Ki'el was, frankly, sur-prised at how many peo-ple the as-sis-tant al-lowed in to speak. It wasn't even the kind of ques-tion she would have thought to ask, but then, there were many things that Xam was do-ing that made a great deal of sense to Ki'el... when she learned, usu-al-ly af-ter-wards, that they had been done.

  So Ki'el and Xam were ac-com-pa-nied, strange-ly enough, by Broth-er Juno, Sis-ter Be-nai, and Meixu--who had been get-ting more and more ir-ri-ta-ble when-ev-er Xam or one of the oth-ers had said that he could not ac-com-pa-ny Ki'el some-where. It had reached some kind of peak af-ter Ki'el's duel... but she had not been there when the fox had ar-gued with Xam about it.

  Some-how, al-though she un-der-stood Meixu to be a high-ly in-tel-li-gent beast, more like a per-son than any-thing, the fox had seemed to want al-most the kind of com-forts that she would ex-pect of dogs or cats. He hadn't de-mand-ed more qi, or any-thing else of her, but had stub-born-ly pressed him-self up against Ki'el as though her mere pres-ence were ward-ing off some kind of aw-ful feel-ing in-side of him. So she had pet him, and al-lowed him to stay close, and no one had ar-gued or even said a word when he re-mained by her side for this meet-ing.

  Ki'el, for her part, was un-able to ex-plain how she felt about Meixu, ex-cept that the fox ap-peared... cold. Not emo-tion-less, but like she had felt in-side liv-ing alone. Cold... like a body that strug-gles against an emp-ty world, not the kind of cold that em-braced such lone-li-ness, grow-ing hard be-cause of it.

  Ei-ther way, Ki'el found her-self flank-ing Xam as they ap-proached, with Juno on the oth-er side... and Be-nai be-hind Ki'el, and a lit-tle to the side. It felt like a strange for-ma-tion, but she didn't spend much time think-ing about it. In truth, she found it a lit-tle ex-cit-ing, and in-ter-est-ing, but... it was hard for those feel-ings to push their way through the weight that had been on her mind for a while. A weight that Kuli was do-ing... some-thing to tend to, but she was yet un-sure what or how.

  The mil-i-tary as-sis-tant who had said "come to-mor-row" had ap-par-ent-ly only lat-er con-firmed a time with Xam, and so it was late af-ter-noon be-fore the five of them showed up, but the as-sis-tant only word-less-ly al-lowed them into an of-fice, stand-ing back as though wor-ried about be-ing seen as part of their en-tourage.

  The sub-com-man-der in the of-fice had the kind of en-er-gy that Ki'el had, in her fan-tasies, wor-ried she would have. Per-haps, she had en-vi-sioned her only af-ter she sensed her qi? It didn't mat-ter. There was a ten-sion wrapped around and through her spir-it, that might have dragged her down, but some-thing also pushed back from with-in, and there was some ad-di-tion-al struc-ture or strength that Ki'el couldn't even quite sense. Ki'el might have been in-ter-est-ed to find out more... if such a thing were re-mote-ly pos-si-ble. But Xam sim-ply marched into the room, to a spe-cif-ic dis-tance be-fore the sub-com-man-der, and salut-ed.

  "Xoi Xam, of House Xoi, for-mer ad-ju-tant to Gen-er-al Gaum, thanks the Dis-trict Sub-com-man-der for meet-ing with us."

  The woman's face was stone, though Ki'el sensed twitch-es of qi through-out her even as she waved a hand dis-mis-sive-ly. "Gen-er-al Gaum... that old lech-er. Still us-ing his mil-i-tary cred-its to gath-er wild flow-ers in-stead of wolves." She held out her hand, and Xam pro-duced the writ from her space ring im-me-di-ate-ly, hand-ing it over. The Dis-trict Sub-com-man-der only glanced over it briefly. "Rai Su Anin...? Of the South-east-ern block, not too far from the Heav-en-fall Scar front. Odd of her to pro-duce such a writ, though..." she glanced up at Xam, and then around at the oth-ers. "As far as I can tell, the one who the writ was in-tend-ed for is not here."

  Ki'el swal-lowed a sud-den ner-vous lump, but stepped for-ward. This, at least, Xam had giv-en her in-struc-tions on. "That would be my mas-ter, Shi-va Alas-si. This is with her per-mis-sion, and it will also be with her funds--"

  "Right, that much is fine." The woman flicked the pa-per back at Xam sud-den-ly enough that the young woman had to fum-ble to catch it. "Your in-ten-tions aren't to de-ceive or get away with some-thing, and I don't get the im-pres-sion that you're wor-ried about be-ing caught. What you seem to be wor-ried about most, and cor-rect-ly, is whether or not I ap-prove. I do not."

  Ki'el flinched, and at a small qi pulse from Meixu, she stepped back to where she had been rel-a-tive to Xam, leav-ing the ne-go-ti-a-tion to her. But... in the mo-ments that fol-lowed, Ki'el re-al-ized that she did not feel an over-rid-ing sense of fi-nal-i-ty to the woman's words, and al-though Xam also seemed to take a mo-ment, she did speak up.

  "We are aware, of course, of the many bonds and ex-pec-ta-tions upon a no-ble house. It is our ex-pec-ta-tion that we will be able to quick-ly rise in stand-ing, enough to meet the Di-a-mond Lord's stan-dards--"

  "Sup-pose for the mo-ment I be-lieved you," the Sub-com-man-der in-ter-rupt-ed again, her voice a mix-ture of tired and an-noyed. "What ex-act-ly are you ex-pect-ing to be able to pur-chase, with what funds, in or-der to pro-vide what ser-vice?"

  Ki'el sensed a twinge of aether--not quite qi--through Xam, as the girl re-strained some thought or feel-ing, though she did a de-cent job of not show-ing it out-ward-ly. "This Xoi is not fa-mil-iar with the prop-er-ty avail-able, but we are no stranger to hard-ship or la-bor. We would glad-ly take a wild moun-tain ter-ri-to-ry, not large in size, to pro-vide both safe-ty to the cit-i-zen-ry, and qi craft-ing..."

  "The es-tab-lished trade clans have most of the use-ful min-ing ter-ri-to-ry, and the mil-i-tary clans con-trol the en-tire bor-der. The 'wild moun-tain ter-ri-to-ry' we have avail-able is harsh, un-suit-able even for clans whose ex-per-tise are known." There was a mo-ment, just a mo-ment, of si-lence, as though the Sub-com-man-der was al-low-ing them to process what she had said, be-fore she con-tin-ued. "Even that ter-ri-to-ry, be-ing sov-er-eign ter-ri-to-ry of the Em-pire, is not to be hand-ed out to name-less, back-er-less clans--and if you had a backer or were wor-thy of your name, you would not be here. We are not in the habit of al-low-ing chil-dren to pre-tend to be no-bles. If you want to es-tab-lish a clan, you need to prove that you have what it takes to be wor-thy of a no-ble ti-tle."

  The si-lence that fol-lowed felt like it was prompt-ing, but al-though Ki'el knew that Xam had pre-pared for this, the girl didn't seem to find words for sev-er-al sec-onds.

  "If I may be al-lowed to speak?"

  Ki'el blinked, turn-ing to look, but it was Broth-er Juno who spoke up, and Ki'el thought she saw a look of ex-treme dis-taste flow over the Sub-com-man-der's face for a mo-ment, be-fore she nod-ded. A mo-ment lat-er, so did Xam.

  "If I may be so bold, Sub-com-man-der Rui Han Jei-ha, you have us at a dis-ad-van-tage." Broth-er Juno's voice... sound-ed far more re-laxed than Ki'el would have ex-pect-ed. "I trust you un-der-stand that we are all well aware of our faults. And it is com-mon play among the no-bil-i-ty, and oth-ers in high so-ci-ety, to pre-tend to have no faults, even when they are ex-posed by oth-ers. But--my apolo-gies--this Hanzen Juno is but a hum-ble cul-ti-va-tor of the Moon-stone Isles In-ner Sect, with a form of qi that, as you have al-ready no-ticed, is not turned to a mar-tial bent, and lim-it-ed only to Tran-scen-dent Gem."

  Ki'el... blinked, still not hav-ing known what qi Broth-er Juno had or how strong he was. Still... Tran-scen-dent Gem was still sev-er-al phas-es ahead of her, was it not? It was a re-spectable ac-com-plish-ment, cer-tain-ly?

  "I was won-der-ing why some-one use-less like you was here," Sub-com-man-der Rui's voice was some-how both blunt enough to car-ry no in-sult with her words, and si-mul-ta-ne-ous-ly cut-ting enough that Ki'el felt like it had some-how gone right to the heart of Broth-er Juno's words.

  "Ex-act-ly so." Juno's words showed no sign of dis-tress or hurt, though there was per-haps a bit of ex-tra guard-ed-ness there. "But let us ex-am-ine this ris-ing house, if you would. To the right of Lady Xoi you will no-tice the Young Mis-tress of our house, the same who, you have doubt-less heard, ac-quit-ted her-self ac-cept-ably in a rigged duel, de-spite her young age and some-what shel-tered up-bring-ing."

  Shel-tered? That was not what Ki'el would have called her-self, not af-ter spend-ing so many years with-out ac-tu-al shel-ter from the wind and rains, but she said noth-ing.

  "Her mas-ter is the ris-ing house's ma-tri-arch, dis-tinct from that of House Xoi, but it is our young mis-tress her-self who man-ages to at-tract the var-i-ous pe-cu-liar tal-ents to her. My-self, Lady Xoi, and the oth-ers who you have no doubt al-ready cor-rect-ly cat-e-go-rized, are by no means the only ones that she has at-tract-ed, but rather a sam-ple." Broth-er Juno's voice was steady, al-most amused, al-though it re-mained guard-ed enough that he did not sound dis-re-spect-ful. "She is un-de-ni-ably a prodi-gy, though if I may, Sub-com-man-der, I would make a dis-tinc-tion here, af-ter spend-ing many years, my-self, in the Sect."

  Juno paused, as though he was ac-tu-al-ly ask-ing per-mis-sion to add a clar-i-fy-ing point, and if so, he must have sensed some kind of agree-ment from the Sub-com-man-der that Ki'el did not. "I have spent more than twen-ty years in the Sect, fif-teen in the Out-er Sect and five more in the In-ner, and I have seen a num-ber of prodi-gies, ones who I would cat-e-go-rize as ei-ther 'id-iots,' 'brats,' or 'ge-nius-es'--some-thing that I'm sure the Hon-ored Sub-com-man-der has her-self no-ticed among the ris-ing and falling clan scions un-der her care.

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  Ki'el looked to the Sub-com-man-der, and there was, per-haps, a small af-fir-ma-tive quirk to her mouth, but she said noth-ing.

  "The dis-tinc-tion, as I have ob-served it, is this: any prodi-gy will be some-one who ac-com-plish-es things far be-yond what should be safe for them. 'Id-iot prodi-gies' will be im-pressed that they ac-com-plished such a thing and pa-rade it around in front of oth-ers, as though step-ping slight-ly fur-ther than oth-ers makes them unique or spe-cial. A 'brat prodi-gy' will only ever be com-par-ing them-selves to an ide-al hand-ed to them by some-one else, usu-al-ly their fam-i-ly or mas-ter--and I won't lie, I've seen that in our young mis-tress once or twice."

  "But a ge-nius prodi-gy is one who is dis-ap-point-ed in them-selves for not yet be-ing able to achieve what they know is pos-si-ble. They are the kind in too much of a hur-ry to grow up, too ea-ger to car-ry their share of the bur-den. They are the sort who are only be-neath drag-ons be-cause their wings have not yet grown." Ki'el couldn't help mov-ing her head so that she could see Broth-er Juno, and she saw him glance her way, the look on his face flash-ing to dis-ap-proval at her for break-ing for-ma-tion, but... Ki'el could still only re-luc-tant-ly turn away.

  What Broth-er Juno was say-ing... like what many peo-ple said about her... did not make sense. Did it?

  "Our Young Mis-tress is with-out a doubt one of those, and it is ex-act-ly for that rea-son that strange folk gath-er around her. Peo-ple who have tast-ed the im-pos-si-ble, but can-not have faith, can-not gath-er the strength. Ones who would ride a drag-on--"

  "All very elo-quent," the Sub-com-man-der broke in, her voice once again some-how both blunt and dead-ly. "Your point?"

  "It's sim-ple," Juno said, and al-though Ki'el knew it was bad form, she saw him break his pos-ture to just give an ex-ag-ger-at-ed shrug, from the cor-ner of her eye. "We didn't come here be-cause it was ide-al, we came be-cause it was the clos-est. You are ful-ly aware of the dan-gers the Em-pire is fac-ing. We op-pose the Ren, and we are strong enough to car-ry our weight, or we will be. If that doesn't match your lo-cal pol-i-tics or if you're un-in-ter-est-ed, then we go else-where. We will be an-noyed if we wast-ed our time here, but it's our in-tent to serve both the Em-pire and our-selves. The be-hav-ior of this city has al-ready been an in-sult, and we won't suf-fer too much more. If you're go-ing to say 'no', at least have the de-cen-cy to do it quick-ly. It will be a long trip to the next place."

  Ki'el could feel a spike in the Sub-com-man-der's qi, though the woman held it in check. Out-ward-ly, she gave no sign of any-thing more than con-tin-u-ing dis-in-ter-est, and even her spir-it seemed--on one lev-el, at least--to be placid, un-af-fect-ed. But Ki'el un-der-stood that Broth-er Juno's words had been a chal-lenge, es-pe-cial-ly to a woman who--ac-cord-ing to her as-sis-tant, at least--had been com-plete-ly un-in-ter-est-ed in meet-ing any-one who was not no-ble.

  Af-ter a mo-ment, Sub-com-man-der Rui turned to look at Ki'el. "You, 'young mis-tress'."

  Ki'el blinked, but stepped for-ward. "Yes?"

  "What does no-bil-i-ty mean to you? Feal-ty? You aren't even of Djang birth, that's ob-vi-ous. Is-lander, I think."

  "Il-lan, Sub-com-man-der."

  "Il-lan. That cov-ers a lot of sea ter-ri-to-ry. And even this far from the coast, I'm not ig-no-rant of what Djang forces do to is-landers when they can get away with it. I've seen slave auc-tions even this far in-land, and Il-lianos are not too un-com-mon there." There was a sour dis-taste in the woman's voice, but Ki'el bare-ly heard it.

  Not over the flick-er-ing fear and anger that surged through her.

  "To serve as a Djang No-ble means sup-port-ing the Em-pire above all else. It means rec-og-niz-ing rights guar-an-teed to the cit-i-zens and the no-bil-i-ty, in-clud-ing forced servi-tude." Her words were cold, and Ki'el felt them pierc-ing into her spir-it. "This is not a false ques-tion. It is not a joke, or a trap. The fate of your house rests on what you say next. What is your an-swer?"

  What was Ki'el's an-swer? To what no-bil-i-ty meant? Or feal-ty? In the face of such... dis-gust-ing...

  Un-bid-den, Ki'el re-called when Sobon, short-ly be-fore he left, was speak-ing of his home. Of... of a world that was very pow-er-ful, very ad-vanced, but where--in Sobon's con-fused lan-guage--every-one was part of a 'grand so-ci-etal ar-ray', where every-one had a pur-pose, and every-one had to ful-fill their pur-pose in or-der for that ad-vanced world to func-tion. And... Sobon had said that this world was back-wards, bar-bar-ic, cor-rupt and vi-o-lent. She couldn't dis-agree with that, of course.

  Still... Ki'el took a deep breath, try-ing to find an an-swer in those thoughts, and what she her-self be-lieved be-fore and af-ter hear-ing them. And... she could not ig-nore Sobon's ques-tion about myth, ei-ther. It felt too hon-est to speak of that here, but she couldn't doubt how it ap-plied--how peo-ple must be-lieve in some 'myth of the Djang Em-pire' or sim-i-lar. Sobon had said as much be-fore.

  Af-ter a long mo-ment, Ki'el spoke. "My... mas-ter spoke of peo-ple work-ing to-geth-er to-wards some-thing greater, but that's too lit-tle. It says noth-ing about the Djang, or about my peo-ple. Or about my fam-i-ly, who were kid-napped by Djang slavers. Or about me, when I was ab-duct-ed and to be sold to slavers my-self." She re-fo-cused on the Sub-com-man-der long enough to see the woman's stone face shift, for a mo-ment, be-fore her com-po-sure re-turned. "I do not un-der-stand much of how the Djang view them-selves, but I do un-der-stand that great ideas re-quire much hard work, peace, and or-der. An em-pire that could con-quer the world can-not be built with-out those things."

  From what she could tell, from the Sub-com-man-der's face, what she had said was not wrong... yet.

  "But what has hap-pened to me, and to my peo-ple, is proof that the Djang are not ready to con-trol the world. That the Ren are re-belling is proof that even among the Djang, the Em-pire's foun-da-tion is not sol-id enough. I do not seek to de-stroy the Em-pire. I do not seek re-venge. I do de-sire to see great things be done. I wish to see peace and or-der. I be-lieve that ab-duct-ing peo-ple, en-slav-ing peo-ple, flies in the face of that peace and or-der. It flies in the face of every-thing that the Djang should be-lieve, if they want to do great things. It does dis-gust me, and I do wish to be rid of it... if I could."

  Ki'el felt some-thing over-flow-ing with-in her as she spoke, an an-guish and anger that poured out like wa-ter from a jug sud-den-ly top-pled. She found her-self meet-ing the eyes of Sub-com-man-der Rui. "You say that you have seen things, that you are not an id-iot. I am meant to as-sume that you also dis-agree with what is done, though you did not say that. Base Com-man-der Rai also dis-agreed with what was done, but did noth-ing. I trust you were both think-ing that so long as you sup-port the peace and or-der of the Em-pire, then you sup-port the Em-pire it-self. But al-ready, to-day, 'peace' and 'or-der' are gone. If you wish to see the Em-pire do great things in your life-time, it will only be af-ter peace and or-der are ob-tained."

  Be-hind her, Ki'el heard Be-nai speak up. "The girl is im-pas-sioned, and stray-ing from her points, but she isn't wrong." Ki'el had to re-sist the urge to turn, or speak up. "Those of spir-it beast blood-lines have long felt op-pressed, but those who were alive at the time of the Di-a-mond Lord's as-cen-sion re-mem-ber be-ing hon-ored and beloved for their strength and beau-ty. In an era of peace, those old mon-sters re-mained silent in or-der to hon-or the ones who loved them, but they have not been loved by the Em-pire since that era be-gan. 'Feal-ty' and 'no-bil-i-ty' have been col-lars that we put on our-selves, out of love and re-spect. As long as the world is wor-thy of that love and re-spect, we have no rea-son to re-move them. But." The woman's last word had a fi-nal-i-ty to it, an un-re-pen-tant re-fusal to fin-ish the thought.

  "We are here ask-ing to join," re-mind-ed Broth-er Juno quick-ly. "To pro-tect and to build, not to con-quer. That should be cel-e-brat-ed in an age like this one, should it not?"

  Sub-com-man-der Rui's eyes shift-ed around, but her face and body re-mained sto-ic. The flow of her spir-it and qi, Ki'el not-ed, had slowed, though ex-act-ly what that meant, she was un-sure.

  "And you all agree, that you are here to pro-tect and build, and not to con-quer?" There was a cer-tain... mis-trust in the Sub-com-man-der's voice.

  Ki'el could do noth-ing but nod, and she thought she saw the oth-ers to her left do-ing the same. When the Sub-com-man-der's eyes fell on Meixu, the spir-it at her shoul-der trans-mit-ted only gen-tly. [ I am bound by con-tract to serve my Mis-tress, here. If I weren't, I would leave rather than try to claim this place. ]

  There was an-oth-er long pause, but even-tu-al-ly, the Sub-com-man-der leaned back in her seat and let out a very long, very un-la-dy-like sigh. "Fine," she said, her voice los-ing a lot of pol-ish and be-com-ing a low-er, al-most rum-bling noise. Her at-ten-tion snapped back to Xam. "Orig-i-nal-ly, I only hu-mored this be-cause I've had to fight off id-iot suit-ors like that Zhu brat, and any woman with the back-bone to spit in their faces can at least be re-cruit-ed as a sol-dier. That wouldn't be enough to get you a real piece of prop-er-ty, but it would be a foot in the door." Her gaze shift-ed to Ki'el, then back. "I'm still not con-vinced how valu-able you lot are, but with the Ren in open re-bel-lion, we can't af-ford to ig-nore some-one who choos-es to side with us and against them."

  "It just so hap-pens that a trade house here--pre-dictably a very poor, stu-pid one--sud-den-ly tried to get into the Ren's good graces. We in-ter-cept-ed their mes-sages and put them to the sword. Lo-cal pol-i-tics means we have to put most of the par-cel up for auc-tion, the kind of auc-tion you like-ly won't be able to af-ford, but large sec-tions re-vert-ed to mil-i-tary con-trol, be-cause they were wild, con-test-ed, or ad-ja-cent to the de-fense zones."

  "De-pend-ing on what ex-act-ly your busi-ness is, we might be able to find a small sec-tion for you. Per-haps with enough wild zone at-tached that your spir-it beast al-lies can have their own domi-cile." Her eyes flick-ered to Be-nai, and Meixu. "But prob-a-bly not enough for each to have a sep-a-rate do-main."

  "I am be-low; he is above," an-swered Be-nai, her voice com-plete-ly un-both-ered.

  Com-man-der Rui made a dis-mis-sive ges-ture. "I'm not here to en-sure you're hap-py, and I won't be the one who does the ne-go-ti-a-tions. You'll speak to the land min-is-ter and the sur-vey-or each sev-er-al times be-fore any-thing comes back that has to ac-tu-al-ly be agreed to. And you won't be able to talk to them un-til the city mag-is-trate ac-cepts my rec-om-men-da-tion and lets you meet with the City Lord. He also has the op-tion of re-ject-ing your writ, but if he does, it will be for po-lit-i-cal rea-sons--or cor-rupt ones." Her voice chilled with those last words, but she moved on too quick-ly to let them dwell on it.

  "Doubt-less you al-ready un-der-stand this, but be-fore you meet the City Lord, you need to de-cide once and for all whether you will call your-selves a trade house or a mil-i-tary one. A no-ble trade house won't get you much at-ten-tion in this city, but not call-ing your-self one drops your chances of hav-ing any use-ful re-sources on your prop-er-ty to about none. The mil-i-tary here needs the help, so that will open doors for you... but we will ex-pect things you may not be will-ing to give." Her gaze, again, moved to Ki'el, and then away.

  "Thank you, Sub-com-man-der Rui," Xam bowed, and Ki'el fol-lowed suit. "We will take your guid-ance to heart."

  "Go," was all the Sub-com-man-der said, pick-ing up an or-nate pen and be-gin-ning to write some-thing even be-fore they were out the door.