Each Copper carries a tall wooden branch, unpolished and uncarved. At the height of this branch is a green banner. When the Coppers raise their branches together, it is as though they march in the center of a forest, with leaves blowing over their heads. A few of the most outstanding Coppers have snakes carved into their branches, as the Tree and the Serpent are the symbols of the Li clan.

Mothers and fathers of the Wei families lean over their children, pointing out the ostentatious jewelry, which flash in the gleaming Remnant rainbow overhead. This is vanity, pride, and arrogance. Only the truly strong deserve to be arrogant, and the Li clansmen think too much of themselves. With such displays, they will someday provoke a power much greater than their own, and that will be their downfall.

At the same time and in the same voices, the Li and the Kazan mock the Wei in their own ways, and for their own reasons. Such is as it has been for a hundred generations.

For all its talk of humility, the Wei clan will not lose to its guests. And masters of illusion are, after all, masters of presentation.

The gates of the Wei clan—newly constructed for the occasion, and carved with purple flowers and white foxes—peel open under the strength of invisible chains. The Li display is put to shame when the sky explodes in sound and color, foxfire popping in purple flares and raining down among the visitors in a million harmless sparks. A legion of phantom snowfoxes wait on their haunches, lined up along the street of the clan as the Li and the Kazan enter. The eyes of the foxes follow each stranger, even as illusionary cheers fill the atmosphere. Flower petals of pink and white and purple spin on the wind, and sweet scents fall from the sky as though the air itself has been perfumed.

The Wei swell with pride as they watch this coordinated masterpiece of White Fox madra, and the elders—their conductors—nod to each other in satisfaction. They have outdone their rivals in hospitality, welcoming them in a fashion appropriate for receiving an imperial procession.

In their minds, this is more than their enemies deserve.

Suggested topic: the fate of the current Seven-Year Festival. Continue?

Denied, report complete.

Chapter 9

All the important events of the Seven-Year Festival were to take place later, once the esteemed guests had settled in. It would take several days for everyone to arrive from all over Sacred Valley, and the Wei clan wanted as broad an audience as possible.

But the Foundation fights were scheduled for the first day.

Lindon understood why. These were children, after all; while each clan would still try to make sure its children were the best trained in the sacred arts, there was nothing at stake beyond pride. When a clan revealed a new talent at the Iron level, then they were displaying a new military power. Likewise, Coppers were the future of the clan. Showing weakness before rivals could be a clan's death sentence.

As for the Foundation stage, unless a boy or girl revealed a truly extraordinary genius talent, these fights existed only to give the children experience. A victory would gain face for the clan, but nothing remarkable.

Lindon reminded himself of this to keep from vomiting all over his white training robes. His wooden badge seemed to burn on his chest as he waited on the bench with the other Foundation-level Wei fighters. The seats that he'd seen empty a few nights before now roared with life as sacred artists from all over the Valley gathered.

Besides him, the oldest person on the bench was a twelve-year-old girl from the Chen family. Three years younger than he was, and already on the verge of breaking through to Copper.

The arena spread before him, a huge square of pale stone, but now it looked as vast as a field of snow. If he failed, everyone would see it. Not just those in the Wei clan, who already knew about their Unsouled, but the Li and the Kazan as well. They would see what a shame the Wei had produced.

He looked up to the corner of the arena, where a five-tailed snowfox curled up on a pillar. It opened its eyes as though sensing his attention, staring at him with a gaze of absolute black.

Elder Whisper and his mother had both told him to move forward. He couldn't be a coward now.

Even if he felt like one.

A powerfully built man in elaborate purple-and-gold shadesilk glided past the bench, his thick beard blending in with his wild hair until he looked like a silver lion. He winked at the children, ignoring Lindon, his jade scepter badge hanging over the White Fox emblem on his chest.

Wei Jin Sairus, the Wei Patriarch, rarely involved himself in the day-to-day workings of the clan. The elders handled such mundane matters. He was the idol for the younger generations to follow, the sacred artist fixated entirely on his Path, seeking power to the exclusion of all else. When he did emerge from seclusion, it was usually to battle a powerful Remnant, seek out rumors of a newfound treasure, or directly threaten a rival clan. He personally represented a significant fraction of the Wei clan's strength.

Wei Jin Amon, the Patriarch's blood grandson, followed at a respectful distance behind. He was dressed in white, an iron badge hanging from his neck though he was only seventeen, and he carried a spear wrapped in shimmering green shadesilk. His hair was long and thick, tied back until it flowed behind him like a black river, and some of the less flattering rumors said he spent as much time caring for his hair as he did practicing his sacred arts. His gaze did land on Lindon, cold and calculating, but passed by in a breath.

The hammering of Lindon's heart redoubled. The Foundation fights weren't important, but now the Patriarch and his grandson—a future disciple of the vaunted Heaven’s Glory School—were both here to witness. What was happening? Surely they had something more important to be doing besides watching Lindon try to beat up ten-year-olds.

Seconds later, he had his answer, but it was no comfort. Rather than joining the Wei section and sitting among their family, Sairus and Amon greeted some of the elders and moved on. They walked over to the stairway leading up to the box reserved for visitors from the four Schools.

And Lindon realized there were people up there. Actual School disciples, the elites of Sacred Valley, there to see him fail.

Now that he was watching, he could pick them out. A young woman with purple robes and a crown of ivy represented the Fallen Leaf. The boy wrapped in white and gold, seemingly even younger than Lindon, would be there for the Heaven's Glory School. The man for the Golden Sword wore plates of iron sewn onto his clothes, and his goldsteel sheath gleamed. That left the old woman in gray to represent the Holy Wind, and as far as Lindon could tell, she was absolutely ordinary.

He turned around and heaved, spewing his breakfast all over the ground behind the bench.

The three clans didn't account for the entire population of Sacred Valley—far from it—but they ruled by virtue of superiority in the sacred arts. Those who followed the Path of the White Fox were stronger and better-trained than those wild practitioners without the support of a large family, and the Wei could afford to produce elixirs that the most powerful sacred artists needed to advance.

The four Schools were on another level entirely.

They focused completely on the sacred arts, to the exclusion of all else, and their disciples were selected from among the best of the clans. Wei, Li, or Kazan...it didn't matter, so long as the disciple was promising enough, and wasn't so old that they couldn't still switch Paths. It was said that any Jade expert from the Schools was on par with the Patriarch of a clan, and each School had enough Jades to tear every Wei to pieces.