If feed-ing the Rag-ing Storm Fox tal-is-man qi felt in-stinc-tu-al and al-most easy, the tug of war that came next did not.

  A keen-ing call of spir-i-tu-al en-er-gy emit-ted from it, one that seemed to pass eas-i-ly through the wards, and there were dis-tant echoes, echoes that not only pierced the bar-ri-er on the way back, but seemed to strike Ki'el like a sud-den gust of storm wind. If she had been stand-ing, per-haps she might have been knocked over, but there was some-thing on the oth-er side, some-thing al-most like a spir-i-tu-al place or plane, and Ki'el felt some-thing ap-proach-ing. Sev-er-al some-things. Preda-to-ry some-things.

  Ki'el half ex-pect-ed Kuli to have some mir-a-cle an-swer to this, but the aug-ment re-mained silent, and Ki'el sim-ply had to dim-ly sense the cir-cling spir-its. At last, she sensed one ap-proach-ing, and she of-fered it a touch of qi--from the ad-vanced thorn. But that spir-it, though it was in-ter-est-ed, was sud-den-ly dri-ven back when an-oth-er spir-it snatched at the qi in-stead, some-thing larg-er, more dan-ger-ous. It stole the qi away with-out giv-ing any-thing, or tak-ing any re-spon-si-bil-i-ty.

  Right. In-tent--no, Con-se-quence. Ki'el stead-ied her-self, and pro-ject-ed into that spir-i-tu-al space as firm-ly as she could. [I am a blade.] Many of the weak-er spir-its fled, but Ki'el of-fered the qi, again.

  And again, a spir-it snapped at it greed-i-ly. Ki'el, though it burned her to do it, twist-ed the qi and slashed at the thief, and it scat-tered away, per-haps un-harmed--Ki'el was not quite able to sense for sure. She pro-ject-ed again, more con-fi-dent, this time. [I am a blade. Join with me.]

  Again, a thief tried to take the of-fer-ing for noth-ing, and again, Ki'el twist-ed the qi at it, and this time, she felt sure she had struck it. Again, she of-fered qi, de-mand-ing that a spir-it join her, and again, an-oth-er thief ap-peared.

  The next time, Ki'el felt the thieves step back, al-most in recog-ni-tion, as an-oth-er fox spir-it moved for-ward to-ward the of-fer-ing. It came close, ex-am-ined her qi close-ly... and, even-tu-al-ly, turned away. Even so, the thieves didn't move... for a long mo-ment, un-til at last, one snapped to-wards her, and she drove it away. But she of-fered the qi again, and again, and one more time af-ter that.

  The last time, Ki'el felt very strange-ly, as though the fox wasn't stand-ing up-right and walk-ing on the ground around her. It was more... like it was un-der-ground, if the ground it-self were empti-ness, and what was sky to Ki'el was ground to it. From be-low, it looked down at her qi, then moved clos-er, tast-ing it. Ki'el of-fered more, and the spir-it fox came clos-er, cir-cling around un-til it could look at both her, and the qi, in its strange up-side-down way.

  [I am a blade,] Ki'el said again, not sure what else to con-vey to the crea-ture.

  [I am a bolt of light-ning,] the fox an-swered. [Wait-ing for the one mo-ment, of all mo-ments, to shine bright-est, and strike hard-est.]

  [Will you join me?]

  [You are not ready. You are small-er than you want to look.] The light-ning bolt fox bent down to ex-am-ine the qi of-fer-ing 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 flut-ter. She... al-though it sound-ed so much like the fox was re-fus-ing her, she felt hope. [I have a lot more. And I ex-pect to get more next time.]

  [I will con-tract tem-porar-i-ly. And I ex-pect to be fed.] The light-ning bolt fox moved its head down--or, from Ki'el's per-spec-tive, up--so that it was right near where Ki'el was of-fer-ing her qi, as though she could sim-ply reach out, and...

  Ki'el felt strange, like her hands were ac-tu-al-ly touch-ing a fuzzy an-i-mal, un-til the mo-ment when she felt a sear-ing pain--not in her qi chan-nels, but from and around the tal-is-man. She flinched back, but a mo-ment lat-er, she forced her-self to look, and there sit-ting be-tween her and Chi-an was a fox, the tal-is-man hang-ing from its neck on a small bead-ed neck-lace. It was only a small fox--small enough that Ki'el could hold it in her arms--and its qi did not seem in-tense, but some-thing about it def-i-nite-ly seemed more than Ki'el could oth-er-wise ex-plain.

  "Che-ja Meixu?" Ki'el was not sure what the words from Chi-an, sud-den-ly, were; it took her a mo-ment to re-al-ize that it was the spir-it's name, as broad-cast by its qi. "Are you--"

  [Oh, one of the in-her-i-tors.] Miyu moved so sud-den-ly that Ki'el was star-tled, duck-ing be-hind her back and away from Chi-an. The small crea-ture had no com-punc-tion against rub-bing right up against Ki'el when it moved, stay-ing very close. [I thought I smelled your grand-fa-ther, but it was you. Don't you try to or-der me around. I'm not go-ing to lis-ten.]

  "Meixu--" Ki'el be-gan to speak, but the fox nipped in her gen-er-al di-rec-tion.

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

  "Lie?" Chi-an asked, but Ki'el of-fered it more qi from the tribu-la-tion thorn. To her sur-prise, the small fox only took in a por-tion of it, and seemed to tear or chew at it for a mo-ment be-fore set-tling.

  [Yes, in-her-i-tor. A lie. Fake own-er-ship of fake qi with a faked pu-rifi-ca-tion, won with bor-rowed pow-er.] The fox's claws dug into Ki'el's sect robe sud-den-ly, and she yelped as the weight of the crea-ture pulled at her robes, as it scam-pered its way up to her shoul-der. [But shar-ing good food is still good man-ners. This one is pleased.]

  Chi-an was scowl-ing at the fox, for some rea-son, but Ki'el, when she turned and found her-self look-ing in its eyes, was sur-prised to find that they were very... or-di-nary. When the spir-it crea-ture turned its eyes to meet hers, she thought she saw a flash of guilt, and a wor-ry that she wouldn't ap-prove of it. And she reached up, as much on in-stinct as any-thing, and brushed its cheek with her fin-ger, and it pushed back against her, rub-bing as though it took real emo-tion-al sup-port from the ges-ture.

  Ki'el felt some-thing stir-ring with-in her heart, some-thing she wasn't sure she had felt so pure-ly in a long time.

  "Ki'el, that--" Ki'el looked back to Chi-an, but some-thing about her look made the girl pause, and shake her head. "No, nev-er mind. But keep... keep Meixu close, al-right? He may look small, but he's smarter than he looks."

  [Small.] Meixu hissed at Chi-an. [You're small, in-her-i-tor. I am the size I like be-ing.]

  "Enough." She glanced at Ki'el. "Let's let them know you suc-ceed-ed."

  Ki'el hur-ried to her feet, find-ing that the small weight of the spir-it fox threw off her bal-ance more than she would have guessed, but Meixu seemed con-tent to cling to the shoul-der of her robes and sim-ply peer around as she stepped out-side.

  Ki'el no-ticed im-me-di-ate-ly that there were more peo-ple with-in the bar-ri-er--even though it had only been a few min-utes, she thought. Or had it tak-en longer than she re-al-ized? Broth-er Du was there, and also... El-der Sang? Ki'el eyed the el-der un-com-fort-ably, but he stood to one side, eyes closed, as though try-ing to see noth-ing, hear noth-ing.

  "Ki'el." Broth-er Du bowed. "And a new friend. I apol-o-gize--"

  "What's hap-pen-ing out-side?" Ki'el hadn't got-ten an an-swer to that last time, and had let it pass, but... she didn't like be-ing treat-ed like she couldn't han-dle the truth.

  "...There are mem-bers of the Ren fam-i-ly in this sect," Broth-er Du said. "And they are al-ready mov-ing."

  Ki'el glanced to El-der Sang, but the man said and did noth-ing. Af-ter a mo-ment, she looked back at Broth-er Du. "And they are af-ter me? Us?" She knew, in truth, that it must be the sword--as Broth-er Bon had said be-fore. But... even know-ing that her mas-ter had left in-cred-i-ble pow-er with-in it...

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Broth-er Du shift-ed, un-com-fort-ably. "Sis-ter Ki'el... war is not like peace-time. It is like noth-ing you have known. There are worlds of pain and suf-fer-ing that an army will in-flict in or-der to gain an ad-van-tage, to keep their en-e-mies from gain-ing an ad-van-tage, or to take an ad-van-tage away. There is--"

  This time, Ki'el felt it--a shiv-er run-ning through the bar-ri-er that Bai Be-nai had laid around the prop-er-ty. The oth-ers shift-ed to look, but the fig-ures that were com-ing down the path were not at-tack-ing--and Ki'el rec-og-nized the one at their head.

  "Sis-ter--"

  But Du held out a hand, and Ki'el stopped. Ki'el looked, just looked, at Sis-ter Xari as she stood on the oth-er side of the bar-ri-er, and with her--sev-er-al peo-ple. No-bles, Ki'el had to guess, and none of them weak.

  "Keep the girl safe." Ki'el blinked, sur-prised that Bai Be-nai had snuck up be-side her, but the woman stepped for-ward with a heavy re-solve that Ki'el couldn't un-der-stand.

  [Of course I will. Who do you take me for?] Ki'el only dim-ly reg-is-tered the spir-i-tu-al trans-mis-sion from the fox on her shoul-der, be-cause in truth...

  In truth... Ki'el was be-gin-ning to un-der-stand. She had har-bored a hope, even just a fleet-ing 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 is-land. Emer-ald Val-ley. She wasn't even al-lowed to fol-low Sobon to wher-ev-er he was, though she would have giv-en up all the sta-bil-i-ty in the world to be with him. He had fall-en from the stars, crossed the whole Djang em-pire and a great sea, to keep her safe.

  And he wasn't here.

  Ki'el wasn't even aware of step-ping back, and the oth-ers didn't look. Be-fore she un-der-stood what was hap-pen-ing, she had moved back into the shad-ow of the hut, the small lit-tle build-ing that she had just start-ed--just start-ed--to dream of mak-ing into a home.

  A lit-tle table. Chairs. She and Chi-an with mat-tress-es on the ground next to each oth-er. Maybe they would talk late into the night. Learn-ing about qi, work-ing for the Sect. Some-day when she was healed, when she was stronger.

  Mian and Xam would come. Maybe they would set-tle here, too. Ki'el stum-bled, un-see-ing, over a root, but caught her-self with-out falling down. The spir-it fox sent her a spir-i-tu-al trans-mis-sion, but Ki'el ig-nored it. And... Ki'el re-al-ized that Kuli was there, but not an-swer-ing. Why?

  { The chances of dy-ing here are high, } Kuli an-swered, and Ki'el froze. { I have been syn-chro-niz-ing with a spir-it god. In ex-change for a high-er like-li-hood of sur-vival-- }

  "Are you mak-ing de-ci-sions with-out me, too?" Ki'el whis-pered to no one.

  { What-ev-er your cul-ture may be-lieve to be the age of adult-hood, you are only halfway to bi-o-log-i-cal ma-tu-ri-ty, } Kuli an-swered, the aug-ment-ed voice stiffer than Ki'el had ever heard it. Less... per-son-able, maybe even less hu-man. { Ki'el. This sit-u-a-tion may be be-yond our con-trol even if I-- }

  There was a shat-ter-ing sound, and Ki'el felt the bar-ri-er col-lapse. But Ki'el was now be-hind the cot-tage from the in-vaders, and al-though she fum-bled out the Aether Sword and ex-tend-ed it, the blade felt un-com-fort-able in her hand.

  [ For what it's worth, ] Meixu said, [ I'm def-i-nite-ly go-ing to ig-nore what you say and do what I want, some-times. But not when it mat-ters, like now. What do you want me to do, hon-ored con-trac-tor? ]

  Ki'el heard the words, un-der-stood them, but her mind was frozen. Was there any-thing she could do? Was there some-thing she should do?

  { You should hide, } Kuli ad-vised. { As long as you are un-able to use ei-ther qi or aether-- }

  Un-able. The word stabbed into Ki'el's mind. She was un-able to if. She was un-able to with-out. If she want-ed to live a nor-mal life, with-out in-jury.

  { Even if you in-jure your-self, you can-not com-pare your-self to any of these op-po-nents. }

  Ki'el found her-self look-ing down at the sword. But... no mat-ter how she looked, she could still imag-ine the sword shat-ter-ing, some qi mas-ter of in-sane abil-i-ty tak-ing it in their hand and snap-ping the thing. Af-ter all... the sword didn't even ex-ist half the time. It was only there be-cause aether willed it to be.

  Ki'el opened her mouth to say some-thing, but the en-tire is-land shook, and she felt an-oth-er, more dis-tant bar-ri-er crack. She shiv-ered, know-ing that some-thing pow-er-ful was there, forc-ing its way into the sect--but it wasn't flar-ing its qi, wasn't broad-cast-ing its pow-er to the whole world. What-ev-er pow-er it was us-ing to force open the bar-ri-er--

  "Ki'el!" The voice of Sis-ter Xari brought Ki'el back to her-self. "Last chance! If you want to save your-self and your friends, you must sur-ren-der to my fam-i-ly." There was a note of re-gret there, but Ki'el didn't no-tice, 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 se-ri-ous-ness to the girl's voice. Was... had her friends al-ready been de-feat-ed? Was every-thing over? Had she just not sensed it? Ki'el start-ed to move for-ward, but the tiny claws of the fox on her shoul-der tensed, just enough that Ki'el paused.

  [ There's been no com-bat, not yet, ] Meixu said. [ This place--not the house, the is-land--is ac-tu-al-ly pret-ty stur-dy. Un-less things get pret-ty se-ri-ous, there will be rocks to hide un-der. Don't wor-ry too much, child--I mean, hon-ored mas-ter. ]

  Some-thing about the spir-it's voice stirred an ir-ri-ta-tion in Ki'el's mind. Was she re-al-ly be-ing so un-rea-son-able? But then again... wasn't she just stand-ing there, still in shock? Ki'el took a deep breath. She had... she had just been think-ing that she want-ed to know the truth. That she didn't want things hid-den from her.

  Though it was un-wise, Ki'el fi-nal-ly, res-olute-ly, took a step for-ward, back around the cot-tage. The oth-ers were arranged in vague cir-cles, as though try-ing to pro-tect the house, but Ki'el knew that it was point-less, if it came to it. Al-though it felt in-sane to do, she took just one more step, and when that failed to make every-thing set on fire, she took an-oth-er.

  Fire, some in-sane part of her mind mused. Maybe set-ting every-thing on fire wouldn't be so bad. Some-times.

  "Ki'el." Xari's voice was pained, not that it mat-tered any-more. Ki'el locked eyes with her, and no-ticed sev-er-al oth-ers turn-ing to her as she moved clos-er. "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 ter-ror? The anx-i-ety? Where was ab-solute de-spair that was cours-ing through her veins? Why wasn't that all there, in her voice?

  "I..." Xari paused. "Yes. I can't choose my fam-i-ly, Ki'el. And I can't run away from them. The Ren blood-line is all about chains and strings that bind us to-geth-er. You saw my Mid-sum-mer Danc-ing Moon." Xari scowled, but the ex-pres-sion passed. "There is no go-ing against my fam-i-ly once you are bound. I would have pre-ferred to sim-ply not no-tice you and your sword, but oth-ers have al-ready spread the word."

  Xari. The walks through the sect had been... it hurt her heart to think of life with-out such a sim-ple thing. "Why must every home be tak-en from me? Every dream? Every small com-fort?" Ki'el bare-ly heard the words leave her mouth, but she tight-ened 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 sog-gy weight that held down her heart. In truth... she want-ed a home, bad-ly enough that she might have done some-thing fool-ish, if not for Kuli, and the strange pres-ence of the spir-it fox on her shoul-der. But in-stead, her voice came again, far too lev-el, far too calm. "What is the An-gel to you?"

  Xari shiv-ered, step-ping back. "So it's true? You're...?"

  "What is he to you? To your fam-i-ly?" Ki'el's voice was in-sis-tant.

  Xari looked at Ki'el, but af-ter a mo-ment, it seemed the girl had no way to meet her eyes. "An en-e-my."

  Kuli. Ki'el felt that her will was lead-en, but still the aug-ment stirred, re-ar-rang-ing things in Ki'el's mind, un-til she had a full thought, a fin-ished in-tent. It was not at all com-plete--only a clean-er, safer ver-sion of what she had done be-fore. But Ki'el filled the blade with the in-tent, and she felt the aether at its core re-spond.

  [ True Sword Qi ]

  Ki'el felt like she was mov-ing in slow mo-tion. Not... be-cause she was see-ing things so quick-ly, not be-cause every-one else seemed to be re-spond-ing slow-ly. No... her body and mind just seemed so heavy, heav-ier than they had ever been. Xari flung her-self away, clap-ping her hands to-geth-er and send-ing her [Mid-sum-mer Danc-ing Moon] qi out, while the two who had been be-side her--no-bles, both, drew weapons and ig-nit-ed their qi.

  And the qi, in truth, hurt Ki'el--just be-ing close to it seared her, but it did not re-pel her sword. Some-how, Ki'el's sword con-sumed qi from the sword and just kept cut-ting, through qi dense enough that it want-ed to phys-i-cal-ly force Ki'el back, to burn away her skin. And Ki'el not-ed, though she didn't care ei-ther way, that the sword seemed to length-en, at first just enough to cut the man charg-ing at her... but then, it kept go-ing.

  [ Oh dear, ] Ki'el dim-ly heard Meixu say, as she stum-bled, thrown off bal-ance by the oth-er un-veiled qi, the one who hadn't been in the way of her sword. And she felt her-self yanked back-wards, though she wasn't sure how or why.

  She was so tired, so scared... but she looked up, see-ing Mian and Xam there, look-ing down at her, wor-ried. And she felt Xam lift-ing her up, but didn't know why she would need to be car-ried... but also, she couldn't move.

  "You did fine," she thought Mian was say-ing, but she wasn't sure if she was hear-ing him right, or just imag-in-ing that she did. All she could do--

  No, there was one thing she could do. One thing she couldn't stop her-self from do-ing.

  Ki'el just bare-ly man-aged to half-turn her head down-wards be-fore she threw up.