Two weeks lat-er, Ki'el was stand-ing in an of-fice cham-ber in the re-mote city of Red-fang Wall. Al-though her cul-ti-va-tion had re-cov-ered much in those two weeks, her headache re-mained, and had even grown over time--for a dif-fer-ent rea-son.

  The civil-ian mag-is-trate of the city had re-fused to con-sid-er the prop-er-ty writ with-out the ap-proval of the lo-cal mil-i-tary com-man-der--but the lo-cal mil-i-tary com-man-der was out fight-ing Star-beasts, and by rep-u-ta-tion alone, he would not re-turn for months. In the-o-ry, his sub-com-man-der held enough au-thor-i-ty to val-i-date the writ, but she had been en-tire-ly ob-sti-nate about meet-ing any-one non-no-ble, to the point where they all knew noth-ing else about her. And al-though Xam was tech-ni-cal-ly of a no-ble fam-i-ly, the sub-com-man-der's aide laughed off the idea that the Xoi, be-ing mer-chants, were wor-thy of be-ing called such. If any-one else in their mot-ley crew was of no-ble birth, none had spo-ken up when Xam ex-plained the sit-u-a-tion.

  Tech-ni-cal-ly, Mian was sup-posed to be pre-tend-ing to be a dis-graced mem-ber of no-bil-i-ty--but he and Xam had ex-pect-ed more time to put to-geth-er a con-vinc-ing act. Xam was con-vinced that, for now, his na-ture was far too gen-tle and frag-ile to play at be-ing a no-ble, es-pe-cial-ly the kind of no-ble who could force a small mil-i-tary func-tionary to yield to him.

  Xam had a cer-tain... en-er-gy, when she talked about train-ing Mian to be-have dif-fer-ent-ly, but Ki'el did not un-der-stand why, ex-cept to as-sume it had some-thing to do with her sense of style. Ki'el was not, gen-er-al-ly, a fan of her sis-ter's style and pre-sen-ta-tion, which was much more in line with the few lo-cal no-bles they had man-aged to cor-ner for more in-for-ma-tion about the lo-cal cir-cum-stances.

  It was one of those lo-cal no-bles who was re-spon-si-ble for Ki'el be-ing here, now.

  Zhu Dan Long was an ob-nox-ious, over-weight bul-ly of a boy of about Ki'el's age, and be-ing no-ble, he was wait-ing at the cusp of Gold Qi in or-der to en-ter a sect. De-spite that, he had ap-par-ent-ly been taught quite a bit about the qi of bat-tleax-es--a spe-cial-ty of their fam-i-ly--in or-der to ex-cel when he fi-nal-ly was ready. But he was quite ar-ro-gant about it, and swore that he could de-feat Ki'el in sin-gle com-bat, with him-self still in Gold and Ki'el now two stages above him, in Bis-muth Qi. If he should fail, all he had to do was vouch for them, al-low-ing the sub-com-man-der to val-i-date the prop-er-ty writ.

  If he suc-ceed-ed... he said some-thing about mar-riage? Ki'el didn't see a rea-son to care what the boy thought.

  And so Ki'el was wait-ing in a side of-fice when Zhu Dan Long ap-peared, his chub-by fin-gers adorned with far more rings and his arms and legs fes-tooned with bracelets. With much help from Kuli, Ki'el scanned over the var-i-ous adorn-ments, find-ing (with no sur-prise) that each was a script-ed tal-is-man of one kind or an-oth-er. Some were mere en-hance-ments to the boy's strength or qi, while oth-ers were trig-gered ef-fects.

  It made Ki'el slight-ly ner-vous to con-sid-er what might come next, but she had not been en-tire-ly idle the last two weeks

  In truth, Ki'el was... still ex-treme-ly de-pressed. And the fact that the two weeks had both dragged on and slipped by in-di-cat-ed even to Ki'el's young mind that she was not well. Kuli had tried to help, but... in gen-er-al, the aug-ment had told her to sim-ply grieve.

  And that was com-pli-cat-ed.

  But she had also tak-en to med-i-tat-ing on space aether. It was a part of her qi now, but Ki'el felt a stub-born pride in fol-low-ing her mas-ter's foot-steps, and Sobon had used raw aether. Al-though she had no idea how his weapons worked--in-deed, she was able to re-call some of the aether scripts he had made, and even the ones that were for seem-ing-ly sim-ple weapons had been com-plex--but the foun-da-tion had been aether with-in Ki'el's grasp.

  With-in two nights of med-i-ta-tion, she had done some-thing dan-ger-ous enough that Kuli had to in-ter-vene, but that was slight-ly dif-fer-ent.

  "Al-right, girl," Zhu Dan Long's voice broke into Ki'el's ir-ri-tat-ed thoughts. "This is the great Zhu Moumu Fengxi, and he will vouch for the le-git-i-ma-cy of our duel."

  Ki'el eyed the man, and even she could see that he was an un-trust-wor-thy sort. It was there in the oili-ness of his qi, the bit-ter stink sur-round-ing his body, the silk robes that must not have been cleaned in months, and the pos-ture that re-mind-ed her-self more of sulk-ing is-land chil-dren than any-one she had met since.

  Some-thing about the way she looked at him clear-ly ir-ri-tat-ed the man, be-cause he ges-tured at her wild-ly while his oth-er hand went to a sword on his belt. "What the hell are you look-ing at? I am great! And I'm not go-ing to let you es-cape from this no-ble and hon-or-able duel that we've got set up for you."

  Be-side her, Ki'el felt Xam stir-ring, prob-a-bly in anger, but she just glanced past the man to the boy stand-ing slight-ly be-hind. "This is re-al-ly the best you could find?"

  For what-ev-er rea-son, that up-set Fengxi enough that his qi start-ed to shake--and un-like most of the qi Ki'el had en-coun-tered so far, it did shake, its cir-cu-la-tion un-sta-ble and its... its tone off, too sharp and flat at once. The man's qi was at Ti-ta-ni-um, but noth-ing that the man did could con-vince Ki'el that he ac-tu-al-ly knew how to use it.

  "Hon-or-able Un--the great Zhu Moumu Fengxi only needs to vouch for the re-sults of the duel," Zhu Dan Long said. "He is un-ques-tion-ably a mem-ber of the no-bil-i-ty, and we have al-ready told the hon-ored Sub-com-man-der that we will be hav-ing our duel. To-day."

  "Ki'el..." Xam's qui-et voice was full of cau-tion, but Ki'el had quite enough.

  "Fine. A duel." She itched to pull out her aether sword, but she had giv-en it--and her space ring--to Xam for now. Xam, and most every-one else she'd talked to, had all agreed that the duel was go-ing to be stu-pid, and un-fair, and some were still against Ki'el try-ing it. They wor-ried that the boy's script-ed items would give him a sig-nif-i-cant enough edge to over-come the dif-fer-ence be-tween their cul-ti-va-tion. In the-o-ry, he wasn't sup-posed to have any--any duel in-volv-ing a no-ble be-low the age of adult-hood should have re-quired both sides to pre-sent any ar-ti-facts they in-tend-ed to use, be-fore the duel was agreed upon. Since they had al-ready agreed, it should have been noth-ing more than the boy had on him at the time.

  In prac-tice, every-one had ex-pect-ed this, but Ki'el had every rea-son to ig-nore those wor-ries.

  The back door to the of-fice opened into a small-ish cleared space es-pe-cial-ly for du-els, and there were sev-er-al spec-ta-tors--all but one in gar-ish fin-ery that matched the boy's. The last was the mil-i-tary aide who... who in Ki'el's eyes seemed un-ac-count-ably se-ri-ous.

  She had ex-pect-ed the aide to be like the boy and his fam-i-ly--so full of her-self that she could not imag-ine Ki'el win-ning a duel against a no-ble child. But some-thing in the woman's bear-ing sug-gest-ed that she thought the out-come was in doubt. It was in the in-tense scruti-ny, the cal-cu-lat-ing glances around the are-na and at the spec-ta-tors.

  "Fine then, this stu-pid--eh." Fengxi caught his words, glanc-ing up at the boy's fam-i-ly, then looked away. He didn't seem at all in-ter-est-ed in the oth-er woman. When he start-ed again, his tone was so bland and even that it felt life-less. "The no-ble art of bat-tle is one in which the tal-ents of the younger gen-er-a-tion are on dis-play. Let none in-ter-fere in this most an-cient and no-ble of tra-di-tions. For no-bil-i-ty is the true spir-it of the war-rior, and the true spir-it of the no-bil-i-ty is the spir-it of the war-rior. Fight not to kill or maim, but to prove that you bear a vic-to-ri-ous char-ac-ter." There was a mo-ment in which Ki'el had the strangest im-pres-sion the man want-ed to col-lapse, but he re-cov-ered with-out any vis-i-ble mo-tion. "Be-gin."

  Ki'el could tell the mo-ment that Long threw his qi into the var-i-ous baubles on him, but that didn't take any ef-fort on her part--all of the rings glowed and made var-i-ous nois-es, and the bracelets twist-ed the qi in the air around him. She had to re-vise some of what she had thought when Kuli had ex-plained the func-tions on the items--she had thought the light and sound glyphs were for at-tack-ing, dis-tract-ing.

  When the boy charged at Ki'el, though, she could at last ad-mit he was faster, if still not as fast as pi-rates, or the mur-der-ous Mofu thugs. More im-por-tant-ly, she watched the boy's qi, as he tried to swing his fist and ac-ti-vate one of his at-tack rings at the same time.

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  He... well, one could say that he suc-ceed-ed.

  Al-though Ki'el dodged the at-tack, it seemed to ex-plore in midair. Ki'el might have been con-vinced that was on pur-pose, if she flinched away from watch-ing the at-tack take place. But she saw the boy pro-ject a volatile pack-et of qi... and then pro-ceed to punch it. And she saw the red-ness on his hand, the gri-mace on his face.

  "Thun-der punch!" Long yelled, per-haps be-liev-ing that she would mis-take the sound of his voice for a tech-nique name echo-ing via qi. Ki'el paused, won-der-ing ex-act-ly how stu-pid the boy had to be, to think such a thing, but he took the mo-ment of her dis-dain to move in again and at-tempt a high kick.

  It was not dif-fi-cult for Ki'el to step back, and with a men-tal nod to Kuli, she be-gan to take the fight some-what more se-ri-ous-ly, gath-er-ing her in-tent. Al-though she had to split her at-ten-tion to do it, the boy's strikes and 'qi tech-niques' were ridicu-lous-ly daft and easy to avoid.

  Ki'el's tech-nique... was, ad-mit-ted-ly, an-oth-er cheat. Sort of.

  She had want-ed to recre-ate Sobon's tele-ki-net-ic aether pat-tern us-ing her qi, but ap-par-ent-ly, the wide dif-fer-ence be-tween qi and aether meant that aether scripts could not sim-ply be fed qi--but be-yond that, Ki'el's mem-o-ry might have been some-what faulty. Be-tween the two, Kuli had been will-ing to pro-vide a very ba-sic tele-ki-net-ic script for Ki'el to prac-tice with, one that com-bined her ex-ist-ing un-der-stand-ing of Thrust Qi with a ba-sic abil-i-ty to tar-get points in space.

  In short, she could push things around, but not hold them. Yet.

  Even so, Ki'el felt no rea-son to hide this much, and when she had dodged an-oth-er kick, and the boy seemed more or less off bal-ance any-way, Ki'el sim-ply ges-tured, and her qi spoke. [ Re-mote Thrust. ]

  Zhu Dan Long might have im-pressed Ki'el if he had man-aged to land on his feet, af-ter he was flipped head over heels, but he start-ed com-i-cal-ly flail-ing while in the air, and al-though some-one com-pe-tent might have got-ten their feet un-der them, Long did not. In fact, as Ki'el watched the mo-ment where he might have got-ten his legs into po-si-tion, she mar-veled at how he man-aged to pull his legs fur-ther from un-der-neath him-self, and even pulled his over-weight butt out of po-si-tion, so that he land-ed square on his low-er back, and im-me-di-ate-ly flopped back-wards onto his head.

  He yelled, twitched like he want-ed to grab at his back, and then start-ed to cry.

  "Ah..." Fengxi glanced at Ki'el, then at the boy. What-ev-er re-ac-tion he was sup-posed to have, Ki'el guessed that what fol-lowed wasn't it. "That's... not right. That's a vi-o-la-tion of the rules. You for-feit."

  Ki'el glanced up at the mil-i-tary aide, whose face went from star-tled to ex-haust-ed in only a mo-ment.

  "She vi-o-lat-ed no rules," Xam said from Ki'el's cor-ner, but Fengxi wan-dered over to-wards the boy, haul-ing him to his feet, de-spite the boy al-most scream-ing from the move-ment. "And as I re-call the orig-i-nal rules, Long was not sup-posed to use ar-ti-facts in the first place. Ki'el did not."

  "I saw no ar-ti-facts," Feix-an said cool-ly, ig-nor-ing the glow-ing and hum-ming baubles even when Long stuck a meaty, blow-ing hand right in his face. "I think you're mis-tak-ing the hon-or-able marks of sta-tion--"

  "If you feel that this duel is un-fair, then fight me," Ki'el in-ter-rupt-ed, cut-ting off both Feix-an and Xam's re-tort. She point-ed straight at him, eyes un-wa-ver-ing. The words didn't come nat-u-ral-ly, but Xam had been in-sis-tent; in the world of the no-bil-i-ty, wrongs could be made right with vi-o-lence, and since they both ex-pect-ed the boy to try to cheat, Xam had in-sist-ed Ki'el be pre-pared.

  The script, such as it was, was for Ki'el to of-fer a duel 'with what-ev-er ar-ti-facts', and Ki'el would re-trieve her aether sword. But Feix-an did not stick to the script.

  The words, "I ac-cept," bare-ly passed his lips be-fore the man was a blur of mo-tion straight at Ki'el, and she only sur-vived be-cause she still had her Re-mote Thrust pat-tern ac-tive. Ki'el threw her-self safe-ly back and away from the man, but by now, his sword was clear of its sheath, and the man's eyes were track-ing her, his foot-steps sur-pris-ing-ly un-err-ing.

  Ki'el [ Re-mote Thrust ] again, throw-ing her-self well over Feix-an's head, then [ Thrust ] her-self an-oth-er time to make sure she was out of his range when he turned alarm-ing-ly quick-ly and swung. What-ev-er Feix-an's flaws might have been, he seemed to be at least com-pe-tent at this.

  But when he be-gan mov-ing af-ter Ki'el again, she sensed no qi in his mo-tions, none in his sword. Al-though she was be-gin-ning to feel some-thing like in-tent, it was more.... in-tent to kill, not qi in-tent.

  Ki'el tar-get-ed his legs and [Re-mote Thrust] them out from un-der-neath him, and he went down in-stant-ly, land-ing on his own sword in such a way that when he got up, there was a slash across his chest, but he was still star-ing at her, with a dead-eyed stare that would cer-tain-ly have ter-ri-fied her a few years ago.

  Ki'el thrust the man's whole body away the next time, hard enough that he slammed into the wall a good six feet away, but he got up again with-out any sem-blance of fear or any real show of pain. In-deed, his eyes and face only seemed to be-come more twist-ed.

  Why? Ki'el kept back from the man, but spoke clear-ly. "You refuse to yield?"

  "You'll have to kill me," Feix-an said, an edge to his voice that sound-ed... en-tire-ly too much like it had al-ways been there, if Ki'el was hon-est. And she felt his qi stir-ring slug-gish-ly again, er-rat-i-cal-ly, but she couldn't sense him ac-tu-al-ly do-ing any-thing with it.

  Ki'el glanced up, at the mil-i-tary aide, know-ing that in the mo-ment she looked away, Feix-an was al-ready charg-ing at her again. But she did not see any sign in the aide's face or be-hav-ior that she dis-agreed.

  Ki'el [Thrust] her-self away one last time, but then fo-cused. "One last chance," she said, but her mind was chang-ing gears, and Kuli, with some re-gret, of-fered her what she asked for.

  "[Fuck you!]" Feix-an's voice, un-ac-count-ably, screamed some-thing ter-ri-ble at Ki'el with dis-gust-ing, oily black in-tent, but she just blinked, Kuli shel-ter-ing her mind from the er-rat-ic thought, even as Ki'el brought her qi and in-tent to bear again.

  [ Less-er True Fire Qi: De-stroy. ]

  It was not a tru-ly pow-er-ful qi. Ki'el had no ac-cess to time aether, and her space aethers were weak and in-com-plete. But she had un-der-stood one or two things about nat-ur-al fire, and it was not dif-fi-cult to un-der-stand how they chan-neled into True Fire Qi.

  Fire gen-er-at-ed heat and light. Light could make more heat--she took Kuli's word for it--and heat and fuel made fire. If her fire qi could re-cap-ture the heat and light giv-en off, a small spark could be-come a much greater fire very quick-ly.

  It was... not sup-posed to hap-pen that quick-ly.

  Ki'el would re-mem-ber for a long time that the first thing to catch was a stain on his silk cloth-ing. Oil, she thought. The hole that ate through his cloth-ing gave off no light, no burst of heat, and for a mo-ment, noth-ing else hap-pened. But her in-tent had been bru-tal--gath-er-ing pow-er to de-stroy what-ev-er it touched. And the pow-er that it stole from his van-ish-ing cloth-ing col-lid-ed a mo-ment lat-er with skin.

  Ki'el had nev-er wit-nessed any-thing as grue-some as watch-ing the man's guts burst into light-less, heat-less fire, leav-ing be-hind all that which did not burn--all that which was not fuel. Gore and wa-ter poured out of the hole, even as the hole grew, and the man fi-nal-ly screamed.

  Ki'el re-mem-bered the mo-ment when the fire con-sumed enough of his tor-so that it split apart. She could see his spine, re-sist-ing only slight-ly bet-ter. And she re-al-ized fi-nal-ly, once and for all, that prac-ti-cal ap-pli-ca-tions of qi were so much more dan-ger-ous than she had ever un-der-stood. Yes, Sobon had blown peo-ple apart, and she had killed with a sword. Yes, she had... yes, but...

  Ki'el turned around and threw up on the ground. By the time she dared turn back around, noth-ing was left of Zhu Moumu Fengxi ex-cept a dis-turbing-ly wet pile--of what, she hoped nev-er to learn.

  A sound drew her at-ten-tion, and she turned to see the mil-i-tary aide look-ing down at her.

  "Points for ef-fi-cien-cy, mi-nus points for the weak stom-ach. But at least you aren't just an-oth-er non-sense pre-tender." She scowled. "I will tell the sub-com-man-der that you are at least a halfway de-cent fight-er. For your age, and ad-vance-ment. And I will pass on the Zhu's..." she glanced at the fam-i-ly across the way, though Ki'el did not turn to see their re-ac-tion. "...rec-om-men-da-tion that the sub-com-man-der hear your case. Come by to-mor-row." Her gaze flick-ered over to Xam, but then she turned and walked away.

  { Test-ing un-known qi like that is dan-ger-ous. } Kuli's voice broke into her thoughts, dis-ap-proval stark in the aug-ment's tone. { I made sev-er-al changes to your qi and in-tent for safe-ty. We will re-view it lat-er. }

  Xam, when she came up to Ki'el, also had a dan-ger-ous look, but at least her sis-ter kept her-self on task. "We should go," she said, and then straight-ened and bowed to the view-ing Zhu. "Hon-or-able spec-ta-tors, thank you for your time."

  Ki'el ig-nored most of what she heard be-hind her as she fol-lowed Xam. It wasn't hard, be-cause the Zhu were not loud in their whis-pers, but nei-ther were they silent. Ki'el def-i-nite-ly heard "Ruth-less," "Mon-ster", "Witch", and some oth-er un-pleas-antries, but she spent no ef-fort to un-der-stand the sen-tences they were a part of, and Kuli did not in-flict them on her.

  When they passed out of the du-el-ing space and into the of-fice be-hind, there were three men with clean-ing sup-plies and a stretch-er. Ki'el con-sid-ered warn-ing them what they would face, but couldn't quite stom-ach it.

  What are we even do-ing here? Ki'el wasn't sure where the ques-tion came from, ex-act-ly, but nei-ther could she re-al-ly an-swer the ques-tion. If it came down to this or go-ing back to the Sect... well, hope-ful-ly, this hur-dle was now be-hind them. But what would come next? Was this even the right path to take? Was this even a place they want-ed to be in, in the long term? Was their new no-ble house re-al-ly go-ing to take root in the same soil as fam-i-lies like this?

  She did her best to ap-pear calm as she fol-lowed Xam, but in-ter-nal-ly, she want-ed to just go hide some-where and sulk, again. When had she gone from Sobon's ap-pren-tice, a ris-ing star in the Moon-stone Is-land Sect... to some witch brat who killed a man in a duel? Just to get some-one to look at pa-per-work?

  Was this re-al-ly who Ki'el was? Who she would be?

  fear I will change, and/or my life will change, in ways I don't want. But also like Ki'el... it's not as though I can just pretend my circumstances are normal and that things are going to be the way I want them to be.

  said it was this kind of world. But I haven't really earned that, except a few times. Arguably, in context of the story, that could be because someone--a spiritual god or whatever--intended for things to go the way they have. But that would just be a rationalization of my own poor writing.

  may need to take a break sometime soon, probably lining up with my life changing as I said above, but we'll see.