The war had been going well ever since Bu Dong Rushan’s fall. Qin’s army took repeated losses and grew more and more aggressive in their deployment of xiantian threats. The front became a never-ending game of cat and mouse, as each side maneuvered their xiantian-level fighters to prevent either side from gaining complete dominance.

This meant, for the most part, that the actual fighting came down to the strength of the lower-level troops, and that was a fight which Yoshika was proud to say that Jiaguo was winning. Though Qin had greater numbers, and more elite groups, Jiaguo’s forces had a stronger composition, and were more flexible. They were also more varied with their elites, from Yuuko and Yang Qiu’s shock troops, to Dae’s magical artillery unit, and even Narae’s small team of trappers—who lured their opponents into deadly hidden formations.

Yoshika had mixed feelings about letting her sisters participate in the war, but they were old enough to make their own choices, and Narae had insisted. She had Haeun with her, and Yoshika would always keep half an eye on them to ensure that they didn’t get into too much trouble.

Despite Jiaguo’s success, Yan De and his fellow commanders remained infuriatingly patient. They knew that unless Jiaguo could take out the leaders or put the army into a full rout, it was only a matter of time before the northern sects could arrive with reinforcements.

They were winning every battle, but Yoshika still feared that they were going to lose the war. The force of Qin’s numbers was just too much.

She still had plans—and by the best estimates of her advisors, plenty of time to enact them—but that didn’t stop her from worrying. The first part of her plan was to lure out the enemy commanders. Cut off the head of the snake, and the body would die. The problem was that they obviously knew that just as well as she did, and the fact that she had to take the field while they didn’t put her at a disadvantage.

Yoshika hadn’t been able to decisively defeat any more xiantian fighters. Yan De stopped trying to hold his formation at any cost, simply letting the edges collapse if they had to, then reoccupying them the moment her back was turned. Instead, his own xiantian forces kept trying to bait her into overcommitting. Wherever Yoshika went, that was always where the bulk of Qin’s xiantians ended up.

Even with the stalemate broken, and Qin firmly on the back foot, it wasn’t enough. Yoshika still needed more. In the meantime, however, she continued her work on the prisoners.

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

“I take it the war is going well for you, huh?”

Jia looked up from her lunch and blinked at Shun Song. She’d been making a point of taking lunch with the prisoner camp every day, but he was still the only one who joined her. The rest stayed as far away from her as possible, some even going out of their way to skip the meal altogether. Even her blessing could only do so much.

“You know I can’t talk to you about that.”

“I’m not blind, Miss Lee. This camp’s been growing every day and I do talk to the others. You know what they call you?”

“Me me, or all of us?”

He chuckled and shook his head.

“I mean, they have names for each of your forms, but you. They call you the ‘Furious Storm.’”

Jia wrinkled her nose.

“What? Why? Okay, no, I get the storm part I guess, but do I really seem that angry?”

“You do cut a rather imposing figure on the battlefield. They all think you’re some embodiment of pure wrath.”

“Is that why nobody else will talk to me?”

Shun squinted incredulously.

“No, I suspect that has more to do with you being the queen of an enemy nation.”

“That hasn’t stopped you.”

Shun Song was a perfectly average man of Qin. Well, he was a cultivator, so perhaps not so average, but he looked the part. Long black hair worn in a top-knot, dark eyes, light skin—even the most southern parts of Qin didn’t tan the way Yamato people did—and a fit, but not muscular build.

A Xin Wei. Most men of Qin were Xin Weis.

He shrugged.

“You’re not bad company, I suppose, and it’s nice to learn a bit more about the person insane enough to challenge the God-Emperor’s authority. Most want nothing to do with you because of that, though.”

Jia huffed.

“I didn’t choose to call myself empress. I founded Jiaguo as a place for people who didn’t fit in anywhere else—where anybody could be who they wanted to be without judgment. It’s not my fault that everyone else seems to take offense to that.”

“But surely you knew that they would. If nothing else, you have friends who could have told you that.”

“Yes, I did. I had hoped to overcome that through cooperation—by making our little nation both non-threatening and indispensable to our neighbors. It worked, for a while.”

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Shun nodded along amiably.

“And then the other frontier nations just had to force you to conquer them, hm?”

Jia bristled.

“That’s—!”

How the other nations saw it. Perhaps even the lords of Yamato and the High Council of Goryeo saw her that way. A usurper who used self-defense as an excuse for conquest. Why would Qin give her the opportunity to do the same to them?

She could feel Shun Song’s fear, his hands shaking even just from her aborted outburst. They were too afraid of her—even Shun, easygoing as he may have been. Yoshika wished she could have spoken to them as Meili, but no. Trust couldn’t be built on a foundation of lies—she had to reach out to them as herself.

Jia leaned her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her palm as she muttered to herself.

“Maybe Kaede could get along with them better—no, it’s a totally different military culture. Eui...is right out. Eunae...?”

For some reason Shun Song froze, sweating nervously as his heart rate accelerated and his fear spiked.

“The...Fox Princess?”

Jia scowled despite herself.

“Don’t call us that, please. We get enough of that inside the city.”

“I—I see. Well, at the risk of aiding the enemy, while I don’t know why you care so much what we think of you, there’s very little that would wipe out the goodwill you’ve earned faster than meeting us as...her.”

“Ah.”

That made sense, of course. Even before she’d ascended, people were terrified of Eunae and her power. Sun Quan—one of the enemy commanders—had once attempted to assassinate her on what was supposed to be neutral ground, nearly shaming his entire sect just for a chance to kill her. Yu Meiren’s manipulations had nearly moved his subordinates to attempt it a second time, while they were nominal allies.

What they didn’t know—what they couldn’t have known—was that Eunae’s power had been changed when she became part of Yoshika. Or that all of her aspects could use it.

They hadn’t tested it extensively, since that presented all manner of ethical concerns, but the nature of her geas wasn’t as simple as it had been before. She no longer had Soulfire—that pale green flame that twisted and shaped the soul by carving away at it. It had been replaced by the nameless rainbow colored flame of her Foxfire Avatar.

Calling it Foxfire was a little awkward, since that was already another name for Soulfire. She was still workshopping it.

When used to alter another’s soul, it no longer burned parts away. Instead, it took part of her own soul and added it. The amount of essence involved was fairly miniscule, so the sacrifice was little more than a token, but it did fundamentally change the nature of her power.

In practical terms, it meant that while it could still create compulsions in its victims, it could not create any restrictions. Furthermore, the subject would always be aware of the compulsion, since she couldn’t affect memory, and because it came from her, the compulsion couldn’t be anything that she wouldn’t do—from the perspective of the subject.

For example, she couldn’t make somebody kill their own friend, because she would never kill her own friend. Not that she’d ever compel someone to kill their own friend, either—that was terrible!

The point was, her power was...different. Not weaker, though some might argue that it was. It had different uses. It was a far more potent tool for healing a damaged soul than before, and there were things that the new Foxfire could do that her Soulfire hadn’t been capable of.

Yoshika could harmlessly break a soul resonance link so gently that neither side of the link experienced any trauma. She’d been able to place a geas that helped boost Ja Yun’s confidence without just hiding her insecurities. There was even promising evidence that it might be able to help demons regain a measure of independence from their cores, and the dark impulses that came with that.

There was potential in that power, but still danger. It still changed people—altered their souls, even without restricting their behavior or changing their memories. Yoshika had mixed feelings about it, but it was still vastly preferable to her old bewitching curse.

It was also not something she could easily reveal to anyone. Yue knew about it, as did Ja Yun and Rika. She’d discussed it in hypothetical terms with Jianmo—which meant that they probably figured it out. Otherwise...almost nobody. It was a dangerous secret, and for once Yoshika was doing her best to keep it secret. She was also doing her best to ignore the temptation to use it on the captured prisoners—even if that would dramatically accelerate her plans. She was not Heiran.

Jia realized that she’d been spacing out and blushed, bowing apologetically to Shun.

“Sorry! I got a little lost in thought. You’re right—introducing you and the other prisoners to the Fox Princess would be a disaster.”

Shun Song blinked at the unexpected apology.

“Ah, that’s quite alright! Please—you shouldn’t lower your head to me. People might get strange ideas.”

“Right. Well, I think that’s why I should come here as Eunae after all.”

He froze, his eyebrows slowly twisting together as he tried to make sense of what she’d said.

“What?”

“It’s about correcting false impressions. Like how everybody thinks I’m an avatar of wrath, rather than a charming, kind, universally lovable girl who enjoys snacks and dotes on her little sisters.”

“You forgot ‘humble.’”

Jia blushed slightly.

“Shut up! If everyone thinks that Eunae is the second coming of Seong Heiran, here to sap away their free will and turn them all into mindless thralls, then I just have to show them the real Eunae. Let them meet her and judge for themselves.”

“How will anybody be able to trust their own minds after meeting someone who can enthrall them with a look?”

Her power didn’t require eye contact anymore, but she wasn’t about to correct him on that point. Trust couldn’t be built on a foundation of lies, but maybe she could get away with just a tiny bit in the mortar. A show of good faith—one that she was already dreading, but at least it would be her own choice this time.

“I’ll be wearing a veil. I swear by my empire, my soul, and all that I hold dear that you and the other prisoners are completely safe. Your souls will remain your own.”

She felt the oath take form deep within her. Not as powerful as one of Shen Yu’s soul binding agreements or an oathstone, but still part of her. Breaking it would come with a dire cost.

Shun Song rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“I...suppose that might work? I still don’t know what you’re trying to achieve. All of us have sworn oaths of loyalty to our sects, and no matter how ‘universally lovable’ you may be, we will not forswear ourselves.”

Jia smiled.

“I know. I’m not trying to recruit you or subvert your loyalty. Just...showing you the truth.”