In summarizing the trial for the Inner Sect disciples that Brother Du and Sister Xari allowed to gather around her, Ki'el only said that she had talked about the origins of her Master and those of her assistant, and that for the most part, they had not been completely surprised. That was enough for many people to split off and have their own conversations, especially when Ki'el deflected other attempts to question her and seemed content to eat, for a while.
"But really," grumped Brother Juno, slumped over a small plate of breaded and fried dumplings of some kind, "the Elders never pay for anything, whether it's news of the world, insights into qi, labor... they act like simply letting us stay in the sect is payment of its own, sometimes." He reached down and plucked lightly at the dough with one hand, while the other began to scratch at his hair. "You'd think we didn't need those sect points, the way they act. And not just for us inner disciples; they never appreciated anything I did as an outer disciple, and for certain they wouldn't care about a Lesser House member like Ki'el." He pulled off some small part of the dough and ate it, revealing some fruit or vegetable sauce inside, as his other hand ceased to scratch restlessly and simply supported his head as she slumped.
"I don't think you should have ever been trying to get money from the Elders," said another Inner Sect disciple, a foreigner who Xari had introduced as Aju. "Especially as an Outer Sect disciple, but even now. If you have that kind of valuable insight, shouldn't you make it available to everyone?"
"It's available," Juno said, but looking away, somewhat petulantly. "...to those who can pay."
There was a silence that Ki'el thought was filled with an intent to say something, but which no one actually voiced.
"I for one and more interested in this strange master's technique of Ki'el's." Xari leaned forward, the impish look on her face highlighted by her intense eyeshadow. "Surely you can tell us some small part of it...?"
Ki'el glanced around, frowning. Her eyes met Juno's, who looked at her, and then smiled. Ki'el glanced away, however. "I don't know how much to say," she said, finally. "But if I understand it... then it is simply another kind of aether."
"Isn't aether just an energy? That's not a technique." Aju frowned at that.
Ki'el looked at him, noting that he had not been there when she had talked to the others about aether. Are they gossiping? Telling each other what I told them? I should not be surprised. She sighed. "The technique I have for purifying qi works similarly--"
"Ki'el!" Juno's voice sounded shocked. She glanced at him, frowning, but Du spoke up in the silence.
"I agree, if for different reasons, Ki'el," he said. "If you try to explain that technique, many of the people here will try to experiment, but it will be without the basic understanding that you were taught. When you have earned the right to teach, and can start from the beginning, that is when you explain your techniques." Brother Du glanced at Xari. "Is it correct to say that you simply understand this technique as providing you a unique type of energy?"
Ki'el considered. "My master never told me he hid it in the sword. But if it is a higher level of aether than I am able to use, then I suspect I am one of the few who would have any access to it in a pure form. If that makes it unique... then perhaps."
"How high, I wonder? What is it for?" Xari let her head drop to the table, cushioning it on her crossed arms, her face caught in a pout for a long moment. When she began to speak again, though, that expression mostly cleared. "Every nature of qi has a purpose and reason for being. Either it comes from a natural force of the universe, or it fulfills a use for its creator. I'm sure your special aether energies are the same."
"I'd love to hear more about this aether qi..." The tone in Aju's voice, although foreign to Ki'el, was clearly leading, but Ki'el just shook her head.
"I am not ready," she said. "I... still have a great deal to learn. And as Brother Du and Juno have said, I should not."
There was a scoff at a nearby table, and Ki'el was certain she heard someone say, quietly, "Don't listen to Juno..."
"Respectable," Brother Du said, firmly. "And since you are done with your meal, Ki'el, we should return you to your family and friends, who I am sure are eagerly waiting for news."
"Ah." Xari, head still on the table, looked up at Ki'el. "Yeah, I didn't mean to keep you trapped here." She sat up, stretching slightly.
"I would be happy to walk with you--" Brother Du began, but Xari spoke up quickly.
"No, I'll do it, I'll do it." She pushed her chair back. "That is unless Sister Ki'el is so smitten with Brother Du that she prefers his presence over this pretty sister?" Ki'el looked from one to the other, but didn't have a chance to respond before Xari spoke again. "I didn't think so. Come on, Sister Ki'el, let's leave the boys behind and have a talk on the way back."
Ki'el stood up quickly, unsure why Sister Xari would be so eager to speak with her, but somewhat more comfortable with the idea of walking with her rather than Brother Du. As she moved away from the table, though, she heard the plaintive voice of Brother Juno, as though the man was being physically restrained from coming after her, although she knew it wasn't true. "Remember, Ki'el," he called after her, a comedic warble in his voice. "Payment... in... advance!"
Ki'el could all but feel the eye roll of Xari in response.
When the two were a little ways away, Ki'el began to more actively flush her spirit with Righteous Aether. It was... not so much the meal, or even the meeting with the elders, as it was the rest of the trial before the elders dismissed the rest. Being watched over by so many eyes, some of them clear and direct, but many... not, had made her feel very uncomfortable. And... there was still some medical qi in her system, though not with the heavy and sick feeling that the Djang Military's medical qi had left. In some ways, this medical qi didn't even contest the righteous aether that she flooded her spirit with, and some of it even resonated more strongly because of it, soothing her remaining soreness.
But also... as the aether cleared her spirit, Ki'el's senses sharpened, and she frowned, noting that there was still a sense of her being watched.
"I sense them too," Xari said, so suddenly that Ki'el at first thought she could not possibly be aware of what Ki'el had sensed. "It's part of why I wanted to walk with you instead of Brother Du. He is careful and clever, but he wouldn't notice people stalking a couple pretty girls even if it happened in front of his eyes. It's the kind of problem I often think only women know exists." She paused her steps and raised her hands, a serious look on her face, and Ki'el felt the woman's qi stirring.
And Ki'el got the distinct impression, which did not normally occur, that the woman's spiritual core moved, independent of her body, though it did not stray from her.
Dancing threads of silvery-blue qi lit up the area around them, and Ki'el felt the attention on them cease even before it completed. The threads themselves began to form several arrays that hung in midair ominously, although the overall impression she got from the threads was a silvery moon hanging over them--a moon that watched, imperiously, but also swayed those beneath, even though it was still early in the day. When at last the threads finished forming an array and it seemed to activate, at least three small groups of threads leaped away into the distance, while several others began to circle the two of them. After a moment, the pensive look on Xari's face cleared.
"That will do," Xari said, and Ki'el noticed the circling qi threads fade until they were no longer visible, although she could still feel them. Xari began walking again immediately, and Ki'el kept by her side as she did. "Because of my family, my qi nature often expresses itself as threads, although the qi nature I've chosen--The Dancing Midsummer Moon--doesn't resonate too strongly with it. I've been told that it will stop me from advancing too much further--but then, they told me that when I was just starting out, too." Xari made a face. "A lot of us either came to a Sect to avoid their family, or remain here to avoid our family. In my case, it's both, but... more the latter nowadays."
"You do not like your family?" Ki'el looked around as they walked, noting again the quality of the grounds and buildings of the Inner Sect.
"Our patriarch wants everything done his way. Whole branches of the family rise and fall depending on whether their leaders resist or accept that. When people do resist, they just don't tell him. It's easier that way." She sighed. "I'm sure my father is the same, though he doesn't exactly tell me. In one way, it's nice, because I get to be myself. But also, if the family leader or the patriarch demands something... I have to at least pretend to be a loyal member of the family, or else everyone else suffers." Xari looked down at her. "And like I said... there's a lot of people in the sect like that. Some, I guess, are the opposite--sons and daughters of families that are actually good, but the kids aren't, so they get shipped away in hopes the sects will redeem them." She scoffed. "As if we could be so lucky."
Ki'el just walked for a little while, considering that. "I do not know what my family would have thought," she finally said, "except that all of this..." she looked around, gesturing with one hand as she turned, "...would have been strange to them. It is far beyond what they could understand in the village."
"An Illan village, huh?" Xari looked up at the clear blue sky above them. "Sounds like the kind of cute quiet place I would have loved to visit. Did they ever have tourists?"
Ki'el noted the past tense. Had she told Xari about her past? She didn't think so, but perhaps someone else had. Ki'el firmed her lips into a line, but spoke up after a moment. "No. Our village was behind a natural breakwater, hidden from passing ships. The fishers were taught to avoid being seen when they could. It... must have been because someone saw them, that..." Ki'el paused, and didn't say more.
"That?" From the sound of Sister Xari's voice, she didn't know the rest.
"...that Djang slavers raided them." Ki'el all but spat the words.
There was a tense silence after that, but only for a few moments.
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"I... see," Xari said. "I... have to admit, Ki'el, that my family has used slaves for generations, and I never thought about them, growing up. I guess that's just one more on the list of things about my family for me not to like." But her voice wasn't intensely emotional, not the way Ki'el knew that she herself was.
Some part of her wanted to immediately yell at the other girl--or was Xari a woman? It didn't matter, but Ki'el closed her eyes and held her breath until the urge quieted. Xari was nice. And she didn't like her family, who did these things. She...
...Could she just accept that? The idea that people like her families and neighbors, perhaps including her families and neighbors, had been bound in chains or with qi to serve people like Xari? Could she just--
A warm feeling took Ki'el by surprise, and she opened her eyes to find that Xari had wrapped her up in a big hug. Ki'el, without meaning to, found her eyes full of tears, and she couldn't muster the courage or reason to resist wrapping her arms around Xari in return.
"There's no reason not to be sad or angry," Xari said. "You don't have to hold all your feelings inside. I'm not happy that my family does awful things, but even if I wanted to change it, I couldn't. Even if the family leader or patriarch insisted that I take or use a slave, it would be difficult to resist the order, let alone trying to convince anyone else to stop." Xari tightened the hug slightly, for a moment, and Ki'el found herself consumed for a moment in her feels, barely able to pay attention to the rest of what Xari said.
"But it's not that I don't want to. It's not that I don't want to rebel or have my own life. But there's no way to even form a sub-family without reaching the Flame phase of qi, and if I were talented enough to reach there, I'd be at least Quartz by now." Ki'el didn't hear much, but she... did feel that Xari, at least, seemed to be sincere, and that was enough, for now.
Some time later, Ki'el recovered to the point where she could pull away and wipe her face, and Xari gave her a sympathetic look. "Come on," the woman or older girl said, offering Ki'el a hand, which she took, and they both began to walk again. "You'll probably advance far past me, you know?" Xari said that with no heat to her voice, and Ki'el turned to look, but Xari didn't so much as glance down at her. "I've only been in the Inner Sect for a little while, but I've already seen a few people blow completely past me. The advantages of being in the Inner Sect are great--I expect I'll get several steps further in the next few years. I'm already clearing up a lot of my old confusion, changed a lot of things I thought which were..." she grimaced. "...honestly kind of dumb."
"Like what?" Ki'el asked, numb enough to not really be thinking about what Xari said, or about her own question.
Xari glanced at her, and Ki'el realized it was probably a sensitive question, but she did answer, after a moment. "An easy one is tribulations," she said. "I had a few cousins I looked up to as a kid who were crippled by them, and everyone treated it as though the heavens had decided they were inferior beings. I thought, the heavens must hate us, and that's why they try to strike us down. The first time I passed one, I understood that it was wrong."
"They are a test," Ki'el said, numbly, and she saw Xari nod.
"They are. But more than that... I don't think that it would have gone well for anyone if they were allowed to go further if they couldn't pass those tests. It's not like the heavens are refusing to hand out pocket money to children they don't like. Perhaps it's more like..." she paused. "Well, I don't think this metaphor will mean much to you, but it's like not giving soldiers to a bad military leader. If a bad leader is given troops, he'll just waste them--waste the lives under his command, and fail to attack or defend or whatever he was asked to do. A bad commander tends to become a problem for their own people."
Ki'el looked back up at Xari, and from the way the other woman changed the topic, she was sure it was clear how little that discussion meant to her.
"The point is, Ki'el," she said, "there are things where you feel like what happens is about you, and it's usually not. It's about--what happens if this is done wrong? It's like making qi natures; if you make one that's wrong, the best thing that can happen is nothing. But a badly made qi nature, once you dedicate all the qi that you have to an effect, might also do something terrible, kill you or others... lots of awful things. Tribulations are one of those things that's definitely more about what can go wrong rather than some being playing favorite, but there have been a lot of other things in my life, where I thought I could just," she waved a hand, "do stuff, and was mad when it didn't work or I was stopped. Often, I had to completely change my way of thinking in order to get past a challenge, and if I hadn't, I'd have only hurt myself."
Ki'el listened, silently, finding that she was calming down, but not focusing too much on that either. "I wonder what I am wrong about," Ki'el said after a time. "I'd just as soon fix it so that I don't need to worry about hurting myself or others."
Xari nodded at that. "It's easy to say that," she said. "But sometimes what's wrong feels so natural. And when someone tells you it's wrong, even if it really looks like they might be right, you never want to admit it." At the end, Xari's voice seemed to fade, as though she had a thought about what to say next, but did not wish to say it.
Ki'el could imagine a topic that would make her behave that way, and simply squeezed Xari's hand. "I understand."
Xari smiled, a little sadly. "I suppose for people like us--people like me, I mean, from noble families--we're taught a whole lot of things that are wrong. And I suppose cute little Illan girls from small fishing villages are told very different things," she said, her voice having a sudden energy that may or may not have been fake, "which will lead them very different places. Or maybe... not at all. I bet one of the things you'll struggle with that people like me never did was taking command of others."
Ki'el blinked at that, looking up at Xari. "Taking command?"
"Yeah, I thought so. But I think that's a longer topic for another day." Ki'el looked, and sure enough, somehow they were almost all the way back to the Lesser House. But even so, Xari plowed on, her voice now deliberately holding at a level of cheeriness Ki'el could never have matched. "Suffice it to say--you're already better than a lot of people, Ki'el, and others will look to you for leadership. You're already someone who doesn't belong in the Lesser House, but you won't belong in the Outer Sect, either, and maybe not even the Inner Sect. Everyone will want to follow you where you're going, if only so they're not standing around stuck in place. I can already see in my mind this cute little Sister," she squeezed Ki'el's hand firmly, "looking completely confused at all the people who've gathered around her, expecting her to give them a way forward. It's the kind of thing a fishing village can't possibly prepare you for."
On that, Ki'el could firmly agree, and she felt a kind of creeping horror at the image of dozens or more people eyeing her expectantly, as though she was supposed to be responsible for every one of them. "No. It did not."
"Well, you'll just have to look to your older Brothers and Sisters for help with things like that," Xari said, and gave Ki'el a clear wink. "Especially your cutest Older Sister. Right?"
Ki'el laughed at that, and grinned at Xari. "Yes, Sister Xari. Of course."
"Alright, then." Xari let go of Ki'el's hand and stopped, although they were not quite to the bridge yet. "Go meet your friends. And don't worry too much about the goings-on in the higher levels of the Sect. You have friends up here who will make sure no one is getting in your way." She backed up a step, raising one hand in a parting gesture. "You just worry about clearing that first tribulation so that you can get one step closer to where you belong. Alright?"
Ki'el smiled back at her. "Alright. Thank you, Xari."
"Don't mention it!" Xari turned abruptly and started marching away, and Ki'el could understand that the older girl must have also not wanted the conversation to end. So she took a deep breath and turned to the Lesser House, wiping her face one last time before forcing herself to take purposeful strides.
She was most of the way there, when a figure stepped out of the shadows--shadows that she was sure had been empty a moment before. But the figure only raised a hand and gestured Ki'el closer, and Ki'el quickly recognized it--him.
"I won't take much of your time," the small elder said, his voice clear despite being very quiet. "But there are some things that shouldn't be left the way they are."
Ki'el paused, blinking, but with a twist of qi that she couldn't quite follow, the elder had pulled the two of them further into the woods, and a qi barrier flashed into place around them, one whose purpose she didn't have time to probe.
"It's normally no problem," the elder continued, as though he hadn't even used his qi, "this thing about forcing people to wait a month before they advance out of Gold Qi and into the Sect. But we--the elders as a whole--are worried. The weight of the entire sect's attention on one little girl is a lot to ask, especially when you have things, and people, that you need to protect." He leaned back against a tree, as though idle or frustrated, and looked up at her. "You and your people--if you need to test out of the Lesser House early, we'll allow it. Just say the word."
Ki'el felt a thrill at that, but her mind was quick to point out the problems. "I wish to wait until Mian can also leave the Lesser House," she said. "And he has just started with Gold Qi. It may take until the end of the month... or longer."
"I thought you might say that," the elder said, not sounding upset or even disappointed. "And I bet you'd say the same about the fox, too."
The fox. It wasn't exactly spoken disrespectfully--rather, it almost seemed like the elder would rather use any term other than Chian's name. What that meant, she had no idea, and she only nodded. "Da Chian is my friend, and I believe she has the potential to leave the Lesser House soon."
"Their advancement is different, but I suspect the next attempt will be a success," the elder agreed. "Then--the last thing you need to understand is that you're being seriously considered for the Core Sect. Mostly, that's no concern of yours for now, but you should know that a great many people will respect that kind of status, and there are many people in the Inner Sect who would gladly give you training at discounted rates. Mostly, they want it because they'll expect things in return, but..." he gave kind of a shoulder shrug, as much as his posture, leaning against the tree, easily allowed. "Expectations aren't contracts. They aren't even agreements. Try not to be tied down by them."
"I... will keep that in mind?" Ki'el didn't intend for her voice to come out as confused as it did, but something about the Elder's presence was distracting, confusing.
"Right. The only other thing is the forfeiture." The elder grimaced. "And there's a problem there. A couple problems, really. Mostly, this is all Gol's business, and I'm sure he'll explain most of it. But normally a Lesser House cultivator wouldn't be in any position to inherit the full possessions of an Outer Sect disciple, especially not one like Kem Jee Sai. But it's far more complicated than you'll be aware of, because he was an attendant to someone else. A noble." The elder's voice was perfectly level and flat, enough that Ki'el couldn't tell from his voice alone how momentous what he was saying was--but she understood. Or... was beginning to understand.
"Whether Kem Jee Sai was following his master's direction or not, he was also carrying a number of his master's possessions--in one of his master's space rings. Most likely... he was not following directions, since his master is in closed door cultivation, and has been for a bit. How exactly things turned out this way, we don't know. Not one person involved in this matter expected the outcome. And there is at least one person out there who absolutely will not accept this outcome, no matter the sect rules... but they won't come out of seclusion for a while. Whether that's hours or weeks, no one can say, but when that happens, you will have trouble. Kem Jee Sai's master will have a number of expectations, a number of demands. And perhaps others will even push them further down the path of vengeance. It would be wise for you to be as far ahead when that happens as you can be."
Ki'el swallowed, but said nothing, waiting to see if the elder was proposing any solution.
"Suffice it to say, young Ki'el, that it might be wisest to substitute money for time in this instance, and do whatever it takes to take you and yours out of the Lesser House with all haste." The elder stood back up, and stepped just one step closer to her, though it was a deceptively long step, and somehow, in spite of the elder being far shorter than her, she felt like she was eye to eye with the smaller man. "Those here will do their best to protect you, and the Sect is watching closely--as those above should well know. But if arrogance were qi, nobles would conquer even the Empire. Do you understand?"
That... was a strange phrasing, but Ki'el nodded, and before her eyes, the elder melted into shadows, the barrier around her flickered out of existence, and she was suddenly moved back to the path, not even stumbling despite the motion.
She stood before the Lesser House as though nothing had happened, but she understood--more than any time since she had come here, something had truly begun to change.
She moved forward quickly, intent on finding her friends.