In my youth, I knew true despair, the powerlessness of facing monsters the world can only dream of now. In my prime, I again knew true despair when I saw all my oldest allies and friends fall one-by-one to their own ambitions or self-pity. And now, as my mind wears thin, and age calls me to find the end…I know true despair again in my quiet moments. I worry, my daughter, will you all be strong enough to find your way together to banish the evils that find you? Will you rise…or will you fall? – From the memoirs of Tian Taili, daughter of the Sun Empress.

* * *

Was it a little grandiose to declare myself the master of reality? Yes. But, there was a time when that wasn’t far from the truth. Maybe I was stuck at Bronze for now, but, in the days of old, I was the most powerful of the Ascendents. Even the Sun Queen herself feared my power…

And, in that moment, grandiose was necessary. After all, Xinya, my ward, had referred to Pharyx of all people by the title of “master” before me, and I wasn’t sure why that bothered me so much. I told her not to because the term “master” invokes the image of a wizened old cultivator, all wrinkles and wisdom. I had the wisdom, but the wrinkles were something I didn’t even want associated with me. I was the most handsome Ascendent of the old world, the most beautiful in body and spirit.

And yet…that Xinya had been so respectful to Pharyx, when she’d never so much as bowed her head to me, stuck at me like a thorn in my sandal. Was this how my masters felt when I’d been so flippant to them in my youth? Was this my just desserts?

Probably. I imagined my masters in Heaven’s Blade were probably laughing at me from the afterlife. Karma sure is a bitch, ain’t it?

Xinya’s eyes swam with the possibilities, and I smiled coyly. My declaration had piqued her interest, as was expected. I leaned back against my bedroll as she tried to puzzle out my meaning.

“I don’t understand,” she ultimately admitted.

“And that’s fine for now,” I answered. “I will teach you more of the moon when you are ready, but it would do you little to discuss them while you still don’t have a core with which to examine them.”

She nodded. “I need to do more thinking on the nature of lightning, I think.”

“Good. Identifying what you understand and what you don’t is critical for a cultivator,” I praised. “Those who believe they know everything understand very little.”

Pollen and Pharyx both nodded in agreement, which was enough for Xinya. She stood and returned to her bedroll. I noticed a small frown cross Pharyx’s face as she didn’t give him a second glance, and I bit back a laugh. That sly child just wanted him to flash his lights to compare it against my hair, didn’t she?

It was good, at least, to know that she knew some manners, even if she didn’t use them. I’d have to work on that with her. The art of behaving around more powerful cultivators without being crushed like an ant was an important one to learn, especially for those at the bottom of the cultivation world.

I finished my bun before stretching. “I’ll take first watch,” I offered. “Go get some sleep.”

Pharyx and Pollen both nodded. Pharyx spread his bedroll next to the fire while Pollen shifted into the form of an impossibly large bee and buzzed up into the trees to rest for the night. Meanwhile, Xinya stared up at the moon overhead for a long time before eventually settling down in her own bedding.

I listened to the forest around us. This deep into spider territory, the night was eerily quiet beyond our campfire. No nightbirds sang in the trees, and no bugs made themselves known for fear of finding themselves in a spider’s hungry jaws. The only sound beyond the crackling of the fire was the wind through the branches.

To break the silence, I hummed a soft melody. I didn’t even realize what it was until I was halfway through it, and my heart fell. It was a song I’d once played for Jinshi in the midst of a hunt when we were still at Gold. He’d been trapped between a dozen different shades, and I’d played it to soothe them, and, ever since, it had become our song. It seemed that seeing his statue in the temple had stirred up all the old wounds.

I shoved them aside. They were ancient history, and things I’d fought for millennia to come to terms with while rotting in prison. I was over it…or so I kept telling myself. Instead, I began to think of a new song.

I should get a flute when I get back to Saikan, I thought to myself. I miss the arts.

The song that drifted through my head was playful, like wind through the branches. Though it definitely still needed work, and an instrument with which to play it, I was happy with the feel of it by the time I nudged Pharyx awake for his watch.

The grumpy hornet sighed and rose, and I spread my bedroll across the ground and settled down to sleep. I hummed that melody to myself, and, as my mind slowly drifted off to sleep, I found myself picturing the lone blue flower in Tenri’s garden. It was beautiful, just like the song would be one day.

* * *

The next morning rose cold and damp, and without a single ray of sunlight shining through the clouds. Pharyx raised a hand to his eyes and looked up at the sky before sighing.

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“I should have known it would be a miserable day,” he muttered. I patted his shoulder.

“You’ll shine all the brighter in the darkness, friend,” I reminded him, remembering the mantra from the precepts of the Heaven’s Blade Sect. It was hardly an uncommon teaching among the ancient sects, particularly those who had any connection to the celestial cycle, but it was one I liked a lot. As a moon artist and the Avatar of the moon, shining in the darkness was my specialty.

Pharyx, on the other hand, only sniffed unhappily before bitterly packing his things. The hornet was getting increasingly grumpier the closer we got to the spider den, and I worried that it had to do with Pollen’s lack of progress on his test. If she didn’t notice that he was the real queen soon, he might not be left with many options.

Still, there was still time left. None of us knew how far down the spider nest went, but there was every chance for them to reconcile on the way.

Or…so I thought. They barely said three words to each other before we stood at the top of an enormous ravine. It stretched deep into the earth, as if carved by an enormous sword in a bygone era. I couldn’t even see the bottom, but, if the wind howling through the depths was any indication, it was definitely too deep to traverse safely.

“It’s a shame I don’t have a flight capable sword,” I muttered. Eclipse could have gotten me down to the bottom with the ease of a petal falling from a tree.

“How are we going to get to the bottom?” Xinya asked, peering over the edge. I cleared my throat.

“We aren’t,” I said. “You are going to stay up here with the majority of our supplies.”

“But, what about-”

“You promised to follow my orders,” I reminded her. She hung her head before nodding.

“So, how are we going to get down?” Pollen asked. “Pharyx and I can fly down easily enough, but even both of us together aren’t enough to carry you in flight.”

I nodded. Looking around, there were plenty of silken strands dangling from the trees that could be woven into a rough rope, but they were sticky. The last thing I needed was to be accidentally tangled up half-way down the wall. Not to mention that any wandering spider would be able to cut the rope and send me plummeting to my doom. As fun as that sounded, I wasn’t keen on dying today.

With nothing else, I would have to turn to my only remaining tool: Chiho. If the pin helped me get down, I could send it back to keep Xinya safe. Then, assuming we weren’t being chased by a thousand spiders on the way out, I’d be able to climb out on my own. Since the plan was to neutralize the nest before leaving, it would have to do.

After backing up several steps, I took a deep breath. Flash Forward warned me of several webs I could fall into below, and I adjusted my course accordingly. With my faith in Chiho, I ran forward at full speed and leapt into the darkness. Wind raced by as I narrowly avoided an enormous bridge made of white webbing.

Two seconds then five passed with the roaring of wind in my ears. Chiho leapt from my hair, and I snatched it out of the air. My descent began to slow. Ten, fifteen, then twenty seconds. Half a minute passed before my feet splashed into a puddle that made up the bottom of the crevice.

A hissing spider reared back on its legs in surprise. Instinct took over and two jagged spears of light erupted from the earth on either side of the spider. It didn’t get the chance to call for help before it was skewered. The light drained from its eyes, and it slumped just as the lunar blades faded.

Chiho trilled and nudged my cheek.

“I probably shouldn’t have used the blades,” I admitted. “Then again, who’s gonna see me down here, huh? Pharyx and Pollen already know I’m a moon artist. Why should I hide?” Chiho bobbed up and down in agreement. Feeling better, I lit a silver palm light and held it before me.

As the name suggested, the Black Crevice was made from a shimmering black stone that seemed to eat my light wherever it touched. Several surfaces were covered in thick white webbing that seemed to get thicker towards the far side of the ravine.

I trudged to a dry section of stone to wait for the spirit beasts to join me. I heard them before I saw them, their buzzing echoing through the crevice. As they landed, I noticed that they split up. Pollen landed daintily next to me before reverting to humanoid form, but Pharyx landed quite a distance away.

“Just exploring,” he explained when Pollen asked why he hadn’t joined her, but I knew better. Unlike me, the honeybee queen would certainly recognize the physical traits of a hornet queen.

I held out my hand and Chiho landed in it. I rubbed a finger along the crane’s back, then gave it a good rub-down on the edge of my robes. Once it was ready, I nodded to the pin.

“Alright, it’s your job to keep Xinya out of trouble, okay? You’re more responsible than I am, anyway,” I told it. It trilled and spun around my head a few times before zipping up toward the clouds above.

“Alright, quick and quiet,” Pharyx said. “We get in, we kill the matriarch and any other spiders within, then we get out.”

“The rest will be easier to deal with once the matriarch is down.” Pollen agreed.

“Do either of you see any qi around?” I asked. Someday…I’d be able to see it for myself…

“Some earth qi,” answered the hornet queen. “No more than I’d expect underground.”

“I don’t see much else, though,” Pollen finished. Pharyx nodded in agreement.

That was…worrying. With this many spiders around, this place should be swimming in the qi of their path, but it wasn’t. If there wasn’t a trace of the death qi used by the Witch of Heimian, then they might not use the same techniques as she had, and, if that was the case, how would we know what we were up against?

More disturbing still was the fact that the qi was hidden in the first place. Cultivators at Iron all get the ability to see qi as part of infusing their bodies and meridians with qi, but higher ranked cultivators could just as easily hide their own qi. Were we walking into a nest of doom? Was this matriarch so far out of our league that she could hide her own overwhelming qi presence?

Something about that didn’t sit right in my mind. If she was that strong, why would she bother with fighting Pharyx and Pollen instead of just wiping them out herself? Why hadn’t there been a concerted effort from the humans to neutralize her? It just didn’t make any sense.

A prickling sensation settled in the pit of my stomach. I was missing something here, and it bothered me. It was close, I could feel it. Except the answers just kept flitting just out of reach.

Was it something in the walls? Something in the webs?

We delved into that unknown blackness. The whole time, I felt like I was being watched. The air was thick with…something, and that something made my skin crawl.