With the girls hard at work practicing for their exams, and Kaede taking care of her administrative duties for a while, Jia was left with the rare blessing of an empty schedule. Usually, there was always more to do, no matter how much she delegated, and it was easy to see why so many powerful people just dumped their responsibilities on their subordinates and isolated themselves away to focus on cultivation.

As tempting as that sounded, Jia decided to take advantage of the break to see how things were going with Yue’s plan to take on her father.

She found her sitting in her personal garden, chatting with Long Ruiling over tea. Knowing she was always welcome in Yue’s house, Jia simply flew down and greeted them both with a wave.

“Good afternoon, girls! It’s nice to see you two getting along.”

Yue gave her a welcoming smile and set out an extra teacup for her.

“Jia, what a welcome surprise! Miss Long here was interested in hearing about my mother. She apparently had quite a reputation while she still lived among the fiendish isles.”

Ruiling blushed and scratched her cheek.

“Not as much as Grandma Jie, but yes. Long Jie was outcast from the dragon clan because she chose to marry a human. When my mother was born a fiend, nobody was bothered, but then Qiuyue was born without a core—completely human.”

Yue smirked, pouring Jia’s tea as she joined them.

“For such a diverse people, you fiends aren’t very good at handling differences are you?”

Ruiling winced.

“I wish I could argue against that. The one thing we all have in common is our cores and even that’s not enough when it comes to the awakened. Needless to say, Aunt Qiuyue wasn’t exactly welcome on the isles, but she didn’t let anybody push her around either.”

“Yet she ultimately fled the isles and ended up as just another of Qin’s living trophies. I’m surprised he accepted her into the harem after she’d already had a child, but I suppose it’s been a very long time since that mattered.”

“I guess. I don’t know anything about what happened to her after she left, but I’m not in a position to judge someone for fleeing to the mainland.”

Jia smiled sympathetically and patted her hand.

“You know you’re always welcome here, Ruiling.”

Yue shrugged.

“But enough about old history, to what do we owe the honor of your visit?”

Jia huffed.

“Why is everyone always asking me that? I just like visiting my friends!”

“Yes, but you are also the empress, and rarely afforded the luxury of a strictly social visit.”

“Well today I am! How are things going with Zheng Long?”

Ruiling raised an eyebrow.

“That guy from the Sovereign’s Tomb with the outrageous name? I thought he wandered out into the wilderness or something after Yang Qiu messed up his soul.”

“He did, but he came back. He seems to be doing much better now.”

Yue sighed.

“Apart from the bit where my father is holding his new family hostage to threaten him into wresting control of Jiaguo from me by way of marriage.”

Ruiling blinked.

“Oh. Sounds complicated. Why would marrying you give him control over Jiaguo? Yoshika’s the empress, not you.”

“Oh, not the empire—just the city, and only under the very awkward legal fiction that technically defines Jiaguo as a branch sect under the patronage of the Awakening Dragon, much like the Earth Rending Sword’s relationship with the Flowing Purewater.”

“I barely know who any of those are, and I still don’t get how it matters who you marry.”

Yue frowned.

“To be as brief as possible, I am Yan De’s designated heir and he cannot change that now—a safeguard against bureaucratic trickery. This affords me certain rights, among which is included the ability to sponsor branch sects. If I marry outside of the sect, then whichever sect I marry into is simply swept up under the Awakening Dragon’s umbrella—something my father once tried to take advantage of in order to gain control of the Spiritual Flowing Purewater sect.”

“Oh depths below, I’m sorry I asked.”

Jia giggled.

“Qin politics are like that, yeah. I hope you’re comfy, because we’re gonna be here for a while.”

Yue rolled her eyes.

“I’m almost finished. If I marry within the sect, however, then my father is free to choose between me or my husband as his heir. I assume he considers Zheng Long to be a puppet he can control freely, effectively bringing Jiaguo under his control by the laws of the Heavenly Empire.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“We’re not part of the Heavenly Empire, though. Why does that matter?”

“Because, Jia, it gives him a reason to go to war with us. Not a single Great Sect could oppose him on it—not even our allies in the Flowing Purewater.”

Jia scratched her cheek.

“I thought you declaring me empress already did that.”

Yue laughed and shook her head.

“Oh, that? No, that wasn’t against the law, it was just heresy against the god-emperor. Awfully taboo, of course, but unless he casts an edict against us, all they can do is refuse to acknowledge it. It’s been five years and no edict, so I think we’re safe, for now.”

“He’s weirdly lazy, isn’t he?”

“Apathetic, I think. He’s been cloistered in that palace for millennia, letting the sects do as they please for longer than anyone can remember. I’ve suspected for a while, but now I’m almost certain that he just doesn’t care.”

Jia frowned. She wasn’t so certain. She’d felt his attention on her once, through a fraction of his essence contained within a stolen artifact. It was brief and faint, but the impression he’d left was lasting, and ‘disinterested’ wasn’t quite how she’d describe it.

“Well, anyway, we’re not going to let that happen. Speaking of which, have you made any progress yet?”

Yue shook her head.

“The twins and the other suitors have mostly left now, and the seeds have been planted. For now, all we can do is wait to see how our enemies will move. In the meantime, Zheng Long remains safe here, and we can trust Yan De not to abandon his leverage until I’ve made my final decision.”

“I really hope Shen Yu is willing to negotiate. He seemed to be working together with your father, so we might even be able to reach a peaceful resolution if we can just get them to come to the table.”

“I admire your optimism, Jia, but in all likelihood we have another war on our horizon. We’ve always known that, and it’s mostly a matter of making it happen on our terms.”

Jia sighed.

“Yeah, I know. Let me have my hopes and dreams for a bit, will you?”

“I suppose I grant you that. What about you? It must be lonely with Eui away.”

She shrugged.

“Not really? We can’t actually be apart from each other, you know that. Right now she’s with the kids helping them practice their drills, but she’s also right here telling you about it.”

Ruiling raised her eyebrows.

“Even from so far away? I still don’t understand how you’re able to stay connected across such vast distances.”

“Well, it’s not really a connection anymore. We’ve all got one common soul.”

“Still, doesn’t that...I don’t know, stretch it out or something?”

Jia rubbed her chin and frowned as she looked for the words to describe it.

“You know that soul resonance works across any distance, right?”

“Sure.”

“That’s because the spiritual realm doesn’t have space. Or at least not in the way that we normally think of it. When spirit walking, we perceive it as though it were a physical place, but it behaves weirdly. Sometimes you can walk for ages without getting anywhere, and other times you just turn around and suddenly you’re somewhere else.”

Yue grimaced.

“That sounds horribly confusing.”

“Oh yeah, it is. We got so lost the first time we used Steps of the Stalker to cross over like that. The trick is that distance in the spiritual world is more abstract. It’s easier to find things if you have some kind of connection to them. In our case, the first time we did it we ran into Heian’s spirit progenitor because Heian was part of us, then Jianmo because they’d left a spiritual marker behind in Eui.”

Ruiling hummed thoughtfully and took a sip of her tea.

“So then you and the others are always rooted to the same spot, spiritually, even as you move around to different places in the physical world?”

“Exactly. Or, well, not exactly. It’s not that we don’t move around, spiritually, just that we always share the same location, wherever that may be.”

“But that location is always your soulscape, right?”

Jia nodded, but that only fanned the flames of Ruiling’s confusion.

“And you can’t leave your soulscape?”

“No, of course not. That would be like you leaving your scales.”

“Then how can you move through the spiritual realm?”

Yue pursed her lips, turning to Jia with a curious look.

“Now that she mentions it, how does that work?”

Jia sighed.

“See, this is what I mean. You have to let go of the idea of spatial movement. My soulscape is always close to Jiaguo, but that’s not a physical closeness. In the spirit realm, you can be in multiple places at once. Physically being in multiple places at once just makes that a lot easier.”

Long Ruiling sighed.

“I don’t think I’ll ever really understand it, but it sounds like that has a lot of potential. Aside from being able to communicate across huge distances, you could also use it for travel, shipping, and I shudder to think about it, but what about military logistics?”

Yue chuckled.

“That, at least, we’ve already thought of. It’s harder than it sounds, though. Even though Yoshika is in both places at the same time, that doesn’t necessarily apply to those she tries to carry with her.”

Jia smiled ruefully and nodded.

“Yeah, it actually takes a huge amount of energy to carry things across, especially people. We’ve been getting better at it, though.”

“I should hope so after five years of guzzling essence from that divine artifact of yours. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were a match for the god-emperor himself, by now.”

“We’ve still got a long way to go. We might be moving faster, but he’s got a really big head start.”

Yue smirked and calmly sipped at her tea.

“Then we’ll just have to deal a decisive enough blow to swing things in your favor.”

Jia chuckled awkwardly.

“I’m not sure that’s even possible. I’d really hoped to just take my time building up my strength, but...”

“But whether Misun’s calculations can be trusted or not, we have to move up the timetable. Ten years to free ourselves from the yoke of the divine seal, escape the wrath of the Sovereigns, and secure our world’s future place amongst the heavens.”

“Do you really think we can do it?”

Yue shook her head.

“I think you can do it. You have to. I’ll be right here with you the entire way, for good or ill.”

Ruiling nodded.

“Me too. I might not be as powerful as you or Lady Yan, but you have my full support. I believe in the world you’re trying to make.”

Jia smiled gratefully. She hadn’t realized she’d needed to hear those words, but they’d lifted her spirits and given her the boost of confidence she needed to face whatever came next.

“Thank you, both of you. I promise not to let you down.”