An Indigo princess listens twice as much as she speaks and watches everything. Hiroko had been taught the admonition from an early age, and falling back on that advice served her well as she was welcomed into the cultivator camp.

There had been such excitement over her arrival. The Dowager Pearl swooped down at once to take Hiroko under her wing, hurrying her away from the crowd of onlookers who had apparently been welcoming the arrival of another sect.

The Dowager Pearl fussed over Hiroko like a mother hen to such an extent that Hiroko was surprised, then realized that the dowager had likely been fearing the repercussions of losing an Indigo royal under her watch. She was so glad that Hiroko had returned from the dead that she wasn't asking many questions besides, "How may I make you more comfortable, Your Highness, and are you injured?"

Hiroko found herself stripped, scrubbed, her scrapes and wounds tended, and redressed in robes of pure white linen. The servants bowed and scraped, apologizing that they had nothing in the proper shade of indigo and vowing that they would send runners down to Golden Moon City at once to buy the proper dye. By morning, Hiroko would have a set of robes suitable to her station.

They brought her food, which Hiroko ate as delicately as she could, despite her ravening hunger. She used the time to study those around her. Soon enough, there would be questions for her, and she had plenty of questions of her own.

She had felt her core condense a second time on speaking with the guardian of the first floor. She was still exploring what that meant. Her core was packed with blue lux, but her lux channels needed cleansing. She didn't know how to request purification rations without evoking suspicion. On her past trips into the Emperor's Tower, she and the other royal children had been fed purification tea upon the completion of their trips inside. Would the lux residue dissipate on its own, or would it continue to build up in her channels and cause damage?

More importantly, she had the floor guardian's boon to unravel. The guardian had asked her to show her innermost self so that he could choose a boon suitable for her. She had complied, opening her memories and allowing the guardian to sort through them. The guardian told her, "You are one who sees the connections and patterns between living things. Otherwise, you could never use blue lux to heal the way you do. I grant you the gift of knowledge of a special chord."

Now, she considered what that meant and found in her mind a knowledge of how to weave together two colors of lux, blue mixed in with green. The ratio was three strands of blue braided in with a single strand of green. She'd never considered using lux in such a fashion, but the guardian's knowledge was embedded deep in her mind.

She called on it now, even as the remains of her dinner cooled on the table and the Dowager Pearl recited the names of every cultivator over the rank of Disciple in the camp. Hiroko spun out lux through her channels, sending blue to her right hand and green to her left. She kept her hands below the table, to hide her subtle finger-motions. The Dowager was no cultivator. If she sensed anything, she should think Hiroko was merely trying a cycling technique. It took much concentration. She had never tried to channel more than one color of lux before, and only blue had ever easily answered her call. Now, the green did as she asked.

She went further, spinning out three equal-sized strands of blue lux with her fingers, like when siphoning life away from tower beasts. She added a strand of green with her other hand. The lux melded together inexorably. She could tell from her memory of the guardian that the strands ought to form a pleasing pattern. Her attempt was lumpy and misshapen, the green weaving in and out almost randomly through the blue.

Hiroko gasped as the pattern snapped into place. All at once, she could see lines extending outward from the Dowager Pearl, radiating like spider webs. They were different thicknesses and hues, none of the primary colors, but shades of brown, bronze, and gray. What did it mean?

She’d targeted the Dowager with a technique! Panicking, Hiroko tried to feel it out, to sever it before the noblewoman could notice. She schooled her face and tried to look tired and respectful. The Dowager, still recounting a story, didn’t seem to notice.

A servant entered the room, bowing low, and the Dowager Pearl gestured permission for her to clear the table. There was a thin, gray strand connecting the servant to the Dowager. It didn't change as the woman cleared away the dishes and vanished. A moment later, an official arrived, knocking at the door, bowing low. His badge showed he was a member of the Office of Cultivation. He was connected to the Dowager by a much thicker gray line. "Revered Pearl, I have a report that the newly arrived cultivators have settled into their quarters. They would like an audience with you tomorrow morning."

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"Tell them midday or after," the Dowager said. "I shall be busy ensuring the comfort and well-being of the indigo princess in the morning."

The lux that Hiroko had put into the weave wore out. The lines around the Dowager Pearl vanished. Hiroko sagged back onto her heels where she knelt, sighing deeply as a wave of relief washed over her.

"Are you all right, my dear?" the Dowager asked solicitously. She hadn’t noticed anything.

"I'm very tired," Hiroko said truthfully.

"And no wonder, after the ordeal you've been through." The Dowager rose gracefully, and Hiroko followed in her wake. "I have set aside the finest quarters in this building for you. We are expecting more gems to join us in the next few weeks, but for now, all of them are housed in this building or the next one. If you care to join them, they usually have an evening in the saloon after supper.”

Despite how tired Hiroko was, she knew it was only a little past midday now. "Would you ask one of the servants to bring me supper in my quarters? I’ll join the others after.”

"Of course," the Dowager said. Her gracious smile told Hiroko she had said the right thing.

Hiroko rested all afternoon. When the servant arrived with the tray, she ate and finally felt sated. The lux in her core was dissipating through her body. She still had a good chunk remaining to her, but it wouldn't last forever. Hiroko felt a pang of loss. No matter. Sooner or later, she would find a cultivator spouse and be permitted entry into towers under certain conditions. She would be able to continue to gather lux, cycle it, and progress.

When had that become a goal for her? she wondered as she finished the bowl of chilled hibiscus soup she had been served with her dinner. Somehow, in the tower, she had come to enjoy cultivation. Even now, as she finished her meal, she cycled through the Swirling Mists technique that Chang-li had taught her. It felt good, though she refrained from venting much lux, even of the colors she did not prefer. The contamination in her channels seemed to be gradually dissipating, to her relief.

After cycling, she went to find the saloon. Six young Gem Court nobles waited for her, two men and four women, all around her age. Four of them wore red-edged robes, while one was yellow-ranked and one orange.

Hiroko accepted their introductions. They all knew who she was, of course. She seated herself on a low sofa between the orange lady, Nima, and one of the red young men. They asked a few delicate questions about her ordeal, which she answered as vaguely as possible. Then she turned the subject to something she hoped they would find interesting. "Tell me about the cultivators in the camp."

That lit up everyone's eyes. The young nobles leaned in together as they began to share gossip about the men and women who were their prospective spouses. Hiroko listened intently. Young Master Feng, who Chang-li and Joshi had spoken of so derisively, was considered to be a very strong cultivation prospect. He had reached the Peak of Bodily Refinement before the age of 18 and was nearly at the Peak of Mental Refinement now, while he was still short of 25.

One of the women was waxing eloquently about his chivalry. Another of the red girls snorted at that.

"Are you talking about the same Young Master Feng? The one who chases every skirt in the camp and won’t take no for an answer if the skirt in question has no color?"

“Min!” Nima scolded. “How crude!”

“But true," Min said.

Hiroko considered her. She was probably a little older than Hiroko, and the sister of the red-robed man seated beside Hiroko. Out of curiosity, Hiroko wove together her new pattern. The lux flowed together more easily now.

The results took her aback. So many lines flowed out from Min! Hiroko had decided the lines showed connections between one person and another. It made sense that the Dowager had been the center of a spiderweb. She was an important political figure. Min had even more connections than the Pearl. A thick rope of bronze connected her with her brother, Jai-lin. Other bronze links led off elsewhere. The feel that they gave Hiroko was of connecting to someone not nearby, perhaps Min's other family members. There was a whole web of white, gray, and black threads of various strengths, and they felt close, like they were in the camp. Pale brown lines connected her to the other gem nobles, with a tentative line reaching to Hiroko.

The lux died away, leaving Hiroko feeling a bit bereft, but more fascinated than ever by Min.

"What about the other newcomers?" Hiroko asked as the talk of Young Master Feng went away.

"We haven't had much chance to see or hear from them yet," Min said. "I understand there's to be a reception tomorrow night."

"I look forward to that," Hiroko said. And she meant it. While the Dowager Pearl had said that several more sects had been invited and might still arrive at this towering hall, in all likelihood, Hiroko's future spouse was already present here in the camp.

She would evaluate each of the cultivators on his own merits. She was fairly certain her future spouse would be a male cultivator. Not only were there more of them, but she had never felt more than a mild attraction to another woman.

It was possible Young Master Feng was the paragon of cultivation that Nima and Shisa seemed to think. Min might be trying to scare Hiroko off of what she herself thought was a good prize. But Chang-li and Joshi had not thought well of him. She wished she could ask about the incident that had nearly gotten them killed, but there didn't seem any way that she ought to know about that. Instead, she sat back and let the talk swirl around her.