"Closed-door cul­ti­va­tion?" Xam's face dark­ened just at the term, one which Ki'el un­der­stood but had not en­coun­tered. It must have showed in her face, be­cause the woman spoke again af­ter a mo­ment. "A no­ble need­ing that kind of seclu­sion... peo­ple shouldn't need that un­less they're try­ing to break through a bar­ri­er in the Gem phase of qi or high­er, or prepar­ing for a tier change. At low­est, that would put him at Mithril Qi, prepar­ing to ad­vance to the low­est Gem. And that's... way too much for us."

"The Sect won't let some­one like that crush us, though. Right?" Mian looked at her, naked con­cern on his face. They were squat­ting at their usu­al camp­fire site, al­though it wasn't dark yet; Ki'el had also left a mes­sage with Sis­ter Futi, and with Sis­ter Be­nai, for Chi­an to meet her, but nei­ther would promise any­thing.

"Rules are rules," Xam said, look­ing at her hus­band, "but there are al­ways ways of get­ting around rules. If you know that the worst con­se­quence is to be thrown off the is­land... sure­ly there are ways to en­sure some­one will land safe­ly, as long as they per­form you a ser­vice. That, and suf­fi­cient mon­ey to make up the dif­fer­ence..."

Ki'el hadn't thought like that, and couldn't help the chill that swept through her at the thought. Was that what Kem Jee Sai had been of­fered? If he should be caught, he would not be in dan­ger? But what about his mas­ter? What about his space ring?

"So it's an­oth­er case where the pow­er­ful just break the rules?" Mian's voice had an edge of... pan­ic? Ki'el couldn't quite iden­ti­fy the stress. "I shouldn't be sur­prised. It keeps hap­pen­ing over and over again..."

"It was sug­gest­ed that I should use the points I have gained to pull us all out of the Less­er House," Ki'el fin­ished her sum­ma­ry. "Pur­chas­ing what­ev­er re­sources we need to en­sure it. And I have the as­sur­ances of an El­der that we will all be al­lowed to be­gin the ex­am­i­na­tion as soon as we are ready."

"I can do it any­time," con­firmed Xam, with a firm nod of her head, but Ki'el was look­ing at Mian.

The man hes­i­tat­ed, but shook his head. "I went a long time with­out re­ly­ing on oth­ers," he said, fi­nal­ly, "but I got nowhere. If sect med­i­cines or trea­sures can al­low me to catch up to you, at least in the short term... my pride's al­ready worth­less. Just tell me what I need to do."

Ki'el nod­ded. "I don't know," she said, look­ing at Xam, who looked back, "but we should go to the Hall of Earth­en Recita­tion, to­geth­er."

Xam sighed. "Hope­ful­ly they will tell us what we need to know about the med­i­cines," she said, not ris­ing, but turn­ing to look to­wards the path. "I've gone to ask for help sev­er­al times, but the El­der has not giv­en ad­vice on med­i­cines. He says it's be­cause there are dif­fer­ent ones for dif­fer­ent paths, but..." Xam left the rest of the sen­tence hang­ing.

They sat in un­com­fort­able si­lence for a few mo­ments, but Ki'el caught a flash of move­ment in the dis­tance--move­ment and red. She turned, and raised a hand. "Sis­ter Chi­an!"

"Kiel!" The oth­er girl's voice sound­ed edged with pan­ic. "I'm... I'm glad you're okay." She slowed to a stop a lit­tle ways away from the camp­fire. "Be­nai told me... that you were at­tacked. That there... is go­ing to be a lot of trou­ble from now on. That... I should prob­a­bly..."

Ki'el might not have been as bold, if not for what the El­der had said. She... had, for a long time, felt more than com­fort­able sit­ting aside and let­ting the world turn with­out be­ing of­fend­ed when it left her be­hind. But... the el­der had said it so sim­ply. I bet you'd say the same about the Fox. This el­der, who bare­ly knew her, thought that she want­ed Da Chi­an to stay with her. And... Ki'el re­al­ized that she did.

"Come with us," she said, al­though it felt to Ki'el, as she said it, that she was watch­ing her­self from the out­side.

She saw Mian turn to look at her, saw Xam eye­ing her, but nei­ther said any­thing. Chi­an, though, seemed con­fused. "With you?"

"We must ad­vance out of the Less­er House," Ki'el said, feel­ing like her thoughts were slow, con­fused, even as she spoke. "An El­der told me they will let us test out even be­fore our first month is com­plete, but we want to be sure we are ready. We will go to the Hall of Earth­ly Recita­tion to ask for med­i­cines... but we do not know quite what to get."

"Ah..." Chi­an straight­ened. "There are a num­ber of things, but I think it's Be­nai who would have the most in­for­ma­tion. She's an ex­pert on rais­ing peo­ple out of Gold Qi..." her voice trailed off. "Ah... but most­ly, for..."

"Peo­ple like you," Xam said, Ki'el thought a lit­tle cold­ly.

"Yes," Chi­an said, not sound­ing both­ered. "But I imag­ine she knows more than enough about med­i­cines to help."

"May we speak with her? Now?" Ki'el wasn't quite sure why she felt dis­tant... ex­cept that some part of her was lead­ing, and it was not what she was used to. Was that wrong? Wouldn't Kuli tell her if it was?

"Of course," Chi­an said, straight­en­ing slight­ly. "She's usu­al­ly med­i­tat­ing in her room, un­less the Sect makes her take a task."

"Then let's go." Ki'el felt her heart pound­ing as she stood, and with a men­tal twist, she pushed a lit­tle Right­eous aether into her spir­it... but it did lit­tle to re­store the bal­ance. Why?

{ It is your heart, } Kuli an­swered, fi­nal­ly. { In an emo­tion­al, not a spir­i­tu­al, sense, al­though it ex­ists, spir­i­tu­al­ly. It is a part of your spir­it that wants to guide and pro­tect. It is... not ex­act­ly your mind, and you must be vig­i­lant, to keep it from mak­ing mis­takes. But it is a part of you, and your aether will en­hance it along with your mind... un­less you fo­cus your aether care­ful­ly. }

I have not felt like this. Ki'el felt her body mov­ing af­ter Da Chi­an, though her thoughts turned in­wards.

{ You have known your heart to be hurt and alone, } Kuli an­swered. { And this will be­come a prob­lem if left alone. If the path that you, the mind, take... if that ig­nores what your heart tells you, your heart will not trust you. And if you leave things to your heart en­tire­ly, it will try to take over at times when you will need to think and act wise­ly. You must act as you know your heart wish­es, but re­main in charge of it, in or­der to reach the great­est heights. }

Act as my heart wish­es? Ki'el felt be­wil­dered. What does my heart want?

{ Your heart is a part of you. It wants what you want, but with­out un­der­stand­ing as much. }

When Ki'el re­al­ized that she was stand­ing be­fore Bai Be­nai's door, with­out any an­swer to what Kuli was telling her. But... she also turned to look at the pa­thet­ic half-room where she and the oth­ers had been sleep­ing, its floor still miss­ing, the raw wood­en board that Xam had pro­cured still sit­ting there, its ob­vi­ous splin­ters around the edges still some­thing that Ki'el didn't want to even look at.

It feels left un­done, Ki'el ad­mit­ted to her­self. But many things are. I had hoped... when I left...

She had hoped, when she left the Less­er House, that her friends would be there with her. She had hoped, when she left the Less­er House, it would be leav­ing a bet­ter House be­hind, with at least their one room fi­nal­ly fixed. But al­ready, she didn't have enough time, and Mian was still be­hind. She want­ed more time, to bring Mian to the peak of Gold Qi with her and Xam... and she want­ed to be able to...

To ask Chi­an prop­er­ly, even though the girl had said they were friends. Be­cause...

"Ki'el?" Mian put a hand on her shoul­der. "It will be fine."

Ki'el looked back at Mian, her thoughts start­ing to get lost--but she no­ticed Kuli, gen­tly, col­lect­ing them, and she ap­pre­ci­at­ed it. She knew that she was on the edge of some­thing, but... now was not the time.

She took a deep breath, and turned to look at Chi­an, who nod­ded her to­wards the door, and Ki'el knocked.

"It's not as though I don't know you're there," the voice in­side said, and Ki'el could hear a cer­tain bit­ter­ness. "Just come in. At least... Ki'el, and you, Chi­an. There's not re­al­ly a lot of room."

Ki'el hes­i­tat­ed, but opened the door, find­ing--as she knew--that it was true. The woman was sit­ting there, some­what cen­tered in the con­fined space, with no can­dles or spir­it lights ev­i­dent to keep the dark­ness away. Al­though Ki'el couldn't quite see, she got the im­pres­sion of some­thing be­hind Be­nai... but de­clined to try to fig­ure it out, step­ping in in­stead.

As soon as Chi­an closed the door be­hind them, how­ev­er, the space changed.

Ki'el didn't know--and didn't find rea­son or courage to ask Kuli--whether it was an il­lu­sion or some more pro­found tech­nique, but she found her­self in a wide cir­cu­lar room lit by spir­i­tu­al flames along its un­bro­ken stone wall. The floor be­neath them was like bot­tom­less wa­ter, but sol­id be­neath her feet; when Ki'el looked down, she thought she was look­ing through the floor, though there was noth­ing to see ex­cept blue that fad­ed too quick­ly into black.

"You want some­thing from me," Bai Be­nai's voice sound­ed strange, in the space.

Ki'el turned to look at her, but only took a deep breath. In this mo­ment, she could have wished that the force that had dri­ven her for­ward had the right words for her to say... but also, it felt like that was wrong, self­ish. She was here be­cause of what she want­ed.

"In or­der to get out of the Less­er House swift­ly," Ki'el said, try­ing to keep her nerves in check, "I was ad­vised to use Sect med­i­cines to ad­vance my­self and my friends, as soon as pos­si­ble. And..." She hes­i­tat­ed, again un­sure, but spoke, only be­cause her feet and her heart had brought her here. "I... would like to en­sure that Chi­an can take the test along­side us. I will use all my sect points, and any oth­er re­sources I have, to en­sure it."

Ki'el kept her eyes on Bai Be­nai, even though she felt a spike of qi, or emo­tion, from the girl next to her.

There was a si­lence for a time, and Ki'el found her­self match­ing the stare of the old woman--and the more she looked, the more firm her be­lief be­came that Bai Be­nai was a very old woman. It wasn't ob­vi­ous in her looks, but in the un­wa­ver­ing spir­it be­hind those eyes--eyes that must have seen a great deal, more than Ki'el could imag­ine.

"Sis­ter Futi told me that you are fa­vored by the el­ders," Be­nai said af­ter a time. "Enough that they want you to sur­vive the con­se­quences of this ridicu­lous chil­dren's spat. But the Sect is fool­ish in so many ways, about so many things. Al­ways stick­ing to old ways, no mat­ter who gets hurt." She low­ered her head, but kept her eyes fixed on Ki'el. "Not that I have done dif­fer­ent­ly."

Ki'el said noth­ing in re­sponse, un­sure what even could be said to that.

"Of course they have the re­sources to pull peo­ple out of Gold Qi as eas­i­ly as they wish," the woman said af­ter a mo­ment. "The most com­mon med­i­cines be­gin your jour­ney down spe­cif­ic spir­i­tu­al paths. For you, young Ki'el, I do not sus­pect they will have any med­i­cine pure enough to meet your stan­dards."

"I am not wor­ried about my­self," Ki'el said brave­ly, al­though it wasn't true.

"Da Chi­an's tribu­la­tion is more ex­pen­sive than a nor­mal one, at two hun­dred fifty Sect Points," Be­nai con­tin­ued, "which she has most­ly col­lect­ed, or so she's told me. But for her to ad­vance, the ide­al med­i­cine would be the Wheel of Light and Sky Ton­ic."

Be­low, Ki'el no­ticed a flick­er, and glanced down, sur­prised, but a sheet of pa­per--not white, but some pale green ma­te­r­i­al--with com­plex di­rec­tions shot out of the wa­ter be­neath her and hov­ered be­fore her. She took it, sur­prised.

"You will need time with at least an In­ter­me­di­ate Al­chemist, to pro­duce a ton­ic of at least the Com­mon grade." She scoffed. "Any med­i­cine less than Com­mon is the poor prac­tice of a novice al­chemist, and not suit­able for any se­ri­ous mat­ters, and even a com­mon ton­ic will be a com­pro­mise." She paused. "For the oth­ers... I am un­aware of their paths, and I doubt they are aware, ei­ther. But it would be fool­ish not to at least ask."

Be­nai ges­tured, and Ki'el heard the door open. Al­though she didn't turn to see her friends en­ter, she heard Mian suck in a breath as soon as the door closed. Had the na­ture of the room been hid­den while it was open?

"In or­der to find the best med­i­cines for you, I would know your path," Be­nai said, her tone more for­mal than it had been be­fore--more for­mal than Ki'el re­mem­bered the woman be­ing any oth­er time.

"Can't say that I even--" Mian be­gan, but Xam spoke up.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"My clan has per­cep­tion tech­niques, but I don't fa­vor them. In the mil­i­tary, I used most­ly move­ment and stealth tal­is­mans. I am com­ing to un­der­stand that my... na­ture in­volves move­ment and foot­work, but be­yond that, I am un­cer­tain."

Be­nai stretched her neck slight­ly, from where she was sit­ting, and Ki'el got an­oth­er strange un­seen half-vi­sion of the woman's spir­it na­ture, but didn't fo­cus on it. "I see. Sword, spear, or bow?"

Ki'el blinked, un­cer­tain of the ques­tion, but Xam an­swered, "Spear," with­out much thought, and the woman nod­ded. "There is a spir­it med­i­cine, a hal­lu­cino­gen, known as the Thou­sand Mile Wa­ter­fall Flower. If you can en­dure its ef­fects while cul­ti­vat­ing, it may start you on a path of move­ment and wa­ter qi... if you so choose." The woman re­laxed slight­ly. "A flower of suf­fi­cient qual­i­ty--at least Com­mon--will also tem­per your body, and sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­prove your chances at pass­ing the tribu­la­tion."

Xam frowned and con­sid­ered that, seem­ing­ly se­ri­ous, as the woman turned to Mian, who frowned, and con­sid­ered.

"I'm afraid I don't know my path," he said, "ex­cept that I hope to sup­port my wife," he looked point­ed­ly at Xam, "and Ki'el. And I know that my spir­it is fo­cused around my heart."

"Your heart?" Be­nai sound­ed per­haps a lit­tle cu­ri­ous, but more like she sim­ply found his words un­clear.

Chi­an spoke up to an­swer that. "You re­call what I said about be­ing at­tuned to my tail? How Ki'el said it was like a voice for spir­it en­er­gy?" Be­nai turned, and gave the girl a look that said in no un­cer­tain terms that her mem­o­ry was quite good. So, af­ter only half a mo­ment, Chi­an con­tin­ued. "My tail, Mian's heart, Xam's feet, and Ki'el's skin--these are all the same sort of 'fo­cus'."

"I see," Be­nai said, and af­ter a mo­ment, looked back at Mian. "Then--you con­trol your­self with your emo­tions? You strive to be­come the per­son you must be from with­in?"

Mian had a sur­prised look on his face, but tapped his chin, and nod­ded. "I sup­pose. That's not a bad de­scrip­tion, re­al­ly."

"Then I sup­pose I must rec­om­mend the most--and least--use­ful med­i­cine I can imag­ine." Be­nai's lips curled away from her teeth in a strange­ly ugly smile, or per­haps a gri­mace that looked too cheer­ful. "The Hun­dred Hearts Ton­ic is a com­bi­na­tion of sev­er­al herbs that al­lows one to ex­pe­ri­ence every emo­tion the hu­man heart can pos­si­bly know--and a few more. For some, the drug is an un­pleas­ant jour­ney through all the worst feel­ings--pain, shame, mis­ery, angst--but they are equal­ly dragged through all the best feel­ings--the many fla­vors of love, joy, and ec­sta­sy, along with con­tent­ment and ac­cep­tance. Some have called the ex­pe­ri­ence en­light­ment, oth­ers tor­ture. But for a per­son who must speak with their heart in or­der to progress, it helps to speak its lan­guage. Flu­ent­ly. I would rec­om­mend you not ac­cept a ton­ic at less than Un­com­mon qual­i­ty, or the side ef­fects will be... se­vere."

Mian made a noise, and Ki'el thought the man went pale at the idea, but he also seemed to be se­ri­ous­ly con­sid­er­ing it.

"Each of these med­i­cines, if tak­en while med­i­tat­ing, will also vast­ly in­crease your in­take of qi--if you can keep your mind on the task." Be­nai's voice echoed slight­ly in the cham­ber--more than it had be­fore, Ki'el thought, now that the woman wished it to. "If you are se­ri­ous about push­ing for­ward quick­ly, com­bin­ing the qi gain and in­sight is the only op­tion. The cor­rect way for­ward is to gain that same in­sight with hard work and ef­fort--but then, prodi­gies have been raised to be­come the great­est pow­ers among mankind by us­ing the cor­rect mix­ture of train­ing and med­i­cine."

For Ki'el, the whole top­ic sound­ed odd. She had been more ex­pect­ing to hear of pills that did noth­ing but in­crease one's qi, some­how--but hal­lu­ci­nat­ing wa­ter­falls and ex­pe­ri­enc­ing every emo­tion known to man?

And from Be­nai's face, when the woman turned her at­ten­tion back to Ki'el, her thoughts must have been show­ing. "You may doubt this method, young Ki'el," she said, and Ki'el thought the woman's voice was hard, un­yield­ing. "But peo­ple were nev­er meant to use these pow­ers. Dis­cov­er­ing the truth of the uni­verse in or­der to un­lock its se­crets takes ei­ther med­i­ta­tion and in­sight... or un­usu­al meth­ods."

Ki'el stiff­ened, but in a way, she did un­der­stand. If she didn't have Kuli or Sobon to tell her the an­swers... what could she do? If it hadn't been for Sobon, she wouldn't even be try­ing to gain these sorts of spir­i­tu­al pow­ers, but... if she had cho­sen to go down this path, where would she even be­gin search­ing for in­sight into how to con­trol fire, or wa­ter, or school one's heart?

So she only took a breath, and spoke qui­et­ly. "I un­der­stand, Sis­ter Be­nai. I... am very for­tu­nate to have ac­cess to in­sights by oth­er means, and with­out them..."

There was a pause, and then Chi­an spoke. "We're all for­tu­nate," she said, her cheer sound­ing a lit­tle forced. "I would be nowhere with­out Be­nai, and with­out you. And we are all here be­cause of un­count­able oth­er suc­cess­es, oth­er bless­ings." She moved clos­er and took the sheet that Ki'el held, which con­tained the for­mu­la­tion for her Wheel of Light and Sky Ton­ic. She glanced over the list, wor­ry­ing her lip. "But... what should we ex­pect all this to cost?"

"Your ton­ic alone will cost at least five hun­dred Sect Points--if you can find an al­chemist will­ing to work cheap­ly," said Bai Be­nai, quite se­ri­ous­ly.

Ki'el swal­lowed, the amount seem­ing crazy--at first. But she had also been giv­en that many sect points sim­ply for hav­ing a sin­gle 'in­sight­ful' con­ver­sa­tion with In­ner Sect dis­ci­ples. And... she had no idea what she would have in her pos­ses­sion be­cause of the for­fei­ture of the man who had tried to kill her. "And the rest?" she said, won­der­ing whether what­ev­er she might end up sink­ing the whole for­fei­ture into it.

"If the herbs are al­ready in sup­ply, I would imag­ine be­tween three and five hun­dred for both, plus al­chemist costs," Be­nai said. "If they must be gath­ered, an ad­di­tion­al one to two hun­dred points per herb that must be gath­ered--if you are will­ing to wait up to two days for the mis­sion. A re­quest put in as ur­gent will dou­ble the costs."

Ki'el kept her calm in the face of that. It... did not en­tire­ly es­cape her, that if she had not cho­sen to in­clude Chi­an, or if she blind­ly as­sumed that Chi­an would be fine with­out the med­i­cine, then it would halve her costs... but there was no rea­son to take that thought se­ri­ous­ly. It would be strange if she had ar­rived just at the mo­ment that Chi­an was ready, on her own, to chal­lenge the tribu­la­tion. And... if she was hon­est, she would pre­fer to bring up oth­ers, as well. Not be­cause she was as close to them as she was her friends and Chi­an, but...

But... be­cause she kept see­ing them, and the echoes of her own lone­li­ness in them.

But she shook the thought off, and not know­ing what else to do, gave Be­nai a grate­ful ges­ture, one she re­al­ized a mo­ment lat­er was in the Il­lan style rather than the Djang, but she didn't think the woman cared. "I will see what we can do. Thank you, Sis­ter Be­nai."

"Thank me by tak­ing care of Da Chi­an," she said, still sound­ing very se­ri­ous. "While she is here, she is my charge. If any­thing should hap­pen to her..." Be­nai left the rest un­said, but the look she gave Ki'el was stern.

"I will," Ki'el said, though as she turned away, her mind got caught in a sil­ly ques­tion: should I have said I would try, in­stead of say­ing that I would? Am I strong enough to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for such a thing?

When they reached the door and walked out, Ki'el was mo­men­tar­i­ly stunned to re­turn to the hall­way of the Less­er House, and more sur­prised when she looked back into Be­nai's clos­et and saw it as one more sim­ply a cramped space with a woman med­i­tat­ing at its cen­ter. But once she and the oth­ers were out, the door closed it­self, and Ki'el was left think­ing that what she had ex­pe­ri­enced--the wide room with its wa­ter floor--was some­how more true than the clos­et, no mat­ter how ob­vi­ous it seemed to be that the clos­et was real.

I have seen spa­tial ex­pan­sion from Sobon's tech­niques, Ki'el rea­soned as she fol­lowed the oth­ers back to the spi­ral stair­case with the loose steps. Even as the stair­case re­quired her at­ten­tion again as she moved down it, though, there was doubt in her mind. But the room looked dif­fer­ent from with­in than from out­side. And... I didn't think, when I looked back from out­side, that I was see­ing il­lu­sion. Both felt true.

"Trou­ble," grum­bled Chi­an, be­fore they had even got­ten to the bot­tom, and Ki'el felt it as soon as her thoughts were drawn back to the pre­sent. When they got to the front door, Ki'el could tell that things were only get­ting worse.

Out­side, a woman dressed in what was clear­ly In­ner Sect robes was... seat­ed on a palan­quin, that had been set down by the four Out­er Sect dis­ci­ples who had been car­ry­ing it. Un­like most, who wore the robes long or had pants, this woman--or girl--had cut her robe short, not far be­low her waist, and had her legs bare--and shaved, with only thin san­dals on her feet, which were tucked be­neath her in a side-lean­ing sit that looked like it was sup­posed to ap­pear com­fort­able, but which Ki'el thought could not have been. She was also, Ki'el thought, not Djang, and nei­ther were her four re­tain­ers; their faces were some­what sharp­er

For her part, Ki'el didn't un­der­stand at all; it felt like a ridicu­lous­ly un­com­fort­able cut for her robe, and Ki'el felt mor­ti­fied at the thought of or­der­ing oth­er peo­ple to car­ry her around like that; it made no sense, and she couldn't imag­ine it was even re­mote­ly com­fort­able, es­pe­cial­ly for a cul­ti­va­tor who was sup­posed to be get­ting ever more com­fort­able with their own body. The ride in that abom­inable fly­ing box that had brought her here had been quite un­com­fort­able, and it had also not been at all cheap.

"There you are," the woman called, long be­fore Ki'el had stepped out of the House it­self. There was some­thing to her voice that Ki'el dis­trust­ed, and also didn't un­der­stand; she was clear­ly go­ing through some ef­fort to add a strange tone to her voice, though it was not a car­ri­er of qi the way Lan Wu's was. "I'll make this easy for you, girl. I want all the for­fei­ture of Kem Jee Sai, mi­nus what­ev­er Sect Points he had. I'll even through a hun­dred Sect Points in it for you, which should be more than enough, giv­en how much trou­ble I'll be sav­ing you. And if I were you..." she raised a hand, and the four who had car­ried her stu­pid sled stepped for­ward, look­ing men­ac­ing, "I wouldn't refuse."

Ki'el looked around at the oth­ers, but their wor­ried looks only mir­rored what she felt--ex­cept Mian, whose wor­ry was mixed with some dis­trac­tion. Ei­ther way, she saw no ad­vice in them, and she turned back to look at the woman out­side, pro­ject­ing her voice slight­ly to make her­self heard through the open front door. "I apol­o­gize, Sis­ter, but I don't know who you are."

One of the four car­ri­ers stepped for­ward, his voice loud and brash. "Of course some gut­ter-trash is­lander wouldn't know Lady Pha. Just shut up and do what you're told, be­fore things get rough.

From where Ki'el stood, she could still see Sis­ter Futi in her of­fice--and the mo­ment she locked eyes, she felt a nar­row pulse of in­tent di­rect­ed at her. [ That woman is Vaja Pha Laila. She is a dis­tant re­la­tion of the Va­jan Roy­al Fam­i­ly, and more spoiled than many of the Djang no­ble hous­es. She has al­ready sac­ri­ficed sev­er­al of her ser­vants in feuds, but has done no wrong in the eyes of the Sect. She is also not the mas­ter of Kem Jee Sai. Be very care­ful how you treat this one. ]

Ki'el ab­sorbed that knowl­edge, and looked out ahead. "I have not re­ceived any for­fei­ture yet. If Broth­er Sai was hold­ing into some items for you, I am sure--"

"All the con­tents," Laila said, and Ki'el felt a threat­en­ing twist to the qi out­side, but... she was also sure that it was not from the woman.

Ki'el un­der­stood that she was be­ing threat­ened, and could rec­og­nize--even with­out what Sis­ter Futi had said--that the woman was will­ing to cause sub­stan­tial trou­ble, here, but Ki'el couldn't help her na­ture, and her na­ture told her that this woman was try­ing to con­trol her--to taint her, to get in­side of her and cor­rupt her. She set her jaw, stub­born­ly, and spoke again. "I will speak to the El­der and en­sure that those who have a le­git­i­mate claim to the con­tents may re­quest their re­turn."

"You bitch--" One of the four guards--not the one who had stepped for­ward--start­ed for­ward as though at a run, though he only took two or three steps be­fore low­er­ing one hand to­wards the ground, and his qi flared. Ki'el blinked, tak­ing a step back. Sure­ly he wouldn't--?

Ki'el might have been hap­py nev­er to have seen what hap­pened in the blink of an eye--but in a way, this time, Kuli was a curse to her. Be­cause the man's qi shot into the ground, and four pil­lars of stone leaped for­ward like spears, but spears larg­er than Ki'el's tor­so, and they tore com­plete­ly through the front of the build­ing, throw­ing splin­ters and shrap­nel--

But then, with a men­tal sound like a snap­ping tree branch, the dam­age was un­done, and Ki'el only caught a glimpse of the small El­der's ar­rival, even as the small man ca­su­al­ly back­hand­ed the of­fend­ing Out­er Sect mem­ber, knock­ing him en­tire­ly out of the area. In the blink­ing mo­ments af­ter­wards, as the El­der be­gan to speak, Ki'el could imag­ine be­ing un­sure whether what she had seen was il­lu­sion, or not.

It wasn't. That fact was made per­fect­ly clear from her aug­ment, as Kuli re­gard­ed those mem­o­ries, those sen­sa­tions, with a cool de­tach­ment that Ki'el might nev­er have with­out her. By what­ev­er means, from what she had seen... vi­o­lence had been done, and then un­done. But it had hap­pened.

"Lady Vaja," the El­der said, with an in­tense in­tent be­hind his voice that Ki'el was ex­treme­ly glad was not di­rect­ed at her, as she could see plant life be­hind the oth­er woman with­er­ing with its in­ten­si­ty. "You will keep your re­tain­ers on a short leash, or you will be pun­ished along­side them."

"I don't--what?" The oth­er woman, Vaja roy­al fam­i­ly or not, seemed caught en­tire­ly off-guard by the El­der's phras­ing. "Pun­ished? For do­ing what?"

"Per­haps it was un­clear to you when young Ki'el was brought be­fore a coun­cil of all the Sect's El­ders," the short El­der said, and Ki'el could only imag­ine the look on his face as he said it, "But we are pay­ing at­ten­tion to what is hap­pen­ing, here, now. Are you ex­pect­ing that play­ing the fool will be tol­er­at­ed while we are watch­ing every­thing you do? No mat­ter how sub­tle your plans or in­sin­u­a­tions, if you think they will suf­fice to dis­guise your in­tent from the three El­ders cur­rent­ly mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion, then you clear­ly mis­un­der­stand the Sect in its en­tire­ty." He stepped for­ward, and al­though it was only a step, Ki'el felt like the man had moved leagues and leagues of land away from her--and, she imag­ined, to the woman, it must feel like he was com­ing that much clos­er with each step.

He stepped for­ward again, and again, and again, at what could be de­scribed as a nor­mal walk­ing pace, and Ki'el watched her and her three re­main­ing com­pan­ions buck­ling un­der the in­ten­si­ty of the El­der's qi.

"What­ev­er your ri­val­ry, what­ev­er your per­son­al con­flicts, tear­ing apart Sect prop­er­ty and as­sault­ing un­in­volved stu­dents will nev­er be ac­cept­able." His words were mea­sured, even, but Ki'el could hear the mut­ed echoes of his in­tent bounc­ing off the woman, her palan­quin, and the trees be­yond. "We very fre­quent­ly al­low peo­ple to cre­ate con­flict, when we be­lieve it will al­low peo­ple to learn valu­able lessons. But it seems the only les­son to be learned here to­day is," his last words fell with the im­pact of boul­ders from the sky, "this is not your coun­try."

Two of the re­main­ing Out­er Sect dis­ci­ples failed to hold up un­der that much stress, and the El­der stepped back, this time with­out any strange qi ef­fects. "We are not sim­ply go­ing to al­low you, or any­one else, to do what you wish," he con­tin­ued, his voice sud­den­ly as placid as though he were sim­ply mak­ing con­ver­sa­tion over lunch. "It was un­wise of you to push at all, more­so when you should know you'd be caught." Al­though Ki'el felt breath­less just from the echoes of what the woman had faced, the el­der main­tained an al­most friv­o­lous­ly calm air. "Per­haps you should go rest? Per­haps it is only the stress of your day that is mak­ing you be­have so fool­ish­ly."

"I..."

"Now, miss Vaja."

The woman swal­lowed hard, and with a flick of her qi, sim­ply shot her palan­quin up into the sky­mak­ing Ki'el won­der why the woman had ever made four men car­ry it. Or had she? By the time they'd got­ten here, it had been set on the ground. And yet... some­how, she was sure.

Ki'el's at­ten­tion was drawn to the el­der as he turned his head to look at her, his face se­ri­ous. "Go on," he said, no con­cern ap­par­ent in his voice. "Things will be fine, here."

Ki'el glanced over to where Sis­ter Futi re­mained in her of­fice, but that woman was sim­ply stand­ing still with her eyes closed, and Ki'el saw no rea­son to wait for any kind of sign from her.

"Thank you, El­der," she said, po­lite­ly, and gave a def­er­en­tial half-bow, but when she start­ed for­wards, she couldn't stop her­self from mov­ing at al­most a run.

To get away from this place, and hope­ful­ly, to get to an­oth­er safe place, as soon as pos­si­ble.