If feed­ing the Rag­ing Storm Fox tal­is­man qi felt in­stinc­tu­al and al­most easy, the tug of war that came next did not.

A keen­ing call of spir­i­tu­al en­er­gy emit­ted from it, one that seemed to pass eas­i­ly through the wards, and there were dis­tant echoes, echoes that not only pierced the bar­ri­er on the way back, but seemed to strike Ki'el like a sud­den gust of storm wind. If she had been stand­ing, per­haps she might have been knocked over, but there was some­thing on the oth­er side, some­thing al­most like a spir­i­tu­al place or plane, and Ki'el felt some­thing ap­proach­ing. Sev­er­al some­things. Preda­to­ry some­things.

Ki'el half ex­pect­ed Kuli to have some mir­a­cle an­swer to this, but the aug­ment re­mained silent, and Ki'el sim­ply had to dim­ly sense the cir­cling spir­its. At last, she sensed one ap­proach­ing, and she of­fered it a touch of qi--from the ad­vanced thorn. But that spir­it, though it was in­ter­est­ed, was sud­den­ly dri­ven back when an­oth­er spir­it snatched at the qi in­stead, some­thing larg­er, more dan­ger­ous. It stole the qi away with­out giv­ing any­thing, or tak­ing any re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

Right. In­tent--no, Con­se­quence. Ki'el stead­ied her­self, and pro­ject­ed into that spir­i­tu­al space as firm­ly as she could. [I am a blade.] Many of the weak­er spir­its fled, but Ki'el of­fered the qi, again.

And again, a spir­it snapped at it greed­i­ly. Ki'el, though it burned her to do it, twist­ed the qi and slashed at the thief, and it scat­tered away, per­haps un­harmed--Ki'el was not quite able to sense for sure. She pro­ject­ed again, more con­fi­dent, this time. [I am a blade. Join with me.]

Again, a thief tried to take the of­fer­ing for noth­ing, and again, Ki'el twist­ed the qi at it, and this time, she felt sure she had struck it. Again, she of­fered qi, de­mand­ing that a spir­it join her, and again, an­oth­er thief ap­peared.

The next time, Ki'el felt the thieves step back, al­most in recog­ni­tion, as an­oth­er fox spir­it moved for­ward to­ward the of­fer­ing. It came close, ex­am­ined her qi close­ly... and, even­tu­al­ly, turned away. Even so, the thieves didn't move... for a long mo­ment, un­til at last, one snapped to­wards her, and she drove it away. But she of­fered the qi again, and again, and one more time af­ter that.

The last time, Ki'el felt very strange­ly, as though the fox wasn't stand­ing up­right and walk­ing on the ground around her. It was more... like it was un­der­ground, if the ground it­self were empti­ness, and what was sky to Ki'el was ground to it. From be­low, it looked down at her qi, then moved clos­er, tast­ing it. Ki'el of­fered more, and the spir­it fox came clos­er, cir­cling around un­til it could look at both her, and the qi, in its strange up­side-down way.

[I am a blade,] Ki'el said again, not sure what else to con­vey to the crea­ture.

[I am a bolt of light­ning,] the fox an­swered. [Wait­ing for the one mo­ment, of all mo­ments, to shine bright­est, and strike hard­est.]

[Will you join me?]

[You are not ready. You are small­er than you want to look.] The light­ning bolt fox bent down to ex­am­ine the qi of­fer­ing again. [This is a lie. But it is a tasty lie.] It looked at her. [Will you have more next time?]

Ki'el felt her heart flut­ter. She... al­though it sound­ed so much like the fox was re­fus­ing her, she felt hope. [I have a lot more. And I ex­pect to get more next time.]

[I will con­tract tem­porar­i­ly. And I ex­pect to be fed.] The light­ning bolt fox moved its head down--or, from Ki'el's per­spec­tive, up--so that it was right near where Ki'el was of­fer­ing her qi, as though she could sim­ply reach out, and...

Ki'el felt strange, like her hands were ac­tu­al­ly touch­ing a fuzzy an­i­mal, un­til the mo­ment when she felt a sear­ing pain--not in her qi chan­nels, but from and around the tal­is­man. She flinched back, but a mo­ment lat­er, she forced her­self to look, and there sit­ting be­tween her and Chi­an was a fox, the tal­is­man hang­ing from its neck on a small bead­ed neck­lace. It was only a small fox--small enough that Ki'el could hold it in her arms--and its qi did not seem in­tense, but some­thing about it def­i­nite­ly seemed more than Ki'el could oth­er­wise ex­plain.

"Che­ja Meixu?" Ki'el was not sure what the words from Chi­an, sud­den­ly, were; it took her a mo­ment to re­al­ize that it was the spir­it's name, as broad­cast by its qi. "Are you--"

[Oh, one of the in­her­i­tors.] Miyu moved so sud­den­ly that Ki'el was star­tled, duck­ing be­hind her back and away from Chi­an. The small crea­ture had no com­punc­tion against rub­bing right up against Ki'el when it moved, stay­ing very close. [I thought I smelled your grand­fa­ther, but it was you. Don't you try to or­der me around. I'm not go­ing to lis­ten.]

"Meixu--" Ki'el be­gan to speak, but the fox nipped in her gen­er­al di­rec­tion.

[Food first,] it said. [The tasty lie.]

"Lie?" Chi­an asked, but Ki'el of­fered it more qi from the tribu­la­tion thorn. To her sur­prise, the small fox only took in a por­tion of it, and seemed to tear or chew at it for a mo­ment be­fore set­tling.

[Yes, in­her­i­tor. A lie. Fake own­er­ship of fake qi with a faked pu­rifi­ca­tion, won with bor­rowed pow­er.] The fox's claws dug into Ki'el's sect robe sud­den­ly, and she yelped as the weight of the crea­ture pulled at her robes, as it scam­pered its way up to her shoul­der. [But shar­ing good food is still good man­ners. This one is pleased.]

Chi­an was scowl­ing at the fox, for some rea­son, but Ki'el, when she turned and found her­self look­ing in its eyes, was sur­prised to find that they were very... or­di­nary. When the spir­it crea­ture turned its eyes to meet hers, she thought she saw a flash of guilt, and a wor­ry that she wouldn't ap­prove of it. And she reached up, as much on in­stinct as any­thing, and brushed its cheek with her fin­ger, and it pushed back against her, rub­bing as though it took real emo­tion­al sup­port from the ges­ture.

Ki'el felt some­thing stir­ring with­in her heart, some­thing she wasn't sure she had felt so pure­ly in a long time.

"Ki'el, that--" Ki'el looked back to Chi­an, but some­thing about her look made the girl pause, and shake her head. "No, nev­er mind. But keep... keep Meixu close, al­right? He may look small, but he's smarter than he looks."

[Small.] Meixu hissed at Chi­an. [You're small, in­her­i­tor. I am the size I like be­ing.]

"Enough." She glanced at Ki'el. "Let's let them know you suc­ceed­ed."

Ki'el hur­ried to her feet, find­ing that the small weight of the spir­it fox threw off her bal­ance more than she would have guessed, but Meixu seemed con­tent to cling to the shoul­der of her robes and sim­ply peer around as she stepped out­side.

Ki'el no­ticed im­me­di­ate­ly that there were more peo­ple with­in the bar­ri­er--even though it had only been a few min­utes, she thought. Or had it tak­en longer than she re­al­ized? Broth­er Du was there, and also... El­der Sang? Ki'el eyed the el­der un­com­fort­ably, but he stood to one side, eyes closed, as though try­ing to see noth­ing, hear noth­ing.

"Ki'el." Broth­er Du bowed. "And a new friend. I apol­o­gize--"

"What's hap­pen­ing out­side?" Ki'el hadn't got­ten an an­swer to that last time, and had let it pass, but... she didn't like be­ing treat­ed like she couldn't han­dle the truth.

"...There are mem­bers of the Ren fam­i­ly in this sect," Broth­er Du said. "And they are al­ready mov­ing."

Ki'el glanced to El­der Sang, but the man said and did noth­ing. Af­ter a mo­ment, she looked back at Broth­er Du. "And they are af­ter me? Us?" She knew, in truth, that it must be the sword--as Broth­er Bon had said be­fore. But... even know­ing that her mas­ter had left in­cred­i­ble pow­er with­in it...

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Broth­er Du shift­ed, un­com­fort­ably. "Sis­ter Ki'el... war is not like peace­time. It is like noth­ing you have known. There are worlds of pain and suf­fer­ing that an army will in­flict in or­der to gain an ad­van­tage, to keep their en­e­mies from gain­ing an ad­van­tage, or to take an ad­van­tage away. There is--"

This time, Ki'el felt it--a shiv­er run­ning through the bar­ri­er that Bai Be­nai had laid around the prop­er­ty. The oth­ers shift­ed to look, but the fig­ures that were com­ing down the path were not at­tack­ing--and Ki'el rec­og­nized the one at their head.

"Sis­ter--"

But Du held out a hand, and Ki'el stopped. Ki'el looked, just looked, at Sis­ter Xari as she stood on the oth­er side of the bar­ri­er, and with her--sev­er­al peo­ple. No­bles, Ki'el had to guess, and none of them weak.

"Keep the girl safe." Ki'el blinked, sur­prised that Bai Be­nai had snuck up be­side her, but the woman stepped for­ward with a heavy re­solve that Ki'el couldn't un­der­stand.

[Of course I will. Who do you take me for?] Ki'el only dim­ly reg­is­tered the spir­i­tu­al trans­mis­sion from the fox on her shoul­der, be­cause in truth...

In truth... Ki'el was be­gin­ning to un­der­stand. She had har­bored a hope, even just a fleet­ing hope, that this Sect would be her home. And like every home that Ki'el had... it was about to be torn away from her. The is­land. Emer­ald Val­ley. She wasn't even al­lowed to fol­low Sobon to wher­ev­er he was, though she would have giv­en up all the sta­bil­i­ty in the world to be with him. He had fall­en from the stars, crossed the whole Djang em­pire and a great sea, to keep her safe.

And he wasn't here.

Ki'el wasn't even aware of step­ping back, and the oth­ers didn't look. Be­fore she un­der­stood what was hap­pen­ing, she had moved back into the shad­ow of the hut, the small lit­tle build­ing that she had just start­ed--just start­ed--to dream of mak­ing into a home.

A lit­tle table. Chairs. She and Chi­an with mat­tress­es on the ground next to each oth­er. Maybe they would talk late into the night. Learn­ing about qi, work­ing for the Sect. Some­day when she was healed, when she was stronger.

Mian and Xam would come. Maybe they would set­tle here, too. Ki'el stum­bled, un­see­ing, over a root, but caught her­self with­out falling down. The spir­it fox sent her a spir­i­tu­al trans­mis­sion, but Ki'el ig­nored it. And... Ki'el re­al­ized that Kuli was there, but not an­swer­ing. Why?

{ The chances of dy­ing here are high, } Kuli an­swered, and Ki'el froze. { I have been syn­chro­niz­ing with a spir­it god. In ex­change for a high­er like­li­hood of sur­vival-- }

"Are you mak­ing de­ci­sions with­out me, too?" Ki'el whis­pered to no one.

{ What­ev­er your cul­ture may be­lieve to be the age of adult­hood, you are only halfway to bi­o­log­i­cal ma­tu­ri­ty, } Kuli an­swered, the aug­ment­ed voice stiffer than Ki'el had ever heard it. Less... per­son­able, maybe even less hu­man. { Ki'el. This sit­u­a­tion may be be­yond our con­trol even if I-- }

There was a shat­ter­ing sound, and Ki'el felt the bar­ri­er col­lapse. But Ki'el was now be­hind the cot­tage from the in­vaders, and al­though she fum­bled out the Aether Sword and ex­tend­ed it, the blade felt un­com­fort­able in her hand.

[ For what it's worth, ] Meixu said, [ I'm def­i­nite­ly go­ing to ig­nore what you say and do what I want, some­times. But not when it mat­ters, like now. What do you want me to do, hon­ored con­trac­tor? ]

Ki'el heard the words, un­der­stood them, but her mind was frozen. Was there any­thing she could do? Was there some­thing she should do?

{ You should hide, } Kuli ad­vised. { As long as you are un­able to use ei­ther qi or aether-- }

Un­able. The word stabbed into Ki'el's mind. She was un­able to if. She was un­able to with­out. If she want­ed to live a nor­mal life, with­out in­jury.

{ Even if you in­jure your­self, you can­not com­pare your­self to any of these op­po­nents. }

Ki'el found her­self look­ing down at the sword. But... no mat­ter how she looked, she could still imag­ine the sword shat­ter­ing, some qi mas­ter of in­sane abil­i­ty tak­ing it in their hand and snap­ping the thing. Af­ter all... the sword didn't even ex­ist half the time. It was only there be­cause aether willed it to be.

Ki'el opened her mouth to say some­thing, but the en­tire is­land shook, and she felt an­oth­er, more dis­tant bar­ri­er crack. She shiv­ered, know­ing that some­thing pow­er­ful was there, forc­ing its way into the sect--but it wasn't flar­ing its qi, wasn't broad­cast­ing its pow­er to the whole world. What­ev­er pow­er it was us­ing to force open the bar­ri­er--

"Ki'el!" The voice of Sis­ter Xari brought Ki'el back to her­self. "Last chance! If you want to save your­self and your friends, you must sur­ren­der to my fam­i­ly." There was a note of re­gret there, but Ki'el didn't no­tice, didn't care. How could she? How could Ki'el care... and how could Xari ask her such a thing?

But... there was also the se­ri­ous­ness to the girl's voice. Was... had her friends al­ready been de­feat­ed? Was every­thing over? Had she just not sensed it? Ki'el start­ed to move for­ward, but the tiny claws of the fox on her shoul­der tensed, just enough that Ki'el paused.

[ There's been no com­bat, not yet, ] Meixu said. [ This place--not the house, the is­land--is ac­tu­al­ly pret­ty stur­dy. Un­less things get pret­ty se­ri­ous, there will be rocks to hide un­der. Don't wor­ry too much, child--I mean, hon­ored mas­ter. ]

Some­thing about the spir­it's voice stirred an ir­ri­ta­tion in Ki'el's mind. Was she re­al­ly be­ing so un­rea­son­able? But then again... wasn't she just stand­ing there, still in shock? Ki'el took a deep breath. She had... she had just been think­ing that she want­ed to know the truth. That she didn't want things hid­den from her.

Though it was un­wise, Ki'el fi­nal­ly, res­olute­ly, took a step for­ward, back around the cot­tage. The oth­ers were arranged in vague cir­cles, as though try­ing to pro­tect the house, but Ki'el knew that it was point­less, if it came to it. Al­though it felt in­sane to do, she took just one more step, and when that failed to make every­thing set on fire, she took an­oth­er.

Fire, some in­sane part of her mind mused. Maybe set­ting every­thing on fire wouldn't be so bad. Some­times.

"Ki'el." Xari's voice was pained, not that it mat­tered any­more. Ki'el locked eyes with her, and no­ticed sev­er­al oth­ers turn­ing to her as she moved clos­er. "If you join us--"

"You are of the Ren?" Ki'el's voice, to her own ears, was too steady--far too steady. Where was the ter­ror? The anx­i­ety? Where was ab­solute de­spair that was cours­ing through her veins? Why wasn't that all there, in her voice?

"I..." Xari paused. "Yes. I can't choose my fam­i­ly, Ki'el. And I can't run away from them. The Ren blood­line is all about chains and strings that bind us to­geth­er. You saw my Mid­sum­mer Danc­ing Moon." Xari scowled, but the ex­pres­sion passed. "There is no go­ing against my fam­i­ly once you are bound. I would have pre­ferred to sim­ply not no­tice you and your sword, but oth­ers have al­ready spread the word."

Xari. The walks through the sect had been... it hurt her heart to think of life with­out such a sim­ple thing. "Why must every home be tak­en from me? Every dream? Every small com­fort?" Ki'el bare­ly heard the words leave her mouth, but she tight­ened her grip on the sword.

"Ki'el." Xari's voice... no, Ki'el wasn't sure that she cared. "Come with me."

Ki'el weighed the sword in her hand, against the sog­gy weight that held down her heart. In truth... she want­ed a home, bad­ly enough that she might have done some­thing fool­ish, if not for Kuli, and the strange pres­ence of the spir­it fox on her shoul­der. But in­stead, her voice came again, far too lev­el, far too calm. "What is the An­gel to you?"

Xari shiv­ered, step­ping back. "So it's true? You're...?"

"What is he to you? To your fam­i­ly?" Ki'el's voice was in­sis­tant.

Xari looked at Ki'el, but af­ter a mo­ment, it seemed the girl had no way to meet her eyes. "An en­e­my."

Kuli. Ki'el felt that her will was lead­en, but still the aug­ment stirred, re­ar­rang­ing things in Ki'el's mind, un­til she had a full thought, a fin­ished in­tent. It was not at all com­plete--only a clean­er, safer ver­sion of what she had done be­fore. But Ki'el filled the blade with the in­tent, and she felt the aether at its core re­spond.

[ True Sword Qi ]

Ki'el felt like she was mov­ing in slow mo­tion. Not... be­cause she was see­ing things so quick­ly, not be­cause every­one else seemed to be re­spond­ing slow­ly. No... her body and mind just seemed so heavy, heav­ier than they had ever been. Xari flung her­self away, clap­ping her hands to­geth­er and send­ing her [Mid­sum­mer Danc­ing Moon] qi out, while the two who had been be­side her--no­bles, both, drew weapons and ig­nit­ed their qi.

And the qi, in truth, hurt Ki'el--just be­ing close to it seared her, but it did not re­pel her sword. Some­how, Ki'el's sword con­sumed qi from the sword and just kept cut­ting, through qi dense enough that it want­ed to phys­i­cal­ly force Ki'el back, to burn away her skin. And Ki'el not­ed, though she didn't care ei­ther way, that the sword seemed to length­en, at first just enough to cut the man charg­ing at her... but then, it kept go­ing.

[ Oh dear, ] Ki'el dim­ly heard Meixu say, as she stum­bled, thrown off bal­ance by the oth­er un­veiled qi, the one who hadn't been in the way of her sword. And she felt her­self yanked back­wards, though she wasn't sure how or why.

She was so tired, so scared... but she looked up, see­ing Mian and Xam there, look­ing down at her, wor­ried. And she felt Xam lift­ing her up, but didn't know why she would need to be car­ried... but also, she couldn't move.

"You did fine," she thought Mian was say­ing, but she wasn't sure if she was hear­ing him right, or just imag­in­ing that she did. All she could do--

No, there was one thing she could do. One thing she couldn't stop her­self from do­ing.

Ki'el just bare­ly man­aged to half-turn her head down­wards be­fore she threw up.