[ The Pa­tri­arch him­self is mov­ing. ]

The words in the mes­sage were enough to crush any hope that Djang Ren Xari had. Al­though her fam­i­ly was still the Ren, she was far enough from the di­rect line of suc­ces­sors that she might have hoped to be for­got­ten, if the mat­ter were small. But when the Pa­tri­arch moved, so moved the en­tire Ren clan.

The rest of the mes­sage was no more en­cour­ag­ing. Al­though her fa­ther's word-in­tents made it clear that the Ren view might be slight­ly bi­ased, it sug­gest­ed that the Ren and Ban were now in a strug­gle to de­ter­mine who would con­trol the Em­pire, and the Di­a­mond Lord would not in­ter­fere. There was some oth­er fac­tion--led by some for­eign en­ti­ty called [An­gel], who was in the eyes of the Ren, an un­wel­come in­ter­lop­er al­lied with the Ban, but per­haps too weak to change mat­ter--who was hop­ing to de­cide the lead­er­ship of the Em­pire by peace­ful means, with tour­na­ments and ar­ti­facts, but the Ren would not have the Em­pire tak­en away from them by any means.

There was a note, a de­tached aside, that caught her at­ten­tion. That this [An­gel] had an ap­pren­tice who wield­ed a spe­cial [Sword]. Though the de­tails had not been ful­ly trans­mit­ted to them, the frag­ment­ed in­tent of that [Sword] spoke to Xari.

Giv­en the way her fam­i­ly's qi worked, with its threads and chains, Xari had to be care­ful not to think hard about Ki'el, not while her fa­ther was con­tact­ing her, and even then, she was sure that her fa­ther sensed that she held a se­cret. That much, per­haps, he him­self could dis­miss, and keep hid­den from those above.

The last words, though, were the ones that tore at her most deeply.

[ Sui, no longer of the Ren, stole ar­ti­facts from a mas­ter which might have been the same An­gel, or an­oth­er like them. We can ex­pect no peace with this third fac­tion, or with the Ban, what­ev­er pret­ty words they use. We are or­dered to trust none who do not sub­mit to the Ren, in­clud­ing the Sects. Our Fam­i­ly Leader is lead­ing us to re­call all those cur­rent­ly at a Sect. You are not to leave un­til we fetch you. Gath­er all those who will sub­mit or ally them­selves. Give no sign to the rest. ]

Xari sig­naled her ac­cep­tance and obei­sance in re­turn, but she was shak­ing. Only when the last thread of the mes­sen­ger spell had fad­ed did she turn her mind to the ter­ri­ble fate that must be com­ing. And she feared, that for all the re­sources of the Moon­stone Is­land Sect, they would not be able to han­dle a Ren Fam­i­ly Leader.

And she knew, too well to sim­ply fear, that if the Fam­i­ly Leader did not trust the Sect, they would de­stroy it, rather than al­low it to nur­ture en­e­mies. And if she gave any sign... she would not be able to hide that from any­one in her fam­i­ly.

Could I re­cruit Ki'el? That thought was one of dozens of oth­ers, but it stuck out in her mind, sourly. The thought--the mere pos­si­bil­i­ty--that Ki'el was the ap­pren­tice of some strange An­gel, one that the Ren were al­ready en­e­mies with... it re­volt­ed her, to think what her fam­i­ly had done, was choos­ing to do now. But there was no re­bel­lion, not even the op­tion to choose death. For oth­ers, per­haps, but the Pa­tri­arch's [Adamant Threads] had the strength to bind any­one, and while he was loath to use them on mem­bers of the fam­i­ly, he would--if any­one dared rebel. She had not met the Pa­tri­arch, and dis­trust­ed the fam­i­ly line that he was fair... but she had to hope, that at the very least, the clan that she would be fight­ing to serve was wor­thy.

She had no choice but to serve... but she could serve poor­ly. Fail to bring things up when she should. At the very least, she would ob­serve be­fore she made rash choic­es. But... she still must serve.

She put her thoughts aside and be­gan search­ing out her friends, one by one, to see which of them would be will­ing to side with her fam­i­ly. She couldn't threat­en--not yet--and she hoped she would nev­er need to. But join­ing with the Ren would be far bet­ter than death.

----------------------------------------

Shi­da Ken had been as­ton­ished to re­ceive an hon­ored mem­ber of the Im­pe­r­i­al Fam­i­ly. It felt very strange, even as a man who was well aware of his sta­tion, to bow so read­i­ly and so deeply to some­one who had come to vis­it him.

"You are Lord Shi­da, Lord of Emer­ald Val­ley, cor­rect?" Djang Ban Zen­long was not a well-known name in the Em­pire, for many rea­sons. He had not ex­celled or risen high, by the stan­dards of the Im­pe­r­i­al Fam­i­ly--he was not even at Flame Qi, de­spite his great many decades, and served the Em­pire as a for­eign trade ad­min­is­tra­tor, mid-grade. They had met, briefly, many years ago, when Ken had tak­en con­trol over the city of Emer­ald Val­ley, a mo­ment that was clear­ly more im­por­tant to Ken than to Trade Ad­min­is­tra­tor Zen­long. "An [Ally] wished to en­sure that you are briefed on the on­go­ing sit­u­a­tion." The in­tent, though Ken was not par­tic­u­lar­ly clear on it, sug­gest­ed that this ally was... Lady Alas­si. Or, Sobon.

"Of course, Lord Ban," Ken bowed again, wait­ing for the news with what he would learn was the wrong kind of an­tic­i­pa­tion. He was ex­cit­ed; he should have been ter­ri­fied.

He would be soon.

It was less than a day af­ter Lord Zen­long left that Lord Shi­da be­gan to sense the mur­der­ous auras with­in the Em­pire. Shi­da warned those who he con­sid­ered friends or pow­er­ful back­ers to leave the City, and some did, while more sent fam­i­ly away while re­main­ing them­selves. And only two days af­ter that, a dis­as­ter swept through the re­gion.

It could have been worse. The Ren sent pow­er­ful mas­ters, but those mas­ters stood by and watched, most like­ly wait­ing to see if Lady Alas­si would ap­pear to pro­tect the city once again.

She did not, and those mas­ters left with­out lift­ing a fin­ger.

What tore through the de­fens­es of the City were a dozen or more cul­ti­va­tors in the Earth­ly Gem phase, and none of them spared the weak. When all was done, what re­mained were only the lo­cal no­ble fam­i­lies--and only those fam­i­lies who were will­ing to swear to the Ren fam­i­ly. Like Lord Shi­da him­self, they were all weak cul­ti­va­tors, far be­neath the no­tice of the Ren, and the chains and threads used to bind them were suit­ably weak.

Shi­da, hav­ing al­ready sworn loy­al­ty to Alas­si, was pre­pared to die, but the agent of the Ren who stood be­fore him had a strange light to her eyes, a light that he should have been even more ter­ri­fied of than he was.

"I sense that the Ban have been here," she said, her Ren threads co­a­lesc­ing into a spiked whip. "I will show you, and these peo­ple, what hap­pens to those who con­sort with the Ban."

The only rea­son Shi­da Ken es­caped the slaugh­ter of his city, and the only rea­son why the Ren didn't both­er to en­slave him, was be­cause they whipped him un­til he was all but dead, and left his wounds open to the crows as they left, laugh­ing. The few city no­bles who re­mained to watch were cowed by the dis­play, too bro­ken to re­sist, and Shi­da Ken only sur­vived be­cause the last Ren to leave turned around and shout­ed a com­mand back, per­haps on a whim.

"Make sure he sur­vives," he said, the same ug­li­ness that had been in the woman's eyes sat­u­rat­ing his voice. "He is your Lord, af­ter all."

Lord.

As Shi­da Ken fad­ed in and out of con­scious­ness, med­i­cines keep­ing him from dy­ing, though none were strong enough to sim­ply heal him. His night­mares were of faces that be­came blood­ied bones, be­came ash. Of hands that reached out to him, seek­ing a savior, turn­ing to grotesque rot­ting hands as the ap­proached, but nev­er dis­solv­ing, al­ways reach­ing.

Lord.

How long he re­mained in be­tween, he didn't know. The night­mares grew worse only in that his mind be­gan to fail, the im­ages run­ning to­geth­er like paint­ed mud in the rain, the pain no longer seem­ing dis­tinct from his core be­ing.

Un­til one day, he awoke, healed, in a torn and half-de­stroyed bed in his own de­stroyed room. He sat up with great dif­fi­cul­ty, feel­ing un­com­fort­able, un­sure. There was a woman there, more beau­ti­ful than he had ever seen--so beau­ti­ful that he could al­most not see the ru­ins of his own manor that they were both sit­ting in, the ru­ins that pro­vid­ed but the nar­row­est of shel­ters from the rain that poured over the city.

"You are Shi­da Ken," the woman said, sim­ply, her voice cut­ting through the sound of the rain ef­fort­less­ly. "I am Djang Ban Ferai. Zen­long is my Un­cle." She was sit­ting on one of Ken's up­hol­stered chairs, though it had been dam­aged, and what re­mained of it was in­signif­i­cant. "I was only meant to check on you. We had not heard." The woman got out of her chair--Ken's chair--took two steps for­ward, and then flat­tened her­self into a kow­tow.

Even in his near­ly-deliri­ous state, Ken felt in­tense angst over such a beau­ti­ful woman bow­ing be­fore her, and tried to move, to strug­gle out of bed--but found he could bare­ly move. Even healed, his bones and mus­cles had no strength.

"This Djang Ban Ferai has failed you. Our Ban House­hold has failed you. You who are an ally of our [Ally]." The woman's words were cold. "I swear that un­til this is made right, I will pro­tect and guard you and this city of Emer­ald Val­ley with my life."

Some part of Shi­da Ken stirred at the words, and he forced him­self to his feet, find­ing that he had been dressed in lit­tle more than a dress­ing gown while he slept. He had... too many thoughts run­ning through his mind. Some part of him dwelled on the woman's beau­ty, but the part of him that had ever been called Lord--that still hoped some­day to be wor­thy of the ti­tle--un­der­stood just how im­por­tant those words were.

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"Lady Ferai," he said, and it sur­prised him how bit­ter the voice that came out was. Not be­cause he was not bit­ter--he had cursed his miss­ing al­lies in his own head and out loud ever since the be­gin­ning of the Ren at­tack. But he had nev­er heard such poi­son in his own voice be­fore. "It is true that my Emer­ald Val­ley had no al­lies when the Ren at­tacked. It is true that I cursed your un­cle and your fam­i­ly. I even cursed my own Pa­tron." Un­steadi­ly, he walked over to her, un­sure what his next words would be, but he couldn't help see­ing Lady Alas­si's face as he moved.

"But the same Pa­tron once told me that the sys­tem that I be­lieved in would stand by and watch as I was de­stroyed."

He found the words were true even as he said them. The woman looked up, but did not rise, and Ken only found the courage to meet her eyes, de­spite know­ing the dark­ness that must be with­in them.

"She said that mat­ters of fate were at play. That she would have great en­e­mies. That there were dan­gers too great for her to save me from." He found that his voice was break­ing, and he found it dif­fi­cult to con­tin­ue look­ing at any­thing, as if his eyes and face want­ed to rebel from his con­trol, but he sim­ply closed his eyes in­stead, tak­ing deep breaths, try­ing to calm that in­side of him which would not be calm.

Un­til at last, he found words again. "Tell me, Lady Ferai--if fate it­self had not in­ter­vened... is there even the small­est chance I would be still stand­ing here? Still alive?"

But Shi­da Ken found that those words were not for the beau­ti­ful woman, the woman who came from the Im­pe­r­i­al Fam­i­ly, the woman who must cer­tain­ly have enough au­thor­i­ty to save him and his peo­ple, if it came down to it. No, those words were for him, for those scars that now ran through him, scars that he knew would nev­er heal.

"No." Lady Ferai's voice roused him, and Shi­da Ken opened his eyes, to see that she had not moved an inch. "I was as­ton­ished to hear how long you re­mained alive de­spite your wounds. At your lev­el... it should have been im­pos­si­ble."

Shi­da Ken sighed, let­ting his eyes close again. Was this some­thing that Lady Alas­si had pre­pared? Was it luck? A god, per­haps? He had no idea. When he spoke, he bare­ly un­der­stood what he was say­ing, but he felt the words burn them­selves into his qi. "What­ev­er I must do to re­pay this debt, to fate it­self--or to my Pa­tron--I will do, with all of my life." And he opened his eyes and looked down on the woman who still knelt be­fore him. "Tell me, Lady Ferai... is there such a path? For the two of us, and those that re­main in this City?"

The fact that the woman didn't im­me­di­ate­ly re­ply told him that the an­swer was not 'yes'--but also, that it was not 'no.' And that would have to do.

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Djang Ren Maria, one of the Ren Fam­i­ly Lead­ers, was giv­en the ap­point­ed task of lead­ing the van­guard when the Pa­tri­arch test­ed the Ban. The parts of her that should have known how fool­ish the task were said noth­ing; she was not even aware that she was fol­low­ing blind­ly. At Blue Flame Qi, the peak of Im­mor­tal Flame, she was aware that she was not a match if the greats of the Ban fam­i­ly moved against them. And the Pa­tri­arch's test of choice... was to at­tack the Di­a­mond Lord's Great Moun­tain.

They flew, of course, that be­ing the least one could ex­pect of peo­ple of their sta­tion. Their en­tire for­ma­tion was cen­tered on a palan­quin upon which rest­ed the Pa­tri­arch, and Maria felt proud that she had been cho­sen, with­out con­sid­er­ing any­thing else--her low­er sta­tion among the Ren Fam­i­ly Lead­ers, or why the Pa­tri­arch would move for the first time in cen­turies, de­spite his phys­i­cal con­di­tion. She could only fo­cus on what was ahead of her, the alarms with­in her psy­che that should have been rag­ing mys­te­ri­ous­ly silent.

Nat­u­ral­ly, they were in­ter­cept­ed, well away from the Moun­tain.

The Ban fam­i­ly were a wide group, in some ways wider than the Ren. Maria her­self was not Djang, hav­ing mar­ried into the fam­i­ly, but her qi res­onat­ed well with the fam­i­ly's threads and chains. Her own chain sword was a bru­tal weapon, and she de­ployed it im­me­di­ate­ly, rais­ing her aura with mur­der­ous in­tent as she sur­veyed the Ban who had come to face her. While many of these were Djang, she did no­tice Djang Ban Ba­jal, and Djang Ban Ro'tea, both for­eign­ers who had been brought into the Ban fam­i­lies as she had been, though what pity or sym­pa­thy she might have had for them was not to be on dis­play to­day.

"You may not ap­proach the Great Moun­tain." Djang Ban Reix­u­an's voice was crys­tal clear, though the woman did not stand at the front of their for­ma­tion. The Ban fam­i­ly leader's sword man­i­fest­ed near­by, the qi in the air drop­ping pre­cip­i­tous­ly as the woman gath­ered it into the del­i­cate-look­ing blade that was her qi na­ture. "The Di­a­mond Lord has for­bid­den it."

"Is that so?" The voice of their Pa­tri­arch sound­ed be­hind Maria, and she felt a thrill, but kept her eyes on their en­e­mies. "Will the Di­a­mond Lord grace us with his pres­ence, then? Or is it as we have all felt--that the Di­a­mond Lord is bro­ken, a worth­less rem­nant of a man? If he will ap­pear be­fore us, then this Djang Ren will--"

There was a flick­er of qi in the dis­tance, though not of the in­ten­si­ty any of them ex­pect­ed from the Di­a­mond Lord. They all paused, won­der­ing what to ex­pect--

The first sign any of them un­der­stood was the in­tense flare of pow­er, fol­lowed by a wind­blast, and a pow­er­ful noise, as a shin­ing ball of pow­er went from in­cred­i­ble speed to stopped dead be­fore them. Maria made a point to force her­self to look de­spite the pain and wind, and saw that what had ar­rived was not the Di­a­mond Lord, but a mis­shapen and weak fig­ure in­side of a float­ing crys­tal ball. Out­stretched in six di­rec­tions from the ball were phan­tom wings, al­ready fad­ed and re­treat­ing, which must have been re­spon­si­ble for stop­ping it ap­proach. Al­though it should have been the Ban's ally, even an ally of the Di­a­mond Lord him­self, the fig­ure was dressed only in plain white cloth, and was bare­foot, show­ing ugly, doll-white flesh that did not match the face at all.

"You are the Ren." The voice that came out was al­most that of a mor­tal's, al­though it car­ried well enough de­spite the dis­tance.

"And you must be the so-called [An­gel]." The Pa­tri­arch's voice was sneer­ing, and this time, his palan­quin opened up, the top falling away and the sides drop­ping, leav­ing only a fig­ure on a throne. Maria didn't dare look, but she felt the Pa­tri­arch's qi stir­ring. "Pa­thet­ic. Dis­gust­ing. Is that even sup­posed to be a hu­man body?"

"You are well aware that your own Ren Sui is re­spon­si­ble for this." The An­gel's voice was not cut­ting, and its qi did not stir. It was sim­ply... cold. Clear. "He was the one that tore apart this bor­rowed body and left me for dead."

"So it was you. I was ea­ger to see if you would show your face if we moved. I even brought a gift." With a flick­er of the Pa­tri­arch's qi, Sui--that now-brain­dead, once-fool­ish mem­ber of their clan--was plucked from a sealed crate and thrown into the air where the An­gel, or the Ban, could catch it.

The An­gel watched it fly, and let it fall, their face dis­play­ing no emo­tion. "While I'm glad you do not em­brace some­one as fool­ish as Ren Sui, it's ob­vi­ous that you mis­un­der­stand."

"There is noth­ing to un­der­stand or not un­der­stand," Ren said, his voice drip­ping acid. "There are the strong, and the weak. Sui pro­voked pow­ers too great for him to de­feat and ran to cow­er in the em­brace of my fam­i­ly. But you and the Ban, to­geth­er, lack the pow­er nec­es­sary to de­feat me. Es­pe­cial­ly you, who was de­stroyed at the peak of your pow­er by that trash. Do you tru­ly dare to stand be­fore me?"

Maria felt the Pa­tri­arch's Adamant Threads flash out, most­ly targeting the An­gel, while oth­ers targeted those of the Ban who seemed weak enough to reach. Djang Ban Reix­u­an's shin­ing qi rapi­er flick­ered out, cut­ting away most of those threads that ap­proached the Ban, while oth­ers un­der her com­mand caught the rest.

Those that targeted the An­gel... stopped in midair be­fore it, and Maria could feel an ab­solute de­fense there, a pow­er greater than she could sense, or else one that con­tained no pow­er at all. She re­pressed a shud­der, think­ing only of how she could by­pass it if she need­ed to.

"You tru­ly are all chil­dren." The An­gel's voice came back sound­ing... sim­ply dis­ap­point­ed. The orb around it shrank down into a crys­tal ball the size of its head, which po­si­tioned it­self be­neath the an­gel's feet, so that it could sim­ply stand there, in open space, ap­par­ent­ly de­fense­less, as it con­tin­ued talk­ing. "Vi­o­lent, cru­el chil­dren, from a back­wards world. No, you do mis­un­der­stand, Ren of Clan Ren. You be­lieve that pow­er is spe­cial." The An­gel moved for­ward, the ball warp­ing into a strange crys­talline bridge, then back into a ball, as it moved, keep­ing it al­ways sup­port­ed in the air. "Pow­er is in­evitable. Be­ing wor­thy to wield pow­er is not."

Do not speak to me of pow­er.

Maria shiv­ered. The words had not been trans­mit­ted with qi, nor spo­ken aloud. To her, they sim­ply seemed to be. A mo­ment lat­er, the throne and palan­quin of the Ren Pa­tri­arch dis­in­te­grat­ed, leav­ing only a be­ing sur­round­ed by Adamant Threads, held up by qi of a mag­ni­tude Maria her­self could not com­pre­hend. Those threads lashed out at the An­gel again--

And again, they were stopped cold, even when they sought to en­cir­cle that be­ing, even as they pressed in from every an­gle.

"Your [Red Threads] will not reach me." The An­gel's voice was strange, and Maria blinked. That was not the name of the Pa­tri­arch's pow­er... and yet, it was fa­mil­iar. But Maria's eyes were drawn to the fig­ure of the an­gel, which drew forth a sword han­dle, one that pro­duced a seem­ing­ly nor­mal blade af­ter a mo­ment, one that only weak­ly pulsed with en­er­gy... at first. "[Sev­er.]"

The An­gel dropped their shields only for a mo­ment, bare­ly long enough to swing that sword, but the shock­wave that leaped from it seemed to deny every­thing. Maria watched, turn­ing with all of her speed to watch the cut as it trav­elled through open space, know­ing that it was strange--a pow­er with the den­si­ty to match her own, per­haps even greater, but it gave off no qi waves, no light, noth­ing, as though every scrap of its pow­er was con­cen­trat­ed on its pur­pose, its in­tent.

Where that blade trav­elled, even the Adamant Threads of the Pa­tri­arch van­ished, sev­ered as though they were noth­ing more than a child's toy. And the cut­ting shock­wave passed straight through the Pa­tri­arch--or what Maria thought had been the Pa­tri­arch. When the shock­wave had passed and a strange headache came and went through Maria, she saw only a com­mon mem­ber of the Ren fam­i­ly, with the Pa­tri­arch's [Red Threads] now scat­ter­ing from his core, the squirm­ing mass­es of them be­neath the man's skin slow­ly ceas­ing to move.

Only one thread kept its in­ten­si­ty, and it curled into the air, pro­ject­ing in­tent to the Fam­i­ly. [At­tack.]

Maria only had a twitch­ing re­ac­tion, only a shad­ow of an in­stinct, that she should fol­low the Pa­tri­arch's com­mands, and she found that odd. But... she was a Fam­i­ly Leader, and when her brain caught up, nor­mal loy­al­ty over­rode the squeamish feel­ing that she had, on see­ing the Fam­i­ly Leader ma­nip­u­late and sac­ri­fice a mem­ber of the fam­i­ly. She put out of mind the strange free­dom that she felt, the odd lack of re­stric­tion. She sim­ply turned, and her Sword Whip lashed out at the An­gel, who she thought might still have low­ered shields.

But her weapon was stopped by noth­ing, as the Pa­tri­arch's threads had been, and she had re­grets, look­ing up at the An­gel and the pow­er that had re­pelled and struck down the Pa­tri­arch's pro­jec­tion like it was noth­ing. But the An­gel only turned away, nod­ding to the oth­ers, and Ban surged ahead, giv­ing Maria more tar­gets, let­ting her put the in­vin­ci­ble An­gel out of her mind for the mo­ment.

Maria end­ed her life as a rear­guard for the hu­mil­i­at­ed re­treat of the rest of the at­tack force. In the end, she couldn't curse the An­gel, even to her dy­ing breath, and she was see­ing the Ban too clear­ly, some­times as if for the first time, to re­al­ly hate them. They were scared, and fight­ing for their lives. Why were we even here? She was un­sure, but as she watched the oth­ers get away, her body falling in pieces to the ground far be­low, she hoped that some­one among those that had sur­vived would find the an­swers.