Ki'el woke up with a start in the mo­ments af­ter Sobon left. When she would look back on it, she would lat­er won­der what she had known, what she had felt, and what she would have guessed about what was com­ing. Cer­tain­ly, she was fixed with a cer­tain dread, a sense that what­ev­er came, lit­tle if any of it would be good.

As her wak­ing mind re­placed her sleep­ing one, it was ob­vi­ous to her that Sobon had left. She got up from her sleep­ing cush­ion, wan­der­ing back and forth for sev­er­al min­utes, un­able and un­will­ing to ac­knowl­edge the idea that she would nev­er see her mas­ter again. Only... what was she to Sobon? When the squir­rel had said he came from far away, some part of her en­vi­sioned meet­ing his true form, a hand­some old­er man who would take care of her, take her away from this world of death, be­tray­al, and cru­el­ty.

And then he re­turned as some­one else's grand­moth­er, and this was not what Ki'el had ever ex­pect­ed or de­sired. And yet, that old woman had in­deed tak­en her from a place of be­tray­al and cru­el­ty to this small lit­tle home, far from her sim­ple is­land vil­lage. And again and again, when­ev­er some­thing threat­ened, she had been there to keep Ki'el safe. She had said a great many things that awoke a great many thoughts, all of which she did her best to keep in­side her mind, but she was not ea­ger to grow stronger and fight, and she knew that this was what Sobon was ex­pect­ing.

She did not think Sobon want­ed to raise a war­rior, but she... he? Ki'el had al­ways heard a man in his men­tal voice, when he was a squir­rel, though now it was hard­er to be sure. Ki'el was sure that Sobon had ex­pect­ed her to some­day de­fend her­self, which seemed... cru­el. To be ex­pect­ed, per­haps, but cru­el. Af­ter bury­ing her fam­i­ly, her neigh­bors, every­one she had ever known, Ki'el had been un­sure that life was even worth strug­gling for, much less tak­ing an­oth­er's life to en­sure.

She picked up the mod­i­fied aether blade that Sobon had left, study­ing it again as best she could. She could al­ready de­tect the se­cret with­in it, though she was not sure what the se­cret was, how it was sealed away, or what she would need to do to un­seal it. What she was cer­tain was that hold­ing the blade felt dif­fer­ent, not only be­cause of what was sealed in­side, but be­cause Sobon had re­made the in­scrip­tions. She could feel, for one, that the in­scrip­tions were writ­ten on a bet­ter ma­te­r­i­al, one that would han­dle more pow­er, but also, there was some sort of spa­tial pock­et where she could store her own per­son­al aether, and call it back lat­er. She was not sure why she would do this, rather than us­ing the stor­age thorns on her Left and Right Cy­cles, but when she fed in en­er­gy, she could vague­ly sense it there, just be­yond her reach.

There were also three ad­di­tion­al func­tions, though she had not had the heart to try them. She had told Sobon that she did not wish for her sword to be a bet­ter weapon; she de­sired its sim­plic­i­ty and pu­ri­ty. So she ig­nored the ex­tra in­ter­nal switch­es of the blade, in­stead sum­mon­ing the aether blade in front of her, in its sharpest, nat­ur­al form.

In most ways, it re­mained ex­act­ly as it was, though as she held it, she felt that the aether was dif­fer­ent, but not un­pleas­ant­ly. It was dif­fi­cult to put a fin­ger on, and most­ly, she could sense just a hint of Sobon's spir­it through the blade. That was enough for her; she placed the flat of the blade against her fore­head, feel­ing its en­er­gy against her skin, and sim­ply hoped that the blade would con­tin­ue to be a blade, that it would keep her safe, and that per­haps some­day, she could meet Sobon again.

For some rea­son, she felt the blade slight­ly re­sist­ing her will when she made those prayers, which was odd. She had done some­thing sim­i­lar be­fore, with the blade, only wish­ing for it to be a blade and noth­ing more. Now... but no, Ki'el was not able to keep her fo­cus on the ques­tion, not with all of the wor­ries in her heart. In­stead, she low­ered the blade, putting her­self in a stance that Sobon had taught her and that Mian had helped her prac­tice. Al­though in her mind, she could see Sobon wield­ing Mian's blade with fury and fi­nesse, all she could feel from hold­ing her sword was the tense­ness of her arms and hands, the cool solid­ness of the blade han­dle. They did not feel right, and she knew that they were not right.

She was no ex­pe­ri­enced war­rior from the heav­ens, and al­though the blade was not heavy in her hands, she did not trust its light­ness. With a twist of her will, she dulled the blade, then moved through the mo­tions, notic­ing but un­able to stop her­self when every move­ment was off its mark, how at the end of every swing, it the blade had the wrong an­gle or end­ed in the wrong po­si­tion, or both. But Mian had said that it was good that she saw it, and to nev­er ig­nore it, to al­ways fo­cus on get­ting it right.

It would be eas­i­er if he were here, but he had not re­turned for the night, in­stead go­ing off to be with that woman he wished to wed. She un­der­stood lit­tle of his plans, and al­though she thought she un­der­stood what Sobon want­ed, the man and his mar­riage seemed a very strange thing to be at the cen­ter of so much, es­pe­cial­ly since she wasn't sure whether he want­ed to be with that woman or not. Cer­tain­ly... he had trou­ble keep­ing his eyes off of her, and had a strange look on his face ever since he had met her, but Ki'el was not sure what that meant in men. Of course, she was not sure what it would mean in her­self, or Lui, ei­ther.

Some dark part of her heart said that she hoped nev­er to see Sobon with that look on his or her face, what­ev­er form he took, but it was a thought she nei­ther faced nor avoid­ed, but sim­ply did not en­gage with.

She did not prac­tice for very long be­fore Lui awoke and be­gan mak­ing break­fast, and not long af­ter that be­fore the oth­ers be­gan to ar­rive at the house. First was Lady Fau and her guest, Lai Shi Po; her guards, which some­how had con­tin­ued to fol­low them in spite of every­one's dis­trust and un­ease, re­mained out­side the walls. Not long af­ter, Mian and his woman, that Xoi Xam, showed up as well, with an old­er man that Xam in­tro­duced as her un­cle.

Of all of them, the un­cle looked the most ner­vous. Ki'el looked around, but most every­one seemed nor­mal, ex­cept per­haps Po, for whom Ki'el was un­cer­tain what count­ed as 'nor­mal'. That woman had showed up dressed like a beg­gar, but once she had shamed the woman into dress­ing prop­er­ly, she had changed--and then prompt­ly nev­er changed or cleaned her clothes, or cleaned or done her hair, even once since then. Per­haps she would wear these clothes un­til they were as ragged as her last set, un­less some­one com­pelled her not to. In any case, that so-called ge­nius looked dis­tant, but Ki'el was un­cer­tain what the look meant, ex­cept that she did not ap­pear half as ner­vous as the mer­chant un­cle.

When break­fast was ready and they all be­gan to sit down, it was Lui her­self who raised the ques­tion. "So are you ac­tu­al­ly go­ing to get mar­ried?" she asked, look­ing with­out guile at Mian, seem­ing­ly very in­ter­est­ed. Ki'el her­self was cu­ri­ous, but couldn't help feel­ing like she would sound dis­in­ter­est­ed if she asked, or per­haps just rude. She was not sure how to en­gage with peo­ple about mat­ters like that; it seemed cru­el to pre­tend that she sym­pa­thized or un­der­stood them, and so she did not wish to make them think that she was open to speak­ing about these things. But... it did not mean she did not wish to know, it sim­ply... did not seem ap­pro­pri­ate for some­one like her. In her mind, it was fine for Lui, who was in­no­cent and kind, but she was...

In the end, Ki'el could only ac­cept that she did not know her­self that well.

"I have al­ready filed the pa­per­work," said the mer­chant un­cle, which star­tled Ki'el. She glanced at Mian, but he and Xoi Xam were... hold­ing hands, but also look­ing away from each oth­er, look­ing a lit­tle bit con­fused, but nowhere near as con­fused as Ki'el felt. "The City Lord was kind enough to back­date a few things as well, to help con­ceal the whole busi­ness. Ac­cord­ing to records, they have been en­gaged for sev­er­al years, and Mian is giv­en a false name struck through so as to be un­read­able, as though re­ject­ed by a clan." He leaned back. "You did not an­swer yes­ter­day, when I asked if you wished to be adopt­ed into the clan. In name only, if you wish."

Xoi Ki'el? Xoi Doua Ki'el? She had not want­ed to en­gage with the ques­tion yes­ter­day, and she did not wish to en­gage with it to­day, but she knew that she must. If she wished to hide, re­mov­ing any trace of her old fam­i­ly name would be ap­pro­pri­ate, but as Sobon had said, she al­ready had pa­pers reg­is­ter­ing her with the Djang em­pire, ones that for now, re­mained in Po's poses­sion. She ei­ther tried to hide her con­nec­tion to that iden­ti­ty, or em­brace it. Ei­ther way, the ques­tion left her feel­ing very far from her home, wish­ing that she could re­ceive guid­ance from her grand­moth­er, or from her neigh­bor Shi'sel, who had of­ten been kind to her on the days her grand­moth­er had been strict. Shi'sel... had not been among the peo­ple she buried. She had no idea what had hap­pened to the woman.

"I do not wish it," Ki'el fi­nal­ly said, af­ter a long pause. "But I be­lieve it would be wise. I... would like to keep my fam­i­ly name in it, how­ev­er."

"That seems best, since you have the pa­pers al­ready. I'll make sure it's done." The man nod­ded. "There will be some­thing for you to sign be­fore we leave. As for that..." Xoi Mon glanced to Po, who sighed.

"Yes, the arrange­ments are done. We'll all go to­geth­er to the sect, and Mimi and Lulu will come with me to one of my work­shops. Mon, you and your sons will get dropped off at the Xoi com­pound in at Pur­ple Moun­tain City." She made a frus­trat­ed ges­ture into open air. "Every­one gets what they want, every­one takes their own part of Alas­si's small for­tune with them. And I get back to work, which is all any­one ever want­ed from me in the first place."

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Ki'el winced a lit­tle at the dis­gust in Po's voice, and she thought Lady Fau did as well. But if the al­chemist wasn't will­ing to ar­gue with her, Ki'el would cer­tain­ly not be one to in­trude. So she glanced at the mer­chant un­cle, who was sit­ting back, look­ing some­what pleased.

"Very good, then," he said, sound­ing like some of the weight was off of his shoul­ders. "I would nev­er have thought I'd see my niece Xam ei­ther mar­ried or ac­cept­ed into a ma­jor sect, let alone both in the same month!"

"Not ac­cept­ed, yet," said Po, her voice a lit­tle harsh, and Ki'el looked at her. "Moon­stone Is­land sect will most like­ly ac­cept all three of you, but they are ex­clu­sive enough that they will need proof that you are ca­pa­ble. Even be­fore you join the out­er sect, you will most like­ly need to join the sect's less­er house. They will ex­pect you to work un­til you meet the min­i­mum stan­dards of the sect, which will most like­ly be reach­ing the Gold­en Wall. Then, an ex­pert will guide you through pass­ing it. You must not only suc­ceed, but show through your tribu­la­tion that you are more than a com­mon cul­ti­va­tor."

Ki'el frowned. Sobon had helped her ad­vance to gold qi, and she or Xam could help Mian ad­vance, but the man was still be­hind them. Al­though he was slow­ly ad­vanc­ing through sil­ver qi, he did not have the ad­van­tage of Sobon's cy­cles... she frowned, still not quite lik­ing the term, but re­fus­ing to use the for­eign word that Sobon al­ways used. They are what they are, cy­cles of pow­er, she though, though the thought still felt for­eign in its own way. But with­out these pow­er cy­cles, Mian will be much slow­er, and Sobon nev­er taught him. I am not sure that it is my place to do so if he did not. She glanced at the man, then over at Po.

"May I ask you a ques­tion, Lai Shi Po?"

The ge­nius ar­ti­fact cre­ator put her full at­ten­tion on Ki'el, mak­ing the girl feel im­me­di­ate­ly very vul­ner­a­ble, but she suf­fered through it with as much grace as she could muster. "Of course."

"The Crown that Sobon cre­at­ed. May we see it?"

It was only when Po made a face that Ki'el re­al­ized she was sup­posed to use the oth­er name for her mas­ter in front of oth­ers. She glanced at the two Xoi, but nei­ther had much of an ex­pres­sion on their faces.

"You wish to test the pu­ri­ty of your qi against it?" She shift­ed her weight and way of sit­ting un­til as though un­com­fort­able, or just dis­tract­ed. "For Alas­si's peo­ple, I sup­pose I can make an ex­cep­tion, but un­der­stand that I paid a very high price for the ar­ti­fact. I will not be even speak of it to most peo­ple, much less let any­one else touch it."

Ki'el hes­i­tat­ed, but spoke. "In truth... I do wish to test my­self, but I most­ly wish it for Mian. I have my own ad­van­tages--"

"We can talk about that on the way," Po in­ter­rupt­ed, sound­ing ir­ri­ta­ble. "I know there are chal­lenges for all of you, but trust me when I say that we'll all be much hap­pi­er when we're far away from here. I don't know if any­one will sur­vive Alas­si's blood feud and come here look­ing, but it's best not to be here just in case."

Ki'el start­ed to nod, al­though she no­ticed that there was sud­den­ly some­thing off in her spir­it. Off, but not vi­o­lent­ly so. In­stead, it felt like... she stood up, and sim­ply nod­ded. "I... wish to med­i­tate for a few mo­ments."

Xoi Mon spoke up as she turned away. "I will come back lat­er and bring you to see the City Lord, to sign the adop­tion pa­pers. Most like­ly be­fore noon."

She nod­ded, ab­sent­ly, then moved back to her room and shut the slid­ing door. No soon­er did she make her­self com­fort­able than she felt some­thing for­eign at­tach it­self to her mind.

[ No­tice: (Hon­orary Crewmem­ber) (Sobon) has re­quest­ed that you re­ceive one mes­sage and two aether pack­ages. If you do not agree, to ac­cept the pack­ages, in­stal­la­tion will not com­mense. You are be­ing mon­i­tored in case you are un­able to pro­ject a resonse at this time; sim­ply in­di­cate your con­sent or re­fusal with in­tent. ]

Ki'el fum­bled, but sig­naled [ Mes­sage ] af­ter a mo­ment.

When the en­ti­ty re­layed the mes­sage from Sobon, she could tell that it had done so clean­ly, with pure aether that did not add more than a touch of its own fla­vor to it. [ Ki'el. I'm sor­ry for leav­ing with­out see­ing you and Lui. I don't know what's com­ing, and I don't want to end up spend­ing my whole morn­ing think­ing about it. I'm writ­ing this in ad­vance, and I'll be ask­ing the (Ri'lef) (star­ship) (Tidal Coro­na) to re­lay it to you. I've also asked it to of­fer you two things, one of which I'm not sure you'll ac­tu­al­ly want. ]

[ The first is what I would call an (un­trans­lat­able: un­nat­ur­al-mind). It's a (un­trans­lat­able: book-thing) that will at­tach to your mind, filled with things that I know and wish you to un­der­stand. Un­like your own mem­o­ries, you will have to (ask) it with in­tent, but it will con­tain more than enough hints and guid­ance, and it will have oth­er abil­i­ties if you get used to it. I... would hope that you will ac­cept this, but I can't force you. I would nev­er force you. ]

[ The oth­er is the same thing that pro­tects my soul when I die and lets me come back. You have to un­der­stand, Ki'el, that if you do ac­cept that... it will be the same thing that has hap­pened to me. You will wake up in a stranger's body, per­haps in a place and in cir­cum­stances that are aw­ful. You do not need to ac­cept it, and as­sum­ing they ac­cept my re­quest at all, I'll ask that the (Tidal Coro­na) leave the op­tion open for you to ac­cept it lat­er. Spend what­ev­er time you need to de­cid­ing, just... know that it isn't a bless­ing. It may let us meet again some­day, but it may also give you a fate you do not want. ]

Ki'el shiv­ered, sud­den­ly feel­ing in­cred­i­bly ner­vous. She knew that the pres­ence she was feel­ing was what she thought of as the Voice of the World, what Sobon had called the (Tidal Coro­na), and she un­der­stood what it was. But now that its eye, too, was on her, she was un­sure that the at­ten­tion of such a thing was tru­ly a good thing. It felt cold and heavy, and some­where be­yond her mind, Ki'el thought she sensed ocean waves and crushed sand--but while those things should have felt fa­mil­iar, like her home vil­lage, they ra­di­at­ed a feel of un­nat­u­ral­ness, for­eign­ness.

The pres­ence shift­ed, though the feel­ings did not go away. The shift it­self felt mas­sive, even as noth­ing seemed to change. [ Con­fir­ma­tion: You are sens­ing an echo of the (Tidal Coro­na)'s (un­trans­lat­able: un­nat­ur­al-skin). (I) am a for­eign (un­nat­ur­al) (life) meant to con­trol a (star­ship), and my (skin) was nev­er in­tend­ed for con­tact with (things). All such con­tact is (thought of) as (pos­si­ble dam­age). (I) apol­o­gize for any in­con­ve­nience. ]

Ki'el parsed what she could of all of that, but dis­missed it af­ter a few mo­ments, form­ing a que­si­ton with con­tent. [ What pack­ages? ]

[ Pack­age 1: Stan­dard (un­trans­lat­able: add-to) (un­trans­lat­able: mind-book-ad­vanced-thing), with (un­trans­lat­able: mind-han­dle) and (un­trans­lat­able: be­gin­ner-help) ad­di­tion, pre­pared by (Crewmem­ber) (Sobon). Pack­age 2: Stan­dard (Ri'lef) (un­trans­lat­able: live-again) pro­to­col. Note: De­liv­ery of ei­ther pack­age may be de­layed (un­trans­lat­able: for how­ev­er long you wish, prob­a­bly?). ]

In the end, it didn't take Ki'el long to make her de­ci­sion. [ De­lay 2. Ac­cept 1. ]

The cold feel­ing against Ki'el's spir­it spiked, and she felt some­thing for­eign at­tach it­self to her mind, in a strange place around the edges, but there was no pain, only... only a strange some­thing. A weight, per­haps. And af­ter only a mo­ment, the oth­er pres­ence with­drew, leav­ing her alone.

Ki'el reached for the new weight in her mind, try­ing to sig­nal it with in­tent, but when she did, a se­ries of flick­er­ing slash­es seemed to run through her mind. She flinched, but held her ground, cer­tain that what­ev­er Sobon left, it would not be dan­ger­ous. Af­ter sev­er­al mo­ments, the flash­es be­gan to have shape, and then the shapes be­gan to move slow­ly through her mind. It was... not painful, ever, but if she didn't trust Sobon, it would have been tor­ture, hav­ing it so deep in­side of her.

Even­tu­al­ly, how­ev­er, the pat­tern seemed to find its place, and sud­den­ly, a small clear shape ap­peared in the cor­ner of Ki'el's vi­sion. It con­tained text that seemed to flick­er sev­er­al times, un­til fi­nal­ly, Ki'el could read it.

It sim­ply said, {Sys­tem Start­ing, Please Wait}.

----------------------------------------

By the midafter­noon, Ki'el was un­cer­tain ex­act­ly what to think about any­thing at all.

She had gone with the mer­chant un­cle to sign pa­pers that said she was adopt­ed, and she did not know what to think about that. And she watched the City Lord bow to her as though she were some­one im­por­tant, and was not sure what to think about that, ei­ther. Then she wait­ed for hours for any­one to have an­oth­er task for her, or have some­thing they wished to speak of, but every­one was busy with their own things, and she wasn't sure what to think about that. Mean­while, this un­nat­ur­al-mind thing that Sobon had left her con­tin­ued to flick­er strange­ly in her mind, say­ing noth­ing more than it was "start­ing" and that she should wait.

When fi­nal­ly Po ar­rived to bring every­one to where an­oth­er fly­ing-box was wait­ing, she was un­sure of what to think of that, as well. The fly­ing-box that had tak­en them all to the auc­tion had seemed odd to her, cramped and too blunt, but the one that came now was ugli­er and less com­fort­able, but larg­er, with room for every­one--her­self, Lui, Mide, Po and her two guards, Mian, Xam, Mon and his two sons, and one stranger who ap­peared to own and con­trol the box it­self. There was some squab­bling about seat­ing, and Ki'el found her­self stuck un­com­fort­ably be­tween Lui and one of the mer­chant un­cle's sons, who smelled like a sweaty man who had cov­ered him­self with some­thing to try to hide it. It was not pleas­ant.

Once they were un­der­way, Po spoke up again, abrupt­ly stand­ing up. "Al­right, it's a good six hours to the Moon­stone Is­land sect. I'm go­ing to try mak­ing some­thing, so if any­one bumps me or makes me mess up," she glared at her neigh­bors, es­pe­cial­ly Xam, who was across from her, and then at the one in charge of the fly­ing box, "I will be very up­set."

The one in charge of the box just nod­ded his un­der­stand­ing, and Lai Shi Po turned and sat on the floor, us­ing her seat as a crude table as she pulled small in­gots of met­al out of nowhere and be­gan carv­ing into them with in­tense fo­cus. As the rest sat in un­com­fort­able si­lence, Ki'el turned to Lui and whis­pered, very qui­et­ly, "Sobon left me a mes­sage be­fore he left. Only to say that he was sor­ry he did not say good­bye, and that he want­ed to."

Lui turned to look at her, and Ki'el thought the girl was al­ready too close to cry­ing. She knew very lit­tle about Lui's his­to­ry, but took the oth­er girl's hand and squeezed it tight­ly. Al­though she didn't know what hav­ing a sis­ter was like, and gen­er­al­ly had few in­stincts on how to deal with oth­er young peo­ple, she could see that the girl need­ed help to get through every­thing that was hap­pen­ing.

It did not help that they had felt some­thing very dan­ger­ous hap­pen in the dis­tance... and then, af­ter a time, go qui­et. There had been a mo­ment when the most pow­er­ful qi she had ever felt had been un­leashed, and she was sure that it be­longed to the Djang Princess, but that mo­ment passed with­out fur­ther vi­o­lence. She was un­sure whether what she felt was ex­act­ly what Sobon had in­tend­ed, or some­thing far worse, and she re­ceived no con­fir­ma­tion, not for a very long time.

It was long past dark, but well into the six hour trip, when Ki'el felt the brush of qi from far away.

[ Re­lay from (Sobon): Can­not talk now, but we will meet again some­day, I promise. ]