“You cannot waste my time here,” her father said, his even voice rising over the creak of opening doors. The entrance to the spires training hall. Father’s training hall, were forged of the dull blue and black metal. Dusk Steel, mined from beneath Pheonixhome itself, a metal which required the flames of a fourth realm, infused with Shen to even forge. One of the great treasures and resources of the Gu family.

IT was a sign of the intensity of the training and sparring expected to occur here. She followed father inside. The polished stone floor formed a ring around the sandpit in the center of the main hall. A circle of forged bronze, etched with spidery, formations so dense as to be illegible to her untrained eye surrounded the pit, which was itself filled with the heat devouring grey ash collected from the Outermost reaches of the Sun’s Grave. Father crossed in front of her, his feet and the trailing hem of his robe leaving no mark in the ash.

Behind her the doors closed, there was a faint hiss as the metal fused, becoming indivisible from the Dusk steel that lined the walls.

“There is nothing which you may harm here,” her Father said, turning to face her in the arena. “If there is no way for words to avail you, then pour all that ails you, your fears, your sorrows into the flame. Give yourself over, and let your soul burn free, just for a little while.”

….It wasn’t fair Gu Xu Xiulan thought absently. Father was so understanding, so attentive now.

Where had that been before?

That uncharitable slip of thought was the spark. Outside, liquid orange flame dripped from her fingers, dying in the grey dust at her feet. Her hair waved in the heat rolling off of her skin. It turned the air searing hot, shimmering and waving, distorting around her. Flames crawled up her arm, danced on her shoulders and in the wrinkles of her pants. She felt herself exhale, and rather than air it emerged as a tongue of bright blue flame.

Gu Xiulan’s foot slid forward, lowering her center of balance, and she raised her head, the crackling of lightning almost as loud as her heartbeat in her ears. Father stood, waiting for her patiently, one hand extended, palm up.

Gu Xiulan thrust her own hand forward, fingers held together like a knife, and her flames roared, a spiraling inferno that rose to splash and spread across the metallic ceiling like crashing waves. A great wave of blue fire roared across the floor in an eyeblink.

And split apart, guttering out before her Father’s upraised palm.

Flames licked Gu Xiulan’s skin, sparks wept from the glowing scars left on her face as she stamped forward, sending a ripples through the ash as she lashed out with her other hand, nine tongue’s liquid fire bleeding from under her fingernails to lash and curl, blazing barbs sparking and hissing with billowing white smoke.

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And Like smoke Father moved through them, small steps, careful adjustments, a light touch sending lashes snapping away, tore from her grasp to gutter out like dying serpents among the among the ashes. He breathed out, and only a few bright, flickering sparks came from his lips.

He was still watching her, so very patiently.

Gu Xiulan felt her qi flare, it wasn’t pity. She knew that, she knew that, but her pride screamed all the same. She didn’t want understanding. She didn’t want acceptance. She wanted praise, she wanted pride and satisfaction. She wanted acknowledgement. That her ambition was not foolish. That she hadn’t made a mistake, that her pain was worth what she had gained.

There was a small, almost unnoticeable widening of her Father’s eyes as the temperature in the room soared, rising to a heat that would have baked a mortal alive in seconds.

Blue burned with a core of white, wings of flame dripping and burning on her arms as lightning poured from her hands.

Father’s stance shifted, an open palm turning into two extended fingers his own dark brown hair fanning out in the rising heat. Lightning cracked the air and father caught it around his fingers, bright rings of blazing electricity that scattered and splashed against the walls. His hand blurred, catch and redirecting a dozen, a score of the bolts pouring out of her

…And she wanted to be beautiful again, to not hide her face behind a veil, to not have her arm be a withered husk, a hideous, burnt and mummified thing that brought her constant pain. Gu Xiulan felt her feet leave the ground by inches, the curling dripping flames that consumed her body feeling as much like her own flesh as the things she had broken. Human vision faded with the lightning that erupted from her eyes, leaving the world a map of heat and qi auras as she swept her limbs down, drowning the world in sunfire.

She poured everything into that white flame. Pain, anger, sorrow, disappointment, all of the confused and irritating emotions she had been feeling for months now.

And when it faded, leaving the cold ash covering the floor bloated and black with heat. Father was still there. His robes burned with vermillion fire, feathered patterns in the crackling flames, and the circlet on his head was now a thing of molten metal, the ruby set upon his forehead burning star, which could not match the white flames that blazed from his eyes.

Gu Xiulan’s feet struck the ground with a thump, and she stumbled, hot tears turning to steam on her cheeks, smoke billowing from hands and feet, cloying and white. Her shoulders slumped as she sucked in air, taking hard panting breaths from the exertion of channeling so much qi.

“There may be concerns for your future,” Father’s voice reached amidst the crackling heat. “But, Xiulan, know that I at least hold no doubts at all about your ambition. You carry the pride of the Gu with excellence, and I am proud of the will with which you comport yourself each day.”

“I might wish you had chosen a more controlled trial,” he admitted. His own flames were guttering, the Immortal Power which she had born witness too slipping back beneath the guise of mortal flesh. This time he did not hug her, but rather laid a hand on her shoulder.

“I don’t regret it,” Gu Xiulan whispered. “Even when the pain is at its worst.”

“You should not,” he agreed, though she thought he sounded a little sad. “It is your Way, your path to the heavens. To regret that would destroy your ambitions. Your pride is rightful, daughter. You have earned it with blood and tears. None have the right to denigrate this.”

“But it’s still not enough,” She whispered.

“It is not, and never can be. That is the doom of the Gu clan.”