Chapter 1

Yuu watched the old man over the table as he stared at the few pieces left to him. He was a foolish old man who brought a bottle of wine to the table and shared it without hesitation. A cunning tactic that might have worked on a lesser strategist, but she saw through his plan. That and it would take more than one bottle of wine to make her so poor at chess as to lose to the likes of him. He was wrinkled from more years than Yuu cared to count and had a drooping grey moustache. He was chewing on the left side of that moustache, grinding the hairs between his teeth, as he tried to find a way out of the trap she had led him into. There was no way out. Only fools left anything to chance.

“Don’t worry,” Yuu said, stifling a yawn. “We have all day.” It was late morning and white clouds covered the sky. There would be no rain today. Another day of drought.

“Don’t rush me,” the old man snapped as he stared at his pieces. “Chaoxiang wrote that no war is lost while the will to fight persists.” He glanced up at her and winked as though some tired old philosophy could turn the tide. “My will is set. Today is the day I beat you.”

He had said the same thing yesterday, and the day before. And the day before that too. He was wrong on all counts. For a start, he had lost after his sixth move, even if he hadn’t realised it, and all thirty moves since were just tightening the noose. Also, his interpretation of Chaoxiang was as lacking as his skill at chess. He had lost the game, and he had lost the battle. The war, on the other hand, would indeed go on until his will gave out. He would challenge her again and again, and he would lose again and again. And eventually his will would falter. Until then, Yuu would happily take his money and his wine. She raised her wine cup and sipped happily at it, enjoying the fuzzy edges of her drunk. Five years ago she would have condemned any of her soldiers for being drunk by midday. But things had changed and she had changed with them. The choice between change or death was no choice at all.

The old man placed a finger on his last Thief. He had just three Pawns, his Emperor, a Shintei, and the Thief he was now fingering. Yuu knew his move long before he made it. She had left him with only the one move, the one way out, one way to save his Emperor. He took it and moved his Thief forward two spaces and left one, blocking Yuu’s Monk. She waited for the old man to lift his finger from the piece, consummating his loss. Then Yuu plucked her Hero from the board, slid it all the way to the far side, and stood it next to the old man’s Emperor.

“Checkmate,” Yuu said with a drunken smile. She let the man stare at the board for a few moments. “Pay up.”

The old man’s eyes twitched about the board for a few moments more, then he sighed and slapped two coins on the stone table. “Can’t even win when I get you drunk.”

“Nope,” Yuu agreed happily. “But I thank you for trying.” She bowed her head to him and giggled drunkenly. “Let me know when you want to try again.”

The old man grumbled and stood from the table, his knees popping. He walked away with his head lowered. Yuu guessed his wife would be angry with him tonight. The foolishness of people never ceased to amaze her. For the fifth day in a row he’d lost his coin, and this time he lost a bottle of wine as well. Yuu noticed he’d even left what remained of the wine. She tucked a few errant strands of hair behind her ear and poured herself another cup, then went about resetting the pieces on the board in case anyone else was stupid enough to challenge her to a game.

Xindu was a sleepy little village just three days west of Ban Ping. A few dozen families called the place home, and in the relative peace following Einrich WuLong taking the throne and declaring himself Emperor of Ten Kings, it was growing slowly. There were whispers the Leper Emperor was planning a new war against Cochtan, but as yet no officials had come to levy troops. The village had a small square with a tavern looming over it, and in that square stood a stone table perfect for games of chess. It was a pleasant village to hide in, but Yuu had to remember that she was in hiding. She would have to move on soon, before the villagers started to ask who she really was. Until then, though, she would gladly beat all challengers, take their money, and drink it away. At a certain point each day, when she’d had just the right amount to drink, she could forget what she had done and who had paid the price. In that moment, her mind would stop analysing the world and find peace.

A new challenger sat down across the table, and Yuu blinked away the fuzziness in her eyes. Her thoughts had been drifting, leading her down the familiar dark path, and any distraction was a welcome one. Her new challenger appeared to be a young girl, maybe only six years old. Too young to remember the last emperor and the war he waged upon his own people. Yuu envied the girl her youth, but it was likely she would grow up to be just as foolish as everyone else.

“I don’t teach,” Yuu slurred. She plucked the bottle of wine from the table to refill her cup but found it empty. She stared down into its mouth, just to make certain, but it was definitely empty. Another loss to mourn.

“And I’m not here to learn,” the girl said in a voice so eloquent it made Yuu reassess her age. She was small, with short black hair and deceptively deep brown eyes.  She wore a simple red hanfu with white patterning sewn into it, and a single wooden dragon earring coiled around her left ear. It seemed an odd thing and certainly not any fashion Yuu was aware of. Perhaps she had lost the other earring. She was so young perhaps she didn’t even realise it. Her clothes were too clean for a field worker’s, and her attitude spoke of nobility. She was out of place here in Xindu, and Yuu didn’t like when things were out of place. There was something she wasn’t seeing.

“What’s your name, girl?” Yuu asked. She had been in Xindu for almost a week and had never seen the child before. The village had no affiliation with any of the clans, and this girl was anything but a commoner.

“Natsuko,” the girl said cheerfully. An Ipian name, it meant summer child. There was something unnervingly focused about the girl’s eyes.

“You’re a long way from Ipia,” Yuu said. Three weeks travel at least, much of it over mountains, not to mention crossing a guarded border. She looked around for the child’s parents. It was not so much that she disliked children as a rule, only that they served so little purpose until they were old enough to be useful. On second thought, she decided she did dislike children, and with good reason.

“What’s your name?” the girl asked.

“Yuu.” She was so used to the lie it came unbidden to her now. Five years as Yuu.

“No it isn’t,” the girl chided. “Your name is Daiyu Lingsen.”

Yuu panicked, and a dose of clarity rushed in, sharpening the fuzzy edges of her thinking. She found herself feeling a lot soberer than a moment before and cursed her complacency. She glanced about the village square nervously, searching for lawfolk or bounty hunters. The last she heard, there was four thousand lien on her head, and the royal family of Qing weren’t too bothered if the rest of her was attached. She’d pushed her luck, stayed in this deceptively sleepy village for too long. Rumour had it the legendary bounty hunter, the Laws of Hope, was in Ban Ping, and the city wasn’t so far from Xindu that he wouldn’t make the trip. Especially if four thousand lien was at stake. By the stars, four thousand lien was enough money to turn any of the idiot villagers in Xindu into a bounty hunter. It was time to run again, time to change her name again. Maybe she’d just leave Hosa for good, go live in Nash or Ipia, where no one had ever heard of the strategist the Art of War or her murder of the Steel Prince.

The only other people in the square were two village locals, a goatherd talking to a woman drawing water from the well. If they were there for her, then they weren’t doing a good job of penning her in. Xindu’s main road ran through the village square, and two narrow alleyways lay behind Yuu. One of them would be streaked with lines of washing at this time of day, which would provide extra cover for her escape. When she glanced back at the girl, she was still staring at Yuu, smiling patiently.

“What is this?” Yuu asked. “A shakedown? I have no money and–“

“No,” the girl said quickly. “Nothing like that. I’m here to ask for your help. Let me start again. My name is Natsuko, and I’m a goddess.”

Yuu stared hard at the girl and received nothing but impassive confidence in return. She had a passing knowledge of the gods, though there were so many of them only the monks could hope to remember them all. Still, the name rang a bell. “Would that be the Ipian god of the lost?” she asked.

The girl sighed impatiently. “Goddess of missed opportunities and lost things,” she said grumpily. “Not the lost.”

Would a goddess really come down from heaven to torment Yuu? She had to admit it was possible, likely even. What good did the gods serve if not to toy with mortals? The worst thing about it was that a goddess sitting across a gaming table from her was not the craziest thing she had ever seen. She’d seen long dead heroes brought back to life and had also seen them kill an oni. She’d thought she’d left that life behind. “Tell me this then, little goddess,” she said. “Why do you gods always appear as children?” She wasn’t sure she could run from a goddess, but it seemed far more likely than escaping the Laws of Hope if he came for her. His was a legend that stretched far and wide. No one escaped him.

The girl narrowed her eyes. “Always? You’ve met with gods before?”

A few strands of hair had fallen in front of her face again and Yuu tucked them back behind her ears. “Well, there was a shinigami a few years ago…” She glanced about the square again, looking for danger, but all seemed peaceful.

The girl snorted out a laugh. “Shinigami are not gods. They’re spirits. Powerful spirits, true, but they’re more akin to common yokai than to gods.” She had a flippant tone when talking about the Reapers that went a long way in convincing Yuu she might actually be telling the truth. Not many folk knew the truth about shinigami, and in Hosa far fewer likely knew the truth about an obscure Ipian goddess. “But if it makes you feel better…” The girl trailed off. Yuu squinted at the goatherd still chatting up the woman at the well. Yuu was certain she had seen him around the village before, but he was definitely glancing her way too often for her liking.

The girl’s voice slipped into the amused croak of an ancient grandmother. “How’s this?”

Yuu snapped her head around, ignoring a blur of drunken dizziness, and the goddess no longer wore the pink-cheeked face of a young girl but the lined and sagging face of an ancient woman. She wore the same hanfu and the same single wooden earring in her left ear. “What is this?” Yuu asked. “Where did the girl go? How drunk am I?”

The old woman shrugged and cackled. “Probably far too drunk for this conversation. However, I don’t have all the time in the world, and honestly I was struggling to find a time when you weren’t at least one bottle in.”

Yuu glanced at the empty wine bottle on the table. She had to admit it was not her first of the day. She had finished a bottle with breakfast, but that was nothing new. She rubbed her eyes and stared again at the old woman. The child was certainly gone, but there was something familiar about the ancient woman. She had the same brown eyes, so deep and wise.

“Are you convinced now?” the old woman asked.

Yuu had heard of tricksters, some with unique techniques, and some with impressive sleight of hand, but none who could change their appearance so quickly and so convincingly. She leaned over the table and glanced down beside the old woman, but if the child was hiding somewhere she was not there. Yuu sat back down and considered. The most obvious answer was that she was being tricked somehow and had not the wit to see through it. Then again, the world was full of stories about gods coming down from Tianmen to play with humans. It would be just her luck. “Can’t you, uh, do something to show me for certain?”

The old woman frowned, deepening the lines on her face. “Like what?”

“I don’t know.” Yuu glanced around. “Refill the wine bottle.”

“I’m the goddess of missed opportunities, not the goddess of booze.”

“Shame.” She was right, of course. The goddess of booze was Zhenzhen, and it was a name on many lips these days. It was, after all, customary to say a prayer to the goddess before the first sip of the day. Yuu failed to observe the custom of late, but then her first sip of the day was getting earlier and earlier, and she could barely remember to pour the wine into a cup at such times, much less say a prayer.

The old woman reached across the table. “Give me your hand.”

Yuu pulled back for a moment, suspicious, and glanced about the square again. The goatherd and the water woman were gone now. Yuu and the old woman were all alone. The old woman just held her hand out next to the chessboard, waiting for Yuu. Yuu reached out and clasped the woman’s hand. The old woman smiled a grandmother’s smile, and for just a moment looked too much like the woman who had raised Yuu back in another life, when she was known by her old name. Before war made her a murderer, and before peace made her a criminal. Then the old woman pulled her hand away, leaving something small and angular in Yuu’s palm.

“This isn’t possible,” Yuu said, her throat tightening. She stifled a sob and blinked away tears. In her hand was a small chess piece. Not one of hers — she carved and chiselled her own chess pieces these days in various likenesses — but one she knew well. One she had lost many many years ago. “How?”

The old woman smiled kindly at her. “I am the goddess of lost things and missed opportunities. This was a gift from your grandmother. Well, part of the set.” It was a single chess piece, a Pawn, the weakest of all pieces. Yuu rubbed her thumb over the little Hosan soldier. His spear had snapped off above the hand, and he had several little burrs along his cloak and helm. Some of the wood was discoloured from years of use, skin oils seeping into the grain. It was this exact Pawn Yuu had used to take her grandmother’s Emperor the very first time she defeated her. She had lost the piece on the road, forced to leave it when bandits attacked her camp during the night. She’d fled into the forest, the bandits close behind her. They would have caught her had she not run face-first into the Steel Prince, had he not saved her by slaughtering the bandits. It was the same chess piece. But it couldn’t be.

Yuu clutched the Pawn tightly and closed her eyes, remembering the many times she played against her grandmother. The many times she lost, and that one and only time she won. She slipped the piece into a pocket in her patchwork robe, and opened her eyes to find the goddess smiling sadly at her. Yuu sniffed and wiped at her eyes again. It was the booze. She couldn’t afford to be emotional now; she needed clarity and a clear head. “Natsuko? Let’s say I believe you. What does a goddess want with me?”

“Have you ever heard of the Heavenly Crucible?” Natsuko asked.

Yuu shook her head. Beyond a scattering of names, she knew little about the Gods or their rituals. Other than demanding prayer, they seemed to play little to no part in the daily lives of humans, but there was no denying they existed.

Natsuko sighed. “We hide so much from you. Have you noticed how for the past hundred years the world has known only war?”

Yuu shrugged. War was the way of the world, the way of the people in it, and the way of those who ruled it. It was true she hated it, the violence and death, sickness and famine. So many lives were lost to war, and the toll went far beyond those killed in battle. On the other hand, she had made her name in war, as strategist for the Steel Prince of Qing. For a time the position had made her both powerful and respected. Now it made her despised and hunted. She hated war, and yet owed it everything she had and everything she was, good and bad.

Natsuko seemed to wait a moment for Yuu to say something. When she didn’t, the goddess continued, “It’s all because Batu, the god of war, sits on Tianmen’s throne. His reign as tianjun has been bloody and violent. He is the god of war and war is his only purpose. He has brought it to every corner of Hosa, Ipia, Nash, and Cochtan, bathing the world in slaughter. And none of us can stop him,” Natsuko said, her wrinkled face contorted with grief.

“Why not?”

“Because he is the tianjun,” Natsuko looked at Yuu as if she were simple. “His word is law. His rule is absolute. What laws he makes, we must abide.”

“I didn’t realise the gods had an emperor,” Yuu said, wishing she had another bottle of wine or two. She had a feeling she wasn’t going to like where this conversation was going, and bad news always went down better when she could only understand half the words.

Natsuko nodded. “Every hundred years we hold a contest, the Heavenly Crucible. The winner becomes tianjun for the next century.”

“It’s now, isn’t it?” Yuu asked. She could see only one reason the goddess would be telling her about it. “This contest thing.” She picked up the wine bottle and stared into its depths again. Still bloody empty.

“Yes.”

“And you’re looking for a strategist to help you fight a war against the god of war?” Yuu laughed at the idea and shook her head. No doubt a greater war had never before been fought, but she wasn’t a strategist anymore. She wasn’t the Art of War anymore. “Look elsewhere. I don’t do that. I want no part in any wars. I just want to play chess and–“

“And drink yourself into the grave?”

Yuu waved the empty bottle in the air. “My way of paying tribute to Zhenzhen.”

Natsuko sighed. “It’s not a war. It’s a contest.”

“Then you would be better off choosing a warrior,” Yuu said with another dismissive wave. “I don’t know how to fight.” It was not entirely true, she had rudimentary skill with the sword, but nothing compared to the heroes who wandered Hosa or the bandits who plagued the outer villages of the empire. Or even the occasional rabid thug with nothing but a rusty blade. Any one of them would be a better choice than a disgraced strategist. She might have won every battle, and even the war, but she had sacrificed her Emperor… her Steel Prince. It was a poor trade.

“Oh, do shut up and let me finish. It is not a war, nor a fight. It is a quest. The gods choose champions. Humans. Divine artefacts are hidden throughout Hosa. The winner is the god whose champion finds and collects the most artefacts by the next full moon. “

Yuu giggled. “Really? The gods choose their emperor by way of a scavenger hunt.”

“Yes,” Natsuko said cheerily with a clap of her gnarled hands. “That is a wonderful way to describe it.”

Yuu placed the empty wine bottle on the table and set it spinning slowly. “Why me?” She was neither a warrior nor a thief, nor particularly good at finding things. As far as she could tell, she had no place anywhere near this contest. She had no place anywhere at all except at a chess board, fleecing old men for coins. She had found her niche in life, and the stakes were exactly what she was comfortable with. No more empires hanging in the balance, no more kings and princes dying on her word, no more sacrificing the lives of hundreds of soldiers for a ploy. No more. She needed to find another bottle of wine before the reality of all she had done sobered her completely.

Natsuko’s creased face softened. “Because we want the same thing, an end to war. All war. Because I am the goddess of missed opportunities, and you have missed too many in your life. And because while other gods might choose warriors to take the artefacts by force or thieves to take them by guile, I have decided to employ someone who can see the journey rather than just the next step. Someone who can plan ahead and use resources that go beyond their own skill. I have chosen you, Daiyu Lingsen.”

Yuu curled her lip in distaste. “Then you chose poorly because that woman doesn’t exist. Daiyu Lingsen is dead– and good riddance to her. Thank you for my chess piece, Goddess Natsuko.” Yuu bowed her head. “Now go away.”

The goddess’ face fell, the lines around her mouth drooped. “Oh, do stop being so pitiful. I am the goddess of missed opportunities, so you will forgive me if I point out what a fool you are being by missing out on this one. I am giving you a chance to bring peace to the four empires. True peace. And you are too busy wallowing in self-pity and drinking away your grief to see it. So how about this. A wager.” She gestured to the chess board. “If I win, you help me. If you win, I will give back the thing you most cherish, the thing you have lost.”

“You can’t,” Yuu said sadly. “You can’t bring back the dead.”

The old goddess smiled slyly and gestured again at the chess board.