"You do not, un­der ANY cir­cum­stances, start or ac­cept a duel with an Out­er Sect dis­ci­ple," snarled Bai Be­nai, her face twist­ed with emo­tions that Ki'el couldn't be­gin to un­der­stand. "I would think that you would have un­der­stood, since you were in­volved with Xan Bu. If you are found to have harmed an Out­er Sect dis­ci­ple, at best, you will lose far more in for­fei­ture than the stakes of the duel, and at worst, you will be killed for it."

Ki'el swal­lowed. It's not that she was com­plete­ly un­fa­mil­iar with the stakes; she had been told, and she un­der­stood them. Even so... "I do not be­lieve that I was like­ly to harm him on ac­ci­dent, and I had no in­ten­tion of do­ing so on pur­pose."

"In­ten­tions," scoffed Bai Be­nai, round­ing on Da Chi­an. "You in­tend­ed to do ex­act­ly as you were in­struct­ed, did you not?"

"I did ex­act­ly as I was in­struct­ed," Chi­an re­turned, fury in their voice.

"If it came to an ex­am­i­na­tion, they would find you did not. Some­how." She turned back to Ki'el. "The Less­er House does not ex­ist to raise up peo­ple, child. Those who ar­rive here too young and un­de­vel­oped to raise out of it in a time­ly man­ner are all but cer­tain to re­main trapped here. Those fam­i­lies who un­der­stand this of­ten pun­ish their way­ward chil­dren by send­ing them ear­ly, doom­ing them to re­main in the Less­er House un­til their spir­it is bro­ken or they make a mis­take that costs them their life."

Ki'el felt a sud­den kin­dling of anger in her at that pro­claima­tion. With­out ques­tion, Lai Shi Po did not see things that way, or she would nev­er have rec­om­mend­ed that Ki'el and Mian be sent here. And... from how she talked, she had also been trapped here for a time, had she not? But... the way this woman talked... Ki'el could not imag­ine that she was be­ing de­ceived.

"You think that the sect will al­low my life to be de­stroyed for an ac­ci­dent?"

"It has hap­pened be­fore. Will hap­pen again. To peo­ple more im­por­tant and less vul­ner­a­ble than you."

Ki'el closed her eyes and con­sid­ered that. The cer­tain­ty of Bai Be­nai's words... she was sure that was earned through hear­break. "I apol­o­gize," she said, fi­nal­ly. "I act­ed with­out think­ing. But." She re­opened her eyes to look at the old­er woman. "You also were will­ing to fight the Out­er Dis­ci­ple."

"My life is lit­tle enough, child, and I keep no sect points to my own name. And even if I harmed or killed that dis­ic­ple, the worst they could do is throw me off of the is­land. I, un­like you, would sur­vive the fall."

Ki'el felt shock at that pro­nounce­ment, but nar­rowed her eyes slight­ly. "You are...?"

"I will not speak of that to you, even if Da Chi­an trusts you." The woman's voice re­mained cool. "Even if you did en­dan­ger your­self for her sake. My se­crets are my own."

Ki'el sim­ply nod­ded, hav­ing no rea­son to ar­gue that fur­ther. "But you do not con­sid­er be­ing thrown out to be an is­sue?"

"I am placed here by... a pa­tron. If I was thrown off, I would re­turn, and they would al­low it, again, so long as I paid the fee. Again."

Ki'el nod­ded. "That is why you are not lim­it­ed to Gold Qi."

Bai Be­nai's aura shift­ed, dan­ger­ous­ly. "Be care­ful what you speak, child," she said. "There is a great deal that you do not know."

Ki'el frowned, un­sure why the woman re­spond­ed so poor­ly, but again, re­fused to chal­lenge her. "I do not," she said. "But I have seen, and fought, peo­ple above Gold Qi be­fore. You are more dan­ge­orus than any­one I have faced."

"Ah," Da Chi­an said, their voice sur­prised, and their spir­it still at least part­ly con­fused. "Come to think of it, you did chal­lenge him af­ter he re­vealed his Bis­muth Qi. Have you fought a Bis­muth ex­pert be­fore?"

"No," Ki'el said. "Only one at ti­ta­ni­um qi." Only. Ki'el un­der­stood, as she said it, the gap that must ex­ist be­tween who she was now, and who she would need to be in or­der to reach Ti­ta­ni­um Qi... and then, there must be an­oth­er gap from there to Bis­muth. And yet, she had been con­fi­dent. Why? Ki'el thought she sensed Kuli wish­ing to speak, but there was not time for that now.

Bai Be­nai was look­ing at her strange­ly. "You sparred with some­one at Ti­ta­ni­um Qi?"

"Not a spar." Ki'el was be­gin­ning to feel in­creas­ing­ly self-con­scious. "He was try­ing to kill me."

The dan­ger­ous­ness in Bai Be­nai's aura snuffed out, not in­stant­ly, but over the course of a small few sec­onds. As Ki'el watched her eyes, she thought the woman's pos­ture went from fu­ri­ous to some­thing more sym­pa­thet­ic. "I see," she fi­nal­ly said. "You have... not had an easy life, then."

Ki'el gave the woman the look that she felt that state­ment de­served. "No."

"Have you fought many peo­ple like that?" Da Chi­an's voice sound­ed pos­i­tive­ly ea­ger, and Ki'el looked to them, sur­prised.

"Ah... no. I fought sev­er­al pi­rates at Iron and Sil­ver, when I was Sil­ver my­self. But my mas­ter was watch­ing me then." She hes­i­tat­ed. "Them, and the one fight against a Ti­ta­ni­um Qi ex­pert. Those are the only times I've had true bat­tle ex­pe­ri­ence."

"It's not a small thing, fight­ing to the death," Bai Be­nai said, her voice still se­ri­ous but with far less scorn. "Broth­er Mon­shu, though his soul is stained with evil, has prob­a­bly nev­er killed any­one with his own two hands." At Ki'el's blank look, she added, "That is the man you fought. Otoma Mon­shu."

"I see," Ki'el said. "I... per­haps killed one per­son di­rect­ly. But while I fought the man with Ti­ta­ni­um Qi fear­ing death, I did not kill him. My mas­ter told me to de­lay him, and there was an... op­por­tu­ni­ty to dis­arm him, and I cap­tured him. He still lives, when last I heard."

Be­nai sim­ply looked at Ki'el for a while, and for one mo­ment, Ki'el thought that she sensed some­thing be­hind the woman--a spir­i­tu­al ar­ti­fact, like Chi­an's tail and ears, but larg­er, and she was un­able to de­ter­mine the shape. Ki'el con­sid­ered the im­age, but had dis­missed it long be­fore Be­nai spoke again, to let the woman keep her se­crets.

"I see," she said af­ter a time. "It is... more dif­fi­cult to cap­ture peo­ple, but the pres­ence of your mas­ter may have made it eas­i­er. In any case..." Be­nai shook her head. "You are still too weak and too naive to en­ter into du­els, child." There was a brief pause. "With re­gret, I have for­got­ten your name, Sect Sis­ter."

Ki'el might have been of­fend­ed, if the woman hadn't been avoid­ing her and the rest of the group re­cent­ly. "Xoi Doua Ki'el."

"Sis­ter Ki'el." The woman bowed, and Ki'el matched it po­lite­ly. "I can­not and will not pro­tect you like I must and will pro­tect Da Chi­an. But you seem to have a straight soul." She rose from the bow, and her voice and face were stern. "But that sword, and any oth­er ar­ti­facts you may have... keep them se­cret. A spir­it sword that can match a blow from a man with Bis­muth Qi is no small feat, and every­one watch­ing could tell that the ar­ti­fact it­self was not even strained. Many, if they found out such a weapon ex­ists, would wish to claim it by for­fei­ture, and you do not know the rules well enough to pre­vent such an oc­cur­rence."

Ki'el found her hand drift­ing to her space ring un­con­scious­ly, but ac­cept­ed that ad­vice grudg­ing­ly. "I would not want to lose it," she con­firmed. "It is... left to me by my mas­ter."

"It is clear­ly spe­cial," Be­nai said. "But peo­ple lose trea­sures all the time here. Es­pe­cial­ly when they are in the Low­er House and do not re­spect the rules."

Ki'el want­ed to snap at Bai Be­nai that she un­der­stood, but did not. She had al­ready got­ten in two fights, de­spite be­ing warned not to. In­stead, she took sev­er­al deep breaths, re­sist­ing the urge to flood her spir­it once again with right­eous aether, and sim­ply nod­ded.

"Good." Be­nai stepped back from Ki'el, and the three of them--who had sim­ply gone aside into a stand of trees, in a seem­ing­ly ran­dom spot in the Out­er sect is­lands--re­laxed by at least a touch. Ki'el looked around, tak­ing stock of their lo­ca­tion, but the rest of the Sect seemed com­plete­ly ig­no­rant and in­dif­fer­ent to their hushed con­ver­sa­tion. "Chi­an. Sis­ter Ki'el. Both of you should ap­proach Sis­ter Futi about this mat­ter im­me­di­ate­ly. It is not un­heard of for an Out­er Sect dis­ci­ple to not ac­knowl­edge that a duel oc­curred or that it sat­is­fies a debt. Do not men­tion me im­me­di­ate­ly, but do so should the claim be chal­lenged. Do you un­der­stand?"

They did, and they set off to­geth­er, with Be­nai tak­ing an­oth­er way. Ki'el glanced at Chi­an, but while they were calmer, there was still an ag­i­ta­tion to their spir­it. "You seem un­well, Sis­ter Chi­an."

"I am fu­ri­ous," they re­spond­ed, their voice cold. "And how could I not be? It was a trap. By some­one who knows what I am, and knows that I can be ma­nip­u­lat­ed when I am up­set. Au--Sis­ter Be­nai is kind, and I ap­pre­ci­ate her swift as­sis­tance, but with­out that, at worst I could have been killed. All be­cause that some en­ti­tled brats want my blood to play with."

Ki'el winced at the tone, and es­pe­cial­ly at the last part, but did her best to breathe eas­i­ly. "I wish that I could help you more," she said af­ter a mo­ment.

Chi­an con­tin­ued for an­oth­er mo­ment be­fore paus­ing. "The tech­nique that you have," she said. "Not the one you are de­vel­op­ing, but the one your mas­ter taught you, which cre­ates calm and clear en­er­gy. Can you teach that to me?"

Ki'el paused with her, turn­ing back to look, and af­ter a mo­men­tary men­tal glance at Kuli, who did not ob­ject, Ki'el sim­ply said, "Yes, if you think it would help."

"Tonight, then. If it can re­duce my fu­ri­ous emo­tions by even a frac­tion, it will help a great deal." Chi­an con­tin­ued on at a some­what faster pace, and Ki'el re­sumed the walk, match­ing them. Or... her, again? Ki'el was un­cer­tain.

Sis­ter Futi, when she had a mo­ment to spare for the two of them, took in the news of the ar­gu­ment and the duel with cold ac­cep­tance, though she re­in­forced Sis­ter Be­nai's warn­ing to Ki'el not to do any­thing of the sort again. Af­ter that, the two split again, Ki'el find­ing work gath­er­ing cook­ing herbs from a sec­tion of for­est that had been set up to farm them. They were a strange leafy herb, that grew as a vine up and down trees, and must be picked care­ful­ly so as not to kill the plant; by the end of the task, Ki'el was sweaty and ir­ri­ta­ble, as she had sev­er­al times been yelled at for near­ly dam­ag­ing the plant, when the al­ter­na­tive would have been a nasty fall.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

But the task fin­ished, and even­tu­al­ly, evening came, and with it came Da Chi­an.

The red-haired Fox Spir­it led Ki'el well away from the Less­er House and into an area sealed by script­ed tal­is­mans, an area which Ki'el felt some in­stinct to avoid. But once they passed the tal­is­mans, and en­tered a small clear­ing, Ki'el found that the re­sult was a com­fort­able space whose qi felt well away from the rest of the sect, and she nod­ded as she looked around and tast­ed the aether here. It was... healthy.

"You had said be­fore, that you want­ed to speak to me," Chi­an said, and Ki'el re­al­ized even be­fore they ful­ly re­vealed their ears and spir­it tail, that part of the rea­son for the bar­ri­er was so that they could be them­selves. "What did you wish to say?"

"I was prac­tic­ing speak­ing with in­tent," Ki'el said. "I... do not have it per­fect­ly yet, but I want­ed to try again."

"Hum," Chi­an sat on a stone near the cen­ter of the clear­ing. "Well, let's hear it."

Ki'el nod­ded, set­tled down, and tried to steady her breath­ing. Al­though it took some work to get back into the head­space she need­ed, and al­though she had to con­cen­trate very hard on per­form­ing the in­tent-speech, with Kuli's help she was able to ful­ly con­dense the in­tent into words. "[Nor­mal fire] is the [re­ac­tion] of [fuel] and [oxy­gen] with [heat]."

Ki'el found, strange­ly enough, that she was out of breath af­ter sim­ply speak­ing the sen­tence. That... didn't usu­al­ly hap­pen when she prac­ticed. { It is be­cause you had to match the lis­ten­ers, } Kuli said, qui­et­ly. { That is more work than you may think. }

"That..." Chi­an's voice sound­ed strange, and Ki'el looked at them, sur­prised to see a strange look on the fox-be­ing's face. "Say that again."

"A mo­ment," Ki'el said. "It is dif­fi­cult." She took a deep breath again, press­ing right­eous aether into her­self to take the edge off, and spoke again. "[Nor­mal fire] is the [re­ac­tion] of [fuel] and [oxy­gen] with [heat]." She felt less strained the sec­ond time, but it was still an ef­fort.

Chi­an stared off into the dis­tance for a few mo­ment, then closed their eyes. "Again."

Ki'el, though she felt bet­ter, took an­oth­er mo­ment to steady her­self be­fore she spoke a third time. As she spoke, Chi­an formed an­oth­er qi orb, an orb that shift­ed as Chi­an con­sid­ered the words be­ing spo­ken.

Once Ki'el had spo­ken the full phrase a third time, Chi­an flicked the orb at a near­by tree--and a sec­tion of wood sev­er­al inch­es across to burst into a blaz­ing fire all at once.

"Gah!" Chi­an's tail twitched, and al­most all at once, the blaz­ing fire went out, leav­ing a ter­ri­ble burn scar on the tree that still steamed and glowed. "That is--that..." Chi­an moved for­ward to the tree, lean­ing in and study­ing it, but sat back, clear­ly un­be­liev­ing. "Is it... re­al­ly so much eas­i­er sim­ply be­cause...?"

{ You did not un­der­stand fire, } Kuli pro­ject­ed, though Ki'el felt that the aug­ment was only us­ing a touch of en­er­gy. { Your at­tempts to cre­ate some­thing like fire were of­fen­sive to me. I am pleased to see you do bet­ter. }

Chi­an round­ed on Ki'el, as though Kuli's ex­is­tence were a sur­prise, but they seemed to calm af­ter a mo­ment. "Right. You." They looked back at the tree. "I... spir­its, but I don't un­der­stand. When I use my blood­line pow­er to con­trol wind and storms, I am not asked to un­der­stand, only to com­mand. I... sup­pose it must be true that for every­one else, un­der­stand­ing of the na­ture of things is key, but..."

{ My un­der­stand­ing of fire is above what you would nor­mal­ly be told. Ki'el's spo­ken in­tent is... close. }

Chi­an reached their hand to­wards the scar on the tree, close enough that Ki'el was sure they were feel­ing the left­over warmth, but af­ter a mo­ment, they with­drew their hand and turned away, mov­ing di­rect­ly up to Ki'el. "Can you do the same thing with your tech­nique?"

"Ah..." Ki'el felt em­bar­rassed, not least be­cause Chi­an got clos­er than she was used to. "I have been prac­tic­ing speak­ing the in­tent for the qi turn­ing cir­cle, not for that tech­nique, but they share parts. But also... you have per­formed the qi turn­ing cir­cle, to some ex­tent. Most­ly, what you need to un­der­stand comes down to one con­cept."

Chi­an re­turned to their rock and sat, ges­tur­ing for Ki'el to con­tin­ue.

So Ki'el, with some help from Kuli, did her best to gath­er her un­der­stand of aether, be­fore speak­ing. "The Pow­er Cy­cle is a tech­nique to cre­ate pu­ri­fied [Aether] by form­ing a [thread] of aether into a cir­cle, and turn­ing it, grind­ing against the [aether] of the uni­verse, and the gath­er­ing the re­sult­ing clean aether to cre­ate a thorn at its cen­ter."

From the frown on Chi­an's face, not all of that was un­der­stood, and Ki'el no­ticed im­me­di­ate­ly how many con­cepts she had failed to con­vey. But hav­ing said the key word, the cen­tral con­cept, Ki'el tried to ex­plain aether in more words, ex­plain­ing how it was so much lighter and less­er than qi--that it was a fun­da­men­tal piece of the uni­verse, and not a com­plex thing cre­at­ed for this world.

Chi­an clear­ly wasn't sure how much of those things to be­lieve, but when Ki'el in­sist­ed that cer­tain things were true, they at least were will­ing to at­tempt it. Un­like Ki'el, they had far more trou­ble ma­nip­u­lat­ing aether in­stead of qi, but... but once they were able to cre­ate a thread of aether it­self, every­thing else fell into place.

Chi­an looked down at their first aether cy­cle, which spun lazi­ly in a right-hand­ed di­rec­tion, as though un­be­liev­ing. "This... is it? A pro­found tech­nique?"

Ki'el pro­duced her own. "It is a tech­nique to cre­ate aether with­out in­tent. Be­cause any in­tent that is used to cre­ate the ring will be copied in the re­sult. But if you feed it, with­out adding in­tent..." Ki'el fo­cused, spin­ning up the... the 'dy­namo', as Sobon had called it first, feel­ing her aether ring grind­ing against the uni­verse, and the small pieces of aether gath­er­ing in the thorn.

"With­out in­tent..." Chi­an's tail flicked. "My tail adds in­tent lat­er, but... it still feels dif­fer­ent. Hm." Chi­an fo­cused, and her ring also be­gan to grind, but slow­ly. "And the piece in the cen­ter--"

"Thorn," Ki'el said. "Cy­cle and thorn. Mas­ter called it an aether (dyan­mo), though I do not know the word."

"I see." Chi­an let the cy­cle turn, star­ing at it, and Ki'el watched for a long time, be­fore speak­ing again.

"The ring, when you cre­ate it, can be turned the oth­er way," she said, in­ter­rupt­ing some thought in Chi­an. "But the right and left spins are not like one an­oth­er. The right-spin aether is... healthy. It en­cour­ages strength in sev­er­al ways. But the left hand aether holds things back, and is meant to at­tack oth­ers."

"I thought you said they were with­out in­tent?" Chi­an reached down and plucked the small right­eous aether thorn, study­ing it, and then seemed to ab­sorb it, clos­ing their eyes and feel­ing the changes.

"That is my un­der­stand­ing. I... only un­der­stand a lit­tle bit." Ki'el was un­com­fort­able ad­mit­ting how lit­tle she tru­ly did know, but it didn't seem wise to pre­tend she knew more than she did.

"I wouldn't ex­pect you to have a mas­ter's un­der­stand­ing," Chi­an chuck­led, open­ing their eyes to study the cy­cle once more. "But... it's odd, isn't it? No in­tent, but two dif­fer­ent forms?"

{ All life is born of aether, } Kuli an­swered. { And all life as we know it is born from right-spin aether. The same spin added to it­self is a stronger spin, while two op­pos­ing spins can­cel. }

"Is that so?" Chi­an didn't take their at­ten­tion away from the right­eous cy­cle. "So aether re­al­ly is clos­er to spir­it en­er­gy than any­thing else. But... it also isn't at all like my blood­line spir­it en­er­gy."

{ That is [an­ces­tral] spir­it en­er­gy, } Kuli said. Ki'el tried to grasp the term, but had not been ex­pect­ing Kuli to speak with such in­tent. An­ces­tral... well, as the word sug­gest­ed, it was born from an an­ces­tor. Be­fore she could try to ask or think hard­er, Kuli con­tin­ued. { Spir­it beasts, and those who in­her­it par­tial spir­it-beast abil­i­ties, are tap­ping into some­thing be­yond them­selves, an an­ces­tor or com­mu­ni­ty spir­it. It is re­lat­ed to qi, but it is sealed. Un­like qi, the user can­not change its na­ture. }

"An­ces­tral..." Chi­an mused. "What if I want to change its na­ture?"

{ You would need to be­come an an­ces­tral spir­it your­self, and form a branch. }

Ki'el felt, again, like she was a stranger sim­ply stand­ing by and ob­serv­ing some­one else speak such pro­found things about spir­i­tu­al en­er­gy. Just be­come an an­ces­tral spir­it? What does that even mean?

"How can I be­come an an­ces­tral spir­it when I can­not have chil­dren?" Chi­an's voice had a strong sharpess to it, though Ki'el wasn't sure ex­act­ly what emo­tion to read into it.

{ There are paths to re­pair that dam­age. But... be­ing an an­ces­tral spir­it does not mean re­quire bear­ing chil­dren. The spir­it beast blood­lines are not lit­er­al chil­dren in that sense. The... essence of bi­ol­o­gy does not per­mit that. }

"I do not know what that means, but if you say it is so, I'll be­lieve you." Chi­an, dur­ing the con­ver­sa­tion, had found a way to vast­ly speed up their right­eous cy­cle, and now seemed able to take the en­er­gy from the thorn with­out ma­nip­u­lat­ing the thorn it­self. Ki'el felt pleased, al­though... it had tak­en her much longer to get that used to her cy­cles. "Then, what is an an­ces­tral spir­it?"

{ It is a spir­it con­struct of im­mense pow­er, which pro­vides a bless­ing of wis­dom to those of cer­tain blood­lines or those who are oth­er­wise wor­thy. The Di­a­mond Lord is one such be­ing. The Bless­ing he pro­vides is grant­ed to all of hu­mankind. }

Ki'el was quite sur­prised, not hav­ing ex­pect­ed Kuli to speak of such things. "Isn't the Di­a­mond Lord a liv­ing be­ing?"

{ Some an­ces­tral spir­its are, } Kuli an­swered. { There are few an­ces­tral spir­its, and there should not be too many more. To be born con­nect­ed to an an­ces­tral spir­it guides your des­tiny--some would say con­trols. It is not a dis­tinc­tion one may re­move once giv­en. It pro­vides great pow­er, but can cost a great deal. }

"Why do you know so much about an­ces­tral spir­its?" Chi­an's voice didn't car­ry an edge, not that Ki'el could hear, but it did sound like an ac­cu­sa­tion even so. "I thought your mas­ter wasn't in­ter­est­ed in such things."

{ Sobon comes from a cul­ture that uses aether, and they have large­ly spurned the use of an­ces­tral spir­it en­er­gy, deities, and forces like qi. But, they have also learned from and stud­ied oth­er cul­tures. An­ces­tral spir­it en­er­gy is... a com­mon oc­cur­rence among the many worlds that ex­ist be­yond. }

Chi­an was qui­et. "Spurned them? So they killed the an­ces­tral spir­its of their world?"

{ The his­to­ry of Sobon's world is long, and I do not have it all with­in me. But I know that there were ter­ri­ble wars. If an­ces­tral spir­its were wiped out in one or more of those wars, it would not sur­prise me. There also may be some that re­main. I am un­aware ei­ther way. }

"I see." Chi­an reached out to­wards their aether ring, and with some ef­fort, pulled it into their spir­it. "You said that these rings can turn the oth­er way?"

With Ki'el guid­ing her, Chi­an soon formed an­oth­er, left-spin pow­er cy­cle, and then an­oth­er of each. With all four cy­cles con­cealed with­in her spir­it, Chi­an sat in med­i­ta­tion for a while, and Ki'el joined them, tak­ing some time to clear her thoughts and or­ga­nize them. Al­though she in­tend­ed at the start to con­tin­ue find­ing the right words and in­tent to con­vey the pow­er cy­cles, or the qi turn­ing cy­cle, in­stead she found her­self re­play­ing the con­ver­sa­tion in her mind.

They killed the an­ces­tral spir­its of their world? Chi­an's voice was odd, Ki'el thought. Not... or per­haps not judge­men­tal. Afraid, cer­tain­ly. But there was some­thing else, and what there was, Ki'el was not sure.

Ki'el al­most jumped when Chi­an's voice woke her from her med­i­ta­tion. "I think that this tech­nique will help me, Sis­ter Ki'el." Ki'el blinked, look­ing up at the per­son... no, the girl that was now stand­ing be­fore her. "I would like to talk again some time. But not now, and maybe not to­mor­row. I... I have been try­ing to un­der­stand some­thing pri­vate. I hope you do not take of­fense when I iso­late my­self in the evenings."

Ki'el just shook her head. "I have no right to judge you," she said, stand­ing up. "I just hope you will con­sid­er me a friend, when we do have chances to get to­geth­er."

Chi­an stud­ied her for a long mo­ment, but nod­ded. "A friend... yes, I sup­pose. But you should be cau­tious, Ki'el."

"Cau­tious?" Ki'el looked at Chi­an, who looked back for sev­er­al mo­ments, be­fore turn­ing and leav­ing the ward­ed clear­ing. Ki'el fol­lowed, be­com­ing con­scious as she did that it was late, and very dark.

"Yes," Chi­an's voice in the dark­ness said, and some­thing about her tone made Ki'el feel a sense of dan­ger. "Cau­tious, be­cause spir­it beast in­stincts are sharp. You may end up get­ting hurt."

"I un­der­stand," Ki'el said, "but I trust you."

"I don't think you do un­der­stand," Chi­an said, from ahead of her in the dark­ness, "but you will, some­day."

Ki'el nod­ded, feel­ing un­cer­tain, but she kept walk­ing, do­ing her best to keep an eye on her foot­ing as she trav­elled through the for­est in the dark.