Ki'el was a lit­tle sur­prised, and some­what con­cerned, that the El­der did not ask them to move into a pri­vate area, or even step away from the en­trance to the Less­er House. If any­thing, she thought, as she glanced to­wards the en­trance, it seemed al­most as though the El­der did not care where they were, per­haps ex­pect­ing the mat­ter to be solved triv­ial­ly. And yet... Ki'el glanced over, think­ing that she had not mem­o­rized the places ex­act­ly, but it seemed that the spot where she had been fight­ing, and the spot where Xan Bu had been stand­ing, were all with­in the ring of dark­ness that El­der Gol had cre­at­ed.

If there was any truth-seek­ing method to the ring, Ki'el hoped, that would grant him some in­sight into what had gone on be­fore.

"Be­fore any oth­er ac­cu­sa­tion is made," Xan Bu said, his voice sound­ing cross, "I did not wound the stu­dents be­fore me, and if my friend hap­pened to strike some­one too hard, it was only in de­fense of my hon­or." His lips curled only slight­ly away from his teeth, as though it was be­neath him to scowl and yet he could not re­sist. "An ac­cu­sa­tion was made that might have im­plied I was a de­mon­ic cul­ti­va­tor."

El­der Gol's eyes mea­sured the man, then turned to face Ki'el. She took a deep breath, cir­cu­lat­ing fresh aether through her­self and Da Chi­an, but re­leased the tech­nique af­ter a mo­ment, when it seemed that noth­ing was in­trud­ing ex­cept the El­der's tech­nique. "I have nev­er wit­nessed a de­mon­ic tech­nique," Ki'el ad­mit­ted, "and I could only guess at what form one would take. How­ev­er... hav­ing been at the mer­cy of your qi, it spoke a great deal of what has shaped you." She stepped for­ward, know­ing that it was bold of her. "When ex­posed to your qi, I felt that the world was whis­per­ing about me, as though it in­tend­ed to be­tray me. It was only... my pu­rifi­ca­tion tech­nique that helped me re­sist that feel­ing, and when I did and I could sense the world clear­ly, I re­al­ized that you must suf­fer from the same ef­fect your­self."

Xan Bu's qi spiked, first when she men­tioned hav­ing a pu­rifi­ca­tion tech­nique, then again a mo­ment lat­er when she spoke of sens­ing the world clear­ly. He glanced away, and a mo­ment lat­er, the El­der's eyes re­turned to him. "My qi is only Gold, same as yours. I have not yet de­vel­oped any qi na­tures, and would nev­er have at­tempt­ed to do so with­out in­struc­tion." He turned and fo­cused on Ki'el, and then past her. "Is that pu­rifi­ca­tion tech­nique what al­lowed you to tame that fer­al mon­ster af­ter she at­tacked my com­pan­ion?"

"It purged your qi from them, as it did from me," Ki'el con­firmed, aware that Da Chi­an had tak­en a step for­ward and was breath­ing heav­i­ly, but had re­strained them­selves. "Once free from your qi, they re­gained their sens­es."

"That is a heavy ac­cu­sa­tion. You be­lieve that my qi dri­ves peo­ple mad? On what proof?"

Ki'el glanced at the el­der, who looked back at her, still out­ward­ly calm. What­ev­er thoughts re­mained in those depths, Ki'el had no way to know. "Do you not have a way to de­ter­mine this?"

"To the best of your knowl­edge, you have each spo­ken no lies," El­der Gol said, "but there re­main many dif­fer­ent con­clu­sions one might reach. Please con­tin­ue to search for the truth, so that jus­tice may be done."

Ki'el re­sist­ed the urge to glare at the old man, though she was sure her in­tent leaked out her mis­trust. Kuli, she in­struct­ed in her mind, stop me if you think I'm mak­ing a mis­take. She turned to look at Xan Bu, and opened her mouth to speak... but stopped, at Kuli's im­me­di­ate men­tal pres­sure. She closed her mouth, study­ing Xan Bu, and nod­ded. "Xan Bu. The bracelet that you wore last night on your left wrist, you are not wear­ing to­day, al­though you wear one just like it. Am I wrong?"

Xan Bu's qi im­me­di­ate­ly be­gan to riot, though the man held his out­ward com­po­sure bet­ter. "I have many ac­ces­sories," he said. "They get dirty from Sect work, so I of­ten do not wear the same one day af­ter day."

"Can you pro­duce that bracelet?"

"I see no rea­son to." Xan Bu's eyes nar­rowed at her, and his qi be­came more er­rat­ic.

"You very clear­ly know why I am ask­ing," Ki'el said, step­ping for­ward again. "I sensed that you put qi into that bracelet be­fore your 'friends' that night moved as one. It is clear­ly an ar­ti­fact of some kind, and I won­der just what its ef­fects are. It might only al­low you to com­mu­ni­cate, but it might also do more."

Xan Bu glanced at El­der Gol, and Ki'el could see that the man's face was be­com­ing paler. "I... do not have the ar­ti­fact on my per­son."

"Am I wrong to guess that you hid it and re­placed it with an­oth­er, just as you came with a dif­fer­ent group of friends, so that if I sug­gest­ed that the bracelet you wore was an ar­ti­fact, or that the peo­ple around you at­tacked me, you could claim with hon­esty that it was un­true?"

"That is--" Xan Bu shift­ed. "I am not so wily as to come up with such a plan," he said. "I am many things, but a plot­ter and a schemer I am not."

Kuli helped Ki'el not miss the de­flec­tion. She would doubt­less have un­der­stood it lat­er, but in the mo­ment, she felt dis­heart­ened by the de­nial, and the El­der's si­lence af­ter­wards. "So it was not your plan," em­pha­sized Ki'el. "But was it your in­tent? Is that the rea­son why these things were done?"

"That... may have been how it was ex­plained to me," Xan Bu ad­mit­ted af­ter a long mo­ment of si­lence.

"Who ex­plained it? Who helped you to plot so that you could get away--" Ki'el felt Kuli pres­sure her to stop, be­fore she said some­thing per­haps too much. She stopped and took a deep breath, and de­cid­ed to change her ques­tion in­stead of forc­ing that out of him. "Do you have rea­son to sus­pect that the bracelet may have had the ef­fect I men­tioned on your qi?"

"Ah..." Xan Bu's face now had al­most no col­or. "It... is pos­si­ble. It has... un­pleas­ant ef­fects."

"Who gave it to you? The same per­son who schooled you how to es­cape this kind of in­ves­ti­ga­tion? Did you come to the is­land with it?" Ki'el's qi, to her own mind, was straight as a blade, and bared naked be­fore the El­der and Xan Bu, threat­en­ing--but pure. An un­yield­ing sword, not one that cleaved flesh and bone as though it were sport.

Xan Bu's eyes were now locked with El­der Gol's, whose face had not turned back to Ki'el for a time. And then, sud­den­ly, one of the oth­ers in the crowd be­hind Xan Bu got a strange look on her face, and Xan Bu leaped to­ward the el­der, an­oth­er ar­ti­fact ap­pear­ing in his hand.

El­der Gol re­duced Xan Bu's arms and chest to ash­es in what Ki'el would lat­er de­cide was a mo­ment of con­fu­sion, but his eyes locked on the woman who had the bracelet a mo­ment lat­er, and one of his hands was on her throat, while the oth­er ripped her arm off at the shoul­der, throw­ing the arm that had the bracelet across the yard. With­in mo­ments, a ring of white spikes were dri­ven in the ground around the arm, and an­oth­er ring ap­peared around Xan Bu's sev­ered head, and the El­der was sim­ply star­ing, as though in dis­be­lief.

Ki'el, per­haps more than many of the oth­ers around at that mo­ment, rec­og­nized that what she felt was the qi of a very pow­er­ful per­son who was ter­ri­fied and fu­ri­ous. She would med­i­tate on it lat­er, think­ing of the dif­fer­ent kinds of aether that Sobon spoke of in qi, and try­ing to un­der­stand how the emo­tions of a pow­er­ful mas­ter had flowed into and around the whole en­vi­ron­ment, not sim­ply em­anat­ed from his body like steam or smoke. Her abil­i­ty in the mo­ment to un­der­stand it was lit­tle enough; she could sense as­pects of the riv­er stones, in and out, and of the left and right cy­cles, and she could imag­ine that the man was also think­ing very fast--ac­cel­er­at­ing his own mind--and try­ing to hold on to the mo­ment and not let it pass, but none of this could re­al­ly be un­der­stand. Even if she had been able to stand there and study it for an age, she might not have un­der­stood it.

But it was in truth only a mo­ment, and the El­der turned to Ki'el with eyes that were very dark. "You have done well to un­cov­er the truth, Xoi Doua Ki'el. This mat­ter will be in­ves­ti­gat­ed more thor­ough­ly, as it seems that some tru­ly dan­ger­ous things are afoot. Some­one will come to speak to you soon about the for­fei­ture."

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Ki'el, not know­ing what that meant, nod­ded and stepped back, and turned to look at Da Chi­an, who had gone white as a sheet and fall­en to their knees. She moved over to them, think­ing that she could help Da Chi­an to un­der­stand the mo­ment, but when she touched their shoul­der, they were un­re­spon­sive, and re­mained so when she was more force­ful.

So Ki'el helped Chi­an to their feet and pulled them into the build­ing, tak­ing them im­me­di­ate­ly to Sis­ter Futi's of­fice, who--un­usu­al for the woman--had set out three cups of tea, and was sim­ply sit­ting there with one of them, a very se­ri­ous look on her face.

"Da Chi­an will be fine," Futi said, as Ki'el helped the oth­er into a chair. "Most peo­ple would not be able to han­dle the ex­po­sure to an El­der's qi as well as you. That pu­rifi­ca­tion tech­nique you men­tion--I take it that is one of the abil­i­ties from your mas­ter?"

"Yes. It is... per­haps the wrong term for it, but it was also not a lie." Ki'el glanced at the tea, but hon­est­ly had no in­ter­est in it at all. She knew that it was a Djang cus­tom, and she did not hate the drink, but at the mo­ment, she had no stom­ach for any­thing, much less a drink she did not like. "It is sim­ply a pure en­er­gy that is help­ful to the body and spir­it. It... wash­es away some things that get in­side, per­haps."

"It ex­plains last night. I thought your mind was very sharp in the mo­ment, when most would be con­fused." Futi caught Ki'el's eyes. "It is some­thing that may be valu­able to the Sect, so I will dis­cuss it with oth­ers, un­less you tell me not to.

In­stead of an­swer­ing right away, Ki'el found an­oth­er chair in the room and sat, still not tak­ing one of the cups of tea. "El­der Gol... what is this 'for­fei­ture' he spoke of?"

"It is sim­ple enough," she replied. "When a crime, es­pe­cial­ly a cap­i­tal crime, is com­mit­ed, then the ag­griev­ed is due a sum in rec­om­pense, for­feit­ed by the ag­gres­sor." She paused only a mo­ment, her tone switch­ing from aca­d­e­m­ic to con­ver­sa­tion­al. "That means that the one who at­tacks an­oth­er must pay. It is why Xan Bu was ea­ger to get Da Chi­an, or you, to at­tack his friend. If he can con­vince a mas­ter that he was the ag­griev­ed, then some Sect points and re­sources, and pos­si­bly even per­son­al pos­ses­sions, can be­come his. Since you have proven be­yond a shad­ow of a doubt that Xan Bu and Mai Xi­dou were at fault, their for­fei­ture will come to you." She glanced at Da Chi­an. "The sect is not... nu­anced on these mat­ters. Be­cause you proved it, all the for­fei­ture will come to you."

Ki'el un­der­stood, and when Futi turned back to her, she clear­ly saw that in her eyes, be­cause she con­tin­ued. "The length of time you must re­main in the Less­er House is a mat­ter, as much of any­thing, of sect points. Not only can you use them to pur­chase re­sources for your own cul­ti­va­tion, but a price in sect points must be paid for every at­tempt to pass the Gold­en Wall un­der su­per­vi­sion. I hap­pen to know that Xan Bu trades his points fre­quent­ly, with peo­ple who will now come un­der grave sus­pi­cion, and so he may have a great num­ber now--or only a few. As for sect re­sources... for those who can­not af­ford their own Space Rings, the sect will of­ten al­low dis­ci­ples to pur­chase the rights to ma­te­ri­als that they do not im­me­di­ate­ly claim. Those rights can be sold to an­oth­er, or trad­ed back to the sect. Any rights that Xan Bu pur­chased will be a part of his for­fei­ture, nat­u­ral­ly. When the time comes that you wish to pur­chase or use such things, I or oth­ers can di­rect you to the dispsen­so­ry."

As she was speak­ing, Ki'el no­ticed that Da Chi­an's breath­ing had slow­ly got­ten stronger, and they blinked, first once and then sev­er­al times, and then shook their head. "I am... awake. My apolo­gies, Sis­ter Futi. And sis­ter... apolo­gies, but I do not know...?"

"I am Ki'el," she re­as­sured Da Chi­an with a hand on theirs, and al­though they shied away for a mo­ment, it was only that, be­fore they took Ki'el's hand in re­turn. "You are safe."

"Yes, I..." She shook her head. "Did Broth­er Bu... ac­tu­al­ly at­tack an El­der?"

"Yes. He was con­trolled." Futi stood up be­hind her desk, and the pleas­ant con­ver­staion­al tone that she had had dis­ap­peared. "Sis­ter Ki'el, Sis­ter Chi­an. Al­though oth­ers will have wit­nessed this, you should speak lit­tle or noth­ing of what hap­pened, and es­pe­cial­ly, not speak any­thing of con­trol­ling pow­ers and de­mon­ic qi, or any of the rea­sons why you be­lieve some­thing hap­pened." She glanced at Ki'el, who frowned, but nod­ded. "Oth­ers will in­ves­ti­gate, and they will come to their own con­clu­sions of what hap­pened. They will not tell you, or me, or any­one in the Less­er House. If it is found that you speak of a mat­ter they in­ves­ti­gat­ed, and you con­tra­dict what they say oc­curred, even if you speak out of ig­no­rance, they will not be kind. Do you un­der­stand?"

"Yes," Ki'el said, al­though there was a cross­ness to her voice.

Sis­ter Futi stepped back, her fea­tures re­lax­ing a lit­tle, but still look­ing se­vere. "You are young, Ki'el. Younger than many who end up in the Sect, and more ma­ture than many as well. To see you stand­ing there, like a qi sword carv­ing out a bit of cor­rup­tion, hurts my heart, be­cause that should have been the work of adults, not chil­dren. And yet, as long as you are here, you will be treat­ed like an adult, no dif­fer­ent from any­one else." She glanced be­tween the two of them. "You may choose to take some time off from sect du­ties, or you may come to me for an as­sign­ment if you wish to clear your head. For now... I must con­tin­ue my own du­ties."

"Of course." Ki'el stood, re­leas­ing Chi­an's hand and of­fer­ing the old­er woman a short bow and half-salute. "Thank you, Sis­ter."

When she turned, Chi­an was also of­fer­ing a bow and salute, and the two walked out of Futi's space to­geth­er. Chi­an's legs seemed to get more and more un­sta­ble the more they walked away, and Ki'el moved up be­side them, lay­ing a hand on their shoul­der out of con­cern. Chi­an turned to look, and then looked away.

"You are kind, Sis­ter Ki'el," they said af­ter a mo­ment. "I do not... know what would have hap­pened to me with­out your as­sis­tance."

Ki'el was un­sure for a mo­ment of what to say, but once she found words, they came quick­ly. "I was once res­cued as well, Da Chi­an. It is... not hard to see in you what I felt be­fore." Ki'el found her eyes stray­ing to noth­ing, a speck of dirt on the floor in front of her, that she watched pass with­out any in­ter­est at all. "A lack of hope. A lack of con­nec­tion. An empti­ness. There are many words, and they are... not good enough."

"They are not," Chi­an agreed af­ter a mo­ment. "I have no­ticed you do not call me sis­ter, Ki'el. Have I of­fend­ed you?"

Ki'el paused, but shook her head. "No. Only... the word did not seem to fit you. I will use it if you wish."

Chi­an turned and caught Ki'el's eyes, and some­where in that gaze, Ki'el felt a con­nec­tion to the per­son be­side her. "You are not wrong that it does not fit me, but it is what I am. What am I to you, if not a sect sis­ter?"

"A friend," Ki'el of­fered, with a small smile she hoped was sym­pa­thet­ic, and not sim­ply show­ing her own lon­li­ness.

Chi­an sud­den­ly looked away, their cheeks and ears red­den­ing with em­bar­rass­ment. "I... yes, we are friends, as long as you'll have me, Sis­ter Ki'el. But the sect ex­pects us to be a bit more for­mal than that, don't they? At least in pub­lic?"

"I will use the term if you wish," Ki'el in­sist­ed. "But... my mas­ter spoke of how who we are is no one else's busi­ness. And she... he..." Ki'el knew that cor­rect­ing her­self, in any oth­er cir­cum­stance, might only be con­fus­ing, but she al­lowed it now. And she knew that she was ex­tend­ing what Sobon had ac­tu­al­ly said... but she felt he would have ap­proved. "He spoke of how he was dis­gust­ed at oth­ers be­ing raised to be what oth­ers wish them to be, not con­sid­er­ing the per­son's own truths. If I be­lieved that you liked the word, I would have used it, but from the start, it did not seem to fit."

"It is not wrong," Chi­an said, and alone in the hall­way, just the two of them, they ad­just­ed their sect cloth­ing so that Ki'el could see the naked truth, only for a mo­ment. "I am a sis­ter. But I am also... nev­er go­ing to have a child, ac­cord­ing to my moth­er. In some parts of our fam­i­ly, the spir­it beast blood­line is too strong, and the body be­comes warped. I may be a sis­ter, but I can­not be a moth­er. I am also not a broth­er, and can nev­er be a fa­ther. I can­not be like my moth­er, and I can­not be like my fa­ther. I am not sure who I am, or what. But al­though I am a sis­ter, I do not feel like a girl, and I do not sus­pect I will ever be a woman."

Ki'el nod­ded at that, a lit­tle sad­dened at Chi­an's con­fu­sion. "Your fam­i­ly does not un­der­stand?"

"They..." Chi­an looked away. "As you said, they are rais­ing me to be what they wish me to be. It is why I am here."

"I do not be­lieve you need to be what they wish," Ki'el said, putting her hand on Chi­an's shoul­der once more. "Once you leave the sect, you will be strong enough to walk this world on your own, will you not?"

Chi­an, this time, brushed her hand away. "The Rag­ing Storm Spir­it Fox blood­line is too rare and too pow­er­ful for peo­ple to sim­ply ig­nore. If I do not have my fam­i­ly's pro­tec­tion, I would need an­oth­er's, and any­one else would wish to mere­ly use me. I can­not trust..." Chi­an paused, then turned to Ki'el. "Even you, Ki'el. I am sor­ry."

Ki'el just shook her head. "I am sure it seems that way to you," she said, "but the ways my mas­ter taught me will nev­er re­quire peo­ple of spe­cial blood­lines or the sac­ri­fice of chil­dren. When last I saw my mas­ter, he was prepar­ing to go fight an en­e­my with only a few script­ed items of most­ly mun­dane ma­te­r­i­al, along with Star­beast core. Al­though I have not seen him since then, I have been told that he sur­vived." She moved up to be in front of Chi­an, forc­ing them to look in her eyes. "Mas­ter Sobon's trea­sure is knowl­edge, not blood. It is the same for those who fol­low him."

Chi­an mea­sured her eyes for a time, then looked away. "I will think on this," they said. "And I be­lieve you when you say that we are friends. But... trust­ing you with my fu­ture is an­oth­er mat­ter."

"I un­der­stand." Ki'el, though she yearned to re­as­sure Da Chi­an, of­fered them a bow and a salute. "I will see you around, Chi­an. Sis­ter, if you wish."

"Sis­ter, for now," Chi­an agreed, bow­ing back. "...Thank you, Ki'el."

Ki'el moved away feel­ing more pos­i­tive since she had since that mo­ment of peace at dawn.