She was not. It was hard to concentrate while Jiang jabbed an unguarded halberd at her, forcing her to dance around to avoid sudden impalement.
By and large, Jiang’s metaphors meant little to her, but she learned quickly to avoid injury. And perhaps that was his point. She developed muscle memory. She learned that there were only so many permutations to the way a human body could move, only so many attack combinations that worked, that she could reasonably expect from her opponent. She learned to react automatically to these. She learned to predict Jiang’s moves seconds in advance, to read from the tilt of his torso and the flicker of his eyes what he was about to do next.
He pushed her relentlessly. He fought the hardest when she was exhausted. When she fell, he attacked her as soon as she’d gotten back on her feet. She learned to stay constantly on guard, to react to the slightest movements in her peripheral vision.
The day came when she angled her hip against his just so, forced his weight to the side and jammed all her force at an angle that hurled him over her right shoulder.
Jiang skidded across the stone floor and bumped against the garden wall, which shook the shelves so that a potted cactus came perilously close to shattering on the ground.
Jiang lay there for a moment, dazed. Then he looked up, met her eyes, and grinned.
Rin’s last day with Sunzi was the hardest.
Sunzi was no longer an adorable piglet but an absurdly fat monster that smelled heinously bad. It wasn’t remotely cute. Any affection Rin had felt for those trusting brown eyes was negated by the animal’s massive girth.
Carrying Sunzi up the mountain was torture. Sunzi no longer fit in any sort of sling or basket. Rin had to drape it over her shoulders, grasping it by its two front legs.
She could hardly move as fast as she had when Sunzi could still be cradled in her arms, but she had to, unless she wanted to go without breakfast—or worse, miss class. She rose earlier. She ran faster. She staggered up the mountain, gasping for air with every step. Sunzi lay against her back with its snout resting over one of her shoulders, basking in the morning sun while Rin’s muscles screamed with resentment. When she reached Sunzi’s drinking area, she let the pig drop to the ground and collapsed.
“Drink, you glutton,” she grumbled as Sunzi frolicked in the stream. “I can’t wait until the day they carve you up and eat you.”
On her way down the mountain, the sun began to beat down in earnest, eliciting rivulets of sweat all over Rin’s body despite the winter cold. She limped through the meatpacking district to the Widow Maung’s cottage and deposited Sunzi gracelessly on the floor.
It rolled over, squealed loudly and ran in a circle, chasing its own tail.
The Widow Maung came out to the front carrying a bucket of slops.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” Rin panted.
The Widow Maung shook her head. “There won’t be a tomorrow. Not for this one, anyway.” She rubbed Sunzi’s snout. “This one’s going to the butcher tonight.”
Rin blinked. “What? So soon?”
“Sunzi’s already reached his peak weight.” The Widow Maung slapped Sunzi’s sides. “Look at that girth. None of my pigs have ever grown so heavy. Perhaps your crazy teacher was right about the mountain water. Maybe I should send all my pigs up there.”
Rin rather hoped that she didn’t. Chest still heaving, she bowed low to the widow. “Thank you for letting me carry your pig.”
The Widow Maung harrumphed. “Academy freaks,” she muttered under her breath, and began to lead Sunzi back to the sty. “Come on, you. Let’s get you ready for the butcher.”
“Don’t look at me,” Rin said. “It’s the end of the road for you.”
She couldn’t help but feel a stab of guilt; the longer she looked at Sunzi, the more she was reminded of its piglet form. She tore her eyes away from its dull, naive gaze and headed back up the mountain.
“Already?” Jiang looked surprised when Rin reported Sunzi’s fate. He was sitting on the far wall of the garden, swinging his legs over the edge like an energetic child. “Ah, I had high hopes for that pig. But in the end, swine are swine. How do you feel?”
“I’m devastated,” Rin said. “Sunzi and I were finally starting to understand each other.”
“No, you sod. Your
She frowned and swung her arms about. “Sore?”
Jiang jumped off the wall and walked toward her. “I’m going to hit you,” he announced.
“Wait, what?”
She dug her heels into the ground and only managed to get her elbows up right before he slammed a fist at her face.
