"At this time, young Ki'el," an el­der that had so far not ad­dressed her said, "no one oth­er than the el­ders here can hear you. Your se­crets, and your mas­ter's, are safe."

Ki'el took the time to look at the few peo­ple that re­mained. El­der Gol re­mained the only one she had been in­tro­duced to; he had stopped me­an­der­ing around her in cir­cles and tak­en a seat near­by, though not where he had be­gun. And there re­mained the yet-un­named el­der who seemed to be in charge, who re­mained sit­ting above her in a some­what re­laxed pos­ture, head in her hands, el­bows on her knees, legs out in front. She... like many here, did not ex­act­ly look el­der­ly, though there was a weari­ness and in­ten­si­ty to her spir­it that spoke of her ex­pe­ri­ence.

The one who had just spo­ken was a thin man with short and half-kept hair who wore script­ed met­al frames around his eyes that oc­ca­sion­al­ly sparkled with qi. He wore robes just a touch too vo­lu­mi­nous for him, such that he half-seemed to dis­ap­pear into their folds, and had spent the meet­ing so far stand­ing to one side. Near­est him was an old­er-look­ing, large-boned but short­er woman with a per­ma­nent peace­ful smile on her face and nar­row eyes, who sat cross-legged on a float­ing, over­stuffed cush­ion.

There was a man to Ki'el's left who had a well-tend­ed mous­tache and beard in a strange style she was un­fa­mil­iar with, wide but not at all con­ceal­ing, and he had a dis­agree­able look on his face, or per­haps only a pained look, like his head was al­ways hurt­ing. Near­est him was a per­son that could eas­i­ly have been mis­tak­en for a young child--less than half the size of a nor­mal adult, and well small­er than Ki'el, who seemed un­will­ing or un­in­ter­est­ed in look­ing at her di­rect­ly, though she had lit­tle doubt he was pay­ing at­ten­tion, and she had no­ticed him look­ing be­fore. More than that, though... this small el­der's spir­it was in­tense­ly pow­er­ful, un­de­ni­able, swirling around him like an­gry wind, or... per­haps more like mis­chievi­ous spir­its at play, though Ki'el could not catch any sign of dis­tinct pieces.

The last el­der vis­i­ble most no­tably had a very long face, though he didn't seem par­tic­u­lar­ly tall or long oth­er­wise. His ap­pear­ance was just be­com­ing that of a more el­der­ly gen­tle­man, though he still looked sim­ply adult and not aged. At most... per­haps his hair was thin­ner than nor­mal, his skin not quite fresh.

Ki'el used that time, as she looked around, to steady her­self. No one here is an­gry or cru­el, she thought qui­et­ly. They are in­ter­est­ed in the truth. Though...

She took a fi­nal, deep breath, and spoke. "...My mas­ter is one who does not come from this world," she said, her eyes flick­er­ing around to catch their re­ac­tions.

There mere mut­ed move­ments and shifts, but they con­tin­ued to wait for her to speak.

"He was brought here against his will, af­ter his death, ap­par­ent­ly to help the world in some fash­ion I am un­fa­mil­iar with. Al­though he has spo­ken in pieces and parts about it, I am un­sure what I can say, or what I should say, ex­cept that he was brought by oth­ers who are also not from this world. He has spo­ken to me that the knowl­edge of the uni­verse is much greater where he is from, and mat­ters such as men­tal as­sis­tants and us­ing great pow­er are well known and un­der­stood there. Kuli--my spir­it--was a gift from him, but pro­vid­ed by the ones who brought him here."

To Ki'el's sur­prise, there were a cou­ple nods, but oth­ers seemed dis­qui­et. When Ki'el re­mained silent, to see if they had ques­tions, the one with the mous­tache spoke up. "That cer­tain­ly ex­plains their knowl­edge, but it does lit­tle to as­suage fears, young Ki'el. I'm sure you un­der­stand that?" He paused only long enough to see, per­haps, Ki'el's con­fused re­ac­tion, be­fore con­tin­u­ing. "Pow­er is pow­er. Among those with great pow­er, there will al­ways be a great many who abuse it. The more pow­er a so­ci­ety--a peo­ple, a group, even a world--has, the more pow­er­ful their crim­i­nals and vil­lains will be. We all wish it were not so, but it is, in­escapably, true." He lev­elled at Ki'el a glare that pierced through her, though it did not seem am­pli­fied by spir­it or qi.

Ki'el shiv­ered, slight­ly, try­ing to keep her mind clear enough to ar­gue against that point, but she was un­sure how.

"Onda's not wrong," said the small el­der. "And it's pret­ty clear young Ki'el can't be ob­jec­tive about her mas­ter. But I'd even be will­ing to be­lieve that her mas­ter is, him­self, harm­less, since he's of lit­tle con­se­quence now. What I'd like to hear from you, young one, is more about these oth­er peo­ple, the ones who you say cre­at­ed the... 'men­tal as­sis­tant'."

"I... do not know," Ki'el ad­mit­ted, look­ing down. "I was told that... that in the heav­ens, there are tru­ly mighty be­ings, and that these oth­ers are their ser­vants, sent here be­cause a prob­lem was de­tect­ed, a prob­lem that the mas­ters nor­mal­ly over­see. But... these ser­vants were struck down..." she swal­lowed. "I... was led to be­lieve, by the Di­a­mond Lord him­self."

Again... de­spite the rev­e­la­tions, and some dis­qui­et­ed glances be­tween the el­ders, noth­ing she was say­ing seemed to be tru­ly earth-shak­ing. "Some of us re­mem­ber that day very clear­ly," the spec­ta­cled el­der said af­ter a mo­ment. "Though it... was strange. The be­ing, or ves­sel, that was struck down... was in no way the op­po­nent of the Di­a­mond Lord. Though we had been told that great en­e­mies ex­ist in the heav­ens, and al­though we were told they were a... fore­spo­ken en­e­my, the truth is less clear."

"I take it that what you are say­ing, young Ki'el, is that they still ex­ist in this world? Re­lat­ed to the Star­beasts, I would as­sume?"

"They still ex­ist," Ki'el agreed. "I... know lit­tle enough about them or the Star­beasts, and do not wish to speak out of turn. But... they of­fered So--my mas­ter..." Ki'el swal­lowed. "Again... I do not wish to speak out of turn."

"Some se­crets are not meant to be shared so eas­i­ly," agreed the smil­ing el­der.

"But do you think they are wrath­ful? Or help­ful?" The mous­tached el­der's voice was harsh, di­rect.

"They would have lost a great deal," said the one with the long face. "And they are trapped in this world. Fight­ing against the Em­pire for sur­vival, no doubt."

"I'd be mad," of­fered the small­est el­der, in what Ki'el thought was a self-sat­is­fied tone

But af­ter an­oth­er com­ment or two, they wait­ed for Ki'el, who wor­ried her lip. Could she speak? Should she? "My un­der­stand­ing," she said af­ter a time, re­luc­tant­ly, "is that the star­beasts are not weapons. They... the vis­i­tors... raise them to har­vest their cores, to re­pair their ves­sel."

The at­mos­phere shift­ed slight­ly, seem­ing per­haps... more re­laxed? "That would make more sense," she thought she heard the small one say, while oth­ers talked too qui­et­ly for her to hear or com­mu­ni­cat­ed with in­tent she could not even per­ceive, lock­ing eyes with one an­oth­er.

"That doesn't say for cer­tain that they aren't wrath­ful," said the mous­tached el­der. "Though... the fact that the Star­beasts ex­ist world­wide and not only at the crash site sug­gests they have great reach. Sure­ly, if they wished to gath­er all their strength to in­vade the Em­pire, they could?"

But the small one looked up over his shoul­der at him, mak­ing a dis­ap­prov­ing face. "Most star­beasts are well be­low the Flame Phase," he said. "With as many Flame Qi war­riors as ex­ist in the Em­pire, sure­ly...?"

"That many Flame Qi users fight­ing at once would dev­as­tate the na­tion," said the spec­ta­cled el­der. "They could con­sume the am­bi­ent qi of the en­tire coun­try in but a cou­ple hours, if they were pressed to it. But if these in­vaders' goal was re­venge, wouldn't that suf­fice?"

"You still think they're in­vaders?" The smil­ing woman turned to him, and he made a dis­mis­sive head ges­ture.

Ki'el looked back and forth, but there seemed lit­tle con­sen­sus. When at last things be­gan to slow, Ki'el cleared her throat, and spoke up, ner­vous­ly, though she didn't feel any spir­i­tu­al op­pres­sion from the gath­ered el­ders. "I firm­ly be­lieve that Kuli is not an en­e­my. And I do not be­lieve that I, or you, would be at risk if you al­lowed her to speak for her­self."

The gath­ered el­ders each looked to her when she spoke, but each sim­ply turned to look up at the woman sit­ting above them all, who had re­mained silent, sim­ply sit­ting and watch­ing Ki'el.

Fi­nal­ly, though, the el­der took one of her hands from her chin and waved it, and Ki'el felt the bind­ings on her dis­solve, and she could feel Kuli, though the aug­ment was... silent, for a long mo­ment.

Kuli?

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{ Re­boot­ing... Per­form­ing [in­tegri­ty checks]. Please stand by. }

Ki'el winced slight­ly at the some­what hard­er edge of Kuli's in­tent. "She is en­sur­ing she is not dam­aged," Ki'el said af­ter a mo­ment, and the oth­ers, now all watch­ing her, each made small tells or move­ments that Ki'el thought were un­com­fort­able, but wait­ed.

{ Boot sta­tus: Un­dam­aged. Safe­ty mode. Are you in dis­tress? } Kuli's pres­ence flick­ered through Ki'el's mind, and for just a mo­ment, Ki'el felt the world slow to a crawl, as though she could have danced through a still mo­ment in time be­fore any­one else had a chance to re­act. But... she... did her best to not let it dis­turb her. No, Kuli. Be calm, she urged her aug­ment. Though I have said per­haps more than I should.

Ki'el felt the touch of Kuli in her mind, but quick­ly, the amaz­ing slow­ness of the world seemed to van­ish. { Safe­ty mode dis­en­gaged. Ki'el. I am sor­ry that I could not pro­tect you. It does not ap­pear that you are in dan­ger. You wish me to speak? }

I do not know how to ease their con­cerns with­out your un­der­stand­ing, Ki'el an­swered, try­ing to re­main calm. The were un­cer­tain I can trust you, be­cause of who cre­at­ed you. But I be­lieve in you.

There was a mo­ment, and then, Ki'el could feel Kuli pro­ject­ing into the open air. { I can an­swer some ques­tions, but Ki'el's mind can­not pro­vide me with enough qi for me to con­tin­ue to pro­ject to this en­tire group for a long pe­ri­od. }

"I no­ticed her brain's merid­i­ans were rel­a­tive­ly small," the El­der in charge said, straight­en­ing slight­ly and let­ting the oth­er hand drop, so that she was cross­ing her legs over her knees. "And rec­ti­fy­ing that doesn't seem to have been one of your im­me­di­ate goals."

{ No. My task is to pro­vide her in­for­ma­tion from her mas­ter, and to a less­er ex­tent, pro­tect her. }

"In­for­ma­tion?" The spec­ta­cled el­der stepped for­ward, one hand stray­ing to his face and ner­vous­ly ad­just­ing the spec­ta­cle frames. "What kind of in­for­ma­tion?"

{ In­for­ma­tion her mas­ter want­ed to pass her in per­son, but was wor­ried he would not be able to. }

"Don't ask dumb ques­tions, Sang," said the small el­der. "If it want­ed to say, it would have. We may only have a cer­tain num­ber of ques­tions we can get an­swered." He swung his legs around and fi­nal­ly turned to look at Ki'el, and when she met his eyes, she saw... depths, like the depths of a jun­gle. Wild, and with a great many things hid­ing. "We are told that your cre­ators are the ones in the ves­sel the Di­a­mond Lord de­stroyed. Are they wrath­ful? Do they in­tend harm to our world?"

{ I do not rep­re­sent ei­ther the ship's Cap­tain, nor the Founders who gave us our or­ders, and I can­not ac­count for the ac­tions of the rest of the crew, } Kuli an­swered, and Ki'el felt the an­swer was ex­treme­ly pre­cise. { How­ev­er, I be­lieve you are mis­tak­en as to our cul­ture and meth­ods. Crew se­lec­tion for a mis­sion of this im­port is not [po­lit­i­cal]. } Ki'el frowned at that in­tent, un­der­stand­ing it as a squishy con­cept that is of­ten mis­used to al­low peo­ple to pur­sure their own peo­ple's in­ter­ests, but not able to cap­ture most of the de­tails. { Crews formed to fol­low the or­ders of the Founders un­der­stand that the task comes be­fore per­son­al mat­ters, and will at­tempt to com­plete it even in the face of death. Crewmem­bers, and es­pe­cial­ly crew lead­er­ship, that al­lowed them­selves to be dis­tract­ed by feel­ings of wrath would not have been cho­sen. }

By the time that Kuli fin­ished that trans­mis­sion, Ki'el was be­gin­ning to feel a headache, and she fed some of her Right­eous Aether into her body to com­pen­sate. With the seal on her body gone, the pow­er calmed her, though it could not eas­i­ly undo the slight burn­ing ache in her mind.

"A very pro­fes­sion­al an­swer," said the spec­ta­cled el­der, and Ki'el thought he sound­ed pleased.

"Mil­i­tary types," said the mous­tached el­der, his own voice... mixed? Ki'el wasn't in the frame of mind to un­der­stand, not ful­ly.

"The an­swer is very pre­cise," El­der Gol said, sound­ing... dis­tract­ed, as al­ways. "I have sat­is­fac­tion that every­thing said was true, if only in some tech­ni­cal fash­ion."

There was a lit­tle more talk­ing, of­ten at once, be­fore the el­der in charge raised her head slight­ly. "Agreed," she said, and for a mo­ment, Ki'el wasn't sure what she was agree­ing with. "What was said was true. Which bodes well for the girl. Then, Kuli--if you do not mind my us­ing that name--what about the tech­nique in that sword? Is it too much for the girl to con­trol?"

Ki'el blinked, half sur­prised that the con­ver­sa­tion had come back to that. But af­ter a mo­ment, Kuli an­swered. { Ki'el con­trols a less­er ver­sion of the same tech­nique. That en­er­gy is above her abil­i­ty to con­trol di­rect­ly. It should not harm her. } Each sen­tence drew more en­er­gy through the weary part of her mind, but Kuli seemed to have cho­sen her words, and need­ed no oth­ers.

"I see." The el­der in charge clapped her hands. "Well, then, that re­solves the mat­ter for now."

"Does it?" The el­der with the long face looked up at her. "I am un­satisi­fied that this as­si­tant will not harm the girl in the long term. If the mak­ers' pur­pose on the world shifts--"

"You might as well ask if no­bles or half-spir­its can be trust­ed," in­ter­rupt­ed the small el­der again. "How many of the dis­ci­ples here will be caught in fam­i­ly pol­i­tics soon­er or lat­er?"

The long-faced el­der looked over at the small one, frown­ing deeply. "This isn't the same. She was just a girl--is just a girl--who might have been lied to..."

But the mous­tached el­der laughed. "Yes," he said, "that nev­er hap­pens with spir­its or no­ble fam­i­lies."

The long-faced el­der huffed, but when he looked around, seemed to find no sup­port, and wilt­ed. "Fine. No ob­jec­tions."

"I have one ob­jec­tion," said the spec­ta­cled el­der, step­ping for­ward. "I would like to be able to ba­sic prin­ci­ple be­hind the mas­ter's tech­nique, and the girl's, so that we can un­der­stand what dam­age it may do to the girl's spir­it, how it may in­ter­act--"

"Oh, lay off," the smil­ing woman snapped, her mouth mov­ing briefly into a frown, and the spec­ta­cled el­der moved like he had been smacked light­ly on the chest, al­though Ki'el no­ticed only a flick­er of qi. "You're ask­ing to sat­is­fy your cu­rios­i­ty."

The spec­ta­cled one turned so that Ki'el couldn't see his eyes any­more, but she could imag­ine the glare. "It is for her safe­ty."

The el­der in charge just raised a fin­ger, and the rest were si­lenced. "For now, young Ki'el is free to go. And Ki'el." The woman low­ered her hand. "I sus­pect more than one of the El­ders here, and like­ly sev­er­al oth­ers from the Out­er Sect, would be will­ing to men­tor you. I will sim­ply sug­gest that you not ac­cept the first of­fer you re­ceive." Her mouth, which had most­ly re­mained in a bored ex­pres­sion through the meet­ing, curled into a grim smile. "Most­ly, I'm telling you this so that every­one here knows they don't need to fight or de­ceive you into ac­cept­ing their of­fer be­fore re­ceiv­ing any oth­ers. There have been... in­ci­dents in the past." She dropped her fin­ger, and Ki'el no­ticed sev­er­al of the oth­ers giv­ing the woman looks--es­pe­cial­ly, the spec­ta­cled el­der and the small­er one. "Now... you are dis­missed, Ki'el."

Ki'el, for a mo­ment, didn't rec­og­nize that as the or­der it was--but as soon as she did, bowed and re­treat­ed. As she reached the edge of the clear­ing, though, she felt a flick­er of qi, and found that her space ring had ap­peared on her hand--and in it, she could tell, the com­fort­ing feel­ing of her sword. She re­trieved it, just to be cer­tain, but when she felt it, and the strange feel­ing of the en­er­gy her mas­ter had left to her with­in, she re­placed it in the ring, feel­ing at lesat a lit­tle re­lieved that there would be no trou­ble get­ting it back.

She re­treat­ed to the edge of the is­land quick­ly af­ter that, find­ing the bridge al­ready in place at the exit to the small meet­ing is­land, a col­lec­tion of faces wait­ing ex­pec­tant­ly for her be­low. Ki'el took a deep breath, and start­ed down the stairs, still feel­ing the aches in her body that had not ful­ly healed, but most­ly, her mind whirled with the many spo­ken and un­spo­ken con­se­quences of the meet­ing. As she slow­ly de­scend­ed, af­ter sev­er­al mo­ments of hes­i­ta­tion, she pressed one thought to Kuli. Kuli... did I do wrong by an­swer­ing their ques­tions? Telling them about... your cre­ators?

{ Ki'el... } Kuli's an­swer car­ried a tone that Ki'el thought was sur­pris­ing­ly ten­der. { The crew of the Tidal Coro­na are pro­fes­sion­al adults who un­der­stand these mat­ters. Of the great many peo­ple who could be blamed if some­thing ter­ri­ble hap­pens, a young girl--pres­sured into speak­ing by sev­er­al mas­ters--does not be­long high on the list. They, and your mas­ter, would praise you for try­ing to keep se­crets even un­der those cir­cum­stances--they would not con­demn you for fail­ing to. }

Ki'el un­der­stood that Kuli meant that to be calm­ing--and it was. But the an­swer also did not say that she had done no wrong, and did not say that noth­ing bad would hap­pen. If I'm in the same sit­u­a­tion again, what do I do? Ki'el didn't even di­rect that thought at Kuli, but sim­ply dwelled on it. What if I must choose be­tween telling that se­cret to some­one who I be­lieve will be an en­e­my of Sobon, and the oth­ers, or die or suf­fer? She felt a cold doubt creep­ing over her. Was she strong enough to choose to do what was right? Could she even be sure what was right? Had she been right this time?

"Ki'el!" Be­low her, the fig­ure of Sis­ter Xari waved. "Seems you got away free and clear. And I bet it's been a while since you ate!" She of­fered a wide smile. "Come on, Broth­er Du's buy­ing, this time."

Ki'el's eyes flick­ered to Du, who rolled his eyes, but didn't con­test what Xari had said.

"That can wait," grumped an­oth­er fig­ure--the soft-look­ing Broth­er Juno, who wore plain ir­ri­ta­tion on his nor­mal­ly-re­laxed face. "Ki'el! I want to know that you learned your les­son!"

Ki'el stopped in place, still sev­er­al steps up. "My... les­son?"

"Yes! This is a test. Tell me--what did you learn last time?"

Last time? Ki'el just stood there for a long mo­ment, her mind hav­ing been lost among many oth­er things--but af­ter sev­er­al mo­ment, her thoughts caught up to her, and she loos­ened, for a mo­ment. "...Nev­er give away in­sight for free?"

"Pay­ment in ad­vance!" The old­er Sect Broth­er slapped his left palm with the back of his right hand to em­pah­size each word. "You didn't se­cret­ly give those stuffy el­ders some great in­sight into the work­ings of the uni­verse, did you? Those old bas­tards nev­er pay peo­ple what their ad­vice is worth."

"How would you know?" one of the oth­er dis­ci­ples stand­ing around, who Ki'el did not rec­og­nize, growled the ques­tion. "You nev­er have any­thing to con­tribute."

"You wouldn't know what I can or can't con­tribute." Juno stuck his nose striaght into the air. "You can't pay my fees."

"I know you're a lazy--" the oth­er start­ed to say, but Ki'el's at­ten­tion was drawn back to Xari.

"Ugh, come on, Ki'el! Food!" She ges­tured for her to come. "Good food! Free food! What are you wait­ing for?"

Ki'el let the smile cross her face, as she fin­ished climb­ing down the stairs, not even notic­ing as the stone blocks moved away again the mo­ment her foot left them.