Mingxia wasn’t sure what to make of her new liege. Contrary to what one might expect, Kucheon hadn’t always been obsessed with the city’s founder. She could remember a time when there was much debate about Seong Heiran and whether she was worth the hero worship she received. But that was a long time ago, and ultimately her adherents had won the struggle. Only Mingxia was old enough to remember.

Over three hundred years—old even for a magus. Most died or ascended long before then, but Mingxia was one of the lucky few who’d managed to hold on. She stopped counting after a while, though—it was too exhausting.

So while she did see what the rest of her people saw—the dazzling, beautiful reincarnation of the woman who’d created their home—she wasn’t blinded by it. Seong Heiran had been human. Fallible. So too was Queen Seong Eunae—or Empress Yoshika.

The Empress showed her youth in so many ways. The way she hurried from place to place with a kind of urgency that Mingxia hadn’t experienced in decades if not centuries. The dependence she had on her advisors and mentors. It was good to defer to experts, but Mingxia saw her queen hesitate at every decision, turning to Lin Xiulan, Do Hye, or even Mingxia herself for consultation. It wasn’t that she couldn’t make her own decisions—only that she sought outside approval for each one.

Again, youth. A paradox of confidence and anxiety. Convinced she knew best, yet simultaneously seeking validation from those around her.

She’d probably be quite insulted if Mingxia told her how much she resembled the tales she’d heard about the fox princess in her youth.

But she was not Seong Heiran. Beyond the superficial similarities and the youthful quirks they shared—she was too different. Kinder, for one, and shockingly humble for the power she wielded.

And what power did she wield!

Mingxia had nearly fainted when the empress casually summoned her apprentices—one of which was none other than a great spirit—out of thin air and commanded them to upgrade Kucheon’s defenses. The young girls were still teenagers—barely even adults by Mingxia’s reckoning—and yet they displayed magical prowess that put her centuries of study to absolute shame.

That would have been impressive enough, but then she conjured up a legend with the snap of her fingers. Do Hye, the Snake—the self-proclaimed Grand Magus, a figure so renowned among Goryeo’s mages that he’d already been famous when Mingxia was still a student. Also—dead.

If Seong Heiran had made herself the goddess of Kucheon by proclamation, then Empress Yoshika did so by deed.

Because for all her youthful foibles, Seong Eunae was an inspiring leader. She never seemed to rest—always looking for something to occupy her time. Once she had her people working on Kucheon’s defenses, she immediately turned her attention to more domestic matters.

Kucheon wasn’t a wealthy city. They had no shanty town slum outside the walls, but those inside the walls didn’t live that much better. They did little trade with the outside, and produced barely enough to keep themselves afloat. Seong Eunae refused to let that stand.

“We’ll have to establish better trade routes—maybe build a road straight to Jiaguo, it’s not that far by flight. But for now...”

With a wave of her hand, the empress produced a veritable feast, neatly arrayed on an enormous table that she’d conjured out of nowhere. Mingxia didn’t know how she kept doing it. A dimensional artifact? But that didn’t explain the people, nor the way the sumptuous dishes steamed as though they’d been freshly cooked.

“This is lovely, Your Majesty—enough to feed the entire town for a day but...”

“But only a day, I know. Let’s have a festival tonight—I can feel how much everyone wants to celebrate my arrival anyway, and as much as it may disturb me, I don’t want to deny them their revels.”

She looked up at the statue looming over them and shuddered. Mingxia didn’t entirely understand why Her Majesty was so distressed, but she did sympathize.

“This may be a good opportunity to show yourself to the people as well, Your Majesty. Given the chance, I believe they will see that you are not your predecessor—though I cannot say that they won’t worship you anyway.”

If anything, Mingxia was far more impressed once she’d spent some time with the empress than she had been upon seeing her as the walking incarnation of Kucheon’s hero.

“I hope so. Make the arrangements, then. There’s more where this came from if we run out—free of charge. Nobody goes hungry tonight.”

Mingxia’s eyebrows rose.

“And you just have that ready at a moment’s notice? Or did you prepare it in advance?”

To her surprise, Seong Eunae looked away and blushed.

“I may—that is to say we are—one of us is—oh, I’m not sure how to explain.”

Mingxia jumped as another person was conjured out of thin air—she was never going to get used to that. It was a young half-spirit girl—even shorter than the teenage apprentices the empress had summoned before—with white hair and striking golden eyes with the slit pupils of a cat, to match her fuzzy ears and tail.

The girl grinned happily and snatched a snack from the table.

“What Eunae’s trying to say is that food is mine. I’ve got a habit of collecting it, but I don’t mind sharing!”

Mingxia blinked.

“Erm, pardon me...My Lady? Are you another of Her Majesty’s apprentices?”

The girl laughed, then choked on a bit of meat, then swallowed it and laughed some more. It was rather undignified, but she collected herself after a moment and shook her head.

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“No, I’m her. I’m Lee Jia, but you can just call me Jia or Yoshika—though I get the feeling you’re going to stick to ‘Your Majesty’ even if I ask you not to.”

San Mingxia’s head was spinning. She was too old for this. She’d known, of course—everyone did. Empress Yoshika wasn’t just one person, but many. Seong Eunae was just one part of the collective—a group of cultivators whose souls were joined together.

But to see Lee Jia, and how completely different she was. Seong Eunae was the very figure of poise and grace. Humble to a fault, but still unquestionably royal in her demeanor. Jia...seemed like she’d be more at home in a seedy tavern, laughing and drinking and getting into fights over games of chance.

She sensed it, though. The raw, casual power that surrounded Lee Jia was the very same as Seong Eunae’s. Her posture was relaxed, and she spoke with a rough and informal manner, but there was a glint behind her eyes. She looked at Mingxia, and for the first time the old magus felt the full weight of Yoshika’s attention on her.

Then it was gone and Lee Jia skipped off with a giggle to offer a passing child some food.

Seong Eunae sighed and shook her head.

“Well, there you have it. I’m sorry for startling you, but a demonstration felt like the most expedient way to explain.”

Mingxia blew out her cheeks.

“It’s...quite something. I still don’t think I understand, but I see that there is much more to you than meets the eye, Your Majesty.”

And that was how Mingxia finally came to know her liege. The spell was broken, and at last she realized who Yoshika was. As she watched Lee Jia charm the crowd and kick off the festivities by the sheer force of her boisterous attitude, it fell into place.

Seong Eunae had not come because of her resemblance to Seong Heiran, but in spite of it. She had come as a leader and a diplomat—someone who could treat with leadership and establish a hierarchy. Lee Jia, on the other hand, broke that hierarchy down. She mingled freely with the people, put on no airs, and showed how much she cared just by being there.

Either was commendable in a leader, but Yoshika was both at once. Mingxia wondered what her other aspects were like. How many were there? No wonder she relied so much on specialists to aid her—that was how she herself functioned!

“Jia can take things from here, I think. Come, Magus Administrator, we still have much to do. What’s the state of the college? We’ll need to bring the local garrison up to speed with Jiaguo’s doctrine...”

Mingxia was swept away by the young empress as she set about transforming Kucheon overnight from the poor little isolated community sitting forgotten on the nation’s border into a fortress city fit to hold off the concentrated might of history’s mightiest empire.

Perhaps she was more like the fox princess than Mingxia had given her credit for.

----------------------------------------

Festivity, revelry, celebration—it was an odd atmosphere for a small community under threat of attack from a much larger and more powerful nation. Yet, somehow, that was what Empress Yoshika had brought them.

The administrator hadn’t even needed to announce the festivities, as the townsfolk were drawn like moths to a flame by Lee Jia’s natural charm and the promise of free food. While Seong Eunae—the aspect that the people already worshiped as the reincarnation of their idol and hero—quietly got to work preparing the town for war, the people became acquainted with a different face of their mighty empress.

Lee Jia’s presence was disillusioning and comforting all at once. She was real, raw, present—one of them, in a way that a pampered royal like Eunae never could be. Yet she had that unmistakable aura of power—a presence so strong that even mortals could sense it and know that she could be no other.

She smiled, she laughed, she played with children, gorged herself on food, and doted on her little sisters. And when she said that she would protect you, there was a certainty to it that you couldn’t help but trust.

Establishing a presence with Eunae and then switching to Jia to interact with the people was a stroke of genius, and Do Hye wondered how much of that was intentional, and how much of it was that keen intuition of hers. With five of them working together, it must have been a bit of both. What an advantage that was. He’d been doing it wrong the whole time.

“Ah, but I suppose I would never have been able to create that kind of harmony. I’m far too prideful for that.”

And look where it got him. Do Hye was aware of the revels, but he took no part in them. He had more important work to do. Repairs.

Not just the shield formation—though of course, that too—but himself. His Soul Seed wasn’t meant to function independently for so long, and while Empress Yoshika had proven quite proficient in the creation of avatars, his current ‘body’ was no Soul Jar.

It would have to do.

His slip earlier had revealed an unanticipated problem, however. Without a real soul to plant his roots in, the Soul Seed couldn’t grow properly. He was still incomplete, and while that was partly by design on Yoshika’s part, she may have inadvertently doomed him as a result.

Normally, Do Hye’s reincarnations started with only a little glimmer of his previous self. Cached memories and natural growth would fill in the blanks, but he was never quite the exact same person. Always a risk with such techniques, and it depended on how much he was able to prepare for his rebirth in advance.

This was a worst case scenario. Not only had he been unable to do any preparations, but his usual methods had been hijacked with an experimental alternative which he’d had no say in. An unfortunately necessary evil, and one that he’d earned honestly. He could admit that. Still, it was less than ideal. Not the least because it meant that he was already dying. For good, this time.

“Alas, she couldn’t have known this would happen. Poor girl. I just know she’ll blame herself, and she’s silly enough to actually feel bad about it.”

The Snake had reconstructed as much of himself as he could, using the caches recovered by Seong Misun, but there were pieces missing—important ones. He had a body and soul now—for all that his body was bound to Empress Yoshika like a contracted spirit—but his mind had gaps. Leaks.

Do Hye had no true aura of his own, and while he knew a few tricks he could use to make up for it, those were stopgaps.

“Hrm, a year? Maybe two.”

He’d lose his mind eventually. Death would be slow and agonizing, but he’d lose himself far before the end. Alas.

He completed his analysis of the shield formation and compiled his notes into a jade slip, then wrote them down on a physical medium just to be certain. He wasn’t sure he could trust his memory anymore, and Yoshika had wisely chosen not to trust him with actually making any changes to the formation. Those would be handled by Dae and Magus Sung once they arrived.

“Not much time, eh? Not much time at all...”

Speaking to himself wasn’t a habit he’d had before, but it helped to hear his own words.

“Best not waste it.”

Do Hye produced the notes he’d been working on before Yoshika summoned him. Trying to complete the great work his previous self had left behind. Even he wasn’t sure why it was important, but he’d lost a lot to preserve it, and he trusted himself above all else.

“We need this. Just like we need her. I’m not important anymore, but this... Arrogant fool. You’ve wasted so much.”

He got to work, not sparing a single second. Do Hye worried, perhaps for the first time since as far back as he could remember, that he wouldn’t have enough time.