She was blind, she couldn’t feel her limbs, and the only sound was the rushing of wind in her ears. Even her grasp of air currents told her nothing. Panic rose in her chest, and yet, Ling Qi could not so much as scream.

  Then she impacted the ground in a heap, and feeling and sight returned. Ling Qi scrambled to her feet, her fingers scrabbling at cold, packed earth. She was surrounded by trees and a thick mist that cloaked everything beyond a handful of meters from sight. Ling Qi let out a hiss of pain as the wound in her shoulder and the lesser cuts strewn across her body throbbed in pain.

  She was alone……

  Where was she?

  Ling Qi blinked as a single piece of paper fluttered down in front of her eyes as if to answer her panicked internal train of thought. She snatched it out of the air despite the twinge of pain from the rapid motion. The shard of ice in her shoulder had melted, but the wound was still bleeding badly.

  Grimacing, Ling Qi glanced at the neat lettering on the page, but she put it aside for the moment, weighting the page down with the looted staff. Flipping one of her remaining knives into her good hand, she cut the bloodied sleeve from her gown then carefully trimmed it into strips with which to bind the wound. Ling Qi was no first aid expert but she could manage this much. Once the bleeding had been stanched, she turned her attention to the note.

  Well, wasn’t that great, Ling Qi thought darkly. This didn’t really seem like something Instructor Zhou would set up either, which meant there were other elders involved. Now she couldn’t even count on her spotty knowledge of what the burly man would be looking for. Well…… the other option was that she simply had not judged Instructor Zhou as well as she had thought.

  Before her eyes, the paper disintegrated and deposited a smooth circle of silver engraved with the character for moon in her hands. The moment that the token came to rest in her palm, a chill wind picked up. Ling Qi shivered, looking up to see the mist had begun to lift, extending the range of her vision.

  On the left, the peaked rooftops of a town could be seen in the distance, and to the right, the path sloped downward toward the glimmering surface of a lake, barely visible through the trees. The center path lead toward the dark shape of a mountain in the distance.

  As the sun was already on its way toward the horizon, her time was limited. It was hardly a choice. Ling Qi was a city girl, and she would much rather navigate the streets than a mountain path or a lake.

  After checking her makeshift bandages one more time, Ling Qi straightened her shoulders and began to walk toward the city. As she did, the brief gust that had dispelled the mist passed, and her vision once again shrunk down to a few meters. The path she found herself walking was narrow and unpaved with tall trees looming on either side. All around lay darkness and mist twisting into unpleasant shapes. Ling Qi found herself tensing at every rustle, clutching the wooden staff she still carried in her left hand tightly. She could hear whispers, like bugs crawling on her brain, murmuring unintelligible words and enticements directly into her thoughts.

  Ling Qi had always avoided the outskirts of Tonghou for exactly that reason. No one she had talked to when she was younger could hear the same sounds she could. She now knew that they were the whispers of lesser spirits, and although her ability to hear them was a result of her talent, it was still uncomfortable.

  She would be safe as long as she didn’t leave the road. Ling Qi had just passed a pair of the stone lanterns that served to ward the road against spirits; she just had to ignore them and press on. It was in being lured off the road that people died.

  She did wonder what it would be like to step from the road once she could understand and contend with spirits properly. Would it be better to know what was being said or worse?

  Ling Qi shook off such ponderings and focused on the path ahead of her, keeping up a good jogging pace. Her strides ate up ground quickly, the shadowy mist-filled forest and the twisting faces and ghost lights under its boughs beginning to blur by as she found her pace. Still, every footfall jarred her wounded shoulder slightly. Ling Qi was glad when she saw the high stone walls looming ahead in the mist……

  It was a little odd though. She hadn’t thought the city was so close given how far away it had looked from the intersection. She had probably just misjudged the distance or how quickly she could cover ground now.

  As the walls grew solid in the mist ahead, Ling Qi slowed down to a sedate walk. As was expected, there were guards at the gate, looking just as imposing as she remembered from her childhood. They wore heavy, banded armor and held the sturdy spears traditional for those assigned to guard the outermost walls. It was strange to think that according to her lessons, she was probably as strong or stronger than most of them in cultivation now.

  It still wouldn’t do to start trouble or get cocky. Even if she could match a city guard in cultivation, they were probably better than her at actually fighting. Ling Qi did her best to look confident and unworried as she approached them. The guards had no reason to stop or impede her, and besides, not looking suspicious was half of the solution to avoid getting caught or questioned.

  She felt disquieted by the absence of anyone else on the road, or immediately inside the gate. Even this late in the afternoon, there would usually be some traffic.

  Ling Qi passed the guards without a word, and although she felt their eyes follow her, none of them moved to stop her, which was strange in and of itself. Travelers usually had to pay a gate tax and give an accounting of their purpose, didn’t they? Maybe the guards had been informed that disciples would be coming through today?

  As Ling Qi proceeded farther past the gate, she looked furtively at the lightless buildings on either side of the street. There were a handful of people in the street here, but they walked quickly and with their heads down. Ling Qi had a disquieting feeling in her gut; the oddities that were stacking up were getting on her nerves.

  She had to focus on her goal. Big temples were usually in the central district of the cities, along with mansions of the ministers and lords. The Celestial Dragon was one of the monikers for the great spirit that had accompanied the Sage Emperor in his crusade to unite the Empire, so her temple would be quite grand.

  Normally, she would worry about gaining passage into the inner sections of the city, but she was a Sect disciple now. She probably wouldn’t be turned away like she would have a month ago. The number of people in the streets slowly increased as she moved away from the gate, but the city still felt empty. It didn’t help that everyone she passed seemed…… slightly off, eyes sunken as if they hadn’t slept in days, a certain listless hopelessness. The only exception was the city guards who stood watch at at the street corners, sharp eyed and straight backed.

  Ling Qi’s shoulder twinged again, and the cut on her leg throbbed, reminding her of one of the reasons she had chosen the city. A physician would be able to dress and bind her wounds.

  However, she didn’t want to spend any more time here than necessary. She doubted it would be so easy, but going straight to the temple would be for the best if it were possible. To that end, she did something that she never would have in her pre-Sect life.

  “Excuse me, but do you know where the Celestial Dragon’s temple is?” Ling Qi asked politely as she stopped in front of the next guard she came across. She was all too aware of her missing sleeve and bare arm, not to mention the hanging flap caused by the cut in the lower part of her gown, but she did her best to appear confident.

  The stern faced man glanced over her with practiced disinterest. “It is in the center of the city. The tallest building. You can see the roof from here,” he responded with slow, measured words, eyes flicking away from her to watch the street.

  That was…… simpler than she had thought. “Oh, thank you,” Ling Qi belatedly remembered to say. “I’m not from around here so I wasn’t sure.”


  As she was about to walk away, the man spoke up in the same unhurried tone. “You will not be able to enter as you are. Only those bearing tokens of the Sun, Moon, and Star are to be allowed into the central city tonight.”


  “Wait, there are three tokens? …… Of course there are,” she began loudly and ended in a frustrated mutter.

  “I don’t suppose you know where I can acquire the other tokens, do you?” she asked, losing a bit of her polite veneer.

  “The Sun and Moon are held by your fellow disciples. The five stars are hidden in the city, guarded by spirit and marked by light.” The man’s calm and toneless voice was beginning to irritate her.

  The implications also worried her. This meant that she would definitely be targeted by the other disciples and that she would need to target them in turn. She gave the man a curt nod when it was clear that he was finished speaking and left, turning her thoughts to how she would handle this. She would have to keep an eye out for her fellow disciples, as well as for the locations of the Star tokens as well. “Marked by light” sounded fairly obvious. “Guarded by Spirit” sounded troubling. The only spirit she had ever faced was Bai Cui hogging the hearth, and she had a feeling that whatever guarded the tokens wouldn’t be a lazy little serpent.

  Was it possible that the whole thing was a trick? It didn’t seem like the kind of thing Elder Zhou would do, but neither did this test. Her instincts told her the guard had been holding something back. She had no doubt she wouldn’t be able to walk right up to the temple without the three tokens, but if she could arrive without them, would she be turned away? The message at the beginning had only said she would need her moon token.

  One thing was for certain: she needed to get her wounds taken care of.

  A light touch on her makeshift bandage was enough to feel the stickiness of the blood soaking through the thin fabric. Tough as the disciple uniforms were, they didn’t seem very absorbent. However, that was not the real problem. Money was. The services of a real physician were expensive, and even if she resorted to a street peddler hawking poultices and salves, she would need something to pay him with.

  Her first thought was to simply steal some funds. It wouldn’t be hard. She had lived for years on pickpocketing and other larceny…… but what if she was being observed? This was a test after all. It was possible, even likely, that she was being watched right now by whoever who was supervising the exam. She still knew so little about what more powerful cultivators could actually do so she had to rely on the sort of whispered hearsay that one heard about them. Ling Qi mulled over the problem in her head as she asked passersby about where she could find a physician.

  It shouldn’t be a problem, she eventually decided. The Sect had taken her, knowing who and what she was. Besides, she had a suspicion that this wasn’t entirely real anyway. Otherwise, how could the temple be at the end of all three paths, and why was this city so eerily quiet?

  Stealing was even easier than she remembered and not just because she actually had a proper knife to cut purse strings with. Her marks never noticed a thing as her fingers found their pockets and purses. Were people always so easy to read and predict in motion? It startled her, how much more quickly her hands and fingers could move and how quickly she could adjust for her targets’ reactions.

  She quickly acclimated and soon had a fairly healthy purse of coin. This was more than she would have managed in a month when she was a mortal. It was too bad that coins were of limited value to her now. She had nothing to spend them on back at the mountain.

  While that was a bit of a dampener on her good mood, she didn’t let it distract her. Even with the disturbingly listless nature of the citizens of this city, it wasn’t really too difficult to get directions to a physician’s practice.

  However, following the directions was more problematic. As Ling Qi moved deeper into the city, the streets grew more cramped, buildings huddling tightly on every side. Debris and obstacles appeared on some streets, blocking her path and forcing her to detour. The roads seemed to twist back on themselves. Several times, she had to stop herself when she noticed that she had gotten turned around. She was beginning to suspect some cultivator magic at work, especially as the last vestiges of human presence outside her own disappeared.

  Just as she was about to turn back and escape the labyrinthine streets, she found her destination. A sign bearing the mark of a physician’s practice hung creaking from the overhang which shadowed the doorway. The small building was well cared for, unlike some of its more shabby neighbors, with bright blue tiles on its roof.

  Ling Qi approached warily, catching the scent of herbs and incense. Peering through the window, she saw that the front room was empty of other people. Strings of drying herbs hung from the ceiling, swaying slowly with the slight breeze from the open door.

  After a moment of hesitation, Ling Qi entered, squinting in the darkened building. The walls were obscured by shelves laden with pots and jars, each with their own neatly written label identifying them as the cure to some ailment or another. The floor was mostly bare, save for a space off to one side where a number of cushions were arranged artfully around a polished table.

  A wooden placard on the table read: “Please Wait Warmly”. The odd phrasing made Ling Qi glare suspiciously at it before she approached the apparent waiting area. There was a door on the rear wall with a light shining from underneath it so the physician was probably here.

  “Hello? I’m sorry for the intrusion, but are you still open?” she called out, doing her best to sound both polite and friendly. Ling Qi had asked for the best public physician. With her sudden windfall, she thought she could afford better care than usual. After the eerie journey, she was less sure if this had been a good idea.

  She received no immediate answer to her call, but she did catch a few sounds from beyond the door. Maybe they were busy? From her limited understanding of medicine, Ling Qi was aware that mixing and creating cures could be delicate and volatile. It was one of legitimate professions she had daydreamed of back before it became clear she didn’t have such choices.

  Ling Qi decided she would wait a bit before moving on. It definitely wasn’t an excuse to rest her feet. Her calves still twinged unpleasantly from the hour crouched uncomfortably in the dark of the barracks. It wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle, but it wasn’t pleasant either. She settled herself down on one of the soft cushions in a position where she could keep an eye on both doors.

  Ling Qi did her best to relax while remaining alert as the minutes ticked by. As she was considering leaving, the door finally cracked open, and a woman stepped out.

  At first, Ling Qi thought the physician was an old woman due to the silver hair done up in an elaborate bun. Another glance showed that assumption to be wrong. The physician looked to be middle aged at most with a motherly air about her despite the odd youthfulness of her features.

  The physician wore a blue and red gown of simple cut with scandalously short sleeves. A second look showed that they were simply rolled up. The woman glanced around searchingly before her eyes fell upon Ling Qi.

  “Oh, there you are.” The physician’s voice was warm and maternal, much like her appearance. “I apologize for the wait. With all my sisters and assistants out tonight, I haven’t been able to keep up with things,” she said with a sigh as she approached with measured, graceful steps.

  “It’s fine,” Ling Qi said awkwardly. “Is there something special happening tonight?” she asked. It couldn’t hurt to start gathering more information.

  “Shouldn’t you know? You are one of the disciples we’re expecting, aren’t……” she trailed off then, her eyes shifting away from Ling Qi’s face. “Oh! That is a nasty wound. It’s so dark in here that I almost didn’t notice. I suppose you’re here to get that dressed then?”


  Ling Qi almost asked her why the physician kept her building so poorly lit but thought better of it as the woman glided forward to examine her. “Yes. I ah…… had a little trouble on the way in,” she admitted.

  “I hope you gave whatever ruffians attacked a polite young girl what for then.” The physician huffed as she kneeled in front of Ling Qi, fingers plucking at the amateur dressing on her shoulder. “Miss……”


  Ling Qi remembered the ice wielding girl’s expression in the instant before the fire consumed her. “.…… It was taken care of,” she responded quietly. “My name is Ling Qi. How much will this treatment cost and how long will it take?” She almost winced as the words tumbled out of her mouth. She was supposed to chat more before getting down to business, wasn’t she? Hopefully, the woman wouldn’t feel slighted.

  “Physician Xin at your service,” the older woman responded politely. “A mere fifteen silver should be fine, I think, for a Sect disciple,” she added as she placed a pair of clay pots on the table beside them. Ling Qi almost winced at the price, but she had more than enough to pay for the treatment. It just…… went against her ingrained instincts to spend so much at once. She had gotten by for entire weeks on less before.

  “And it will take no more than a quarter hour. Could you turn this way, please?” Physician Xin said, patiently waiting for Ling Qi to comply. Physician Xin began to gently but deftly pick apart Ling Qi’s work.

  “We – I mean, the Sect disciples – were expected then?” Ling Qi asked carefully, trying not to grimace as the doctor peeled away the bloodstained cloth she had wrapped around her shoulder.

  Physician Xin glanced away from Ling Qi’s shoulder to meet her eyes, a pleasant smile on her pale face. “You do seem to be a bit early, but the disciples were expected.”


  The doctor took a pinch of off-white powder from one of the vessels and sprinkled it into a small cup of steaming water. Ling Qi’s eyes stung briefly. When had Physician Xin gotten that? It…… Oh, she had been carrying it when she came out of the back.

  Ling Qi really was tired if she was missing details like that.

  “Things will get much more exciting once more of your peers arrive. My nieces are quite looking forward to the chance to meet young, handsome cultivators.”


  Ling Qi grit her teeth as Physician Xin dipped a cloth in the now cloudy white liquid in the cup and began to carefully clean her wound. It was less painful than she thought it would be. Whatever was in the water dulled the pain and made her skin tingle pleasantly.

  “I don’t know if my fellow disciples will be able to focus on anything but the test, but with boys, who knows.” It was a weak joke, but Ling Qi really wasn’t good at small talk. It didn’t help that she felt incredibly nervous for some reason.

  “Are you a cultivator too?” Ling Qi asked, voicing the suspicion she had since she had seen the woman’s too young face.

  “I suppose I am in a sense,” Physician Xin replied, dabbing at the wound to clear the last of the blood. The doctor set the cloth down and opened the other vessel, revealing it to be full of some thick bone white paste. “I leave that sort of thing to my husband these days, even if I do try to keep in practice,” she continued pleasantly. The doctor dipped a flat metal implement into the paste to scoop some up before beginning to spread it over the wound.

  “Why, now that I think about it, I do believe we met on a night much like this.”


  Ling Qi nodded absently, still feeling inexplicably on edge. She glanced around the room, but she couldn’t find a source for her unease.

  “I guess it’s good to know that you can move on from the army stuff,” she murmured under her breath. “Do you know anything about the test and these tokens we’re supposed to find?”


  “Nothing you couldn’t figure out on your own, although I would suggest you not take things at face value,” the doctor responded mysteriously as she moved on to bandaging Ling Qi’s shoulder.

  The soreness was gone now, and Ling Qi felt almost invigorated. The medicinal paste Physician Xin had used must have been good quality.

  “You’re a smart girl. My sister, Tsan, has high hopes for you.”


  Ling Qi blinked as the woman continued to expertly bandage her shoulder, her unease doubling.

  “What do you mean? I’ve never met your sister.” Something was at the edge of her thoughts, screaming for attention, but she couldn’t quite grasp it.

  Physician Xin made a sound of satisfaction as she finished her work and smiled. “Oh my, you noticed that? Perceptive given how clouded your thoughts are. Think about it, dear. I’m certain you’ll figure it out.” She patted Ling Qi’s hand.

  Ling Qi met the woman’s eyes and stiffened. They were black, deep and infinite as the night sky and radiant with the light of a thousand stars.

  A spirit – she had wandered into a spirit’s domain! Ling Qi felt her panic begin to rise then……

  She was kneeling in the street. There was no sign of the building she had just been in.

  All at once, it hit her. Ling Qi had been nervous because the woman kept pulling things out of nowhere: the water, the bandages, the tools. Not to mention those eyes. Had she just had a pleasant conversation with a spirit?

  It was at that moment she noticed she was holding something in the hand that Physician Xin…… the spirit had patted. It was a small clay vessel sealed with a cork.

  Even as she stood up, hurrying out of the middle of the street, curiosity drove her to open it. Inside, Ling Qi found three shimmering silver pills and a stick of jade so dark green that it appeared black. The scent that wafted out on a cloud of silver mist made her think of dark, moonless nights.

  The scent finally flushed the lingering fog from her thoughts and she realized what seemed now to be an obvious conclusion.

  Xin and Tsan. New and Crescent.

  Xin had said that her sister had high hopes for her…… The Grinning Moon was supposed to smile on those who did their work out of sight and out of mind. Ling Qi had burned incense for the Grinning Moon before when she had been afraid of failing at a particularly difficult theft.

  Ling Qi wasn’t sure how she felt about having the direct attention of a Great Spirit, even if it was a relatively minor one not often included in official rolls. She glanced down at her shoulder. It was expertly bandaged and didn’t hurt any longer. At least that had been real…… probably. How real was anything right now?

  Threads 14

  Three days passed in a flash. Before she knew it, Ling Qi found herself striding out onto the same field Cai Renxiang had occupied earlier this month. The closed-off boxes and open stands that surrounded the field had only a scattering of disciples filling them, but she still felt a twist of her old nerves in her stomach.

  Sixiang whispered soothingly.

  Ling Qi didn’t respond, only firming up her stance as she walked toward where her opponent waited. There was no fancy equipment this time, only a pair of musician’s stools, set across from each other on a raised wooden platform. The elder presiding over their challenge did not acknowledge her presence as she stepped up onto the stage.

  The elder was not one Ling Qi recognized. Clothed head to toe in billowing purple silks and ribbons, Ling Qi had some trouble telling if the elder was even a man or a woman, let alone any other detail of their appearance. She met the gaze behind the eye slits of the colorful three-eyed, fanged mask and inclined her head in respect. The elder gave a tiny nod in reply, the chains of pearl and gold dangling from the fanciful crown that adorned their head jingling with the motion.

  Ling Qi turned her gaze to Yu Nuan, and the other girl met her eyes defiantly, as the elder raised a black-gloved hand from the depths of their voluminous robe to silence the crowd.

  “We begin now the challenge between Disciple 830, Ling Qi, and Disciple 812, Yu Nuan. It will be judged by I, Elder Nai Zhu.” The elder’s voice was an artificial sound, feminine but without inflection, with a metallic twang and underlying grind that seemed to echo beyond sound. “In accordance with sect rules, Disciple Yu Nuan has chosen a challenge of musical composition. This challenge will have two stages: individual presentation and conceptual challenge. The challenged party will present first.”Ling Qi eyed the elder as Yu Nuan took her seat, The heavy lute that Ling Qi had glimpsed before appeared in Yu Nuan’s hands. “My piece is titled ‘War of Beasts,’” she said evenly, her eyes drifting half-shut as she strummed the first deep, bass note.

  There were no more words, nor any need for them. Ling Qi relaxed and immersed herself in the heavy notes as the sound expanded beyond the range of a mortal musician’s skill. She felt the drumbeats in her bones, and the woven chords of phantom players rumbled in her ears. Beyond mere sound, she began to see the story unfold.

  Under the deep green eaves, beasts snapped and snarled, clawed and bit. Blood was shed again and again, soaking the earth only to be drunk in by greedy roots. From the fracas, a greater beast rose, trampling all beneath his mighty hooves until at last they all succumbed, baring their throats and bellies in submission. Yet the war did not end. When the beast grew old and faltered, the others snapped and teared at each other once more. Trees caught fire, burrows were ripped apart, and packs and flocks scattered to the winds.

  War raged and ebbed again, and the cycle repeated. It was no singular cycle though. Even as the mightiest beasts warred over the whole forest, their lessers tore one another apart over groves and rivers, the least attacked each other for mere scraps, and others grew fat and mighty scavenging from the fallen. New cycles changed the details of the endless war, but never its true shape.

  As the piece moved toward its ending, another great beast rose, shining with unparalleled might, yet in the shadow of its wings, the same old bloodshed continued unabated, and the fetid forest drank deep from blood-soaked soil. The music begged the question of whether this beast could possibly change the cycle. Would all the shattered groves and devastated warrens be worth a simple continuation of the cycle under another name?

  As the imagery faded and the scent of blood left her nose, Ling Qi closed her eyes and let out a breath. It was easy enough to see Yu Nuan’s sources, though she had smartly stripped out any overt symbolism. After working with Cai Renxiang and her recent experience with the Bloody Moon dream, she had looked into the history of her home province.

  Emerald Seas had the dubious honor of having changed rulers more than any other Imperial province since the Empire’s founding. With the Weilu, Xi, Hui, and now Cai, the province had seen four different ruling clans in its span. The disappearance of the Weilu brought six hundred years of strife, and the end of the Xi saw a millennia of low level conflict before fifty years of outright civil war had given rise to the Hui. The latter half of the Hui reign had been riddled with corruption and decadence, even if outright armed conflict had faded from the forefront. They, in turn, fell to Cai Shenhua one hundred and fifty years ago, abandoned by all of their vassals, reviled even by the Imperial court.

  From that point of view, Ling Qi could understand the question. What was the point of all the conflict when one face merely replaced another? After being tested by the Bloody Moon and with Sixiang’s help in prodding her to realize her own convictions, Ling Qi had her answer though. The problem was that Yu Nuan was trying to find some meaning in a grand narrative when no such thing existed. As the Bloody Moon had said, humans had to find their own meaning.

  Ling Qi gave her opponent a polite nod as she stood, and Ling Qi took her seat, carefully smoothing the folds of her gown as she adjusted herself for comfort on the small stool. Yu Nuan had displayed a great deal of skill, and her piece was impressive, but Ling Qi did not intend to lose. Her piece was no idle song nor a polite one to be played for parties. All the same, she had studied music under the Songstress of the End for the better part of a year.

  “My piece is titled ‘The Songbird and the Star,’” Ling Qi announced, raising her flute to her lips. The first high, clear note flowed forth, and the air rippled with the soft sounds of phantom pipes and voices raised in song. On the stage, the sun dimmed and the air chilled, save for a small circle around Ling Qi herself, wavering and indistinct in its boundary.

  She played and told the story of a little bird, afraid and uncertain. But this very familiarity with terror allowed the little bird to be bold. She hungered for more, always for more of what she lacked. She met a terrifying tree, haughty and mighty, standing alone without a grove and called her friend. Bemused, the tree offered her shelter, and the little bird accepted.

  From the safety of the tree’s branches, the emboldened bird struck out and gathered many things to herself. She gathered precious jewels and plain pebbles alike, their value to others meaningless but priceless to the bird. With each new treasure, the bird’s fear faded a little more, and disquiet faded.

  When the bird met a burning star, the star was so radiant that the little bird shied from looking directly upon it. Yet, for reasons the bird could not understand, she found herself circling the star more closely. At first, the bird believed that she merely craved the star’s light, which reflected prettily from her treasures, offering the potential to multiply their value beyond imagining.

  The bird did not understand the star and did not trust her cold light. Even when the bird bargained with the star that it might shine on her nest and bring a sparkle to her treasures, the bird did not understand what she felt about the star. That came later.

  One day, the little bird, who had grown proud of her treasured nest, sought to add a new treasure, a glimmering pebble with a crystal inside. But a hungry hawk spied the little bird in her quest, and the fear returned. She abandoned the pebble and fled, but she was still wounded for her trouble, even as the hawk also fled, blinded by the radiance around her nest. The bird’s poor landing knocked her nest askew, spilling treasures to the ground far below.

  The bird despaired, having thought she had beaten fear. All the while, the star’s light shone overhead, unchanged. Lying in her nest, listlessly repairing its broken edge, the Songbird thought for the first time in a long time of why she sought the star’s light. Though it blinded her, and she found its radiance cold, she finally came to understand. The Star sought to banish fear and create certainty, and some part of the Songbird loved it for that.

  Her nest might one day fall and spill all her treasures for the world to take, but there was worth in the attempt to create something beautiful, worth in the attempt to offer light where there was none.

  Ling Qi opened her eyes as the last notes faded and offered a brief bow to her opponent and the elder.

  The masked elder regarded them both silently, and Ling Qi met Yu Nuan’s eyes across the stage. The girl was looking at her with a touch of…… pity? Ling Qi felt her lips twitch in a tiny frown; that expression irked her.

  “The second stage of the challenge will now begin,” the elder’s mechanical voice rang out, its bland delivery giving no indication that they were affected in any way by either of their pieces. “Challengers, resume your seats.”


  Ling Qi nodded tersely and did as instructed, watching as Yu Nuan did the same across from her. This was the part of the challenge that she was uncertain about.

  “Begin,” the elder instructed, and Ling Qi began to play.

  Her song flowed forth, and the clearing formed, lit brightly by the star shining overhead just before flames overtook it. The howls of hunting beasts drowned out the Songbird’s soliloquy. The haughty tree splintered under the incidental impact of a charging beast, not even aiming for the scene but attacking another beast on the other side. For a moment, chaos threatened to engulf the scene she had so painstakingly woven.

  She felt more than heard Sixiang’s gentle encouragement in her thoughts and put more into her melody. The Star blazed, and where it touched, fires went out, and beasts shied away, blinded and confused by its light. Once again, she heard the Songbird sing. But it wasn’t over. Something massive passed overhead, beyond her reckoning in scale, and the clearing was destroyed, crushed beneath a massive hoof.

  Ling Qi played on, and a green stalk shot up from the stump of the tree. The Songbird sang and gathered treasures anew. Shadows swallowed the Star, only for its light to be reborn from its last glimmers. Again and again, random destruction and the uncaring whims of the mighty brought ruin, time flying by in a blur of decades and centuries.

  Yet the strumming bass of Yu Nuan’s lute could not drown out the notes of Ling Qi’s flute. The blur of time began to slow. The clearing bloomed with new life, and trees grew anew. The Songbird sang, and the Star shone. All around, there was life. Under the Star’s light, generations of the least of beasts lived peaceful lives, not without strife, but with certainty, and the Songbird’s nest shone with many treasures indeed.

  Then it ended again, fire and blood shattering peace, and Ling Qi mentally gritted her teeth in frustration at the other girl’s inability to see what she was getting at. It felt like trying to shift a mountain with her bare hands, but she forced their shared scene to slow still more, using every scrap of skill that Zeqing had taught her to make her own chords more dominant and drag the piece to her own tempo.

  The Songbird laughed and sang as her many friends gathered in her shining nest. A family of mice lived and burrowed happily beneath the fields, days passing with the lazy certainty that came only from great plenty. A dozen, a thousand, a million other little scenes in the now, in the present, built on the stability that banished the snarling shadow that was fear.

  In time, the peace ended, and Ling Qi did not contest her opponent during the end, but rather, the notes she picked out asked the question. Why?

  Even if peaceful times would end, and fear would return, there was value in striving for happy days. There was more value in that than in obsessing over inevitable ends, the chaos that had come and would come again. Gather treasures, whatever they might be, and hold them dear, even if they would be scattered again. Seek stability because it is the foundation of defeating fear. Live for the happy moments in the present, rather than fearing the end in the future.

  When the final notes faded and Ling Qi turned her attention back to her more physical senses, she found herself once again meeting her opponent’s eyes. The pity was gone, leaving only resignation.

  “You’ve got your conviction, I’ll give you that,” the other girl said grudgingly.

  “I appreciate you taking my challenge,” Ling Qi replied. “I wasn’t sure I still had it until I put this together.” She still felt horror, looking back at that dream, but she couldn’t dwell on it, only learn and move forward. To banish fear and create a place for herself, she needed to continue growing stronger.

  Yu Nuan shook her head. “I‘m not sure it’s a great conviction to have. I think you’ll regret it when you really do lose something,” she said. “But the loser doesn’t have any right to lecture the winner.”


  The elder cleared their throat, and they both fell silent at the echoing, grinding sound it produced. “This one concurs. Disciple Ling Qi wins the challenge by superior technical skill and presentation of her themes. Rank transfer will occur on the first day of the next month.” The initial words were quiet pitched for them alone while those that followed were a loud announcement to the stands.

  Yu Nuan gave her a terse nod before turning away, and Ling Qi took a deep breath before doing the same

  Ling Qi came to a halt as she reached the edge of the challenge field and found her liege waiting for her.

  “I believe we should speak,” Cai Renxiang said evenly, “of several things.”


  Ling Qi gave her a wan smile. “I had a feeling you might say that.”


  ***

  “So, that was the source of your unease and that strange question,” Cai Renxiang mused.

  They stood in one of the mountain’s many training fields to take advantage of its privacy shields. This particular training field was one of her liege’s preferred venues, a field of paved stone filled with two-meter tall stone pillars spaced just far enough apart for a single person to squeeze between. They stood in a small cleared space in the center.

  “If you noticed, why didn’t you ask?” Ling Qi questioned, standing straight with her hands hidden in her sleeves.

  Cai Renxiang raised an eyebrow, meeting her eyes despite their difference in height. “It is not my business. Would you prefer that I pry into your personal matters?”


  “I guess not,” Ling Qi allowed. “Did I do something wrong during the challenge? Or was it Yu Nuan? I mean, her piece wasn’t very flattering, but……”


  Cai Renxiang shook her head. “No. If the Empire censured things so vague as that, it would have shattered already. The mere attempt was the final seal on the tomb of the second dynasty, not only for the anger it engendered but also the weakness and lack of confidence such actions betrayed.”


  “You can’t have strong cultivators without some freedom of expression, I suppose,” Ling Qi noted wryly. “So that leaves my other question.”


  Cai Renxiang crossed her arms, her expression drawing down into a frown. “I am aware that your reasons for swearing yourself to me were a mixture of mercenary and personal interests. I did not object to this as I have observed that your loyalty is strong despite that. Yet, I had not considered that you lacked understanding of what I desire, rather than simply being ambivalent to it.”


  Ling Qi’s hands tightened inside of her sleeves as she looked down. “We haven’t spoken much about your goals,” she admitted. “But what you want is a peaceful and orderly society, isn’t it?”


  “In the simplest terms, yes.” Cai Renxiang looked troubled, the gleam of light around her shoulders sending the shadows of the pillars flickering wildly.

  “While I was composing that song, my mind kept turning back to what I saw in the dream,” Ling Qi continued as if her liege hadn’t spoken. “The death, the chaos, and everything else. I don’t want to see something like that again, and neither do you. That should be reason enough to support you, even if it isn’t sustainable in the long run. Having something better in our lifetimes is worth it.”


  Cai Renxiang closed her eyes, and for a moment, the field was silent. When she opened them again, her gaze was cool and serious. “Do you know what I saw, after my fitting to Liming was complete?”


  Ling Qi found her eyes watering slightly at the sudden brightness assailing them as she matched her liege’s gaze. “I can’t say I do,” she said, a touch of nerves entering her tone.

  “I saw the world’s inefficiency,” Cai Renxiang replied. “I saw the tangled threads where want overrode need, where systems constructed nigh wholly by self interest and greed left ragged holes in society’s tapestry, leaving thousands to languish, unfulfilled. I saw the frayed weft of a city still reeling from a war of gods.”


  Ling Qi recalled that Cai Renxiang would have been six years old at the time, and she found herself understanding some of the girl’s oddity. “You must have resented being forced to see something so ugly.” Though she couldn’t wax lyrical on it without time to compose, the petty ugliness of the streets and the savagery of the Hunt had given her similar feelings.

  “Perhaps to a small degree, but Mother’s work will not be corrupted so easily,” Cai Renxiang said with a shake of her head. “I still see those things, and it fills me with the need to repair them, even as I am forced to engage with the broken loom it all hangs upon. If you never take anything else I say to heart, then take this, Ling Qi. I wish for a world in which all who fall under my responsibility can live ordered and fulfilled lives.”


  “Even the ones who don’t fit into that order?” Ling Qi asked wryly.

  “Most would fit in peaceably enough, if not for the damages inflicted by the current state of things. That is simply a matter of time and transition,” Cai Renxiang said confidently. “And those that remain are merely those whose requirements have not yet been accounted for. I firmly believe that with their needs met and acceptable avenues open for their wants, the citizenry of the Empire will be better and more productive than ever, benefiting everyone.”


  The way she said it sounded so dry and mechanical, but Ling Qi thought she understood where the other girl was coming from. How much of the ugliness that she had known would disappear into the wind without desperation driving it? Not all, not nearly that, but a great deal.

  “However, Ling Qi, there is something you must understand,” her liege continued. “This will be a thankless task. You will not be above my laws. I will not create them with your direct benefit in mind. I have bent certain rules in last year’s proceedings, but I will not weave such expectations into the foundations of what I seek to build. The Outer Sect was a testing ground, and what occurred there is to be remembered and learned from, but it must be left behind. What occurred with Fu Xiang must never happen again. Do you understand that?”


  “I do,” Ling Qi replied slowly. She would rather not get entangled in that sort of favor trading again anyway; it reminded her too much of the way things had been before on the streets. “Lady Cai, what you provide in ‘fairness’ is more than I would receive almost anywhere else, and I believe in your good intent. I will not step away from that.”


  “As you say,” Cai Renxiang replied. “There is much more yet to say, but those are conversations for a more comfortable venue. Not the least of which is that I may have to reevaluate your role.”


  Ling Qi blinked, raising her eyebrows in alarm. “What does that mean?”


  “That your skills as a musician may be the more important one,” Cai Renxiang replied seriously as she stepped past her, heading for the exit. “You require more training and more than a little discipline, but a more public diplomatic role may suit your skills better. Come. I would like to discuss the thematics I would like you to incorporate for your performance at this month’s gathering.”


  Sixiang, silent until now, started laughing, and Ling Qi’s eyebrow twitched.

  More mingling. Just what she wanted.