Shouts of brutal exertion echoed from the Academy’s eastern drilling fields.
Two hundred freshmen in sweat-drenched linen shirts were swinging heavy spirit-iron broadswords through the damp morning mist. Their knuckles were raw, their boots churned the clay into mud, and their instructors roared curses whenever a blade dipped an inch too low.
Three hundred yards away, beneath the hanging green branches of an ancient weeping willow, Kaelen Vance was engaged in serious business.
He had set up a folding bamboo recliner on the grassy verge of the Golden Lotus Pond.
His boots were unlaced, resting comfortably on a woven reed mat. His straw hat was tilted over his forehead, shading his eyes from the glare of the water. In his right hand, resting loosely across his thigh, was a nine-foot cane fishing rod.
The green silk line dangled forty feet out into the pond, rippling the emerald surface.
At the bottom of the line was no hook. There was no bait, no barb, and no worm. Only a smooth, water-rounded river pebble tied to the silk with three neat knots to keep the string taut in the current.
A fat golden carp with speckled whiskers swam up to the pebble. It bumped its snout against the stone twice, realized there was neither food nor steel, and settled into the cool shadow of the reeds directly beneath the line.
