The change came across Sesako in an instant.

It was a subtle matter of expression, bearing, mannerism, the way he held himself — with confidence, and a conviction of his importance and place in the world that was wholly lacking in his younger, less great counterpart.

Sesako was back in control.

The day was half done; the smoke reddened the sun that was in slow decline towards the horizon.

The city still stood, beautiful, clad in marble and stone, bedecked with statuary, ornamented tiles. Thousands of brick and plaster buildings. The lovely accretion of over a thousand years. Only a few spots around the edges of the city had been cratered. There was that single deep crater in the middle of the city, where most of a block had been destroyed by the incorrectly deflected stone that the other had missed.

Grim lines wreathed Sesako’s face.

He glanced to the side to see Hinete, who studied the sky to observe the preparations in one of the firing clusters. Raven hair neatly trimmed; lips reddened from where she had nervously chewed on them, the silk of her fine green dress falling in graceful lines around her legs, and a light shawl wrapped around her neck and chest due to the sharp sea breezes that kept the city chilly even in the middle of summer.

Elegant chin, eyelashes, cheeks, dark almond eyes.

“Hinete.”

At the sound of his voice, she turned to him, eyes widening, and a startled smile crossing her face.

She threw herself into his arms, wrapping around him with all her considerable strength. “I’d been so scared. When that other person woke up in your place. I was so, so scared that you’d never come back.”

He held her against him, resting her head against his shoulder.

Sesako, imprisoned in his own mind, had developed a surprisingly sharp sense of jealousy over the course of the hours as he’d watched Hinete’s attitude towards the imposter change from hatred to a rather companionable sensation that was not quite friendship.

This jealousy now dissolved — she understood that they were not one person, and he did not need to fear that she would prefer the other to himself.

They held there, squeezing each other tight, in a long, long minute of perfect serenity.

WRONG! WRONG!

The wardings reported a new stone hurtling towards them.

They stepped apart and smiled softly at each other.

Sesako turned his eyes upwards to track the incoming stone.

As he studied the incoming attack he said to Hinete, “You were very impressive today, managing that fledgling.”

She shuddered. “I was always terrified, especially at first — he could barely manage anything. You know that the —”

“The circles are damaged and leaking. Yes.” Half that power was gone, while at this point three fourths ought to be left. And there was the shattered block in the middle of the city.

But Sesako had begun to see the whole thing in a more philosophical manner. He’d thrown a set of dice, and the fact that he was still alive at all, meant that the whole had gone better than he’d expected or had any cause to complain about.

The stone coming in for them was from the fourth circle, north forty. It had come from the almost exposed firing cluster that Sesako wanted to take out, and which had not hit directly at them before.

Sesako decided to try something new, and touched the stone, when it was still ten miles away, just softly pressing.

The angry red fire burst out with full strength to resist the pressure pushing it away.

Sesako smiled, yes, this should work.

He saw from the corner of his eye how Hinete watched the stone. Without looking aside from his target, he said in a warm tone. “You really were exceptional at managing him.”

She nodded and half smiled, blushing at the praise.

And then, after fifteen seconds of careful consistent pressure, with something like a pop, the emperor’s infused power ran out, and Sesako was free to divert the course of the stone.

That used less than a third of the power of the method that the other had been using to manage it.

As something of a game, Sesako tried to direct the stone into one of the craters that had already been dug on the mountain.

When it struck a few seconds later, he saw that he’d almost hit the bullseye. This stone had struck the existing crater, but not in the center.

Several other stones hurtled towards his tower, and Sesako managed to touch all of them at once in the same way.

More difficult to sustain his attention like this, maintaining a magical pressure on three stones at once, and keeping the pressure exactly even on all of them.

And then pop, pop, pop.

He managed to successfully have all three of them hit within a yard of each other on the mountainside.

Hinete clapped appreciatively.

Sesako grinned at her and bowed his head like a performer who had amazed the audience. “Grab some more food, and a few of those ales we got from Takue for my birthday — during the next lull. I’m going to talk out a plan to strike back and hurt them with Fitzuki and the others.”

She hopped up with a grin. “Yes, sir.

Much of the time he’d been trapped in the back of his own mind, he’d been studying the situation and thinking. He’d also begun the process of cycling the crimson energy through the celestial fourth dantian, but that required a long process before he gained anything useful.

After hours of struggling, only the slightest bit of the crimson power oozed into the rest of his body, reinforcing the foundations, and enhancing him.

But even that little gave him an edge, an extra burst of speed in flight, extra strength when hitting, and extra endurance when channeling power. The cycling of power through the three fully developed dantians was just a little faster and thicker.

After having reached his limits, and been fixed there for nearly fifty years, there was a pleasure in suddenly being perceptibly better.

Perhaps it was this extra strength that made him want to strike them. Or perhaps it was simply because he saw a chance.

The empire, for all its vaunted skills in siege craft had made a subtle mistake, barely visible.

There were seven clusters of hurlers high in the sky above their floating island, and over the oceans.

One of them though had been projected too far forward. Its placement had allowed them to gain favorable cross angles against the towers on the far side of the city from Sesako’s tower. The one that had been destroyed and the two that had suffered substantial damage were victims of this.

But they were vulnerable. There was only one unit of guardians protecting this hurler set, and it was clear they did not have any of the profound souls that the emperor had brought.

Sesako had only detected the activity of one profound soul with that firing cluster, and he must be physically and mentally tired from the day’s shooting.

Here in the city, there were more than enough hurlers that had been reconfigured to throw cultivators instead of stones to send a large enough group up to destroy that set of hurlers, and then retreat in good order.

A hurl and flight up to the floating firing cluster.

About forty seconds, but while within the half dome in the empty air above the wardings of the city they would be able to maintain invisibility, and they had enough spell work to keep that for a few seconds longer.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

So, the imperial forces around the hurlers would have twenty seconds of warning.

The primary guard force was a full minute away — since the profound soul leading it would not leave the defense of his phalanx of the purified cores to attack a force alone.

They could hold that group off, slowing them for another two minutes, while the reserve guards from the island and the other floating defense groups came up.

More than enough time to destroy all twelve hurlers and the hovering store of ammunition.

And he’d have done something to strike back.

It was time to speak with Fitzuki and the clan chiefs to get support to conduct this attack.

Ten minutes later, little visual representations of three of the Seven, and several of the clan chiefs, stared back at Sesako.

The magic used to project their images to each other worked because of how intimately connected the towers which each of them stood in were, but it was a useful trick on occasion during battle.

“Sesako! My favorite wet behind the ears babe in swaddling,” Fitzuki snickered. The old mercenary had a wholly inappropriate delight. “Finest example of missing a shot I’d ever seen — I’d been worried that you’d had a seizure. And what the fuck happened when you dropped a stone in the middle of the city?”

“Well, you stopped it.”

Sesako’s old teacher, Takue, frowned sharply, “No arguing amongst ourselves. We must —”

“Rest it.” Fitzuki spoke over her. “Sesako’s got a thick enough skin.”

“It was a consequence of the failed ritual to increase my power that I spoke to you about yesterday,” Sesako spoke cautiously, since he did not believe that the clan chiefs who were part of this conversation knew anything about the other spirit inhabiting him.

“Which meant you knocked the shot aside like you were a youth who'd just gotten their golden core and was participating in their first drill?” Fitzuki’s eyebrow rose skeptically.

“I’ll explain the matter more fully at a later time. Now is not the time. Now is the time to strike back. Now is the time to hurt them, and —”

“It's a trap.”

“You don’t know what I’m referring to,” Sesako continued, “And —”

“A trap. It's always a trap.” Fitzuki interrupted. “Only a babe in swaddling who thinks that he is incredible because he became powerful before he was old enough to be smart and wise can’t see that it is a trap.”

Sesako was the most powerful of the seven, which gave him some respect. But he also was the youngest, at barely over a hundred years old.

Akine was the youngest after him, and the only other cultivator of Yatamo who had opened her core after the rebellion, and she was still nearly twice his age. Perhaps as important, all of the other profound souls in the group had been alive long enough for the physical signs of aging to show on their bodies. They looked to be of the middle years or elder years, while he looked like he was still a young handsome man with vibrant skin and a full growth of hair.

The gradations of power amongst those who had fully developed their profound soul were never enormous, and Sesako with his extraordinary abilities could not even channel twice what the weakest profound soul might. In fact, Sesako would hopelessly lose a direct fight with Fitzuki, simply because Fitzuki had far more experience in battle, because he enjoyed it and sought out places in the world where he could fight.

Kisiko stroked his long gray beard, and asked, “Just what opportunity seest thou? And Fitzuki, what believest thou that he saw? If they are the same, I will oppose the action.”

“I do not care what you oppose,” Sesako said. “I will lead this attack, if Fitzuki cannot prove it to be a trap.”

“Is it that spot in the west quadrant, the group set out maybe three miles out onto the sea away from their island?” Fitzuki asked.

“No,” Sesako replied with a smile. “They’ve got to have at least a hundred hurlers with a complete battle group ready to reinforce the area within seconds. That is a trap.”

“Ah, just checking, then which point?”

“The northern forward group.”

Each of the cultivators listening to the conversation glanced up, to look out from their own towers at the specified target.

Fitzuki shook his head. “It will be a trap.”

“How?” This time Takue was the one to query the old veteran rather than Sesako.

“Damned if I know — it wouldn’t be a very good trap if I did.”

“But —”

“Always a trap. It's a trap. It's a trap. That goat fucker doesn’t know how to do anything but set traps.”

“According to our spies the emperor is not even present with the invasion force. He certainly has not flown his banner.” Sesako replied.

“That’s probably a trap too.”

“They can’t be hiding any hurlers to reinforce the position in the cliff side, and —”

“A trap. You never fought with the emperor. Canny, clever fellow. Goat fucker.”

“Then explain, what they could possibly do to hurt us while we make the raid — the timing is tight, and might go badly, but we must be brave and take risks if we are to protect the Great Ones from these forces.”

“Maybe there is no trap, and he just hopes that the guard will get in close enough to pin any group there before they can all escape, and he can kill two or three of the attackers.” Fitzuki replied. “I doubt it. Still a proper trap most likely. But it is pointless. Suppose you are right, and you take down twelve of their hurlers without any losses. It is pointless. They will have at least a hundred spare ones on that island, and they can just send flyers back to the continent to grab more if they run out here. Pointless.”

“Well, this is spoken,” Kisiko smiled around at them, as he spoke in a conciliatory voice. “The path into the future hath made itself clear. We ought not —”

“If you think any attempt to change our fate is pointless, then we might as well burn it all away on a great throw of the dice, instead of waiting like trapped mice to be snacked upon by the cat.”

“My dear Sesako,” Kisiko said with a grim smile. “I begin to suspect that thou hast no great objection to facing thy own death. You are eager for death. That ritual. This scheme for attack. Thou mayest be willing to die for the price of a fine song, but while I shall strive, struggle, and beat the brutal drums of battle to protect our dragons, I’ll not die in a profitless gamble.”

“You have already once betrayed that which is most beautiful, most good, most —”

“The dragons are wonderful creatures, but they are not all goodness in the world.”

Fitzuki glared at Kisiko. And Takue shook her head and greyly frowned.

“If we are doomed,” Sesako said, “I shall face my doom with dignity, striving, always striving to look for any chance that might avert that doom. To give up is not in my nature.”

Kisiko sneered. “Young boiled blood — I am present. Fitzuki,” Kisiko turned away from Sesako, as though he refused the right of Sesako to judge him. “You see that I have made myself present to take my part in this great campaign, and to brave the chance and the danger of brute battle. Though I sing the warrior’s song once more, I do not have such an idiot mind as to think that our independence and our Great Ones are worth more than all the rest of the world combined and summed together in one column. For I say unto thee, they are not. There is beauty in the performance of the love act with your wife, in the hearing when your child speaks ‘Dada’ for the first time. It is in the squalling of every peasant babe, it is in the roaring of every kingly lion, in the rising of every sun, and even in the steaming muddy muck after every jungle monsoon — I am old, but I’ll not choose to die and lose sight of that beauty before the scope of mine years is full run out.”

Fitzuki wrinkled his nose in annoyance. “The blessings matter. The Great Ones nurtured our people. And we owe to them —”

“We owe our finest effort. We owe a struggle so long as the struggle has a point. We do not owe to the Great Ones the fat burnt, lightning struck, blackened dead possibility that we might live to enjoy a future life without her.”

Somehow… despite how he normally sneered at Kisiko for cowardice, some echo of the way Sesako’s other spoke struck him. They both had a similar insistence that dying for honor and dying so that one did not outlive the Great Ones was wrong. One should only fight this war when there was hope, and when it was not certain that one would pay with their life to merely delay the enemy.

Takue spread her hands several times, smiling in that old familiar way of hers that Sesako had been familiar with for a century. “Dears, dears, dears — we are here to fight. Old friends, we are all together. Let's not argue? No?” Her smile was like that of a mother who was about to add, ‘I’ll bake you all your favorite pastries if you don’t fight.’

In some ways, even though Takue was a hundred years younger than Kisiko, she always had seemed older to Sesako.

“I shall not hurl my body into the action as a part of a group probing this trap,” Kisiko grunted back.

“It isn’t a trap, and Fitzuki is perpetually paranoid.” Sesako replied.

“Proper paranoia.” Fitzuki said. “Only the paranoid are fit for war. I advise against this action, strongly — I know that I have been given command to organize this battle, and as such you ought to listen to me and not do this.”

“You cannot command me. I am one of the seven. I am your equal. We choose you to command, but you do not have the right to give me any order. If I choose not to accept it.”

“Damned fool notion. Command ought to have command.” Fitzuki replied. “But us profound souls generally are so ‘wise’ that we become stupid.”

“This is not stupid; it is a risk that will —”

“If throwing the dice would win us anything useful, then I might support the game, but not this.”

Expected value.

The phrase floated up into Sesako’s head from where the other’s mind sat. This plan has a low expected value, small chance of disaster in exchange for a high probability of a fairly small benefit.

He sensed that the others thought that Fitzuki was right, that it was a stupid plan.

That, more than anything, stiffened Sesako in his commitment and conviction. He could not let the stones be hurled at them endlessly without doing anything.

“Look,” Sesako said. “Everything is clearly visible, stones, hurlers, the bare cliff face of the island, the field of stones standing athwart the path for reinforcements, the guard regiments, and the cultivators operating the hurlers.”

“Are you sure?” Takue asked her former apprentice, her face as gray and worried as her hair. “Are you confident that this is not a trap?”

“I am,” Sesako replied.

“Then we must try something.” She looked at the others. “Our warriors will happily volunteer for this fight. They hate this enforced stillness as our city is crushed around us as much as I do. Fifty purified core warriors will be an ample defense for the one of us who goes up.”

“I shall be the one to lead the raid,” said Sesako. “The opportunity is my vision; thus, the risk shall be my burden.”

“I hope you don’t want the glory.” Fitzuki rolled his eyes at Sesako’s speech. “Glory is of small benefit to the dead — get married, Sesako. You are of an age for marriage — if one of the chiefs will give you the men, I cannot stop you, and I shall not argue against the stupidity in the council of chiefs.”

“Will you stand ready to ward us with hurlers?”

“Fool, damned, stupid notion! — Damn, damn, damn! Don’t think that you can play this safe. Nothing will make it safe. It is a trap, you stupid boy.”

Sesako set his jaw. “Fitzuki, I do not appreciate having my name and my position spoken of in such a way. Will you organize the forces to cover us as we attack, or shall I make the raid without such aid?”

Fitzuki looked through the magical system at him very deeply, and then he sighed. “Sesi, you know how fond of you I’ve been for many years. I don’t want you to die.”

Something about the tone of Fitzuki’s voice punctured Sesako’s anger. He sighed and tried to smile. “I won’t die, and it isn’t a trap.”

“It is a trap, and I’ll still do everything I can to help you get out of it. Even though you are being too stupid too deserve help. But I won’t compromise the defense of the city and the island.”

“Thank you.” Sesako bent his head with sincerity. “Fitzuki, You know I always rely upon you.”

“Do not think that my support will be sufficient. It will not be.”

“It isn’t a trap.”

Fitzuki sighed with exasperation. “Don’t get killed, idiot. I like you.”