Chapter 10
The Third Division
Shen Wuque submitted his report on the seventh day.
Wei Liang did not know this immediately. He knew it three hours later, when Shen Wuque appeared at the outer court during morning practice and sat on the wall above him with his arms resting on his knees, watching Achilles with the particular attention he had given everything since his arrival — the attention of a man cataloguing things for later use.
"You sent the report," Wei Liang said, without stopping his forms.
"Two hours ago."
"What did it say?"
Shen Wuque was quiet for a moment, watching Achilles execute a shield-bash sequence against the training post with enough force to leave fresh cracks in the wood.
"It said the asset is more significant than initially assessed, alliance is preferable to elimination, and the current threat profile does not justify the political exposure that an action against a public Academy student would create."
"That is the diplomatic version."
"The undiplomatic version is: I told them not to touch you."
Wei Liang did stop his forms then. He turned and looked up at Shen Wuque on the wall.
"Why."
Shen Wuque looked back at him with that expression that was not quite contempt and not quite anything else Wei Liang had a name for.
"Because you are interesting," he said. "And because I have been doing this job for two years and I am very tired of being sent to eliminate interesting things on behalf of people who are afraid of them."
A long pause.
"The two council members," Wei Liang said. "Do they know you have done this?"
"They will, in approximately three weeks, when the report clears the Ministry review process. After that—" he shrugged with the precision of someone who calculates his shrugs — "they will find another instrument."
"Or come themselves."
"Or come themselves. Yes."
Wei Liang absorbed this. Beside him, Achilles had stopped the shield-bash sequence and was listening with his arms at his sides and his grey eyes on Shen Wuque, who noticed and did not look away.
"What do you want?" Wei Liang asked.
"Want is a large word," Shen Wuque said. "What I would settle for is to stop working for people who use their power to erase the consequences of their crimes and call it governance." He looked at the sky briefly. "Your father held a pass for seventy-two hours against a horde that was partly his own government's creation. That strikes me as a thing that should be answered for."
"And you are in a position to help answer it."
"I have access to documents that most people do not. I know which doors to open." He finally looked at Wei Liang directly. "But I cannot do it from inside the Third Division. And I cannot do it alone."
The morning was quiet around them. Somewhere across the Academy, a bell signaled the start of the theory lecture hour.
"If I say yes to this," Wei Liang said slowly, "I am not just a student dealing with difficult classmates anymore. I am a person with active enemies in the imperial government."
"You have been that since the measuring stone failed to give a number," Shen Wuque said. "You simply did not know it yet."
✦ ✦ ✦
That afternoon, Wei Liang told Song Baiyu.
They were in the Academy library, ostensibly reviewing the tier-classification texts that had been assigned before the Exhibition. She listened without interrupting, which was her way. When he finished, she closed the book she had not been reading and looked at the wall for a moment.
"Shen Wuque of the Third Division," she said.
"Yes."
"Is either an extraordinary asset or an elaborate trap."
"I know."
"If it is a trap, the moment you act on anything he gives you, you have handed the council members exactly what they need to move against you publicly."
"I know that too."
She looked at him. "And you are going to do it anyway."
It was not a question. She had read him well enough by now to know the answer before she asked.
"My father spent his life in service to an empire that arranged his death for profit," Wei Liang said. "I am not asking for justice from the system that killed him. I am going to build enough to make the question unavoidable."
"That takes power."
"I know."
"More than you have now."
"I know." He looked at the tier-classification text in front of him. "I am working on it."
Song Baiyu was quiet for a long moment. Then, without particular ceremony:
"The Song family has a legal archive that has not been fully reviewed since my grandfather's generation. Some of it covers the Military Council records from twelve years ago. I will look."
Wei Liang looked at her.
She had the expression of someone who has made a decision and finds no reason to dramatize it.
"You do not have to do that."
"I am aware." She opened the text again. "Do not tell me what I do not have to do."
✦ ✦ ✦
That night, in the soul-space, Wei Liang told Achilles everything.
Achilles listened from his rock with the stillness of a man who has learned, across a very long time and at significant cost, how to hold other people's troubles without immediately trying to solve them.
When Wei Liang finished, he said: "Two council members. A Third Division operative with uncertain loyalties. A girl from the most powerful summoner family who is choosing to involve herself in something that could damage her family's position considerably."
"Yes."
"And you."
"And me."
Achilles turned the familiar stone in his fingers.
"When I was preparing for the campaigns in Troy, I had a choice about who I fought beside. Many of the heroes who went to that war were famous. Some were great. A few were both." He set the stone down. "The ones who mattered in the end were not the most famous. They were the ones who showed up when things were difficult and did not recalculate their position based on how the wind changed."
"Song Baiyu."
"Song Baiyu," he agreed. "Watch that one carefully. Not for threat — for quality. She is making an expensive choice with clear eyes. People who do that are rare."
Wei Liang thought about this for a while.
"What about Shen Wuque?"
Achilles was quiet. Then: "He reminds me of someone I knew. A man who had served the wrong king for too long and was looking for a reason to stop. He was difficult. He was also absolutely reliable once he chose his side."
"Did he choose well?"
"Eventually." A pause. "It cost him."
Wei Liang looked at the sea.
"Everything costs something."
"Yes," Achilles said. "The question is only whether what you purchase is worth the price."