The very basis of our cities is supported by rural agriculture. Cities are where sects, academies, and armies all organize and seek the finer points of life, but no power in our world is foolish enough to abandon the farmers to the dangerous lands they tend. Well, except for those in the Pearlescent Valley. – Bu Jinho, Strategy Teacher at the Swallowsong Academy.

* * *

I could have given myself a thousand lashes for my stupidity. He was right! I hadn’t even thought about it, instead acting purely on instincts I’d developed over the course of over two thousand years! So much for discrete…

The look Tenri gave to me was withering, and I felt my shame deep in my bones. Even if I didn’t understand why it was such a big deal, I’d been so confident that I could pass myself as another type of artist. The ease with which I’d fallen back on my true skills was disheartening, at the very least, and outright shameful, at worst.

“I…I am sorry.” It was all I could say.

“This time, no one saw, but you will doom the entire town if you continue using those techniques!” Tenri hissed.

“How? Lunar qi is just like any other! It’s not any more dangerous than that of the wind or the waves!” Had the world become so ignorant of the nature of the moon since I’d left that it was completely foreign to them? Was this what happened when an Avatar of the natural world disappeared?

“In any other place but here, you’re right!” he answered, the fury of battle still raging in him. “But this is the Moon-Soaked Shore! It is illegal for anyone to practice the lunar arts here, whether they are from here or not!”

“Illegal?!” How could a form of spiritual arts be illegal?! That was like saying that it was illegal for the sun to shine or for the trees to grow!

“Yes, illegal!”

“Why?!”

Tenri balled his fists, then realized his own anger and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath before taking off his glasses, cleaning the lenses, and replacing them. When he opened his eyes again, he was clearly calmer.

“You wouldn’t understand,” he said. “Even I don’t fully understand it, but the Governor made the law for the whole region. I’m told he made that decision with the counsel of rulers from several neighboring territories.”

I was stunned. It didn’t make any sense. Why would this region outlaw an entire school of arts? Especially since the “Moon-Soaked Shores” were so abundant in Moon aura that the very name of the region reflected as much. Even the trees were keen to absorb as much of the ambient aura as they could.

There was nothing wrong with the quality of the lunar aura. Even now, my body was drinking in the ambient aura that dripped from the land and purified it for my core. If it was a matter of impurity, I would know. Of all people, I would know.

“Please, if you’re going to stay here, no one can know,” Tenri finished. Having said his piece, he turned and moved the fox corpses to the side of the road before continuing on.

This…was a bigger deal than I’d thought. If I couldn’t use any of my lunar techniques…for all my bravado before, I was suddenly unsure. Originally, the plan had been to use my moon skills, but to pass them off as lightning or fire techniques. Since the three types of aura all had influence over light, it seemed like the best choice, given that my more noticeable arts all involve the shifting of light.

However, if they were illegal, I couldn’t risk using any of my arts. Superstition was one thing, but if I fell under legal suspicion, then any state official might be armed with methods of detecting spiritual aura, and anyone of Iron or greater would be able to see through my lies. I could find myself imprisoned, and though there is nothing that mere mortals could possibly do that was worse than being in the labyrinth, it would reflect poorly on Tenri if an associate of his were to be locked up.

That left only one power available to me, and it was one of which I was extremely wary.

We continued the rest of the walk in silence, reaching a small wooden fence around noon. As we entered the farm, shouting could be heard from the side, and I caught the acrid smell of woodsmoke.

“Don’t tell me they’re trying to burn it,” Tenri muttered. I shrugged and followed his lead as he ran between the tiers of rice paddies and behind the small farmhouse at the center of the lands.

There, we found three people around an enormous tree. It was absolutely massive and must have been a few centuries old at least. Its branches shimmered with light, and the veins of moonlight climbing its trunk were almost too bright to look at.

However, almost as bright as the tree itself, was a bonfire burning at its base. The farmers were, in fact, trying to solve the problem by burning the tree. However, it wasn’t going as well as they’d likely imagined. I could feel a malevolent aura hanging around that portion of the farm, and already one of the farmers was on the ground, still as a corpse.

“Zhao Suyi! Zhao Mina!” Tenri shouted. Only one of those still standing responded. She saw us racing towards her and grabbed the hand of the man with her and dragged him back away from the tree. It was good that she did, too, for in that moment, a bright orb of lunar qi exploded just behind him, narrowly missing the man as he scrambled away.

“Tenri! Blessings upon you for coming,” said the woman with a quick bow. “Please, help us! The tree has attacked! Suyi was hit and she collapsed immediately!”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“I’ve got her,” I told Tenri, running past them. As I approached, the malevolent aura grew thick in the air. The tree was not pleased.

I slid to the ground next to the collapsed woman and began checking for any obvious injuries. She didn’t seem to be bleeding, and all her limbs were at the appropriate angles. Most importantly, she was still breathing, if shallowly.

A creaking of wood heralded the tree’s next attack. I threw myself over the collapsed mortal to shield her as the qi in the air shifted. The air exploded, and lunar qi showered down over me.

As soon as it touched me, exhaustion overwhelmed my senses. I just wanted to fall right there and go to sleep…

I bit my lip, focusing on the pain to keep me standing while I hooked my arms under Zhao Suyi’s legs and back. I lifted her effortlessly and began to stagger back to a safe distance. All the while, colors began to drift across my vision like colorful ribbons dancing on the breeze.

My steps began to slow, and my limbs grew heavy. The woman in my arms, though light before, was now like carrying an entire sack of lead bars. I struggled forward, but whatever this qi was, it had forced exhaustion to fill every aspect of my being.

“Tsuyuki?” It was Tenri’s voice, but I could hardly hear it. I collapsed…

Images began to fill my thoughts. Dreams began to take form, and I found myself back in the labyrinth, starting with the dark emptiness where the voices often lived. However, here there were no voices, and no mud clung to my feet.

The image shifted, and I was met by the twisting corridors of my old palace, only the flowers my sister so meticulously tended were replaced by a vaguely blurry shape that implied the silver and purple of her favorite lilies, but did not show them. I turned a corner only to find myself in a cave. It had the right colors for a cave, but the walls were just a bit too smooth. There were no cracks, no tiny pathways for water to drip on my head from above.

As soon as I thought that, water splashed down on my head. I looked up to see a single crack, but it was as if the crack was an afterthought. There was only one, and it was directly overhead.

I bit back a laugh. I knew what this was without question. I was trapped in a very poorly executed dream prison. Knowing that would make it quite simple for me to escape. In theory, I could unravel the moon qi that went into this technique, thus freeing myself.

But…if I did that, that would be require me to channel my own moon qi to escape. If moonlight suddenly started coalescing around my body, the farmers would definitely see, and then my secret would be out.

How, then, was I supposed to escape?

“You know what you must do…”

I whipped around. Now the tree wasn’t playing fair. It had to be pulling inspiration directly from my thoughts, and only just now realized that it could torment me with that voice. That voice which was not to be acknowledged, which sent shivers down my spine.

“Tsuyuki!” Tenri’s voice echoed down to me as if I were trapped at the bottom of a deep well. “Tsuyuki, wake up!”

I sighed. What did he think I was trying to do? It was his insistence that my techniques were not welcome that left me with so few options…

“Few, but not none…” the whispers began in force. I rolled my eyes. Unlike the real thing, these had no variations to their tones. It was just noise rather than voices that had become noise. The only voice that was distinguishable was that of the voice I refused to recognize.

That said, even if the tree didn’t realize it, it had given me my solution, even if I didn’t like it. This prison was just a lesser version of the Labyrinth. How had I escaped the Labyrinth? I’d pierced its walls using a darker power…one that dealt with the complete erasure of matter and reality itself…the power that had earned me my wicked moniker and eternal damnation.

It hadn’t dragged me down then, and, if I was careful, it wouldn’t drag me down now. I could do this. I just needed to shift my thinking.

I sat down in the middle of the dream cavern and began to focus my qi. The light of the moon was strong within me, but it wasn’t what I needed right now. Instead, I called upon the darker part of my core.

“So, you finally recognize me? Good, Yoru, good…” the voice crooned. I ignored it. This version was surely just the tree’s misinformed attempts to frighten me, and I would not be cowed.

The tree dared to challenge me? I was the master of reality itself! I was an expert in shaping the world around me to my own design. Did it really think it could fool me, who’d been in a much more secure prison for a thousand-thousand moons, with such a pitiful technique?

The darkness of destruction surged out from me, blackening the light of my core and ripping into the cavern walls around me. I shredded the dream prison with my vindictive fury.

Around me the walls cracked from the force and sand began to fall from the ceiling. Soon, darkness closed in all around me.

And I shot upright, blinking in the midday sun. Tenri was sitting next to me, looking concerned, and Chiho was busy poking my hand.

“It’s a lunar reality prison, but a very bad one,” I said.

“Moon qi? And did you…” Tenri’s voice trailed off, but I knew exactly what he was asking.

“No,” I answered. The power I’d used was not moon qi. It was void: the essence of nothingness, the isolation of space itself. It was the power I’d taken up in the final days of my reign, and that which had twisted me beyond the recognition of even my closest allies.

This time, it was…more tame, though. No voices ripped through my thoughts. It was just…silent as it surrounded me now, prickling my skin. I was slowly absorbing it back in. It was…strange. I’d used the power of the void extensively, but somehow, I couldn’t remember any of the techniques that went with it, as if they’d been done with instincts I no longer had. No more could I dissolve mountains at a glance nor wipe nations from the earth. It was just…gone, and yet the power remained.

Taking Tenri’s hand, I stood. The woman named Mina and the man with her had taken the unconscious woman closer to the house, but I wasn’t worried about her anymore. She’d be fine. She was just trapped in a dream for a little bit.

My attention went instead to the tree itself. It didn’t want to be destroyed and would clearly fight back to keep itself alive. Moreover, to be able to use a reality trap was impressively powerful. The fruits of such a tree would make for an extremely valuable resource for the village and any moon artists who someday were allowed to exist here.

“We should try talking to it,” I said to Tenri. “Killing it would be a waste.”

He nodded. “I agree, but its roots have grown into the paddies. Mina says it’s been doing that for years, but this morning they found the northern paddies drained entirely of water and the tree’s silver roots all over the farm.”

“Why now?”

“How should I know?”

“You’re the wood artist, not me.”

Tenri frowned, then scratched his head. “Probably got a new food source? If it’s nourished by lunar qi, I could think of an event or two recently that may have caused a surge in the area.” I gave him a sarcastic smile. “If we could convince it to grow the other direction, though…”

“Well, you’re the wood artist, if anyone can do it, it’s you.”