War was not fast. The campaign in Yamato had taken nearly a year, and that was rather brief as such things went. Armies moved slowly, held back by the need for supply trains and only able to keep the pace of its slowest member when on the march. Qin was a huge nation, and it had taken Yoshika and her allies months to travel through even a third of it. For entire armies to march though, levying more soldiers along the way and establishing their supply lines? Even if they’d been mobilizing before Qin Ling and Qin Xiang had made their official declaration, Yoshika should have had plenty of time to prepare.

So it came as something of a surprise when Melati’s report came in.

“Lots of strong people are coming from the north and west. Melati’s drones can’t get close. Even the small ones get killed right away.”

Eunae frowned. It had only been a few weeks, and while the fortifications were well under way, they weren’t as ready as she’d have liked. How had they moved so fast?

She found Lin Xiulan in the midst of establishing a base for her Cult of Harmonious Stars. The sect of healers was one of Jiaguo’s trump cards when it came to conflict, acting as a force multiplier in longer battles and allowing their armies to recover more quickly after engagements.

“Xiulan, we’ve already got armies approaching from Qin. I thought we’d have more time.”

“Really? That’s unusual—how many are they?”

Eunae turned to Melati, hovering next to her. The wasp-woman scrunched up her nose and started counting on her fingers.

“One...two...a lot!”

Xiulan gave her a flat look.

“This is our best scout?”

Eunae chuckled.

“Melati’s smarter than you think, you just have to know how to ask the right questions. Melati, how many drones would it take for a hive to copy the western army?”

“Four thousand seven hundred and twelve!”

Her answer came instantly, and Xiulan blinked.

“That’s not an army. And the northern one?”

“Mmn, more. Harder to count because they are spread out and Melati can’t get close. At least ten thousand.”

“That’s more like it, but still unusually small. Qin musters armies a million strong.”

Eunae had a sinking feeling as she searched for a possible answer.

“Melati, you said that they were strong?”

“Uh huh! Lots of strong people.”

“Were they any weaker ones with them? Like your smaller drones?”

Melati shook her head.

“Nope! Only strong people.”

Xiulan’s eyes widened, coming to the same conclusion as Eunae had.

“They’re all cultivators.”

Qin had the smallest ratio of cultivators to mortals out of all the nations by a huge margin. Yamato’s martial culture and Goryeo’s education meant that they produced more immortal practitioners. In Yamato, roughly half of their entire population were martial artists, while Goryeo only awakened perhaps one in a hundred as mages in most cities. Qin? The number Qin Zhao had once given Yoshika was one in ten thousand.

Cultivators were a precious resource in Qin, and xiantian cultivators even moreso. For them to field as many as fifteen thousand of them?

“So this is what you mean when you say that Qin has never gone to war before.”

Xiulan pursed her lips.

“Even I didn’t expect something like this.”

It wasn’t that Jiaguo couldn’t match such a force. Jiaguo city’s standing army consisted entirely of immortals, as did Yamato’s regulars. Goryeon military doctrine employed a combination of mortal infantry and magic support corps, but they had no shortage of battle mages ready to act.

Yes, Jiaguo could match the force of fifteen thousand cultivators marching towards them. With some effort. They already had reinforcements from Yamato on the way, and that would make up the bulk of their infantry—a proven and deadly combination with Goryeo’s mage corps.

But this was just the vanguard. The first wave. It had been too easy to assume that Qin’s historic conservation of their immortal forces would continue, but the empire had existed for at least ten thousand years, with a population in the billions. Even with only one in ten thousand awakening, they’d been saving their forces for all that time. For what?

For this. For her. War.

“Ancestors, what did I do to enrage them so much?”

Xiulan raised an eyebrow.

“Is that a serious question? You’ve challenged everything they hold sacred just by existing, and reinforced it with your actions. What’s strange isn’t that it’s happening, but that it hasn’t happened sooner. The question is what stayed their hand, and why has it failed now?”

“I don’t know. My truce with Shen Yu was too recent—though I’m glad that it means I don’t have to confront him on top of all this. Wait...you don’t suppose they’re attacking because of my truce?”

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After all, what else had changed in her relations with Qin? She’d turned down the princesses’ offer to join the imperial harem, but in hindsight that seemed more like a maneuver intended to stop the war, rather than the impetus for it. There was no sign that this was an edict from the god-emperor—he still hadn’t made any moves. Just because she’d united the southern continent?

Xiulan shook her head and sighed.

“There are too many unknowns. It could be any combination of things—perhaps a plan years in the making. What matters is that it’s here and it’s happening, and we must do whatever we can to survive it.”

Melati perked up suddenly.

“Oh! One Melati isn’t being killed! They’re talking—one second...”

She stared off into the distance for a moment, her attention elsewhere. Melati was even better at multitasking than Yoshika was, but she also had many more places to divide her attention. Like Yoshika, she often concentrated her attention when important things were happening.

She blinked a few seconds later.

“Aw, they killed us after all. Someone wants to talk—er, parley with Yoshi.”

Eunae narrowed her eyes.

“Who?”

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

Yoshika flew over the rocky landscape between Kucheon and Qin. Technically, there was no formally agreed-upon border where Goryeo ended and Qin began. That was typical for the ancient empire, but unlike in other places there was no untamed no-man’s land between Kucheon and Qin.

There was a road. Old and unmaintained, but still there, connecting the city to the rest of the empire it had once been part of. If a border existed, then it was likely on that road somewhere, but there was no checkpoint, no clear delineation where one left one empire and arrived in the other.

It was there, in the sky that couldn’t be said to be part of either nation, that Yoshika waited. She was using an avatar that represented her spirit form. White cat ears, long hair with black and white strands that turned red as they grew, mismatched gold and red eyes with slit pupils, and a single glossy black horn on the right side of her forehead. Not to mention her tails—nine of them, in different shapes. One long prehensile rat tail, two each cat and fox tails, and the remaining four in the shimmering iridescent flames of the unnamed element of her foxfire avatar.

Even Yoshika thought she looked a bit strange, but it was who she was. Many forms in one, a concert, not a cacophony. Though her counterpart didn’t seem to agree.

The first thing Yan De did as he approached was grimace.

“By the emperor! I swear you look more monstrous every time we meet.”

“Charming as ever. Why are you here, Yan De? I was expecting Sun Quan or perhaps one of his lieutenants.”

“Sun Quan does not lead the war effort. I do.”

Yoshika didn’t react. While it wasn’t her first guess, it wasn’t really surprising either. Sun Quan’s Silver Orchard was closest, and one of Jiaguo’s loudest detractors, but the Awakening Dragon was the most powerful of the great sects, and Yan De’s influence was immense.

“Well, you called for a parley, and here I am. What do you want?”

Yan De snorted contemptuously.

“It’s only polite for leaders to meet before a battle. To give you an opportunity to negotiate your surrender.”

“We have no intention of surrendering.”

“Of course not—I didn’t say it was practical, only polite. How fares my rebellious young heiress? Her mother does miss her so.”

Yoshika crossed her arms and scowled. She was, of course, sharing everything that happened with Yue.

“She’s still your heir, is she?”

“She’s my only living child.”

A non-answer. He could obviously tell that she was probing, and no doubt he was as well. Yue was warning her not to give anything important away.

“Why are you doing this? This war benefits nobody.”

Yan De’s lips formed a thin line.

“It’s not always about loss and gain, young lady. You’ve done well for yourself—moved quickly, grown strong, accomplished things nobody expected of one so young. You shine brightly—too brightly. It makes the rest of us look dull, by comparison. People begin to wonder—if you can do it, why can’t anyone else?”

Yoshika blinked, processing his words.

“You’re attacking because I’m too successful?!”

He scowled and looked away.

“Let us not be crass about it. Few things are so simple, but the fact remains that we’ve lost face. I warned you, did I not, that such bright flames do not burn long?”

“A warning I’ve received many times. Usually by those who want me to grovel before them and put my efforts towards their aggrandizement instead. How odd.”

“There is no shame in knowing one’s place, young lady. I stand, illuminated by the greatness of our God-Emperor. So too might you have, if not for your arrogance. I do not begrudge you that—it is the folly of youth—yet such folly is precisely why you have always been doomed to a short legacy.”

It was a message that Yoshika was sick of hearing. Slow down, look away, don’t give offense. Allow yourself to be oppressed to spare yourself the wrath of your oppressors. Yan De was the kind of man who genuinely believed that his actions were not coercive as long as his threats were implicit.

Not that he held back with his explicit threats, either.

“We won’t go down without a fight. You will pay the cost for this war in blood. Each and every life wasted just to fuel your fragile ego, when we could have been working together to save this world from destruction.”

“The empire’s position is that your divine artifact is the cause of—”

“Don’t give me that! I might not like you, but I know you’re not stupid, Yan De. It would be much more convenient if you were. You know the truth.”

He stared at her for a long moment before responding.

“Knowledge is meaningless in a vacuum. Context matters. If, hypothetically speaking, I knew the things you claim, I would be forced to acknowledge certain implications. Implications which could be damaging to the structures which uphold our society. There is that which one knows, and that which one can be known to know.”

Yoshika hated the way he spoke. She’d learned, over the years, that there were different sorts of Qin’s cryptic double-speak. There were those like Qin Zhao, whose every word was a puzzle, subtly trying to guide the listener, encouraging them to reach his meaning of their own accord. It was frustrating in the moment, but led to a deeper understanding in the end, the speech of a man who wanted his listener to know, rather than be told.

Then there were those like Yan De, where the words only obfuscated his meaning. He wasn’t trying to communicate with anyone but himself. A kind of gloating, dangling the truth just out of reach and reveling in the sense of superiority over his ignorant counterpart.

Miles away, Yan Yue whispered in her ear, and Yoshika scowled at the man who’d brought her best friend such misery.

“You talk about context and implications—structure and society. Tell me, Yan De, what good is your precious Jade Pillar if there’s no world for it to support?”

His eyes widened at that. It was, admittedly, a bit of a shot in the dark, but Yoshika trusted Yue.

“You’ve come to an interesting conclusion, Miss Yoshika. Perhaps there’s some merit to this meeting after all. I will see you on the battlefield, little sovereign. Perhaps you’ll find your answers there.”

Yan De turned to leave, his fiery wings flaring brightly behind him.

“I defeated you once, Yan De, and I can do it again! Your empire will never recoup the cost of this war.”

He glanced back with a smirk.

“Perhaps not, no. But we will pay it, and we will win. Farewell, Empress Yoshika—and please pass along my regards to Zheng Long.”

As he took off over the horizon, back in Jiaguo, Yan Yue uttered an oath so foul that Yoshika wished Yan De could have heard it.