“Chen Fei,” He Yu said, perhaps a bit more forcefully than he’d intended.
She looked up at him, eyes wide and frightened, but she’d at least given him some form of response.
“We need to go. I don’t know how long your staff will work for—”
“Until you run out,” she said. Her voice was small and timid, lacking all the bubbly cheer it had contained up until now.
“Okay, fine. Until I run out.” She could only mean qi. He knew that was something that could happen—all the legends about cultivators said as much. Battles would last until one side ran out of qi to fuel their techniques, but he hadn’t the slightest idea how long that could be for him. The legends said powerful cultivators could last for days or weeks. He didn’t think he could go quite that far, but then again he’d never really needed to expend his qi on anything serious. The tournament in Shulin had been the most he’d ever pushed himself, and he hadn’t felt like he was running out of anything.
He needed to focus. Get to the top of the mountain. That was the goal. “Chen Fei,” he said. “Get up, let’s go.”
“No.”
He Yu blinked. “What?” he asked without thinking.
“I’m not going. I’m going to stay here until it’s safe, then I’ll go home. You can keep the staff.”
“Chen Fei, this isn’t funny,” he snapped.
“I’m not joking.” She’d bowed her head again and somehow managed to hunch even further into herself. “This was a mistake.”
Mistake or not, this was the last thing he needed. He pushed aside the frustration that was rapidly threatening to overwhelm him and looked around—just to make sure whatever was out in the mist wasn’t closing in while he was distracted. They had drawn closer, but he still couldn’t quite make them out. Vague and indistinct, they were almost like shadows caught out of the corner of your eye that you mistook for something else. They pressed against the light of Chen Fei’s staff and seemed to be overpowering it somehow, the radius of the orange glow having shrunk since he’d last looked.
What had changed? The glow itself didn’t seem any less intense, it just didn’t carry as far into the mist. He Yu hadn’t done anything except activate the staff’s script. Chen Fei had thrown up her barrier, but then she’d just huddled down inside it.
Just then, Chen Fei let out another muffled sound. The mist pressing in closer. It was a small change, almost too small for He Yu to notice. Had he not already been paying attention to the boundary between the staff’s glow and the encroaching shadows, he probably would have missed it.
“Of course,” he said, finally getting a bit of a handle on the situation, and feeling the same sort of detachment that had come over him during his tournament fight with Bao Wen. He didn’t quite understand it, but he was grateful—it allowed him the space to think without his fear or frustration getting in the way. The mist had to be one of the tests his father had warned him about. He was certain, and all he had to do was figure out what the sect elders wanted from him.
“I know,” Chen Fei answered with a half sob.
“No, that’s not what I meant,” He Yu said, trying—and probably failing—to keep his rising frustration out of his voice. “They’re not real,” he added quickly.
That seemed to at least partly get through to her. “What isn’t real?” she asked, looking up at him once again.
“The spirits, or shadows, or whatever you call them. Or maybe the danger, I don’t know.” He was losing the thread. He forced himself back to the point. “They feed on fear. It’s a test. We need to keep pushing forward.”
She looked skeptical but didn’t immediately disagree. “How do you know?” she asked.
“Just trust me,” he said, trying to project the certainty he only partially felt. It was the only real answer he could come up with.
“If I stay here will they leave me alone?”
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He Yu took a deep breath. Now was not the time to get frustrated, and he knew it but it was getting more and more difficult not to give in to it. If she would just move they would be fine. “I don’t think so,” he said, forcing calm into his voice that he didn’t wholly feel. The barrier obviously made her feel safe. If there was some way they could bring it with them, it might give her enough confidence to keep pushing forward. He was sure that was all they needed, to just keep climbing the mountain.
“Can you make that barrier move with you?” In the stories of great cultivators, they sometimes used mobile formations. He wasn’t sure if someone needed a certain level of advancement for such a technique, but it was better than sitting here while the shadows closed in.
She hesitated, then asked, “Would that help?”
“Yes,” He Yu said automatically. He’d no idea if it were true, but he’d say anything to get her moving at this point.
Chen Fei took a deep breath, then said, “Okay.”
The barrier winked out, and the shadows collapsed on them. The light from Chen Fei’s staff reached barely further than the length of his arm, and He Yu could make the shadows out clearly now. They were much more solid than a moment ago, and they now looked to be wearing robes similar in cut to the disciple uniforms he’d seen in Xu Xiang. His own fear spiked, and the light from the staff flickered.
Then, a formation circle bloomed out from Chen Fei. The characters glowed a faint silver white in the mist. One of the shadows was caught in the circle’s initial expansion, and when the characters touched it, the spirit gave out a hissing shriek. Parts of the shadow burned away to nothing, and the rest all took up their companion’s cry and retreated into the mist.
The light from the staff, still powered by He Yu’s qi, expanded as well. It illuminated the mist just as it had before the shadows had closed in, the orange glow providing He Yu with a very real sense of comfort. To his side, Chen Fei was standing once again and looked to have regained most of her confidence. But not all. She peered out into the mist, bottom lip between her teeth.
After a moment, she asked, “Are they gone?”
He Yu looked out into the mist as well and managed to catch a couple flickers of barely visible movement. “No, but they’re not close anymore. We should get moving.”
Chen Fei gave him a nod, and then they resumed their climb.
The shadows dogged their steps for several more hours. They would begin their icy laughter, and close in on the pair. Each time they did, the mists would overwhelm the soft light from Chen Fei’s staff, but they never came within reach of the barrier formation. The first couple of times the shadows closed back in, Chen Fei visibly shrank, but as it became apparent that the barrier would hold, she quickly regained her confidence. Eventually, she seemed to be back nearly to the same cheerful demeanor as that morning, and even the occasional laughter from the shadows faded completely.
Now that they seemed to be out of imminent danger, He Yu finally gave voice to his curiosity. “How did you do that with the formation? I mean, I heard it was possible, but I’ve never seen a formation work like that.”
“Oh, it’s a family art,” Chen Fei said easily. “The area where I come from isn’t exactly safe. Spirit beasts are common, and we’re on the eastern side of the mountains, so we also have to deal with raids from the steppe. Most everyone in the village who cultivates has at least some skill with formations. My grandfather can create barrier formations that hold up to things two full realms higher than him.”
He Yu managed to pick his jaw up off the path after a moment. A single realm difference was practically insurmountable. Creating a barrier strong enough to withstand even that would be a feat worthy of legends. Two whole realms? It should be impossible. But, there was no reason for Chen Fei to lie to him.
“It’s not that big a deal,” she said, shooting him a glance. “Spirits are particularly susceptible to formations, and the nomads lack advancement resources, so they aren’t quite as strong as their advancement level might suggest. They also tend to advance quickly, so that doesn’t help either.”
Spirits and beasts being unable to overcome formations wasn’t exactly news to him. It was one of the main things that kept small towns like Shulin habitable. The fact that he’d gone his whole life without even knowing the town was under the protection of a sect only spoke further to the effectiveness of Shulin’s formation stones. The bit about advancing quickly, however, was something he’d not heard before.
“Sorry about earlier, though,” Chen Fei said before he had a chance to press her about advancement. “I sort of freeze up sometimes.”
“Why?” he asked. “I mean, you look like someone who can take care of yourself.” He meant it, too. She was noticeably bigger than him, and not just in height. The way she carried herself—and the ease with which she’d made the climb—suggested a fair amount of muscle under her leathers and furs.
Her answer was soft and carried with it a note of shame. “I’m a coward,” she said. “Everyone back home knows it, and now so do you.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” he said.
She cast a glance his way but said nothing. Her expression made it clear what she thought of his response.
“I mean, those mist shadows had some sort of fear technique they used. I was pretty scared, too.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t try and hide in a formation.” Then, in a much smaller voice, she added, “Or try to leave me.”
He Yu didn’t immediately have an answer to that. “We’ll just have to figure out a way to make you stronger,” he eventually said. It probably wasn’t the right thing, but it was the best he could come up with. “That way, you don’t have to be afraid.”
When Chen Fei didn’t respond, he cast a glance her way out of the corner of his eye. Her head was down, as if in shame, but he thought he caught the ghost of a smile on her lips.