Ling Qi lifted her hand from Zhengui’s shell and wiped away the sweat that had beaded on her forehead while she concentrated. Her spirit lay on the ground before her, his serpentine tail curled around his shell as he slept. Scattered fragments of beast cores lay all around him, the only sign of the week’s worth of hunting income that she had fed into the all consuming furnace of his stomach.

  “That was well done.” She looked up as her teacher, Elder Ying, spoke. The Elder was seated on a stone bench across from her, watching her with an assessing eye. “You maintained control of the beast qi without my aid this time. What changed?”


  Ling Qi considered the question as she looked down at her spirit beast. It took focus just to sense the flows of energy from the cores as Zhengui sucked them down his twin gullets and even more to try and guide where the wild, chaotic energies went.

  “It felt like there was something helping me this time,” she admitted. “Was that the connection you spoke of, Elder?”


  “It is,” the elderly woman agreed. “A well formed spirit bond flows both ways. If you have succeeded in merging your intent with your spirit’s own natural digestive and cultivation processes, then I believe our lessons are done.”


  Gently picking up the slumbering spirit, Ling Qi set Zhengui in her lap, brushing her thumb over the warm, smooth scales of his serpent head. “Will it really be alright to accelerate his growth like this?”


  “So long as you are careful in your guidance,” Elder Ying replied. “Spirit beasts retain echoes of experience from their parentage, far exceeding the meagre instincts that are a human’s birthright. He will not come to harm or be damaged by the process.”


  Ling Qi nodded in satisfaction. “Thank you very much, Elder Ying.”


  “You are welcome.” The Elder smiled. It was easy to forget, sitting here in the garden, that the woman was not just a friendly old granny. “As this is to be our last lesson however, I do have something for you. It does not satisfy me to only offer such basic tutoring given the magnitude of the trouble you uncovered.”


  Ling Qi felt her pulse speed up, and she was sure that a flicker of excitement reached her expression. Still, she managed to dip her head and force out a courtesy. “Elder Ying is too kind. Your lessons have been more than enough.”


  “Nonsense,” the old woman dismissed as she stood gracefully, showing none of the difficulty one would expect from a woman of her apparent age. “I ensured your friend would be well stocked with ingredients for her new furnace and so I will ensure that you have an art with which to practice your bond with your spirit.” There was a flash and a stick of dark green jade appeared between her fingers.

  Careful not to dislodge Zhengui from her lap, Ling Qi eagerly reached out to accept the token. Her arts were still few in number; she needed every one she could get her hands on. She sent a few sparks of qi circulating through the jade slip and peered at the exercises and information that appeared in her mind. Then, she paused and frowned, looking through it again. Was this really right? This art seemed totally unsuited to her. But she couldn’t just

  that to an Elder. What if this was some kind of test?

  Elder Ying cut off her racing thoughts. “I imagine you are confused. The Thousand Ring Fortress is an art which teaches its user to emulate the primal resilience of an ancient tree. It is not the sort of art you can see yourself practicing.”


  Ling ducked her head, ashamed that her thoughts had been so clear. “I am not ungrateful, Elder Ying……” she began.

  “I know,” the older woman said gently, holding up a hand to silence her. “I am not offended. I know how rushed these early days can feel as you scrabble for power, afraid to branch out on an experiment. However, it does you no good to decide your Way before you have even begun to truly walk it. Cultivate this art. Consider its lessons. There is more to resilience than merely standing still and taking blows.”


  After a moment of hesitation, Ling Qi nodded and carefully stood up, still holding Zhengui. “I will take your advice to heart, Elder Ying,” she said, bowing low. While she was still unsure, it was foolish to ignore an Elder’s advice.

  “I think you will find it less ill-suited than you think,” Elder Ying replied with amusement. “I see before me a remarkably tough and enduring young lady after all.”


  In the days that followed their final lesson, Ling Qi followed the Elder’s advice and cultivated the Thousand Ring Fortress art. The art was old and well polished and had been developed by a once powerful but now defunct family within the Emerald Seas province. It allowed users to join themselves to the qi of the land and become like one of the mighty trees that still stood in the deepest forests of the province, vital and sturdy. And as a tree was not a forest, users of the art could extend this vitality to their allies. It made Ling Qi wonder how the Elder had gotten a hold of it.

  Thankfully, it proved easier to cultivate than she had feared, and she quickly mastered the first pulse of the art; the practice she had gotten with wood qi from tending to Zhengui proved invaluable, and sparring with Xiulan in preparation for challenging some older disciples proved to be the perfect training tool for it. Cultivation of the Thousand Ring Fortress art also granted her insight into spiritual cultivation, and she reached Late Yellow during the spars.

  Xiulan was too quick and accurate for Ling Qi to dodge all of her attacks, but her new Ten Ring Defense and the Deepwood Vitality techniques proved their worth in blunting the heat of her fires. However, Ling Qi did not have enough meridians to make use of both the Thousand Ring Fortress and Sable Crescent Step arts so it was only useful in practice for the moment.

  Their preparations actually proved overambitious. As it turned out, most older disciples did not exceed her in cultivation, although there were a few close calls due to the skills and arts of her opponents. It was kind of odd fighting people she had no grudge against and who had no grudge against her beyond annoyance at her and Xiulan for being ‘upstarts’. She wouldn’t call the duels friendly, but they were hardly the stuff of grudges either.

  It was a pain to realign her meridians away from Thousand Ring Fortress every time they finished sparring to go find more challenges. But she supposed she couldn’t complain when their winnings from the duels were paying for Zhengui’s food and refilling her distressingly low funds.

  “It’s weird that they aren’t stronger, isn’t it?” Ling Qi asked as she strolled beside Xiulan. Fighting in her new gown was liberating; she could use her defensive arts with impunity given the way the dress enhanced the efficiency of her qi use.

  “It’s strange that you are so strong,” Xiulan retorted, giving Ling Qi an exasperated look. “Even if you are one of those talented enough to be scouted by the Ministry, your growth is quick. The majority of cultivators remain at the upper reaches of the second realm for years, honing their abilities before attempting a breakthrough.”


  “I suppose,” Ling Qi replied dubiously. It still seemed strange, but she supposed she was just receiving a skewed experience. Thinking about it, if she stripped out the eight strongest disciples from her year, there would only be a handful of strong disciples left. So it stood to reason the older disciples would, as a group, be similarly weakened by the loss of their eight strongest to the Inner Sect last year. They also hadn’t gone specifically looking for the strongest disciples either, just the ones Xiulan could goad into a duel. “Are we going to go out again tomorrow?”


  “I think it might be best to give it a rest,” Xiulan admitted. “Well, unless we want to try something more dangerous,” she added with a sharp smile. “How would you feel about challenging that girl mentioned at the council meeting? The one sheltering Ji Rong.”


  “That might be a bit much. If Cai Renxiang is avoiding outright antagonizing her, let’s at least wait until our spirits can contribute a bit more,” Ling Qi said, playing the voice of reason even if the idea was a little thrilling.

  Xiulan sighed, disgruntled. “You are right, of course. I was getting ahead of myself.”


  “How have you been anyway?” Ling Qi asked idly, watching her friend out of the corner of her eye as they strolled down the path to the training grounds. “I’ve noticed you’ve been getting along better with Fan Yu.”


  Xiulan’s expression soured a bit as she caught Ling Qi’s eye, tossing her hair and turning up her nose in a haughty fashion. “It is not as if he was not already devoted to begin with,” she replied waspishly.

  “That’s not what I mean and you know it,” Ling Qi said evenly. “Are you alright, Gu Xiulan? The last few months have been rough.”


  “I am fine,” Xiulan said hotly. “I am doing well, am I not? Perhaps not to your absurd standard, but well enough. Even Father has praised my progress.”


  “I’m not talking about cultivation,” Ling Qi replied, thinking on her own social troubles. “Maybe I’m projecting a little, but you don’t seem happy with the way things are.”


  Ling Qi knew the fiery girl well enough to notice the hurt in her eyes whenever Xiulan was forced to interact with Han Jian these days. It didn’t fill her with confidence about her own problem with Meizhen. She eyed her friend as the girl’s fists clenched and the air grew hazy; she could feel the updraft from the heat.

  “Yes, you have your little spat with Bai Meizhen going on, do you not? I suppose you finally managed to prick her pride. It is hardly the same thing.”


  It kind of was, not that she would dare give any hint of that. She bit back her initial harsh response with an effort and the cooling influence of Argent Mirror. “I am only offering to listen,” she said instead. “If you need someone to talk to.”


  They stopped and Xiulan met her gaze, embers burning in her brown eyes. The heat flared, but then the girl looked away and her expression fell, taking the temperature with it. “You are going to get burned some day,” she sniffed, her normal demeanor returning.

  “I’m a big girl. I can handle it,” Ling Qi replied easily, allowing the tension to leave her shoulders. “Besides, I have Zhengui to help with that.”


  “Hmph. I suppose so,” Xiulan acknowledged. “In that case, do try to act surprised when I take you out to meet Cousin Tai next month. It is supposed to be a surprise,” her friend added, picking up the pace of her walk.

  Ling Qi paused and blinked, not understanding what she meant, until memories of a conversation with Xiulan right after her breakthrough returned and her eyes went wide. “Hey, don’t joke about things like that,” she said reproachfully. Xiulan simply smirked and began to walk faster.

  “You are joking, right?” Ling Qi asked incredulously. “You better be joking!”


  She didn’t know if the other girl’s snort of laughter was an affirmative or not.

  Threads 85-Household 1

  Ling Qi watched the house servant who was leading her inside through a silver gleam in the fold of her gown. The young woman was a few years her elder, but nevertheless, her head was low, and the tension in her shoulders was clear. Ling Qi thought that she might be the same person who had first opened the gate for her back at the beginning when she had first visited after hiring them, but she couldn’t be sure. That kind of said it all, didn’t it?

  Sixiang murmured.

  Ling Qi wasn’t sure she agreed. Her promise to Zhengui and Hanyi had made her think, and her recent integration had changed her perception a little as well. Not, admittedly, about her mortal household, but about the dismissal she had delivered to her own mother for expressing the same concern as her spirits. It was just that those things tied together. The people she had hired were friends of her mother, or at least, people her mother cared about. What did it say about her that she dismissed their existence so easily?

  Ling Qi hummed to herself as she stepped inside, and she waited as the young woman closed the door behind them, allowing the servant to take the lead again. It wasn’t necessary, but it was polite.

  She had spoken to Cai Renxiang on the subject before, and she probably hadn’t understood properly then. So much of imperial society, its traditions and etiquette and laws, were built around keeping cultivators grounded and engaged. Elder Hua Su had poked fun at the idea of sitting in a cave for a hundred years back in the Outer Sect, but the truth was that the scenario was a very easy one to drift into. This time, she had disappeared for a day and a half, and at other times, she had vanished for longer. Those times would only grow in length as she ascended the realms of cultivation, she understood.

  Ling Qi had meditated on loneliness in her efforts to better control her domain, and the thought of the future had frightened her a little. She wouldn’t stop climbing, couldn’t counteract the separation wrought by cultivation and didn’t want to, but she couldn’t become unmoored either. Her mother was important to her, and so for her sake, she had to try at least a little with the people her mother cared about.

  Sixiang teased.

  Ling Qi frowned in consternation, wondering what Sixiang was talking about. Then, it struck her. The mortal woman’s footsteps made faint sounds on the polished floor, and her gown rustled with her movements and her breath disturbed the air, but Ling Qi was silent, utterly so. The only noise Ling Qi made was a distant, eerie piping. She concentrated, and a twitch of her qi normalized things. “How has my mother been since the attack?” she asked, adjusting her qi flow so that it wouldn’t accidentally happen again.

  The woman in front of her startled, but to her credit, Ling Qi was sure a mortal wouldn’t have noticed. “Madame Ling has been anxious, but she is doing well,” the servant answered. “She was greatly reassured by Lady Li’s work.”


  Ling Qi hummed thoughtfully. “And you? Are the others handling things well?” She had offered to let any household servant leave, but no one had taken her up on it.

  “We are most thankful for your patronage,” the woman replied carefully, keeping her head down.

  “I didn’t ask that,” Ling Qi said. She came to a halt. “I asked how you and the others are holding up. I was genuine when I said that any of you could leave.”


  The young woman paused, alarmed at the questioning or more accurately, Ling Qi’s attention. Was she really that bad? “It has been trying,” the woman admitted. “But no one wants to go back.”


  Ling Qi regarded the young woman with some surprise. The servant was being honest. “You aren’t afraid of the coming conflicts?”


  The girl said guiltily, “I am, but it’s still better here, isn’t it? At least we are being protected. You and the other immortals will not let the barbarians through, right?”


  “No,” Ling Qi replied. She was uncomfortable with the expectation she saw there. It was one thing to be told she was responsible for people, but it was another to actually feel it. “We won’t lose. You’ll be safe.” It wasn’t a lie. She was sure that no one would let this place, the gateway to the Sect, fall.

  “Then there is no reason to talk about going back. The others feel the same. That is, if our service has been satisfactory? Madam Ling has said we have been doing well.” The young woman grew more anxious as she spoke, clutching at her gown.

  Ling Qi was quick to reply. “I have no complaints. Please, let’s continue,” she added, gesturing down the hall.

  Sixiang huffed.

  Ling Qi thought dryly, resuming her walk toward the garden. She glanced at the young woman’s back and reminded herself to take the time to memorize some of her household’s names later. It was good to know that her household was staying around because they actually wanted to, even if it was only because Tonghou was worse.

  She gave the young woman a nod of acknowledgement as she stepped out onto the porch overlooking the garden. The sun was beginning to peek over the horizon so it only took a moment to spot her mother.

  Ling Qingge stood by the garden pond dressed in a plain brown gown. She held an unusual pose, one of the stances of the cultivation art Ling Qi had provided her. Ling Qi stood for a moment at the edge of the porch, observing the flow of her mother’s qi, such as it was.

  She was doing better. The cracks of age and wear remained on her dantian, but the light of awakening had been kindled inside of it. Growth would still be fraught, but her mother’s cultivation was at least stable. There was no danger of regression. Mother’s attempts at physical cultivation had made some progress, and it seemed like the exercises in the cultivation art were helping.

  Ling Qi ghosted down through the banister, landing lightly on the garden path, and then let her next footfall sound normally. Her mother opened her eyes at the sound.

  “Ling Qi, I did not expect you so early. Is everything well?” her mother asked, lowering her arms.

  “Everything is fine. My cultivation just took less time than expected,” Ling Qi deflected. “I thought I would come a little early. Sorry for interrupting you.”


  Her mother looked at her with a frown. Was she really that obvious?

  Sixiang whispered.

  “Well, that’s not wholly right. I did want to talk,” Ling Qi added before her mother could voice her question. Sixiang was right, of course; there was no value in deflections here.

  “Of course,” her mother replied, seeming hesitant. “Did your exercise proceed properly?”


  “Yeah,” Ling Qi said with a half smile, moving to take a seat on one of the stone benches in the garden. “Integration went fine. See?” Her domain weapon shimmered into view across her lap, and a pale transparent mist rolled out around them, cloaking the garden. She had spent some time practicing so there were no embarrassing manifestations, but the mist still settled about her mother’s shoulders like a warm winter mantle.

  The older woman blinked in surprise, reaching up tentatively to touch it, but the mist parted before her fingers. “I see. I admit I do not quite understand what has changed, but I am glad you succeeded.”


  “Thank you.” Ling Qi fingered the wooden grip of the domain blade absently. “But I actually wanted to apologize.”


  Carefully, her mother took a seat beside her. Ling Qi could see all the little aches that still plagued her in every movement. “I see.”


  Ling Qi smiled to herself. She was glad mother hadn’t tried to appease her or say that there was nothing to apologize for. “I’m sorry for being so dismissive. I’m not going to apologize for my actions, but I am sorry for being so short with you about it.”


  “That hardly sets me at ease,” her mother said stubbornly. “I still do not understand why you would do such a thing.”


  Ling Qi considered her words. The lessons of the Playful Muse’s Rapport art flitted through her head as she turned to meet her mother’s pleading gaze. “Because I am strong and greedy,” Ling Qi said. “Because I don’t want to lose anything. Because I won’t let fear guide my hands or my feet. I hope you can understand, Mother. I don’t intend to die.”


  Ling Qingge closed her eyes. “This is the sort of conversation I would expect to have with a son going to war.”


  “I was always pretty bad at being a girl. Sorry, Mom,” Ling Qi said.

  “You weren’t,” Ling Qingge disagreed. “You were no more rambunctious and restless than any other child.”


  “No need to spare my feelings.” Ling Qi sighed. “I understand—”


  “Ling Qi, I was never prepared to be a mother at an age barely older than you are now. My conditions may have left me in a poor state, but that only explains my mistakes. It does not excuse them,” Ling Qingge interrupted sharply. “So do not spare

  feelings.”


  Ling Qi was silent, and so was her mother. Finally, Ling Qi blew out a breath, sending eddies through the mist. “I guess neither of us know much about what we’re doing, huh?”


  “It seems so,” her mother replied. “Ling Qi, I cannot pretend to understand matters of cultivation beyond the most basic. Answer me this. Were you certain that you would survive that knife?”


  She had not expected the potency of the poison, but looking back at the moment of decision……

  “Yes,” Ling Qi said with conviction.

  “Then I must trust your judgement,” her mother said wearily. Ling Qingge was not happy, but she had accepted it. There was nothing else to say.

  “How is the household handling the new security?” Ling Qi asked, turning her eyes to the garden.

  “As well as can be expected. I have not explained to them the precise nature of the guardians in the basement,” Ling Qingge replied. Probably for the best. “Miss Li explained the upkeep necessary very well.”


  “Will you be alright taking care of it?” Ling Qi asked.

  Mother looked down at her hands, flexing her fingers thoughtfully. A single pale and guttering spark of qi leaked from her fingertips. “Yes. It is simple enough, if tiring.”


  Ling Qi could manage it with no more effort than the time taken to come to the house, but she wasn’t going to take that away from her mother. “Good. Has everyone in the house been acclimating well?”


  Her mother gave a surprised look. “Yes. Despite the disturbance, the town’s laws are well enforced and the sect guards are disciplined and do not bother the girls.”


  “Just don’t be afraid to come to me if there’s trouble. I can spare the attention,” she said. “Think you can get me a list of names? That’s something else I should be better with.”


  “I suppose.” Mother sounded so dubious. She really

  that bad, wasn’t she?

  Sixiang agreed.

  “Well, enough chit-chat,” Ling Qi said with false cheer. “I don’t want to take away from your cultivation, Mother. Why don’t I help you out with your exercises?”


  It was well beyond time that she stepped up her aid. She had said that she wanted to help Zhengui and Hanyi keep up, and although her mother would never see violence again if she had her way, there was no reason to slack off. Everyone was better off with more cultivation.