For Lee Song it was a day unlike any other. Yesterday he was twelve; but today he became a man.

  The dimly lit yurt was clean as a boy could keep it. The futon was properly made, the carpets swept, and the only clutter was a stack of well-worn books on the bedside table. An ornate topshur lute hung between two tapestries depicting horses and sword-wielding warriors. On the wall opposite leaned a tall silver mirror with a wooden stand.

  A boy stood in front of the mirror, trying to get his bangs just right.

  Song’s hair was a constant battle, too spikey to keep short and too unruly to keep long. He twisted a black forelock around a finger and pulled it upright so it stood free like a tiny horn jutting out from the side of his forehead. He repeated the motion on the other side to make it a pair, then stuck out his chin and puffed up his chest to look impressive. Soon he would have real horns, proof that he’d taken the first step onto the cultivation path of his Lee family.

  He flexed a lean bicep, admiring the results of many hours spent practicing his martial arts.

  “You look ridiculous,” a voice chirped from his elbow, and Song jumped. He spun around, entering the low-slung Goat Stance by force of habit.

  But the interloper was only his six-year old cousin, and he relaxed. She had an annoying habit of following him around and sneaking into his yurt when he wasn’t paying attention.

  “Go away, Mae. I’m busy.” Song turned back to the mirror. He remade the ‘horns’ on his head and twisted his neck to look at his profile. Perhaps he’d get his Sign above his ears like second brother. Or sticking outward like third brother. If they sprouted nearer his hairline like eldest brother, it would clash horribly with his pointed nose.

  Or would it? He gathered his hair up and tried to pull it tight, imagining a pair of long curled horns wrapping around his head like the embrace of the Verdant Mother. That wouldn’t look too bad, and keeping his hair back was better for the ‘Crown of Thorned Horns’ technique.

  He arched a brow at his reflection, imagining looking down his nose at some unruly demonic cultivators. His high brow was proof of his Lee family’s past nobility – they may be several generations gone from the time they lived in the Imperial Court, but its mark remained in their bones, as indelible as pine soot ink.

  “Busy primping, you mean?” Mae giggled, then dodged when he sent a playful swipe her way. His littlest cousin was dressed in celebratory red and gold, with longer tassels than she was used to, so she promptly tripped on her long deel dress and landed with an *oomph* on the carpeted floor. She rubbed at her backside and tears welled up in her eyes. “Owwie!”

  Song reached down and patted her head, doing his best to avoid mussing her hair. She’d gotten all dressed up for his big day, and she hated getting dressed up. Warmth flooded him and he grinned back at her miffed expression.

  “Hopefully my bottlenecks fall as easily as you do,” Song said, offering his hand to help her up.

  “You won’t fail, right?” Mae asked, worry in her eyes.

  Song patted his chest with pride. “Of course not. Who do you think I am?”

  “Lee Song, the little star!” She called in a sing-song voice. “Little Song! Little Song! Come on won’t you sing along!”

  At the sound of that hated ditty, Song groaned. “Ugh! If you’re just here to bother me, I’ll tell Auntie!”

  “No! I’ll behave!” Mae replied with horror, and plumped down onto his futon. “Please don’t call Mother,” she pleaded.

  Song gave her a sardonic smirk. “Are you hiding from her again?”

  “She wants me to wear those ridiculous wooden shoes. They hurt. I can’t wait until I get to form my dantian. I’m going to become a fairy immortal and run off to join a sect. Then I’ll battle demons and evil cults in the Gangho and become a famous cultivator like Aunt Seolhee!” She ticked her chin up and held her hand daintily in front of her neck, doing her best imitation of a haughty orthodox cultivator.

  Song laughed. “Don’t let your mother hear you say that!”

  There was the sound of a throat being cleared outside, and the two of them snapped their mouths shut with a clack. A high voice thick with amusement came through the wall of his yurt . “Song? May I come in?”

  Twin breaths of relief wooshed out, and Song called, “Yes, Mother!”

  His mother entered the yurt, her own red deel a near twin for Mae’s. Song’s eyes were drawn to the two nubs of horn on his mother’s head. She was still a novice after all this time, and would likely never reach adept, let alone form her core.

  Because she’d dedicated the last thirty years of her life to raising her four sons.

  Guilt surged at the thought, but Song tamped it down. His mother had made her choice, and she was happy with it.

  Mae hopped up and gave a small bow. “Hello, Aunt Chohee.”

  His mother nodded back. “Hello, Maehwa. Are you keeping our Song company?”

  “Mhm. He doesn’t say it, but he’s worried.”

  Song sputtered, rubbing the back of his head. “No I’m not!”

  Mae nodded sagely. “He says he isn’t. But I can tell. He always touches his hair when he’s worried.”

  Song’s hand snapped down to his side like he’d been stung.

  His mother laughed. “I see. Well, I need some time alone with him, so you go and help your mother in the kitchen. She’s preparing celebratory rice cakes.”

  Mae hesitated, but the lure of sweet rice cakes won the day. “Okay, Aunt Chohee!”

  Before she left, she circled her arms around Song’s waist and squeezed tight. “And don’t die, cousin Song!”

  With that, she darted from his yurt.

  “Is Auntie really making rice cakes?” Song asked.

  “She is,” Chohee smiled, “and she has those awful little wooden shoes beside her while she works.”

  The pair of them chuckled, until his mother cleared her throat. She grasped the hem of her deel. “My little star, all grown up. Are you really ready?”

  Song gulped. His mother had undergone the ritual herself, long ago when she’d joined the Lee family. She knew what it entailed, and the dangers it held. It was a secret of the clan that he would soon be privy to himself.

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  After all, it was his birthday today.

  “Of course I’m ready, mother. Do you think Father would allow me to perform the ritual if I wasn’t?”

  Chohee cupped her hands around his cheeks, and looked deep into his brown eyes. Her own were as green as the grasslands. “No. He wouldn’t. If San says you’re ready. You’re ready.” Then she pinched his cheeks and shook them. “But that doesn’t mean I am!”

  “Mother!” Song ducked away. “Stop that! I’m not a child anymore!”

  “No,” Chohee sighed. “You’re not, are you. Your father sent me to fetch you. It’s time.”

  Song gulped. Just a second ago, he’d wondered how he’d look with the Verdant Mother’s qi coursing through his meridians. But now the moment was upon him, he felt a pang of doubt. What if he wasn’t as good as his brothers and cousins?

  What if he failed?

  But the fear passed as he cleared his thoughts using the focusing technique his father had taught him.

  Breathe in, breathe out.

  Head of stone. Heart of steel. Hold your tongue. Hide your thoughts.

  Breathe in, breathe out.

  As air whistled past his lips, the tension in his shoulders relaxed, and he looked back into his mother’s eyes. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”

  With that, he stepped out into the endless rolling grasslands and clear azure sky of the Great Nakjo Plains.

  ---

  Changpo Village was a collection of yurts and yurtwagons situated on the only small hillock for a hundred li around. It was just over a week into the month of the dog, and the usual summer bustle was in full swing, with villagers running to and fro preparing for another hot day.

  Light sparkled from the river that burbled past the hill. Its lazily running rivulets provided fresh water for the herds, and the occasional fish for the table.

  Changpo wasn’t a big village as far as things went; less than a thousand people lived within its makeshift walls, and Song knew most of them by name. It was certainly nothing compared to the stories he’d heard tell of the Imperial capital.

  But it was home.

  “Are you coming?” Chohee asked, tapping his shoulder.

  “Apologies, Mother. I wanted to take it all in one last time,” Song said, breathing in the sweet air.

  Changpo irises, the village namesake, grew wild underfoot and in planters and pots all around. Whenever Changpo Village moved, following the herds as they migrated across the plains, they carried their changpo flowers with them. It was a task he’d enjoyed as a young boy, digging up all the flowers he could and transplanting them into pots to be delivered to the next hill in their journey.

  “It’s too soon for you to be courting death!” Chohee laughed. “You’ll be fine.”

  “But elder brother says the world looks different after you’ve formed your dantian.”

  “Mmm… not that different. It’s more a matter of perspective.”

  “I see.”

  “Oh, you do, do you? Wise for your years, aren’t you. It must be all my blood running in those veins.” She ruffled his hair and he squirmed away. “Come along, we don’t want to keep the Patriarch waiting. Or your brothers.” She said the last with a faint hint of menace that only a parent threatening their child with sibling violence could match.

  Song immediately hopped into motion, his feet leading him to the Lee family’s main yurtwagon. The sixty-foot wide structure towered over most of the village, its white canvas painted with ornate patterns along the rims. A banner emblazoned with goat horns above a spreading plum tree took pride of place on the roof, declaring to all that this was the place of power of the Lee family.

  Over three dozen smaller yurts, from his own single personal room, to his uncle’s fourty-footer were arranged around the main yurt, providing it protection as well as acting as a windbreak against the occasional intense summer duststorms.

  Song and his mother passed a few branch family members on their way through the compound, who nodded respectfully to the Patriarch’s wife. When they arrived at the entrance to the main yurtwagon, Chohee held the flap open for her son.

  “Good luck, my little star. I have a special treat waiting for you when you make it back to us.” She gave him a quick peck on the cheek as he passed, and he wiped it off with annoyance.

  Then the flap dropped behind him, leaving him to his fate.

  Four figures sat in lotus stance in the center of the yurt, dressed in ceremonial white robes identical to his own.

  “Sit.” His father, Lee San, the mighty Patriarch of the Nakjo Lee family, waved at the sole remaining pillow on the floor.

  Lee San was a bear of a man, over six-feet-tall and nearly as thick. His long salt and pepper beard was the envy of every man in Changpo, reaching down to his waist, thick and luxurious as a horse’s tail. But his most prominent feature was the pair of horns curling around the side of his head like the great rack of a ram.

  They were the signature Sign of the Lee family’s unorthodox cultivation technique. His father was at adept foundation level and he had the largest and grandest horns in the entire Lee family.

  In contrast, Song’s three brothers were all still at refinement level. Third brother Wook had the long horns of an adept cultivator, and he was well-versed in using them. Second brother Taeyang was stuck at novice, matching their mother, with a pair of tiny nubs sitting on either side of his forehead. And finally, first brother Juwon’s horns had recently gained the curl of expert refinement. Father said Juwon was one small step away from foundation level, and then their clan would have three foundation level cultivators for the first time in two generations.

  If he, Lee Song, didn’t reach that level first!

  Song steeled his resolve and made his way to the only pillow remaining, tucking the long hem of his ceremonial robes beneath his legs and taking a seat.

  His father's scarred face was solemn as he spoke with great reverence. “Today you’ll be set on our Lee family’s cultivation path. It was taught to me by my father, and he by his father before him. Its exact origin has been lost to history, but it’s ours, and will remain ours alone. You must swear by your honour, your soul, and by the Great Ones to never teach it to outsiders.”

  Song nodded. “I swear.”

  San’s face cracked a smile for the first time since Song had entered the tent, but he swiftly tamped it down. “Did you sleep well? You can’t perform today’s ritual without full clarity of mind.”

  “Yes, Patriarch.”

  “You ate properly, and drank lots of water?”

  “Yes, Patriarch.”

  “You used the ritual herbs and oils when bathing last night?”

  Song squirmed, feeling his brothers’ laughing eyes. He’d fairly bathed in changpo oil, and he could still smell it wafting from his skin. “Yes, Patriarch…”

  “Good. Good…” San cleared his throat and stared at his youngest son with an emotion that Song couldn’t quite place. Pride? Melancholy?

  “Tell me what you’ve learned,” San continued. “If I’m not satisfied with your answers, you’ll leave this yurt as ignorant as you entered.”

  Song spoke confidently; he’d learned his lessons by heart many years ago. “I’ll form my lower dantian by communing with the Verdant Mother. My dantian will serve as an energy vessel to bring her pure Wood qi into my own body, thus allowing me to take the first step into refinement.”

  “And if you succeed?”

  Song very purposefully did not look at lazy second brother Tae as he stressed. “I’ll diligently cultivate by refining qi within my dantian and using it to clear my meridians.”

  The meridians were the threads by which energy flowed through the body. The average human’s meridians were clogged by the waste and filth that came with being mortal, but a cultivator could use qi gathered from one of the Great Ones to clear the blockages. Only then would they have a sturdy foundation upon which to build their martial arts.

  “Which meridian will you open first?”

  That was an easy one. He’d spent many hours studying the meridian charts. “The governing vessel, which runs on a straight line through my heart from my chin to my groin. It’s the primary meridian used by body cultivators, while energy cultivators open their upper dantian to unlock their conception vessel.”

  “Demonstrate for me.”

  Song traced a circle just below his navel to indicate the location of his lower dantian, then ran his finger up and down the line of his governing meridian. In his mind he envisioned the rest of the meridian map, twelve bright lines that splintered out from the governing and conception vessels to stretch through the body like the feelers of a silk moth.

  San nodded. “You must remember to follow my instructions exactly. To diverge from the path is to invite qi deviation, or summon an Inner Demon.”

  All five of them shivered at the thought of those eldritch beings from beyond the heavens, servants and enemies of the Great Ones. Mother often told fireside stories during the star-studded cold nights of winter; of clans burned to cinders overnight, of entire villages swallowed up in a flash of squirming darkness.

  “I’ll remember, Patriarch.” Song said, holding his chin high.

  “Then let’s begin. Wook, apply the paint. Juwon, Taeyang, mark the lines.” Lee San turned his gaze upon his little boy for one last time before he became a man. “And Song, no matter what happens today, I’m proud of you.”

  Song’s gut clenched at those rare words of praise. He pulled at his bangs as he whispered, “Thank you, Father.”