One hundred and one serfs had accompanied Makoto Yuyu on her journey from the Middle Kingdom to Fringe Village. They carried her palanquin on their shoulders, endlessly cycling their shifts in such a way that her smooth progress was never interrupted until they stopped to camp for the night. Some pure artists used horses to travel, but over long distances, human feet were just as swift as long as you had enough of them. In any case, Yuyu felt that horses were for peasants.

Beside her was her bond beast, Ise Ebi, whose antenna waved lazily in the light breeze that passed through the curtain. His carapace shifted from blue to purple and back again as he snacked on a few morsels of sacred beast flesh.

"Always such a waste of time," Yuyu said, adjusting the plain looking scarf she kept wrapped around her neck.

Ise snapped one thick claw in reprimand. "If you are bored, you should be using these long hours of travel for meditation and reflection."

"It is boring here,” she said, as if they were agreeing on something. “Hinterland is bad, but at least there is the occasional tournament as a diversion. It's almost enough to wish for another clan war."

"Do not wish for what you do not really wish for. It is sure to bring bad fortune."

"How did I come to be stuck with such a crabby old fool of a familiar?"

Ise slapped his pillow with his muscular tail in outrage.

"I am not a crab!"

Yuyu was said to be too thin to be a beauty, but when she smiled to herself, it changed her face in a way that would have caught most men's attention from across a courtyard. There was no one with them in the palanquin to see it, however, and she rarely smiled in public. Ise Ebi was so easy to rile, and irritating him was one of the few things in life that she never tired of.

Not all cultivators were as fond of their familiars as she was, and some treated them more like slaves than like the friends and mentors they were meant to be. Ise was older than her by something like four hundred years. His kind did not keep exact track of birthdays, particularly before they absorbed enough mana to become self aware. It amazed her to think of how many years he had spent at the bottom of Lake Hylia, dodging the nets of would-be companions, before she swam down to claim him with her own two hands.

She still had the scar on her thumb as a keepsake from that day, the memory of how she earned her fourth star. In Fringe, her movements would be restricted to prevent her presence from disturbing the ever so sensitive Soma plants, making her stay all the more unbearable.

It was flattering, in its way, to think that in such a place she was considered so powerful her very existence was an existential threat to their way of life, when in reality, she considered herself a middling talent. A real genius would not have kept a job like hers. Of course, she had her reasons. No other four-star of the Azai could say they carried a token of the Hidden Valley.

The Soga clan owed fealty to the Azai for protecting the little fief they called Fringe Town, as well as the surrounding villages. Another group might have asked for an even higher tithe from the Soma crop. Fifty percent was a bargain.

At the end of her journey, Yuyu and her entourage were welcomed into a compound that had been built solely for the purpose of housing the Azai representative while they were making official visits.

It was only her third time making the call. Her predecessor had been killed in an ill advised duel over a woman, or a rare spirit fruit, or something along those lines. She had not inquired. Cultivators died all the time, both in and out of the heavenly schools. It was expected.

The First Elder of Fringe Village was a three-star artist who was for some reason quite vain about his eyebrows. Did he pluck them to be so straight? Having his third star meant he would technically qualify to enter a heavenly school, but in practice, he was far too old to do so.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

The younger students would have bullied him mercilessly. An easy mark, for if he had been genuinely talented, he wouldn’t have looked so old to begin with. Yuyu was in her thirties, but she looked half her age, and as long as she continued to advance, the relative difference in her apparent and actual age would only continue to grow.

"A thousand welcomes to the mistress of the Azai." The First Elder bowed three times to her, as was proper, and presented the tea himself. The servants were stabled for this meeting, both hers and his, so he played the role of a servant when it was appropriate.

"Tell me about the crop," she said. Never being one for formalities, being the superior in this situation allowed her the privilege of dispensing with them.

"As you wish," the old man said, frowning slightly at her lack of decorum. "It was an excellent harvest, with hardly any deaths, and only a handful of permanent injuries."

"That is good to hear," Yuyu said, patting Ise, who was at her side. "Cripples are a burden to the village, and so a burden to the clan. What of the fruit?"

"Every variety, mistress. Though we are a little short on gold this year, there is a bounty of blue."

"A little short, what does that mean?"

"There was a theft, a few unstarred nuisances. They were shortly caught and punished."

"Of course, and this theft, it was taken from your portion, correct? It does not affect the tithe."

The First Elder seemed inclined to argue, but it was a minor amount in the scheme of things, and this was not the hill he chose to die on. Yuyu was aware that the former representative would have been inclined to let the First Elder use the theft as an excuse to reduce the tithe, but they had no such special relationship. In truth, the adjustment would have meant nothing, but he always had such trouble reading her, and she enjoyed watching him squirm.

"Of course," he said.

"That’s interesting," she patted Ise again, and her familiar clacked its claws in appreciation. "I did not know any of your clan had the ambition to attempt a theft of the harvest."

"It is not uncommon, mistress. The folly of youth. We take such transgressions seriously."

Yuyu nodded, already bored. "When was the last time a pure artist from Fringe attended one of the Heavenly Schools?"

"It has been many years, mistress. Before my time."

"As I thought." Yuyu reminded herself to summon her cousin, the border guardian, to reconnect. He had shown her kindness once, when she was young and still required kindness, but he had been a disappointment in the end, as had his son. By all accounts. Kiyato would have been the one to break Fringe’s streak, taking his first star at the tender age of eight, or something like that. But he had been overconfident, and the Reaping had claimed his mana for the roots.

"The thieves, what did you do with them?"

"Makoto, your cousin, asked that they be allowed to take part in a sacred hunt in lieu of further punishment."

"A dangerous one, I hope."

"Yes, mistress, the most dangerous. It is unlikely that any of them will survive."

"But if they do, much honor will be theirs.” A double edged gift, that, the sort of opportunity cultivators vie for in the Heavenly Schools. “What prompted him to intervene on their behalf, do you think?"

"His mind is closed to me, so I hesitate to assume."

"Consider it a request from an elder."

The old man bowed to the young woman, who finally sipped her tea. Seeing her do so relaxed him. Having her refuse the offered drink, or ignore it, would have been a grave insult, a suggestion that he was not fit to keep his place as First Elder of the village.

"One of the thieves, a young man, is a relation of yours, though doubtlessly distant. Makoto Shishio."

"Oh?" Yuyu said nothing else, and the matter was quickly dropped in favor of idle talk as to the performance local players would be enacting for her later that evening. She did not care for plays, but that was the custom, and she could close her eyes and channel through most of it.

There was, in fact, a Makoto Shishio in the family. He was older than her, and of no particular note, an instructor at the Heavenly School of the Azai. It was not possible that such a man would have come to stay in Fringe, as he was too powerful to be allowed near the crop. Even if he had visited the region for whatever reason, the idea that he would have participated in a theft like this was risible, unthinkable. The fruits were valuable because of how they could be refined, and the family kept a good accounting of how many flowed in and out of their stores.

If he wanted to steal from Fringe, they couldn’t have stopped him. It would have been an insult and an embarrassment to the clan, suggesting they could not control one of their own, and the penalty would have been death, not some minor hunt. There were easier and more honorable ways to pursue advancement, and other clans to steal from if it came to that.

This "cousin" had to be someone else of the same name, or a false name. But if that was the case, the border guardian had to have a hand in it. Why would he do that, and why that name of all possible names? Makoto Shishio.

Suddenly, this little excursion had become interesting.