Though Zae Zin Nim had scoured the countryside and investigated the local institutions as a precaution, she had never for a moment believed that Kai would simply turn up. No, that would have been too easy. Ever since she had seen the Brightwind cultivators and known her father was looking for her, life had been cursed. That curse had fallen on Kai, who had enough ill luck of his own, and something was definitely wrong.
Her return wasn't difficult, as her crystal ship had thankfully been undamaged. When she finished searching the outlying lands and returned to the city wall, she was surprised to find that they were no longer enforcing the barrier. The roads were absolutely clogged with merchants returning to their business, so she retreated to less hectic territory.
Orillia's estate was as quiet and run-down as always. Its peace was almost an insult. Zae Zin Nim ignored it and went to go speak to the old woman, brushing past the servants who tried to stop her.
"Oh, there you are!" Orillia was drinking from a large cup of wine and moved to pour another one for her. "Why don't you have a drink? We could all use one, these days."
"No, thank you. Has there been any sign of Kai?"
"Last I heard, he was off with that Diamond Crystallier. Did you hear? Their mission was a dreadful mess, everyone is all abuzz about it."
She had already seen the final results, but Zae Zin Nim realized that information about the previous events might offer some sort of clue. "Please tell me what happened."
"They say Omilaena was the thief all along, and she'd been condemned by the other nobles. But when they went to imprison her, she gave them the slip! She put the crystallier and something they were tracking onto a ship and sent it to break the blockade. When they finally destroyed it - thankfully they didn't kill the Diamond Crystallier - they realized she'd slipped away."
"I already know this. She left via land and the cultivators followed her?"
"Well, look at you!" Orillia tutted and took another sip of her drink. "Yes, apparently Suortril suspected something. They managed to catch up and rescue all the crystalliers she'd captured, but there was no sign of her. We're still not sure what happened, but oohwee, Suortril is an angry little boy."
There was no point telling the old woman that Kai had been there and getting her further involved. Zae Zin Nim had learned enough about what the general population knew, which only established that she needed information from those who had been involved. The fact that the Diamond Crystallier was still alive was the clue she needed.
Thankfully the old woman knew when someone didn't want to make small talk, so she gave Zae Zin Nim a location and let her go. Apparently the Diamond Crystallier had returned to the Elite Guild for recovery. Zae Zin Nim was familiar with the location because Kai went there at times, but had never visited herself.
When she walked in she immediately felt like she'd been transported back to Goralia. Not many cultivators around, not even the crystal type she'd come to tolerate. Once that would have disgusted her and now she wasn't sure what she felt. All that mattered was that they might have information.
"Can we help you?" A tall man stepped into her way when she tried to walk back, but he only had around 60 Power and could not impede her.
"I am here to speak to Tareth Nordulind." When the hunter tried to stop her, Zae Zin Nim tapped him with a palm strike that froze him in place.
Several other hunters noticed and started to move on her, but before it broke into a fight, a voice boomed from the back. "I know this one! Let her through."
They reluctantly pulled back and Zae Zin Nim was allowed into a back room. Tareth lay in a massive bed that could fit the Diamond Crystallier's over-sized body. It looked as though he had a number of conventional wounds that were currently healing, but there were also black veins across his body that suggested his greatest struggle was with poison. Deadwaste was in the dark ages when it came to poison and alchemy, so there was no telling how long it would take.
"Wish we could have had you in the fight," Tareth said. "With you there, we might have taken her down."
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"What happened to Kai?" Zae Zin Nim saw a chair by the bed and pushed it aside so she could stand. Some of the hunters were watching her suspiciously, so she leaned a hand on the headboard of the bed to look less hostile.
"Omilaena tried to disable everyone with poison and he was the only one who managed to shrug it off. Well, and that Graetri kid, who was more harm than help. Anyway, your friend was damn strong, so I want to help you, but I was knocked unconscious before I saw the end."
"Tell me what you do know."
"I was the decoy and she took all the other crystalliers with her on her secret route. No reason to think that she didn't take Kai too. During the fight she was being really friendly with him, if you understand my meaning. The rumors about her being a Maneater could well be true, and since she seemed so interested-"
The headboard cracked under Zae Zin Nim's fingers. Several hunters flinched, but Tareth only glanced at it.
"Sorry to tell you, but that's what I saw." Tareth examined her thoughtfully. "You doing alright?"
"I am perfectly fine," Zae Zin Nim said. "Did you notice anything else?"
While Tareth told her a few more details - notably useful information on Omilaena's fighting style - Zae Zin Nim stewed over the evidence. She was absolutely certain that she had seen the real Kai, and reasonably confident that Omilaena had disappeared in the smoke. Was it possible that she had circled back to steal Kai while he was weakened? It would have been a risk, but Kai would have been far more useful to her than any of the other crystalliers, so she might have taken it.
The thought of that woman having Kai in her grip... Zae Zin Nim resolutely stopped thinking about it and focused on what she could control.
Once she had extracted all the necessary information, Zae Zin Nim thanked the Diamond Crystallier and left. She didn't get out of the Elite Guild before there was a commotion at the front door and she saw a familiar face floating in on a crystal chair.
"I heard you were here," Suortril said with a concerned expression. "Have you found any sign of Kai?"
"No. I was coming to talk to you next." Zae Zin Nim scrutinized the man's face, looking for a tell.
"I assumed as much and came to help. It's really a great pity, because everything would have gone worse without him there. All I can tell you is that the two of you split up to go after the last foreigners, so I helped rescue the other crystalliers. Neither of you came back before I left, and I only recently learned that Kai disappeared entirely."
His words were smooth, charming, and wrong. Zae Zin Nim couldn't identify any exact flaw in his story, but she knew a snake when she saw one. Even if he was telling the complete truth, she knew he didn't care about Kai, only his own profits.
"Hopefully the rest of this mess is behind us," Suortril said, "but I feel bad that I couldn't do more. I was thinking of putting together a search party. If you were to come help organize it, we would have a better chance of finding him. What do you say, come back to my estate and discuss it?"
"No, thank you." Zae Zin Nim bowed, and through her hair she thought she saw the slightest crack in Suortril's calm expression. "I have urgent business of my own."
"Of course, of course. I'll tell you if we learn anything."
She wanted to take his head off as a matter of principle, but instead she left the group politely. Attacking was useless, because Suortril was still defended by his prism, and she realized there was actually a worse threat. He was the only person in the city who had heard what the Brightwind cultivators said... if he put together her political situation, he could try to blackmail her.
So far he was pretending to be her friend and hadn't threatened, so there was no sense in escalating. He didn't seem like a fool, so she assumed he knew that contacting a patriarch on Cloudspire would have great consequences. But it was still one more potential threat hanging over her head.
When Zae Zin Nim returned to the estate, she went straight to her room and began to cultivate. Now that the sect was gone, there was no sense in holding back. Regardless of whether she could find Kai, she would need all the strength she could manage.
Cloudspire should be out of the equation for the near future, which allowed her to focus on the rest. Suortril was a potential threat and might need to be killed, depending on how he behaved. Omilaena could be the one holding Kai and might cause other trouble. But so long as she dealt with the remaining consequences, she would be safe from her father.
.
..
.
A man in tattered silk robes limped down the length of his small boat, checking the device yet again. He hated these infernal crystal motors, with their muddied qi and inexplicable workings. It couldn't seem to go any faster and he was afraid that adding more of his own qi would only destroy the mechanism. That would put him adrift at sea and at even greater risk of dehydration.
When he had been assigned to go along with the others, he had been dismayed. With four Nascent Foundation cultivators, someone like him, who had only just mastered the Qi Condensation stage, would be treated as a mere servant. The entire journey, from the abuse of the others to the pathetic environment of Deadwaste, had been miserable.
And now it could be his path to advancing and changing his fate.
Some barbaric technique had destroyed their ship and killed everyone else on board. Only he, strong enough to use his qi to survive but not strong enough to attract attention, had survived. He'd woken up in the wasteland and immediately understood what had happened. Stealing a local boat had been a formality, and crossing the ocean like this would take a long time, but now he knew there was treasure at the end of the road.
He was the only survivor, so he would reap the reward for telling grand patriarch Zae Clen Ban about his daughter.