"Child."

Da Chi­an was bare­ly a step in­side the Sealed Palace when the fa­mil­iar, bit­ing voice of her an­ces­tor emerged from the dark­ness. Al­though she knew, from speak­ing with the El­der in the past, that the room split be­fore the Guardian Deities, or her An­ces­tor, were al­lowed to reach to her... she still con­tin­ued a ways fur­ther, into the dark­ness, be­fore sit­ting and ac­knowled­ing the spir­it.

That both­ered the old fox, and it was clear in the dis­tor­tions of his qi, in the way his pres­ence loomed clos­er and heav­ier, from the rank stench that she could feel on his spir­it waves. By the time she was ready, her ears and tail out and sta­ble, the spir­it--an ac­tu­al fox spir­it, who only took hu­man form if it suit­ed him--ap­peared quite cross.

"Yes, An­ces­tor."

"You haven't learned your les­son from last time." The spir­i­tu­al en­er­gy seemed to melt re­al­i­ty around her, though for the mo­ment, the dark­ness re­mained only that.

"My les­son from last time was to trust my in­stincts," Chi­an said, clos­ing her eyes and know­ing what was com­ing, her heart pound­ing. "And I do."

The old man raised one clawed hand and bat­ted at her, and Chi­an had to force her spir­it en­er­gy into a bar­ri­er. Ki'el's ad­vice helped great­ly here--or Kuli's. Un­der­stand­ing her tail as a way to com­mu­ni­cate her will with the spir­it world, as a way to change the qi that she had al­ready de­ployed, al­lowed her to sim­ply vent her spir­it en­er­gy and then snap it into some sem­blance of a wall in time to stop the three curved slices.

Slow slices, al­most dull. An­ces­tor was not se­ri­ous.

"You don't un­der­stand, and you nev­er will." The fox took a hu­man step for­ward, but his 'real' pro­jec­tion, a fox, slunk away in the oth­er di­rec­tion. Chi­an warred with her in­stincts--it was only po­lite, if the hu­man pro­jec­tion con­tin­ued to watch her, not to di­rect her at­ten­tion away, even as she knew that she was be­ing test­ed, that the fox pro­jec­tion was the threat. "Your path will al­ways and only ever be my path. All of your strength comes from me. All of your in­stincts come from my side. I am your in­stincts."

Chi­an bared her teeth back at the hu­man pro­ject, al­most be­com­ing too dis­tract­ed to split her fo­cus, but she kept the real threat in mind. She had been taught through her youth that what the old man was say­ing was true--that her pow­er and in­stincts came from her no­ble blood­line, in­her­it­ed from her an­ces­tor. But she had also been taught, by her fam­i­ly and by Bai Be­nai, that the spir­it in her tribu­la­tion would lie and at­tempt to con­sume her, con­trol her.

It had been hard­er be­fore.

"You are not my only source of strength," Chi­an said, "and even if you were, my in­sincts tell me not to trust you." That was only half true--they had said that, un­til the old fox wished oth­er­wise. Even now, with the fox it­self creep­ing clos­er, she sensed its in­tense fo­cus on her, how it con­ceived of this as a preda­tor stalk­ing its prey, lulling it to sleep, so that--

When at last it was close enough, Chi­an's tail flick­ered, and the spir­it en­er­gy she had kept around her lashed at the an­ces­tor's fox body. It wasn't enough to be dan­ger­ous--she knew it wasn't--but the goal was nev­er to de­feat her an­ces­tor, but to catch it and claim the seed that would be­come her sec­ond tail. But, as she ex­pect­ed, her fox an­ces­tor leaped away spry­ly even be­fore her en­er­gy could prop­er­ly mo­bi­lize.

The hu­man pro­jec­tion grinned a nasty smile, and his sev­en tails curled out be­hind him, his out­fit dark­en­ing into the one he used in fights. "You have no strength with­out me, child," the old man said. "And no need to lie. Your heart is open to me, as your an­ces­tor, but nev­er more than when you are to face a tribu­la­tion. Your ef­forts to con­trol qi are pa­thet­ic, your mis­un­der­stand­ings thick, and your at­tach­ments to those fool­ish hu­mans poi­son you from with­in."

Chi­an bris­tled, even know­ing that it was a trick, the old man prod­ding at her weak­ness. "Don't talk about my friends."

"No?" The hu­man pro­jec­tion leaped for­ward, and Chi­an sprung to her feet and flick­ered out more en­er­gy, di­rect­ing it to move her back and lash out light­ly at the hu­man form--though she knew that the fox car­ried her prize. The old man wouldn't be sat­is­fied hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with­out ex­er­cis­ing at the same time, which meant she had to let him waste pow­er, while she spent as lit­tle as pos­si­ble.

But he did con­tin­ue to speak, and Chi­an felt her­self get­ting ang­i­er as he did. "What about the old­er girl--Xoi Xam? She fears your con­nec­tion to things she can­not com­pre­hend. She is jeal­ous that you will be hand­ed pow­er for the rest of your life, and knows that you will be­come ever more the preda­tor, ever less her peer." The hu­man pro­jec­tion stepped for­ward and slashed a few times, and each time, Chi­an moved her­self away, eye­ing both the hu­man and the fox. "She is ready to go to war with you for the small­est of­fense, and you de­serve that, be­cause you are not your peer--you are a preda­tor who feeds on peo­ple like her."

"Stop it," Chi­an said with a snarl, but she knew that the man was speak­ing to her doubts--and he wasn't wrong.

"And that man--Xoi Mian? A liar, a mur­der­er, a craven cow­ard, pa­thet­ic and des­per­ate. Giv­en a sec­ond chance out of luck, he squan­ders it, though he is ea­ger to re­ceive his re­wards any­way." The el­der fox's tails twitched, and Chi­an fo­cused in­tent­ly on the sense, but she couldn't catch how he com­mand­ed the mas­sive well of spir­i­tu­al pow­er that he'd al­lowed for this tribu­la­tion. It sim­ply seemed to come in be­ing that a pair of mas­sive polearms, hal­berds this time, she thought, ap­peared from the air by his hands, and he caught one in each hand, jump­ing for­ward and cross­ing the blad­ed weapons in front of him like they were noth­ing more than an ex­tend­ed, hor­i­zon­tal jaw.

Chi­an knew well enough that he un­der­stood the use of hu­man weapons far bet­ter than that, and stayed well clear of them.

"If it came down to it, both of those 'friends' of yours would be­tray you if not for dar­ling lit­tle friend Ki'el," the el­der said, his voice tak­ing a light tone that she was sure was heav­i­ly con­de­scend­ing, though he hid it, for the mo­ment. "And what a dear she is, so fo­cused on her tasks, so ea­ger to work hard, so blind to what's around her." The lev­i­ty in his voice fad­ed. "In truth, child, you know far bet­ter than me that she is rav­en­ous­ly hun­gry for at­ten­tion. If you fail for even a mo­ment to be at the cen­ter of her world, you will fade away, be quick­ly and eter­nal­ly for­got­ten. I'll give her this--the child is in­no­cent. But she is weak at heart, just like you."

Chi­an was ex­pect­ing it, when the man reached the end of his speech and the two forms pre­sent both fad­ed, the fox form seam­less­ly tak­ing a hu­manoid form while re­tain­ing its true face and na­ture. The hal­berds hung be­hind it for a mo­ment be­fore leap­ing at her, and al­though Chi­an had to turn away from where the hu­man pro­jec­tion had been to see the an­ces­tor with her own eyes, she still dodged the at­tacks with lit­tle ef­fort. But now, the el­der's spir­it en­er­gy be­gan to gath­er around the seed, and his ca­nine face had no ex­pres­sion that could be con­sid­ered friend­ly on it, the eyes leak­ing ha­tred and angst.

"You cow­er be­hind your pro­tec­tors, be­hind that id­iot tor­toise, nev­er fac­ing the truth of the world, and you want to tell me that this is you trust­ing your in­stincts?" The pro­jec­tion flick­ered, and for just a mo­ment, Chi­an thought that above them both, like a child look­ing down on their toys, was a mas­sive fox spir­it per­haps twen­ty times her size, who only waved a hand through the dark­ness around them, and where it passed, the world changed.

Chi­an fell through the air be­fore she could muster enough spir­it en­er­gy to stop her­self, plung­ing into the storm-tossed sea. With­in the wa­ter, as she'd found last time, it was dif­fi­cult to find qi that res­onat­ed with her blood­line, but it was there--stormwa­ter and wind, even traces of light­ning qi that swirled through the ocean wa­ter. With ef­fort, she forced more pow­er into her tail, and lift­ed out of the wa­ter un­til she could stand atop it, and grasp the stormy air that was her birthright, forc­ing it to car­ry her into the sky.

That had been enough, last time, for the an­ces­tor to choose not to de­stroy her, even though she failed to as­cend a tier. This time, she was not will­ing to fail.

But see­ing her an­ces­tor, the mas­ter of her en­tire fam­i­ly, in his nat­ur­al el­e­ment, the Six Tailed Rag­ing Storm Spir­it Fox, dulled any ex­cite­ment she could have. He had not yet em­braced the full might of the storm that raged around him--per­haps he couldn't, not at this lev­el of her as­cen­sion. But nei­ther did he have even a mo­ment's fear for the lash­ing wind, the dri­ving rain, the flash­es of light­ning that seemed to trav­el miles.

"Your in­stincts are those of a preda­tor in the rain," a voice whis­pered from near­by her. "Not those of a child hid­ing be­hind fa­ther's legs, be­hind tur­tle shells. If you want to chase vic­to­ry, then chase."

Chi­an hung there in the storm-tossed air and con­sid­ered that. She was still con­sid­er­ing it when a mas­sive skull made of storm-twist­ed rain ap­peared from nowhere, jaws open­ing in a sound­less show of teeth. But Chi­an was not there when the jaws closed, and she struck once at the pro­jec­tion, hop­ing to at least knock it away--but no such thing hap­pened. In­stead, the skull turned, mov­ing for­ward once more.

Chi­an felt the rain soak­ing through her clothes, soak­ing into even her spir­it tail, soak­ing into her skin. She felt every buf­fet­ing wall of wind that ran into her, but she closed her eyes, ig­nor­ing all but the fanged skull be­fore her, the dis­tant pro­jec­tion of her an­ces­tor... and the les­son.

Though the An­ces­tor might call Bai Be­nai an id­iot, the woman had cho­sen a ton­ic for her that matched her de­sires far bet­ter than the world that An­ces­tor was show­ing her.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

It took her a mo­ment to find the clar­i­ty, but when at last she could find the per­spec­tive, a slice of the sky opened--just a slice--and that sky wheeled over­head. She saw her an­ces­tor look up at it, felt him try­ing to will it closed--but in only a mo­ment, Chi­an was no longer be­neath the storm­clouds.

The view from above was mag­nif­i­cent.

The storm­clouds from above were white things, like the small­er puffy clouds you would see on a clear day, or even the tow­er­ing storm­clouds that you saw in the dis­tance--when they didn't block the sun. What the Wheel of Light and Sky Ton­ic had shown her was that the storm only dark­ened the world be­neath it. Here, in the world above the storm, was a dif­fer­ent world. Even the dark­est, widest, wildest storms only con­cealed the blue sky, the sun­light.

"Some small in­sight, I see." An­ces­tor stood atop his clouds, but his face and de­meanor were not ap­prov­ing. "But mean­ing­less in the face of true pow­er." His tails twist­ed, and the storm­clouds be­low whipped up­wards to­wards her, try­ing to form a shell around her, to re­turn her to dark­ness and rain.

But Chi­an was will­ing to bet that his do­main was far weak­er here, even if he forced the im­age back to a fa­mil­iar form. It was one thing to ma­nip­u­late a nat­ur­al rag­ing storm, and an­oth­er to force a rag­ing storm into new forms, new places. But more than that... Chi­an pulled at her own spir­it en­er­gy, try­ing to find every scrap of it that she had and all that she had left be­hind, or­ga­niz­ing it, grow­ing it, col­lect­ing it--and or­der­ing it.

It was prob­a­bly the truth that An­ces­tor saw the at­tack com­ing. It was prob­a­bly true that a be­ing so wise wasn't go­ing to fall for such a sim­ple am­bush. But the spir­it en­er­gy she'd left be­hind, in the rain-soaked sea, stalked up through the storm be­hind him while his at­ten­tion was di­vid­ed, and ap­peared as claws and fangs with­in his own pre­cious clouds, from with­in the storm that he stood upon look­ing up at her, snap­ping down on him from be­hind. She felt her en­er­gy force its way into the pro­jec­tion, seek­ing and find­ing that seed of spir­i­tu­al en­er­gy, that prize she was sup­posed to steal away.

She felt it slip into her pos­ses­sion, de­spite some strug­gles from her an­ces­tor.

"Bah." As the en­er­gy of the tribu­la­tion be­gan to dis­perse and swirl around her, at­tract­ed to the Rag­ing Storm Fox Spir­it Seed, her An­ces­tors will re­leased its grasp, let­ting her win--but also, she saw one of the an­ces­tor's hal­berds slink into view from just be­hind her, and she didn't know when or how it had slipped in so close. "An ac­cept­able hunt, lit­tle girl. Not quite wor­thy of a two-tailed spir­it fox... but I will ex­pect bet­ter of you next time." The vulpine face that the an­ces­tor showed her gave her an un­pleas­ant, sharp-toothed smile, but she thought she sensed real pride there. "Be sure not to dis­ap­point me."

Da Chi­an re­turned from her spir­it trance to feel the world shak­ing.

She leaped to her feet, half sur­prised that she was sim­ply in a dark room, and found her­self rush­ing out­side--but be­fore she could leave the Sealed Palace, she end­ed up find­ing Xam and Mian gath­ered around...

...Around what seemed to be the body of Ki'el.

The girl wasn't dead--that was the wrong word. But qi was turn­ing in bands around her--in many bands, each turn­ing through dif­fer­ent or­bits around the girl, each spin­ning at dif­fer­ent rates and in dif­fer­ent di­rec­tions, each with an as­so­ci­at­ed thorn--and each thorn was al­ready over­full of blind­ing­ly white qi. Chi­an paused, star­ing, but un­sure. What­ev­er was hap­pen­ing, she felt sure that it was too much.

"Chi­an." Mian's voice sound­ed re­lieved. "You were in there for a while."

Had she been? Chi­an had not both­ered to find out how long her trance had been the last time, but this didn't feel like it had been a long bat­tle. In­stead of an­swer­ing that, she looked at Ki'el. "Is she al­right?"

"Only the El­der would know," Xam said, tired­ly, "but we can't move her. And I don't think the El­der wants us leav­ing while--"

The world shook again.

"--while Sis­ter Ai, we as­sume, rages out­side," Mian fin­ished, look­ing at his wife, who looked back at him, sourly.

Chi­an stared at Ki'el for a long mo­ment, but couldn't shake the feel­ing that the pow­er was too much, and turned to­wards the en­trance. "I will ask."

"Chi­an--"

But she was al­ready push­ing ahead, her qi and spir­it en­er­gy mixed. The feel of her sec­ond tail--no more than a sprout­ing seed, yet--felt good, and she felt in­cred­i­bly free, mov­ing through the space like it was noth­ing.

Get­ting too close to the en­trance spat her out be­fore she was quite ready, and she felt her stom­ach drop at what she saw out­side.

Djang Zen Ai had a lev­el of qi that Chi­an had nev­er seen be­fore, or not specif­i­cal­ly, but there could be no ques­tion that it was Di­a­mond--three phas­es above her, and mere steps be­neath the be­gin­ning of Flame Qi. Her qi was mer­ci­less­ly clear and dev­il­ish­ly hard, and Chi­an could sense with­out try­ing that there was some­thing buried with­in her qi--some blood­line trait that was wo­ven through her core and merid­i­ans, and right now, it was boil­ing over, vent­ing en­er­gy that seemed ea­ger to con­trol Sis­ter Ai from with­in, in ex­change for of­fer­ing her pow­er.

And right now, she didn't seem par­tic­u­lar­ly keen to stop it.

It wasn't as though no one was try­ing to stop her. At least a dozen In­ner Sect dis­ci­ples were around her, and it seemed like Sis­ter Ai kept enough sense to not try to se­ri­ous­ly hurt any of them. But even as Chi­an watched, she lashed out, seem­ing­ly be­cause she couldn't con­tain the en­er­gy, and it vent­ed into the side of the Sealed Palace--mov­ing the en­tire is­land by sev­er­al feet and knock­ing her down, but seem­ing to do no harm to the build­ing it­self.

"Stay in­side." El­der Aji spoke qui­et­ly, but even so, Chi­an could tell that the de­mon­ic Sis­ter above heard her, no­ticed them.

"What is this?" The woman moved with a flash of in­tent, and al­though it was in­tense­ly pow­er­ful, her use was im­per­fect, bru­tal. She crashed into the ground be­fore them, and the is­land dropped by feet, enough that Chi­an could ma­neu­ver in the air to be back on her feet be­fore she land­ed.

She... didn't re­mem­ber in time, what it meant to dis­play her pow­er. She was too fo­cused on the dan­ger in front of her, dan­ger that she didn't imag­ine she could es­cape one way or the oth­er--but she should have known that she could still make things worse.

"A com­pan­ion of that bitch... and a spir­it beast. Per­fect." The woman's eyes were too in­tense for Chi­an to look at, and her voice all but com­pelled her to obey, but some part of her re­sist­ed, even be­fore she un­der­stood what she was fight­ing against. "You will serve me for the rest of your life. Or I will kill you and your pa­thet­ic friends."

Chi­an heard the words, felt them sink­ing into her like teeth, but stopped them from catch­ing on any­thing in­side of her, any­thing that would have forced them to be­come true. She all but for­got about the El­der be­side her, all but for­got about every­thing ex­cept the im­pe­ri­ous gaze of the woman in front of her, but--

"You will not." The steps that the El­der took to place her­self be­tween Chi­an and Sis­ter Ai didn't res­onate with the world, didn't ex­ude enor­mous strength or shake the is­land. Her strength was in the shad­ow that she cast, a shad­ow that blocked Chi­an from the sun ahead of her ef­fort­less­ly. "You have been told this be­fore, Sis­ter Zen Ai. You may be a ge­nius, but your sta­tus here is not un­lim­it­ed. And harm­ing your ju­niors, es­pe­cial­ly prodi­gies, is nev­er ac­cept­able."

Sis­ter Ai twitched like she want­ed to at­tack the El­der, but clear­ly thought bet­ter of it. "I de­mand sat­is­fac­tion."

"You can­not de­mand of some­one so be­neath your sta­tion." The El­der's voice wasn't smug, sim­ply mat­ter of fact.

"My re­tain­er was mur­dered!"

"The facts of the case have been record­ed." The El­der's voice re­mained per­fect­ly mea­sured. "This case, and sev­er­al oth­ers in the past of Broth­er Kem Jee Sai. And sev­er­al oth­ers in your past. The eyes of this Moon­stone Is­land Sect are not blind."

"As though I care about what some pa­thet­ic Moon­stone sect thinks," Sis­ter Ai spat. "I am from one of the Em­per­or's vaunt­ed lin­eages, and you shall not stand in my way."

"This is not your Em­pire," the El­der said, her calm­ness not yet seem­ing to be test­ed.

But Sis­ter Ai looked past her, to Chi­an, who swal­lowed. "You, girl. If you wish to save your mas­ter, you will swear your life, and your de­scen­dents, to me, to serve my house for­ev­er. If you do not, there will be no sav­ing you."

Chi­an felt like she was be­ing swal­lowed up by a do­main more per­ilous than that of her an­ces­tor, felt qi more in­tense and more blood­thirsty than any­thing she had yet ex­pe­ri­enced--and she un­der­stood that it was real blood­thirst, and not train­ing, not even of the most bru­tal kind.

Parts of her were scream­ing to say what­ev­er she need­ed to say to save her­self. An­oth­er part of her want­ed her to say what­ev­er she need­ed to say to save Ki'el. But she also had strength, and pride, and stub­born­ness. And all of that de­layed her for a mo­ment, when the El­der turned back to look at her.

"Why did you come out?" The El­der's voice was clear and even de­spite the cir­cum­stances, but it also car­ried with it an in­tent, one Chi­an didn't re­sist.

"Sis­ter Ki'el has come out of her Tribu­la­tion, un­con­scious," she said.

The words caused sev­er­al near­by to flick­ered their qi, un­cer­tain, wor­ried. "Did she fail?" The El­der asked, though with her calm voice, Chi­an thought that the woman must have known. In truth, Chi­an did not know, not for cer­tain, but it would have made no sense.

"No," she said. "She sur­vived--but she has ab­sorbed so much of the Tribu­la­tion Qi that she can­not re­gain con­scious­ness."

Chi­an... did not un­der­stand, gen­uine­ly; she didn't un­der­stand that at her words, that ha­tred, and the un­remit­ting blood­lust of Sis­ter Ai... hes­i­tat­ed. It be­gan to shift, away from her. It backed away, as though in awe... or in fear.

"Is that the truth?" El­der Sang, the spec­ta­cled el­der from the Gale Pavil­lion, ap­peared next to her as though from nowhere. Chi­an shied back from him, but looked up and nod­ded, and the man moved past her like a flash, she as­sumed into the sealed Palace. And mo­ments lat­er, he walkd out of the Palace, hold­ing Ki'el limp in his arms, the bands of pure white pow­er turn­ing around her undimmed by be­ing in the pres­ence of greater pow­ers.

El­der Aji re­mained where she was, so that Chi­an re­mained in her shad­ow, but Sis­ter Ai's tu­moltuous qi was re­ced­ing, its cor­ro­sive blood­lust reigned in. Al­ready, it felt as though Sis­ter Ai was no longer the cen­ter of every­one's at­ten­tion, as many of the In­ner Sect dis­ci­ples who stood near ma­neu­vered to get a bet­ter look.

"It seems to be true," El­der Sang said, his voice eas­i­ly car­ry­ing, "that Sis­ter Ki'el has cap­tured and is ab­sorb­ing the ma­jor­i­ty of the tribu­la­tion en­er­gy that was sent to her. Her qi and life force are be­ing used to re­fine as much of it as pos­si­ble, and the process is tem­per­ing her spir­it, but she re­mains in dan­ger. If she sur­vives the process­es, she may ad­vance straight to mid-Bis­muth, or even low-Dam­as­cus Qi."

"Im­pos­si­ble." The voice that ut­tered that was Sis­ter Ai's, though her voice had lost some of the tim­bre of ha­tred that it had. "To ad­vance half of an en­tire Phase sim­ply from a sin­gle tribu­la­tion...?"

"I knew our Ju­nior Sis­ter wouldn't dis­ap­point us." That voice came from Broth­er Yang, who ap­peared near to Sis­ter Ai, his clothes torn and his face and hands bruised--from a bat­tle, she guessed, with Sis­ter Ai. He glanced over at Ai with a smug grin. "If you're not care­ful, Se­nior Sis­ter, she'll sur­pass even you in time!"

Sis­ter Ai clenched her fists, and Chi­an could feel the world's qi tense as the words got to her, but she willed away the ha­tred for now. "Fine," she said, af­ter a mo­ment. "I will... grudg­ing­ly ac­cept the Ju­nior Sis­ter's of­fer to have my... per­son­al items re­turned."

A voice from some­where Chi­an could not see, clear­ly of El­der Gol, rung out. "Your points and pos­ses­sions will also be used to sat­is­fy the for­fei­ture owed due to your ram­page."

"Ugh." Sis­ter Ai curled a lip in dis­gust, but not anger or fear. "What­ev­er. This non­sense is be­neath me." She turned, and in a flash, was else­where, the in­tense qi that she had been emit­ting van­ish­ing as though to noth­ing.

And Chi­an fi­nal­ly let her­self fall to her knees and gasp for air.