With less than pleasant thoughts about Yan Renshu in mind, she returned home.

  Settling into her meditation room, Ling Qi began her preparations for her next breakthrough attempt. Sealing the door, and adjusting the lighting, then finally, taking a dose of the pain killing elixir that Li Suyin had brewed for her. Just in case things went poorly again.

  Unfortunately, it did. To break through into Bronze Physique, she needed to weave qi into her flesh and bones, fortifying her body beyond it;’s current limits. Again, she had failed to keep control. The qi had splintered under the strain of the attempt rather than merging with her tissues as it should have. Ling Qi was left breathing raggedly, covered in painful, splotchy bruises and filled with a bone deep ache.

  It took her a few hours of meditation before she could stand without a wobble. She hated to imagine how long it would have taken if she still healed like a mortal. That she would have to recover the lost cultivation was another bitter pill to swallow; Ling Qi found she didn’t much like the feeling of failure nor the time it would cost her. Still, she supposed she could take this time to see what Cai’s white room could do. It wasn’t difficult to convince Xiulan to come with her.

  The Room itself took the form of a great, three peaked tent of cloth set up outside of the village shrouded in shimmering rainbow mists that seeped from underneath. There were more than a few mortals and common cultivators gawking at the grand construction when she and Xiulan approached, but the onlookers were kept out by guardsmen who surrounded the field the white room had been set up in.

  It wasn’t simply city guards either. Although they made up the bulk of the perimeter, mixed in among them were men and women clad in sleek, white lacquered armor over fine chain and pointed helms with white plumes. Showing her personalized council armband was sufficient to allow her and her guest to pass through the cordon and enter the misty interior of the room.

  It was difficult to describe the inside. Ling Qi could vaguely recall diaphanous sheets of silk and bubbling baths, scented oils and and incenses, and inhuman white clad servants who she couldn’t clearly recall any details about……

  Frankly, it was a little unnerving. But when she emerged, she felt more refreshed and full of energy than ever before, and her cultivation had fully recovered. Xiulan looked to be quickly closing on the late stage of her physical cultivation.

  With her recovery complete, Ling Qi had just one last thing to do before making another attempt at her physical breakthrough: a meeting with a Sect official regarding the Imperial Writ she had earned by breaking through to the third realm. Odd as it was to think about, she was now a noble, and she needed to understand what that meant.

  Ling Qi did not often linger in the main building of the Outer Sect. She had not ever elected to spend her points on the lessons offered there, and accepting and receiving rewards for Sect missions only involved a single room. So today was the first time she had gone to the second floor. Unlike the ground floor with its wide, spacious rooms and decorated halls, the second floor seemed duller.

  The floors were still polished to a gleam and the halls well lit, but there was little decoration. Rather than opening into many large rooms, the halls were lined with little doors leading to little rooms. Fluttering paper messenger birds flitted along the ceiling.

  There were very few people her age up here. Instead, going by the prevalence of graying hair, the place was populated by men and women much older. Most were in the late second realm or the first few stages of third, though she had trouble determining the exact stages for the third realm cultivators. If she concentrated, she could faintly feel burgeoning third realm domains. Compared to the potency of Zeqing, those who worked here were barely visible, papering whispers of order with any sharpness worn away by decades of peaceful toil.

  She reached the office that her message had specified at the end of one of the narrow hallways. The room was well lit by a wide window that looked out over the plaza. Shelves full of books and scrolls lined the walls, and a small potted tree grew in one corner.

  In the center was a heavy wooden desk, its surface covered in neatly organized stacks of paper, one of which was in the process of folding itself into a messenger bird. A small circular mirror on a bronze stand occupied another corner of it. Behind the desk sat the room’s sole occupant, a thin man with lightly lined features and a black minister’s cap worn over grey hair that retained only a few traces of black. He had a thin mustache, a neatly groomed beard, and piercing grey eyes. At the fourth or fifth stage of green soul, the Sect advisor must be among the stronger employees up here.

  “Greetings, Miss Ling,” the Sect advisor said in a polite and cultured voice. “I am Hou Cheng. It is good to see a young lady who is prompt in seeing to her responsibilities. Please, come in and sit.” He gestured to the finely upholstered chair that faced his own.

  Ling Qi offered a polite bow, remembering Meizhen’s lessons on etiquette. “Thank you for your kind words, Honored Elder Sect Brother.” As she moved to step into the office, Ling Qi noted other little details: the inkbrush scribbling away without any input from the man behind the desk, a plaque displaying a handful of polished bone arrowheads hanging from the far wall, and the flicking tail of a cat, lounging half beneath the desk.

  Then she stepped across the threshold and paused, blinking as she felt the man’s domain wash over her. It felt like the archive but more so. The musty scent of preserved parchment and drying ink tickled her nose. The odd sensation quickly passed, and Ling Qi took her seat, resting her hands neatly in her lap. “And thank you for taking the time to instruct me.”


  “It is no trouble,” the elderly man replied, steepling his fingers together as he studied her. “My duty to the Sect is to instruct my juniors. Given your rate of advancement, it seems likely that you will outrank me soon.” He seemed remarkably unbothered by that, and Ling Qi had to fight back a frown. The taste of contentment in his qi, in his domain, bothered her. Could one really cultivate properly feeling like that? “In any case,” he continued as the silence stretched, “your writ, Junior Sect Sister.”


  A scroll of snow white paper wrapped by a string of violet silk materialized in his hand, and Ling Qi accepted it tentatively. “What changes now?” Ling Qi asked as she gingerly tugged the silk ribbon, loosening it so that she could unroll the scroll. Her gaze met incredibly intricate borderwork and fine calligraphy declaring the establishment of the Clan of Ling in dense legal terms.

  “In the immediate sense, very little,” Advisor Hou answered. “As a beneficiary of our scholarship program, your responsibilities and title are held in trust until the end of your service. As a baroness, you will be entitled to an officer position immediately, unlike those of lesser ability. The exact details of those matters will be left to the commander where you are stationed. You are exempt from your tithes and taxes until you have established a holding, so do not worry over those matters.”


  Ling Qi blinked. She hadn’t even considered that she would suddenly owe taxes because she became a noble. “The Empress is wise and generous,” she said for lack of anything better. “May I ask then, what becomes of my mortal family?”


  “Ah, yes,” he said, glancing at a sheet of paper to his right. “Your mother, Ling Qingge, and a younger sister, Ling Biyu, no father recorded.” There was a tinge of disapproval to the old man’s voice on that last part, and Ling Qi felt the urge to speak up and defend her mother. “Your status overrides traditional propriety. You are the head of the Southern Emerald Seas Ling Clan, and as such, as the head of the family, you will have full legal authority over mortal members.”


  “What does that mean?” Ling Qi asked, leaning forward.

  The Sect Advisor studied her, his expression hard. “I will be frank. Mortals have few rights of their own. As the head of the clan, you may do with your family as you wish.” Ling Qi felt disquieted at the implication of that statement. Hou Cheng’s expression softened at her reaction. “If you would like, I will arrange for the Sect to transport and house them here in the Outer Sect village.”


  “.…… I would have to write her first,” Ling Qi deferred.

  “Simply submit the application when you have made your choice,” the older man said kindly. “Now, continuing with your introduction, I must warn you that your actions and interactions will be taken far more seriously from this day forward.”


  She frowned. “In what way?”


  “The mistakes and insults of the common born are not typically treated seriously, even by the least of families. It is beneath them as a clan, even if their scions choose to hold personal grudges,” Advisor Hou explained frankly. “As the head of a fledgling family, however, your actions and any slights will be seen through the lens of family honor. It is a common mistake for new nobility such as yourself to build more grudges than they can endure. I only warn you so that you may choose your words and actions with greater care in the future.”


  Ling Qi held back a grimace. Hopefully, her relationships would shield her from too much pettiness. “Are there any laws or rules in particular I should be concerned about?”


  “All Imperial laws continue to apply to you in full,” he answered, a paper messenger bird taking flight from his desk to flit out of the window. The next message immediately began folding itself. “The primary effect of your new status, I will repeat, is that your actions will be taken more seriously, as an adult’s would. Should you wish it, I will have a copy of a text on common law and aristocratic etiquette made for your perusal.”


  “I will accept your generosity,” Ling Qi said. Meizhen had given her some lessons, but it couldn’t hurt to have another point of reference.

  “Very good,” Advisor Hou said with a slight smile. He glanced to his left, and a small slip of paper shot off of his bookshelf to flutter out the door. “Now, your new status does come with certain privileges as well. You will receive limited access to the markets of the Inner Sect to ensure that your cultivation does not unduly stall due to a lack of access to the appropriate resources, and you will be granted the right to receive a single green spirit stone per month at a discount.” He flicked his sleeve, and Ling Qi caught the small ivory badge he threw to her. “Take this to the front desk downstairs when you wish to access the Inner market or receive your green stone.”


  “How much of a discount?” Ling Qi asked curiously, briefly examining the badge before tucking it away.

  “At the current exchange rate……” Advisor Hou considered. “With the Sect discount, it is two hundred red stones for one green stone.”


  That was less than half the usual exchange, if Ling Qi remembered correctly. With her pill furnace income, she could even afford it reasonably often. “Can I purchase more green stones than just the one?” she asked eagerly.

  The advisor peered at her carefully. “Should you have the funds, yes. Such transactions would be at the full price, subject to market fluctuations. You must be quite industrious.”


  Ling Qi flushed a little at the examination and subsequent praise. “Thank you for your kind words,” she replied. “I know this may be blunt…… but may I ask what incentives the Sect offers for people like myself to stay rather than going to seek their fortunes in vassalage?”


  “It is a fair question,” the old man said, unbothered. “You must understand that we in the Argent Sect do not wish to conflict with our noble patrons, however much we might wish for young talent such as yourself to stay with us even after the end of your debt period. In this humble advisor’s opinion, the Sect offers the best opportunities for education and cultivation. The archive of the Outer Sect is but the least of the Sects’ collection of knowledge passed down since the second dynasty, and our Talisman Department, headed by the Venerable Elder Sima Jiao, is the jewel of the south and produces wonders and advancements by the decade.” He sounded pretty sincere in his pitch. “In addition,” Advisor Hou said, lowering his voice, “the Sect is a place largely free of the more delicate politics one finds in the greater province.”


  Ling Qi nodded, lowering her eyes in thought. “That is how most new houses fall, isn’t it? They run afoul of more established clans?”


  “Not as often as you might imagine, but it is a heavy concern,” he admitted. “More often, I find, new clans are simply folded into others by marriage or adoption, or their new heads put themselves into fatal positions in efforts to expand their new and usually barely tamed holdings.”


  “I guess ruling even a small village is harder than it sounds,” Ling Qi said wryly.

  “Very much so.” Advisor Hou chuckled. “You cannot imagine the work I do every day, and I am but an assistant to Venerable Elder Ying. The lands nearby do not remain relatively passive without effort nor do the roads and totems maintain themselves. Ruling is a heavy responsibility. Should you choose the path, do not allow pride to be your fall. The spirits of this land have been civilized by many millennia of effort. It is likely that any holdings you receive will not have that advantage.”


  Ling Qi had to wonder just how bad it would be if he considered the spirits around here civilized. “Should I have further questions, where might I go to have them answered?”


  “Simply come here and present the same badge which gives you access to the Inner market. While I may not often be available, one of my subordinates will be pleased to answer any queries,” he answered. There was a rustling of paper as a little bird fluttered through the open door, bearing a heavy book. “It seems the text I sent for has arrived. If it pleases you, might I point out the most relevant passages for study?”


  “Of course. Thank you, Senior Sect Brother,” Ling Qi replied. At least it wasn’t a monster like Cai’s law texts.

  Threads 152-Rot 1

  Landing in a crouch, she sent the wisps spiralling out into the chamber at the bottom. It was small, only a few meters across, but three tunnels reached out. Small and cramped, they were roughly carved, most likely shaped by the quick excavation of an earth technique.

  As the wisps began sending her information from down the tunnels, Xia Lin dropped down beside her, making only a slight thump despite all of her armor. She held her halberd in a low guard position, eyes flicking from one tunnel to the next.

  There were spirits down here as well, Ling Qi thought, as images from all of her wisps fed in at once. Little creatures of mud and river water crouched in corners and floated in stagnant puddles. More of the little knot-hole eyed creatures clung to damp roots that poked through the ceiling as well, and down the third tunnel where stone had caved in, fungal creatures clung to muddy stones, supping on a rotting log.

  Ling Qi gestured sharply to the leftmost path. “Dead-end, tunnel collapse,” she said quietly.

  “And the other paths?” Xia Lin asked just as quietly, smoothly orienting toward the other tunnels.

  Ling Qi sorted through the information. Down the middle path, there were a few rooms filled with the rotted remains of furniture. It seemed like a small barracks or waystop. There were beds, a few racks of weapons, and a small chest that radiated the energies of spirit stones. Something to check later. Down the right path was a room with three equally spaced pools of clear clean water over which hung a contraption of brass and mirrors, now tarnished and cracked. She wasn’t expert enough to say for sure, but it looked like some kind of clairvoyance set up.

  “Disused scrying chamber on the right path. Barracks in the middle path,” Ling Qi answered.

  “Unsurprising,” Xia Lin muttered. “We are fortunate that the site seems abandoned. The Hui were fiendish in their trapmaking.”


  Ling Qi eyed the many intricate formations carved subtly into the walls around them. Comparing the style of the arrays to Xuan Shi’s or the Sect’s work she had studied, it seemed terribly fragile to her. Too much complexity. Relying on cascading energies would no doubt be powerful, but without maintenance, the formations had broken easily.

  “Do you have any experience with this sort of thing?” Ling Qi asked.

  “Indirectly,” Xia Lin replied. “My elders in the regiment have passed down their experiences rooting out the many boltholes of the Hui. I myself have only experience in removing proscribed cults from abandoned locations.”


  Ling Qi pursed her lips. She had never been deeply involved in the temples or cults. She was pretty sure the Empire took a light hand with them though, so to be proscribed…… “That must have been unpleasant.”


  Xia Lin simply nodded, her lips set in a thin line.

  Ling Qi jerked her head toward the scrying room tunnel, sending a silent whisper to Sixiang to watch their back. “Anything I should be aware of?”


  “Hidden entrances, dream labyrinths, and blood locks,” Xia Lin answered. “Be wary of using your insubstantial movement to pass through things. The Hui were more paranoid of their own than enemies.”


  Of course they were, Ling Qi thought grumpily. The web of energy for the formations above ran deep through the stone, too deep to be easily disrupted. She did not have any arts suitable for large-scale destruction. Even Call to Ending was not suited for attacking earth and stone that did not have flesh beneath.

  “Do you have any formation breaking methods?” Ling Qi asked as they entered the hall.

  “My blade pierces and shatters the works and lies of the wicked,” Xia Lin replied confidently. “Her Grace made it with that purpose in mind.”


  Ling Qi glanced toward the halberd head, pointing out in front of them, and watched the faint buzz of radiant qi that hummed along the grain of the metal. It brought to mind Meizhen’s tool from last year, the one she had brought from her clan vaults to shatter Yan Renshu’s defenses. The skein of energies in Xia Lin’s weapon were so much more refined and sharp than the obsolete siege rod Meizhen had used.

  “Let me try my hand at any obstacles first. If there is anyone left, we don’t want to alert them. I’ll have Sixiang signal you if I want you to strike.”


  Xia Lin nodded her assent. There were no more words as they traversed the tunnel and entered the clairvoyance chamber. It was as old and abandoned as the rest, but entering herself, Ling Qi noted details that her wisps had missed. The contraption above was corroded and hung with webs, and the shadowed ceiling teemed with normally sized spiders. Hissing, they scurried from their presence as they entered and lurked between brass gears and fittings. Withered spirits, half drained, twitched feebly in their webs.

  Ling Qi crouched down by the closest of the water pools. It was rounded and lined with fired clay tiles, shaped and sized for use with divination arts not much different than hers. If she had to guess, the tarnished mirrors hanging above were some kind of focus for a more advanced form of divination. Ling Qi pondered whether she could make use of it for anything or whether it would be better just to break it.

  “There is an entrance here,” Xia Lin said quietly, making her look up.

  She followed the girl’s pointed finger to a section of wall to their right. Squinting for a moment, she saw the shimmer of illusory qi. Stone swam before her eyes and became a sheet of webbing covering a narrow gap. With a thought, she sent a wisp flying toward it, only to frown as the glimmering qi construct stuck to the strands like a fly in a web when it tried to pass.

  She dismissed the wisp and stood, studying the barrier. There was no formation work that she could see, just the natural workings of a spirit in the spidersilk. Was it worth pushing through?

  She narrowed her eyes, peering through the strands. Inside was a funnel of webbing covering every surface, transforming the stone passage into a round tunnel.

  She eyed the little spiders above. Some of them were developed enough to be minor spirit beasts. Perhaps……

  “What was the disposition of the spirit beasts associated with the Hui afterwards?” Ling Qi asked.

  Xia Lin paused in her study of the webs. “Scattered and disjointed. Some followed the Hui unto death, some retreated to the woods and reverted to feral behavior, and others merely requested a renewal of contracts with the Duchess.”


  Ling Qi grunted in annoyance. No easy answers then.

  She pinned a particularly fat and fuzzy brown specimen with a stern look, causing the hand-sized arachnid to freeze in place. It was mid red in power, and she sensed just enough spiritual potency that it could probably understand intent.

  Letting musical flows of qi tinge her voice, she spoke softly but authoritatively. “If there is one who rules this place, I would parley with them. Go and inform your ruler.”


  She let the weight of her attention fall, and the spider bolted away, scurrying up into a crevice in the rock.

  “You give up our advantage of surprise?” Xia Lin asked, more curious than accusing.

  “If I had you cut through that barrier, it would do the same. And even if I could probably slip through, that would leave me alone with too many unknowns. If they’re hostile and too strong, we can run and get the others, or we can just bypass this place and risk the illusions with Lady Cai.”


  she thought.

  her little brother asserted cheerfully.

  Xia Lin seemed satisfied with her answer.

  It was not long before the webbing blocking their path twitched, and the strands drew apart, fully revealing the funnel beyond, offering silent invitation. The moment that the strands parted enough, a wisp, dimmed to invisibility, darted down the tunnel, and in her thoughts, she felt Sixiang focus in on the feed of information coming from it.

  What lay at the end of the tunnel was a chamber woven of webs anchored to the chitinous limbs of a genuinely massive spider. The spider was still and empty of spirit though, an empty corpse and no more. Within the chamber itself, there were many hundreds of lesser spiders, six of them worth individual attention. Each one was larger than a human, closer to the size of a horse. It was difficult to get an accurate read on their cultivation—each one was covered in twitching hairs that disrupted the vision of her wisp and Sixiang’s wind—but they were certainly within a stage of her and Xia Lin.

  They hadn’t noticed her wisp. Instead, they seemed to be engaged in debate among themselves. Their frontmost limbs wriggled as they gesticulated at one another, filling the chamber with the sound of scraping carapace.

  She narrowed her eyes a touch as she realized the meaning of their movements and the vibrations they were sending through their webs. They were frantically planning an ambush.

  Such a blatant use of a good faith request annoyed her.

  Ling Qi thought to Sixiang.

  Ling Qi glanced over toward the other girl in time to see her eyebrows rise slightly. Xia Lin’s eyes flicked over to meet hers, but no more than that. She tapped the side of her helmet once, and a blank facemask shimmered into existence across her face. Any trace of emotion or personality vanished behind a veil of studious patience and professionalism.

  That was good enough. Ling Qi would be doing the talking here.

  Ling Qi began to walk toward the tunnel and nudged Zhengui and Hanyi to be ready in her thoughts. Xia Lin fell in a step behind and to her side.

  As they walked, Ling Qi began to hum softly under her breath, letting a trickle of qi into her voice. Her senses followed the sound, the modified technique of the Harmony of Dancing Winds art, and she joined Sixiang on the breeze to widen her sphere of awareness, slipping through the hair-thin gaps in the webbing that would have caught her wisps.

  The short journey down the tunnel was made in silence, save for the faint sound of metal-shod feet pulling away from sticky threads. Ling Qi began to get a feel for the crumbling stonework that lay beyond the tangled webs. The chamber where the dead large spider lay was the center of a suite of rooms, their walls long broken apart to create a larger chamber, although a couple were intact.

  Emerging into the main chamber, Ling Qi put on a smile and looked up to where four large brown spiders now hung. Their forms bristled with sharp brown hairs that quivered with every motion in the air. The other two had crept off somewhere. The webbing still distorted her senses where it lay thick, and it was taking time to decipher the movements within the narrow funnel tunnels that crisscrossed outside.

  Ling Qi brought her hands together and bowed, smiling as she did so in the center of the chamber. “Greetings, Honorable Matriarchs. This envoy apologizes for the somewhat rude intrusion into your home.”


  Through the wisp still bobbing unseen in the room, Ling Qi watched them, the faint rustling of limbs and the fluctuations in their qi. The largest spider, crouched in the webs directly ahead of her, rubbed its two front limbs together, fangs quivering as it emitted a dry voice. “Your apology is accepted, but only this once.” Haughtiness, pride, and self-assurance; these, Ling Qi read in the creature. No indication that it was speaking for another. “What brings you before us?”


  Ling Qi grew more confident that there was no hidden higher realm lurking about. The echoes of her humming continued to whisper through the webs, and she found two of the spiders creeping close to the entrance, likely to close off the retreat.

  “We seek passage through the lands of your kin above—”


  “Not kin,” whispered a smaller spider to her right. Its whispery voice was joined by a sussurruss of others, angry and low. One of the larger spider’s legs drummed on the webbing.

  “Those above have betrayed the true-clan. They are not kin,” the largest spider said.

  “My apologies again,” Ling Qi said obsequiously. She even meant it. After all, it was rude of her to conflate the spiders above with these, so crudely intending to betray hospitality. “Nevertheless, the mighty working of illusions above bars our path. Might I be able to convince you to lower its protection for a time while we pass?”


  There was a rustling among the gathered spiders, and Ling Qi caught a little of the communication moving through vibrating webs. In the end, communication was an expression of qi between individuals, and her arts had taught her to read them regardless of medium. They were aware of the illusion formations and perhaps how to turn it off.

  “The true-clan may be willing to bargain for this service,” the largest spider whispered, crawling a meter or two further down. Optimal range for a technique?

  Above, Ling Qi finally tracked down the other two spiders which she knew to be hidden. They were of a size with the one she spoke to, and they were directly above, weaving a technique between them, an entrapping web that would leave them vulnerable to the others.

  Through Sixiang, she relayed the positions of all the hidden spiders to Xia Lin. Xia Lin remained as still as a statue of steel.

  “I see. And what might we do for the true-clan in exchange?” Ling Qi asked, finally straightening up.

  “News,” whispered one spider. Again, the word was repeated throughout the swarm again and again.

  “Yes,” whispered the larger spider. “Have the traitors been driven from the great Heavenly Pillar?”


  Ling Qi’s smile was bright indeed as she nodded. She had heard enough from her liege and the history books and other people to qualify the last generation of the Hui as such. “Though it seems the fight is ongoing.”


  That sent a thrill through them, whispering in the webs. She felt the vibrations murmuring of “The Return” with almost religious intensity.

  The two far above weaving their trap paused just a moment, and she heard the whisper of something, a name or a title. “Lord Scribbler?” That was a little concerning. All of the larger spiders were female.

  Was there actually a surviving Hui about? She wondered at the name, but spirits often referred to humans in odd ways.

  “May I ask, Honored Matriarchs, what you are doing so far in the south? I was not informed of your presence before beginning my own expedition.”


  “We wait, and we watch,” the larger spider whispered, fangs rubbing coarsely against one another, “until the time comes. Many were weak, many disloyal. Not we. Never we.”


  The spiders in the rear were now just above the exit, waiting at hidden tunnels to strike. Those above were finishing their weave. Time was growing short.

  “Are there humans among you yet?”


  “Lesser-kin, like you, envoy, fled their duty and joined the cloud riders. The lord remains,” the spider said smugly.

  She didn’t sense anything below. Maybe one of the sealed chambers?

  Ling Qi felt some worry at the spiders calling her and Xia Lin “lesser-kin.” Did they just mean not full-blooded Hui? She was just going to ignore the nonsense about imperials, even renegades, joining the cloud tribes. It was more likely they had just fled and died or hidden themselves in the province.

  More importantly, the fading echoes of her song revealed the flows of energy beyond the obscuring webs. The power source for the formation above lay here in the one chamber still fully intact.

  “I see. Thank you for your time, Matriarch,” Ling Qi said politely. “Might I ask that you disable the illusion for a day then?”


  “Worry not, envoy,” crooned the spider. “Your illusion is coming to an end.”


  All around them, beautiful colors began to shift and dance along the webbings’ strings, hypnotic and soporific, and from the ceiling drifted a gentle web of wonderful dreams, falling upon them with the weight of exhaustion. As one, three spiders crouched and prepared to leap down, fangs wet with venom, as the fourth and largest wove her limbs in a dance that spread venomous power through the others’ fangs.

  Ling Qi narrowed her eyes. “Rude.”