog. It wasn’t overlychallenging but tedious and tiresome. The Keju did not filter for geniusmathematicians but rather for students who could keep up things such asthe country’s finances and balance books. Rin had been doing accountingfor the Fangs since she could add. She was naturally apt at juggling largesums in her head. She still had to bring herself up to speed on the moreabstract trigonometric theorems, which she assumed mattered for navalbattles, but she found that learning those was pleasantly straightforward.The third section, logic, was entirely foreign to her. The Keju posedlogic riddles as open-ended questions. She flipped open a sample examfor practice. The first question read: “A scholar traveling a well-troddenroad passes a pear tree. The tree is laden with fruit so heavy that thebranches bend over with its weight. Yet he does not pick the fruit. Why?”Because it’s not his pear tree, Rin thought immediately. Because theowner might be Auntie Fang and break his head open with a shovel. Butthose responses were either moral or contingent. The answer to the riddlehad to be contained within the question itself. There must be somefallacy, some contradiction in the given scenario.Rin had to think for a long while before she came up with the answer:If a tree by a well-traveled road has this much fruit, then there must besomething wrong with the fruit.The more she practiced, the more she came to see the questions asgames. Cracking them was very rewarding. Rin drew diagrams in thedirt, studied the structures of syllogisms, and memorized the more common logical fallacies. Within months, she could answer these kindsof questions in mere seconds.Her worst subject by far was Classics. It was the exception to herrotating schedule. She had to study Classics every day.This section of the Keju required students to recite, analyze, andcompare texts of a predetermined canon of twenty-seven books. Thesebooks were written not in the modern script but in the Old Nikaralanguage, which was notorious for unpredictable grammar patterns andtricky pronunciations. The books contained poems, philosophicaltreatises, and essays on statecraft written by the legendary scholars ofNikan’s past. They were meant to shape the moral character of thenation’s future statesmen. And they were, without exception, hopelesslyconfusing.Unlike with logic and mathematics, Rin could not reason her way outof Classics. Classics required a knowledge base that most students hadbeen slowly building since they could read. In two years, Rin had tosimulate more than five years of constant study.To that end, she achieved extraordinary feats of rote memorization.She recited backward while walking along the edges of the olddefensive walls that encircled Tikany. She recited at double speed whilehopping across posts over the lake. She mumbled to herself in the store,snapping in irritation whenever customers asked for her help. She wouldnot let herself sleep unless she had recited that day’s lessons withouterror. She woke up chanting classical analects, which terrified Kesegi,who thought she had been possessed by ghosts. And in a way, she hadbeen—she dreamed of ancient poems by long-dead voices and woke upshaking from nightmares where she’d gotten them wrong.“The Way of Heaven operates unceasingly, and leaves noaccumulation of its influence in any particular place, so that all thingsare brought to perfection by it . . . so does the Way operate, and all underthe sky turn to them, and all within the seas submit to them.”Rin put down Zhuangzi’s Annals and scowled. Not only did she haveno idea what Zhuangzi was writing about, she also couldn’t see why hehad insisted on writing in the most irritatingly verbose manner possible.She understood very little of what she read. Even the scholars of YueluMountain had trouble understanding the Classics; she could hardly beexpected to glean their meaning on her own. And because she didn’thave the time or the training to delve deep into the texts—and since shecould think of no useful mnemonics, no shortcuts to learning the Classics —she simply had to learn them word by word and hope that would beenough.She walked everywhere with a book. She studied as she ate. When shetired, she conjured up images for herself, telling herself the story of theworst possible future.You walk up the aisle in a dress that doesn’t fit you. You’re trembling.He’s waiting at the other end. He looks at you like you’re a juicy,fattened pig, a marbled slab of meat for his purchase. He spreads salivaover his dry lips. He doesn’t look away from you throughout the entirebanquet. When it’s over, he carries you to his bedroom. He pushes youonto the sheets.She shuddered. Squeezed her eyes shut. Reopened them and found herplace on the page.By Rin’s fifteenth birthday she held a vast quantity of ancient Nikaraliterature in her head, and could recite the majority of it. But she was stillmaking mistakes: missing words, switching up complex clauses, mixingup the order of the stanzas.This was good enough, she knew, to test into a teacher’s college or amedical academy. She suspected she might even test into the scholars’institute at Yuelu Mountain, where the most brilliant minds in Nikanproduced stunning works of literature and pondered the mysteries of thenatural world.But she could not afford any of those academies. She had to test intoSinegard. She had to test into the highest-scoring percentage of studentsnot just in the village, but in the entire country. Otherwise, her two yearsof study would be wasted.She had to make her memory perfect.She stopped sleeping.Her eyes became bloodshot, swollen. Her head swam from days ofcramming. When she visited Tutor Feyrik at his home one night to pickup a new set of books, her gaze was desperate, unfocused. She staredpast him as he spoke. His words drifted over her head like clouds; shebarely registered his presence.“Rin. Look at me.”She inhaled sharply and willed her eyes to focus on his fuzzy form.“How are you holding up?” he asked.“I can’t do it,” she whispered. “I only have two more months, and Ican’t do it. Everything is spilling out of my head as quickly as I put it in,and—” Her chest rose and fell very quickly. “Oh, Rin.”Words spilled from her mouth. She spoke without thinking. “Whathappens if I don’t pass? What if I get married after all? I guess I couldkill him. Smother him in his sleep, you know? Would I inherit hisfortune? That would be fine, wouldn’t it?” She began to laughhysterically. Tears rolled down her cheeks. “It’s easier than doping himup. No one would ever know.”Tutor Feyrik rose quickly and pulled out a stool. “Sit down, child.”Rin trembled. “I can’t. I still have to get through Fuzi’s Analectsbefore tomorrow.”“Runin. Sit.”She sank onto the stool.Tutor Feyrik sat down opposite her and took her hands in his. “I’ll tellyou a story,” he said. “Once, not too long ago, there lived a scholar froma very poor family. He was too weak to work long hours in the fields,and his only chance of providing for his parents in their old age was towin a government position so that he might receive a robust stipend. Todo this, he had to matriculate at an academy. With the last of hisearnings, the scholar bought a set of textbooks and registered for theKeju. He was very tired, because he toiled in the fields all day and couldonly study at night.”Rin’s eyes fluttered shut. Her shoulders heaved, and she suppressed ayawn.Tutor Feyrik snapped his fingers in front of her eyes. “The scholar hadto find a way to stay awake. So he pinned the end of his braid to theceiling, so that every time he drooped forward, his hair would yank at hisscalp and the pain would awaken him.” Tutor Feyrik smiledsympathetically. “You’re almost there, Rin. Just a little further. Please donot commit spousal homicide.”But she had stopped listening.“The pain made him focus,” she said.“That’s not really what I was trying to—”“The pain made him focus,” she repeated.Pain could make her focus.So Rin kept a candle by her books, dripping hot wax on her arm if shenodded off. Her eyes would water in pain, she would wipe her tearsaway, and she would resume her studies.The day she took the exam, her arms were covered with burn scars. Afterward, Tutor Feyrik asked her how the test went. She couldn’t tellhim. Days later, she couldn’t remember those horrible, draining hours.They were a gap in her memory. When she tried to recall how she’danswered a particular question, her brain seized up and did not let herrelive it.She didn’t want to relive it. She never wanted to think about it again.Seven days until the scores were out. Every booklet in the provincehad to be checked, double-checked, and triple-checked.For Rin, those days were unbearable. She hardly slept. For the pasttwo years she had filled her days with frantic studying. Now she hadnothing to do—her future was out of her hands, and knowing that madeher feel far worse.She drove everyone else mad with her fretting. She made mistakes atthe shop. She created a mess out of inventory. She snapped at Kesegi andfought with the Fangs more than she should have.More than once she considered stealing another pack of opium andsmoking it. She had heard of women in the village committing suicide byswallowing opium nuggets whole. In the dark hours of the night, sheconsidered that, too.Everything hung in suspended animation. She felt as if she weredrifting, her whole existence reduced to a single score.She thought about making contingency plans, preparations to escapethe village in case she hadn’t tested out after all. But her mind refused tolinger on the subject. She could not possibly conceive of life after theKeju because there might not be a life after the Keju.Rin grew so desperate that for the first time in her life, she prayed.The Fangs were far from religious. They visited the village templesporadically at best, mostly to exchange packets of opium behind thegolden altar.They were hardly alone in their lack of religious devotion. Once themonastic orders had exerted even greater influence on the country thanthe Warlords did now, but then the Red Emperor had come crashingthrough the continent with his glorious quest for unification, leavingslaughtered monks and empty temples in his wake.The monastic orders were gone now, but the gods remained: numerousdeities that represented every category from sweeping themes of loveand warfare to the mundane concerns of kitchens and households.Somewhere, those traditions were kept alive by devout worshippers whohad gone into hiding, but most villagers in Tikany frequented the templesonly out of ritualistic habit. No one truly believed—at least, no one who