“Liang, you have to save me!” I cry out when she finally arrives for my lesson the next day. I sit up from my bedding and immediately wince as something in my side pulls.

  She looks at me with a deadpan expression as she sits down. “From what?”

  “From Yuren. He’s beating me under the excuse of sparring. Or, or, or training!”

  She frowns at my raised volume, but by now I’ve learned she seems more lenient about customs than most. Maybe because she’s my teacher. Maybe because I’m clearly ignorant. Either way, it’s not like I’m screaming. It's more like loudly complaining.

  “He is simply trying to train you into your status,” she says.

  “And what status is that?” I ask at once.

  Got you.

  There is no way she can avoid answering when she’s the one who brought it up first. I really needed answers to figure out how to maneuver myself. Sure enough, after thinking for a couple seconds, she answers.

  “Your status as an Omen-born.”

  She says it like she isn’t entirely sure whether she’s supposed to tell me.

  First of all I was certainly not born an Omen, Maybe I was an ugly baby, but certainly not Omen. Second, I need to dig up more details.

  “And what does my status as an Omen-born entail?” I press, doing my best to look pitiful and bruised enough to earn some compassion.

  She relents again.

  “To fight,” she says plainly.

  “Who?”

  This time she doesn’t answer. Instead, she redirects.

  “Yuren expected you to be a warrior. With your stature, he wanted you to be capable of fighting many as one, but instead you were easily fended off. I am sure even our children would have done better than you.”

  I grimace at that, but I don’t comment. Mostly because I don’t trust myself to say something mature.

  Liang watches me for a moment, then her expression shifts into something more thoughtful, more like when she is actually trying to teach instead of just mocking me.

  “You fight badly because you do not understand where you are,” she says. “Not truly. A person cannot stand firmly if he does not know what stands around him.”

  I blink at her, and she continues before I can interrupt.

  “The world is not empty,” she says quietly. “The high places are not only stone, and the forest is not only wood and animals. There are spirits in them. In the mountain winds, in the narrow paths, in the trees that watch, in the places where sound should be and is not.” Her eyes flick toward the flap of the tent, toward the slopes beyond. “The mountain spirits are old and proud. They see far. They do not lower themselves for every man, and they do not care for softness. The forest spirits are nearer. They listen. They follow. They test whether your steps are respectful or blind.”

  She folds her hands in her lap. “When hunters return safely, it is not only because they were skilled. When someone vanishes in the trees, it is not only because they were weak. A person lives because the world around him allows it. Forgetting this is arrogance.”

  For once, there is no teasing in her voice, only the certainty of someone who has heard these teachings all her life and never had reason to doubt them.

  Her gaze settles on me again, lingering just a moment too long. “Some people are expected to understand such things more quickly,” she says. “To meet the world with sharper edges.”

  Then the faintest hint of amusement returns to her face.

  “Can you tell me about that strange land of yours that is certainly false?”

  “I speak only the truth,” I reply.

  She at least half believes me. Maybe not fully, and definitely not the part about there being no stars, but I’m pretty sure she believes some of what I tell her.

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  Thinking about yesterday’s water, I decide to try explaining alcohol under the pretense of bragging about my homeland, seeing where it will lead me.

  “In my land,” I begin, “we have a water that burns the throat but makes a person happy. It is claimed to be the liquid of spirits, but any man who knows how can make it. It also makes normal water safe to drink.”

  “What does that even mean?” she asks, leaning in. “And what do you mean, makes water safe to drink?”

  I pause, trying to figure out how to explain this with my limited vocabulary.

  “Sometimes water, especially when it does not move, can make a person sick. Yes?”

  I ask it mostly to test how much they actually know about hygiene.

  “Yes,” she says thoughtfully. “Water that does not move is dead and connected to the spiritual world, so when one drinks it, they move closer to the dead and fall sick.”

  Okay. Interesting.

  They understand the pattern. Still water left sitting leads to sickness. They just came to the wrong conclusion about why.

  “That is true. At least a little bit.” I hesitate before saying the next part, bracing for backlash. “It is true that dead water brings sickness, but not because of the spiritual world.”

  She frowns slightly. Her guard’s expression sinks even deeper, nearly becoming a scowl, but neither interrupts me, so I keep going.

  “It is because there are... animals. Small, very small animals that you cannot see in the water. They grow plentiful when water sits still. A little of them does nothing when you drink it, but when there are many, they attack you all at once.”

  This time she interrupts me.

  “How can something so small hurt me?” she asks, half scoffing, half curious.

  I think about how to answer and look around for something useful. Near the edge of the tent I spot a small bug crawling along the ground, so I move over, snag it, and bring it back. Liang watches with curiosity while her guard eyes every movement like I’m about to pull a knife from thin air.

  When I open my palms, it looks like some kind of beetle.

  Then it bites me.

  I drop it immediately.

  Shaking my left hand, I hear a giggle from Liang. I ignore it and quickly pick the beetle back up with my right, gripping it by the shell this time so it can’t bite me again. It struggles in my fingers. For a moment I consider crushing it under my boot, but decide the lesson is more important.

  “This animal hurts, right?” I ask, holding it out.

  “Bug,” she corrects.

  “This bug hurts, right?” I repeat, not annoyed. Correcting me is her job.

  She nods.

  “And it cannot kill me, right?”

  She nods again, though more hesitantly this time, unsure where I’m taking this.

  “What if there were many of these bugs?” I ask. “Enough that they covered you?”

  “You could run away or crush them,” she says matter-of-factly.

  “Okay. What if you cannot? What if you are held down? Could they kill you if given enough time?”

  She looks down, thinking. Then she looks back up. “Fine. But if the bugs are so tiny you cannot see them, how can they kill a person?”

  “What if there were so many tiny bugs that even the stars in the night sky cannot compare?” I ask. “And not only do they attack you, but they attack from the inside because you drank them. After all, you are soft on the inside and harder on the outside.”

  I don’t think I got the translation quite right, but it is good enough for now.

  She goes quiet.

  After a couple dozen seconds of thinking, understanding finally settles in, and she visibly shudders.

  Then she looks at me and scowls. “You lie.”

  “I never lie,” I reply, confident as ever. “In fact, I can prove it. Using the spirit water, I can stop the small animals from growing in still water. If you help me make it, I can prove it. I will even drink it myself to show it is not deadly.”

  She hesitates, probably wondering what kind of trick I’m trying to play.

  So I push a little more.

  “It is called the water of spirits where I come from. Imagine if we gave it to the local spirit. I am sure they would like it. Imagine what honor that would bring.”

  “I...” she starts.

  “Miss Liang, I think we should leave,” her guard cuts in, glaring at me.

  Whatever he heard, he did not like it. More importantly, he wants her out of here immediately.

  Did I just say something heretical?

  She looks at her guard in surprise, then back at me. After a moment she stands.

  “I am sorry. It seems our lesson took longer than intended.”

  She heads for the flap with her guard close behind. He makes sure to glare at me one last time before saying something I don’t quite catch.

  Possibly an insult.

  I lie back down and think over the whole interaction, trying to figure out where I went wrong. She seemed to believe me. Or at least she believed that I believed it.

  I groan and press an arm over my face.

  I shouldn’t have pushed at the end. I should have let it play out naturally. I would have had plenty of opportunities to convince her in the future. I hope I didn’t screw up too badly.