Indigo Princess Hiroko disembarked from the junk which had brought her to this strange, foreign city. Overhead, huge birds with black-tipped wings soared, their strange cries calling out. She'd never seen their like. In the imperial gardens, songbirds flitted between the trees. Tiny jeweled hummingbirds, prized by the nobles as living representations of the court itself, were hand-fed by members of the lower courts. This, though, was like nothing she'd seen before.

Buildings crowded around the docks, constructed from wood and brick, their colors ugly and unplanned. The roofs were thatch. Workers milled about, shouting back and forth, their unrefined tones merry or angry. They wore simple homespun tunics, hurrying to keep out of the way of the nobles. The rest of the junk’s passengers, members of the blue, green and yellow courts, preceeded her.

Hiroko’s robes were dyed indigo through and through, unlike theirs, which were white with only a band of color. Her tiny, golden slippers made little noise against the rough wood of the wharf. Her attendants, two middle-aged women in black knee-length tunics, kept their eyes downcast.

“How long until we leave for the camp?”

"Forgiveness, Highness," one of the women said without looking at her. "This one does not know."

Hiroko sighed. She had tried to befriend the women during the three-week voyage from the court nearest to the Imperial Palace along the coast, kept them with her night and day, allowing them to share a pallet together in her own cabin and enjoy some of the benefits, like the fresh air and sunlight let in by the portholes on her cabin wall. It hadn’t worked. They were clearly terrified of her.

None of the other nobles wanted to speak with her, either. She knew a few of the Blue ladies. They were around her same age, and had, like her, been raised in the Imperial Palace. None of them would exchange more than a few words with her. She understood why. Her status was so much higher than theirs, they saw her as a threat.

She wished she could tell them they had nothing to fear. She already had her assignment.

When the trio of dowager pearls had come to her royal apartments to tell her she had been chosen for this expedition, Hiroko had remained outwardly calm, kneeling with her palms against her legs, just as she had been taught.

She had been afraid when they came in their black robes and officious, concerned faces, that they were bringing her news of her father. That he had died on campaign. She had not seen her father in nearly eighteen months. Her father, General Li Nu Zhan, the great General of the West, had been sent out by the Emperor to put down an uprising in Honga province, the nomadic barbarian Darwur who still refused to submit to the Emperor's will.

She had heard rumors that some of the monasteries in that region had been burned for heresy, for teaching that, though the Emperor was the Chosen of Heaven, other Chosen existed elsewhere in the world. That was a lie. The Emperor was, had always been, and always would be, the sole Chosen of Heaven. It was a sign of just how badly-run the province was, that such terrible lies and rebellions could flourish. Even General Li might struggle against such criminals.

When the Dowager Pearls told her the truth, she had been so relieved, she smiled. “So I am to be the Emperor’s bridge.”

The Pearl in charge of the delegation, Lady Yu, nodded. Of the three dowagers, she was the only one to wear the white pearl circlet on her head. Like Hiroko's own grandmother’s white pearl, it indicated she had borne a child to the Emperor.

The other two dowagers wore black pearls at their neck, showing they had been chosen Courtesans of the Emperor for their allotted ten years, but had no child. They were given honorable retirement and positions in the kingdom. None of them would ever marry. No woman who had been so honored by the Emperor could accept a lesser man into her bed.

Lady Yu spoke. “As usual, the sects send their strongest young cultivators to help with this tower exploit. The knowledge that an Indigo Princess is watching will spur them to new heights. You may choose from among the candidates, but the Emperor expects you to select a spouse before the end of that tower exploit. You will also remind the lesser nobles of their duty to serve as the emperor’s bridges, tying their soon-to-be-spouses to the imperium with bonds of custom and etiquette,” the dowager continued.

Hiroko bowed her head. She was one of only three Indigo Princesses of marriageable age and not yet married. There were four Indigo Princes. Most ambitious cultivators tended to be men, and most of them preferred women. Since an Indigo Prince or Princess could leave the Imperial grounds only with Imperial permission, and only to marry, Hiroko had always known she would either spend her whole life within the 10,000 acres of gardens, pleasure domes, palaces, and landscaped vistas inside the great walls of the Forbidden City, or that one day a delegation of dowagers would come to her just like this.

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"Has my father been informed?"

"He will be pleased to learn the Emperor's will.” The dowager’s eyes narrowed as she spoke.

Hiroko wondered if her father would truly be pleased by this. Her mother, Violet Princess Nomi, had died giving birth to Hiroko. Had her mother lived, would she have been proud to see Hiroko now, grown and ready to do her duty?

Hiroko spent the three weeks of the voyage with every day a constant new delight. She spent as much time as she could up on the deck of the junk, with great triangular sails billowing and creaking in the wind as the ship sailed slowly along the coastline to Riceflower Province.

It was far to the north of the Imperial City. Some of the other nobles of the court complained about the chill in the morning air. Hiroko loved it. She loved the sunrise over the water and the sunset on the land beside them, pouring golden light across wheat fields and rice paddies.

They passed small villages, tying up from time to time, but none of the courtly passengers were permitted to disembark. Hiroko would stare out her cabin window at the tiny collections of huts, bustling with people dressed in ways she'd never seen before, men wearing nothing but long strips of cloth wound around their midsections, women in simple dresses with no outer layers or ornament, children splashing about naked in the midday sun. She supposed they must wear more in the morning and evening when it grew cool. Their houses were made of branches and rough-hewn logs thatched with grass and mud. They sang songs as they brought in their boats laden with fish, the men dragging the boats up onto shore to the waiting women armed with filleting knives and drying racks.

She would never have seen such things had she never left the palace. Whatever cultivator she ended up marrying, she was grateful to him for giving her this opportunity.

She could picture him in her mind. He would be tall, strong, his limbs infused with the glow of cultivation, his hair pulled back from his head in an elegant queue, falling down his back, tied off with a golden thread. He must be near the Peak of Mental Refinement, to be a candidate for her hand. With her at his side, he would receive an endorsement on his Cultivator’s License to continue his climb all the way to the Peak of Spiritual Refinement. Then, together, they would find their place in service to the Emperor, like her father. If they pleased the Emperor, her future spouse might even be permitted to ascend to the tier past Spiritual Refinement.

A strong cultivator might lead a sect. She would serve as the Emperor's eyes and ears within the sect, his mouth to remind them of their duties to him, but also their voice back to the court. With her connections, a sect which had once perhaps been on the outskirts of society could be strengthened and drawn into the Golden Circle. It was a symbiosis which had served the Emperor for a thousand years and would serve for a thousand more. Their children would rank in the blue court, able to claim the Emperor as their great-grandfather. That exalted status would gain them admittance anywhere in the Empire.

And yet, the longer Hiroko traveled, the more she became uncomfortable with the life she had always expected. She saw the world around her, and she wanted not just to see more, but to do more. She wanted to learn the names of the villages they passed, participate in their songs. She wanted to eat meals with them.

When the other young nobles sat in the main cabin in the evening, talking in the lantern light as they sipped tea, and wondered about the cultivators awaiting their arrival, she sat quietly and listened. They spoke of how their cultivator spouse would help them reach the Peak of Bodily Refinement, a necessity for anyone paired with a rising cultivator.

Hiroko had been taken inside the Emperor's personal tower on multiple occasions, and been given enough lux to raise her nearly to that peak. It would not be hard for her to take the final step, as long as the tower had plenty of blue lux. The Emperor's own tower had little; most young members of the court used the red of bodily manipulation, or perhaps the green of life.

Hiroko was considered odd for her youthful insistence on cultivating only blue lux. Had she been anything less than an Indigo princess, anything less than the daughter of the great general of the West, it was unlikely the officials of the court would have indulged her. She would either have been forced to cultivate red lux, or removed from the pool of possible cultivator spouses, condemned to a life of idleness within palace grounds forever.

But that would not be her fate. Now, as she looked around the bustling streets of Golden Moon City, lifting the hem of her indigo skirts high enough to avoid the mud that clung to the cobbled stones, following the guards to the inn they had acquired for the night, Hiroko stared up at the mountain that loomed over the city. The mountain contained the tower in which her betrothed and other cultivators quested for the lux they would need to raise them to the next level of cultivation.

The green folds of the mountain were lit by the light of the setting sun, making them look sharp. The very top had a white cap of snow. She couldn't even guess how tall it rose. She had heard the guards say it would be a six-li journey to the cultivator camp, but didn't know how long that would take.

"My lady," one of her attendants said, "Sen will stay with you and see to your needs while I ensure your palanquin is in order."

"My palanquin?"

"My lady, you cannot be expected to ascend the mountain on foot. Not a princess of your stature. Of course, you will have a palanquin."

"But I would much rather walk.” She had ridden in palanquins once or twice before, permitted outside the walls of the palace for a very special occasion. She hated sitting in a box, uncomfortably trying to recline against pillows, sitting up as the carriers jostled her back and forth, and the way the curtains blocked out any chance of seeing the outside world. "At least I need not have the curtains drawn.”

The attendants looked at each other. "And allow the common bearers to look upon your face, lady?" They shook their heads. "You would not shame the Emperor so."

Hiroko subsided. She could see it was a fight she could not win.

She would submit until they reached the top of the camp. So she resolved, as they reached the two-story Inn of Five Stars where they would be staying the night.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow would be the start of a new life.