I watched as Father tried to slink out the door; Mother would have followed if given half a chance. Neither parent dealt well when one of us was in pain. And Syha’s crying had reached the stage where she was hysterical.
I had approached Mother and Father weeks ago about protecting Geon and Syha. I had been forced to show them the remains of the toddlers we had discovered before they brought themselves to believe how serious the threat of Cultists truly was.
Once they realized that Geon and Syha were being targeted, it was easy to convince them that they would need to be protected. The hard part was convincing them that the special circumstances of Geon and Syha’s growth and awakening as Cultivators would require them to become members of a Sect.
Father was easier to convince, but it didn’t take much to gain Mother’s permission. Elven society revolved around the importance of Sect life, and the prestige of becoming a member of even a lower-tiered Sect was something every parent hoped for their children. If we hadn’t established a House and Clan, there would have been no discussion.
However, Elven culture placed as much importance on a Clan as they did on a Sect. In our society, a Clan, even a minor one, should be powerful enough to protect the young masters of the Clan’s main line.
When they learned that the Three Waters Sect would be classified as a high-tier Sect and that the Hindel would supply resources, treasures, and techniques to the pool of material I had scavenged from the Mystic Realm, they lost all opposition. This first of its kind opportunity was too good to ignore.
Like most parents, they wanted the best for their children. The problem was their age.
Geon and Syha were both sixteen. Both were close to the age that they would be leaving home to join a Sect if he awakened a Spirit Root, but they were not reacting the same. Geon was excited at the chance to gain a position as an Outer Sect Member early.
Syha was sixteen, and for Elves, that was the earliest they entered puberty. Although the average was eighteen, the age of maturity, Syha’s hormones had reacted to the changes that had happened when she formed her Dantian.
She had entered puberty, and leaving home and our parents was a drastic change. A wrench in her worldview that was proving hard to mitigate. It didn’t matter how many promises I made that our parents could and would visit; Syha refused to be consoled. She knew from experience; she remembered how often I disappeared and came to visit that those visits would be rare.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
As she aged, those visits became even rarer until, finally, our parents would barely visit, and the only interaction within our family dynamic was when we, as Cultivators, instigated it. This honestly might be one of the last times we managed to gather as a family as a whole, and Syha, even as young as she was, recognized that eventuality.
“Syha, dear,” Mother said, finally managing to free herself from Syha's sobbing grasp, “you need to be brave now. I promise we will visit. Jai has promised your father and me that we could spend one weekend a month together until you reach eighteen.”
“But what about Storm?” Syha said, sniffing enough to control the snot running down her face, if not her tears. Her question might seem a diversion, but the truth was Syha was probably as concerned about my Roc as she was about our parents. “I’ll hardly ever get to see her.”
“Maybe you will find your own Storm,” I sympathized, reaching out to stroke her head and restore order to her disheveled hair. “Three Waters Sect will have a place to find, train, and bond with your very own familiar. Maybe you will find someone even stronger than Storm.”
“Stronger than Storm?” Syha snorted in disbelief. “There are beasts stronger than Storm?”
“Of course there are,” I said, mentally crossing my fingers and apologizing to Storm for the white lie I was offering. “You just have to find one. And if you find an animal you like and it isn’t stronger than Storm, then you have to take care of it, feed it right, and train it until it is!”
My mother and I watched in relief as Syha finally wiped the tears from her eyes, using the sleeve of her Hanfu to remove the last lingering traces of her emotional breakdown. There was still a hiccup or two as she worked to regain control of her emotions, but the worst was over.
Sing Sing, who had been hiding beneath the curls of Syha’s hair, made an appearance, flying around the three of us and sprinkling us with pixie dust. This was further proof that Syha had managed to regain control of her emotions.
I knew that control was tenuous at best, and once she had been delivered to the Sect and I had left, her emotional control might shatter again, but it was something that would have to be endured. Three Waters Sect was going to have to deal with the emotional imbalance of dozens of children leaving home for the first time, but Syha would survive.
The other children would not have Syha's advantage. They would see their families, at most, yearly. Syha’s connection to me would buy her some privileges the other children couldn’t gain, and she would have Geon there to rely on.
I would have to make sure any privileges that might exist based on our relationship didn’t result in young master’s syndrome. I would not allow my brother or sister to become the type of person I detested—the type of bully who had ruined my experience with the Flowing Water Sect.
I wanted them to be safe and to enjoy the advantages and culture that a Sect afforded, but not at the expense of decency and courtesy. Because they were my brother and sister, they could always come to me with any problem. As Cultivators, they needed to understand that they were defying the Heavens, and that came at a cost.