Ling Qi wondered as she made her way back to the line of the participating disciples under the bright cheers of the audience. She caught Ji Rong’s eye as they passed one another on the path to the arenas. Perhaps unsurprisingly given his relationship with Chu Song, he was scowling.

  Sixiang noted.

  Ling Qi let out a quiet huff as she rejoined the line, returning to her position between Cai Renxiang and Gu Xiulan. she thought.

  Sixiang made a thoughtful sound that echoed oddly inside of her mind.

  she mused. She couldn’t imagine what living like that must be like.

  Sixiang agreed cheerfully. Ling Qi got the impression of a shrug from the capricious spirit.

  Ling Qi thought.

  Sixiang admitted.

  Ling Qi held in a sigh and turned her attention outward once more. She had been harsh in her wording to Chu, purposefully so, but she hadn’t lied either. Ling Qi had seen her own reflection in the Argent Mirror, and despite her efforts to grow it, she still had little enough room for sympathy in her heart and certainly not for a declared enemy.

  In the arena, Ji Rong was facing Han Fang.

  “.…… an ass, but he’s had my back,” Ji Rong said idly, flexing his scarred and calloused hands. “Gonna have to kick

  ass for that, you know?”


  Han Fang had no verbal reply for obvious reasons, though the bald boy did cock an eyebrow at the threat.

  “Tch, forgot. Not gonna get any trash talk from you, am I?” Ji Rong mused as the formations took hold, beginning the transformation of the arena into that of a sheer mountainside cliff.

  Han Fang merely smiled, tracing the ugly scar that crossed his throat with one finger.

  “Yeah, yeah, I see it,” Ji Rong replied, raising a hand to scratch at the burn scar that stretched across his cheek and neck. “It’s not gonna stop me from breakin’ your jaw again.”


  Han Fang shrugged as the arena solidified fully around them, leaving the two boys standing atop a high and misty cliff beside a river that thundered over the edge, drowning out any further speech. The thunderclap that signified the start of the match sounded a bare moment later.

  As Ling Qi watched, Ji Rong’s body crackled with heavenly energy, and his limbs dissolved into actinic light. He crossed the distance between himself and Han Fang in the blink of an eye, seeming to almost materialize out of the air with his fist already slamming into the taller boy’s jaw, lifting him from the ground with the force of the blow.

  Wind shrieked around Han Fang, and he himself vanished with a thunderous boom before reappearing with a loud crack atop a large boulder set in the center of the river, his hammer now in one hand and a small, glowing pellet in the other. Han Fang flung the pellet at the boulder he stood upon, and a roiling cloud of sand and dust sprang up in its wake.

  Ling Qi saw Ji Rong fall into a crouch, his lips moving in speech she couldn’t quite make out over the roar of the waterfall. What she could understand, however, was the intense spike of qi as he pressed two fingers against his forehead and drew forth a crackling orb of blindingly bright energy. It shot from his extended fingers in a searing beam of spiraling energy, striking the cloud. Then, the beam warped, bending at a right angle to shoot to the left and curve around a second boulder on the far side of the river, shattering the cloak of obfuscating qi and sending the previously hidden Han Fang sprawling as the energy drilled through his chest and out of his shoulder, leaving a smoking hole in its wake.

  Ji Rong easily avoided the flung hammer that came his way as Han Fang scrambled back to his feet. Ling Qi closed her eyes, and a moment later, her silent prediction came true as the sound of an electrified fist striking flesh reached her ears.

  “The winner of the fourth match is Ji Rong, by right of knockout,” Sect Head Yuan announced to the mixed cheers of the audience.

  Her own match had been the longest one so far in this first round of elimination duels, Ling Qi noted. She supposed that this was the reason that the Sect had arranged for the crafting competition to take place on the same day; the visitors would probably find this first round rather short.

  As the Sect Head called up the next two combatants, Ling Qi could not help but feel a pang of pity for the stocky, dark haired boy who had been matched with Meizhen. Much like Hei Boqin, Wei Jing looked like a man marching to meet the headsman.

  While she was well aware of how this match would go, out of courtesy to her friend, she kept her attention focused on the arena rather than any further musing.

  Meizhen stood with her arms hanging loose at her sides, seemingly unguarded in posture as she observed her opponent. On the other hand, Ling Qi could see the faint trembling in Wei Jing’s hands as he clasped them in front of his chest and bowed respectfully.

  “M-may we have an honorable match, Miss Bai,” he said carefully, keeping his eyes down as the arena wavered and reformed.

  To Ling Qi’s surprise, Meizhen actually deigned to respond. “As you say,” she replied coolly, somehow giving the impression of looking down on the older boy despite his greater height. “You are not my enemy, so I will endeavor not to inflict undue pain.”


  Her opponent straightened up, looking as if he had bitten into something unpleasant, but he kept his hands together for a moment longer regardless. “This one thanks you for your regard,” he said, swallowing thickly.

  The terrain had finished taking shape during the exchange, leaving the two cultivators standing on small isles of dirt protruding from rippling brown waters. The shores were overgrown with rushes and other such plants, and here and there, twisted trees rose from the mist that clung to the ground and water, their branches hanging heavy and low.

  The moment that the thunderclap indicating the start of the match sounded, dark waters began to trickle down Meizhen’s back, condensing from the moist air, and Cui’s sinuous emerald coils began to form, coiling around Meizhen’s feet.

  At the same time, a long wooden staff capped with bronze formed in the hands of her opponent, and the boy turned, his boots digging deep into the moist earth as he prepared to leap away from his starting island and opponent.

  “Running is futile.” Meizhen’s quiet voice rang out like a clear crystal bell, and pale golden fire bloomed in her eyes. That was a sure sign, in Ling Qi’s experience, that Meizhen was putting active effort into her aura of terror. Ling Qi winced in pity as the boy’s limbs stiffened and his eyes bulged out, leaving him to trip and sprawl in the mud, whatever movement technique he had begun to activate guttering out.

  Meizhen’s flowing stride carried her out onto the murky waters, her passing leaving only faint ripples as the surface of the water supported her as easily as the ground had, while at her side, Cui slipped silently beneath the muddy surface. As Meizhen’s Abyssal Mantle took on its full shape, her face was shadowed, visible only by the glow of her eyes.

  Wei Jing scrambled to his feet, clutching his weapon, and spun to face his approaching doom. He brought the butt of his staff down on the muddy ground with a thump. The earth rumbled and rose, a meter thick barricade of packed earth rising to twice the height of a man in an instant, but then, he screamed as a serpentine head erupted from the waters at his feet, Cui striking in an impossibly fast blur to sink her fangs in through qi, leather, and flesh alike before vanishing back into the waters as quickly as she had appeared.

  As his staff dropped from nerveless fingers, she saw Meizhen swipe her hand horizontally through the air in a single, quick motion. In its wake, the waters rose in a sharp wave, carving through the raised wall and allowing her to step gracefully through the muddy rubble to stand a short distance away from her opponent. Wei Jing was struggling to rise off of his knees, but even with his thick pants and boots, Ling Qi could tell that his leg was swollen to a worrying degree, and the blood which wept from the holes left by Cui’s fangs was marked with greenish black flecks.

  “Do you yield?” Meizhen asked as she moved to stand over him, her empty hand extended toward his cheek, sparks of poisonous qi dancing around her fingertips.

  “I yield,” the boy choked out.

  The first round this year was

  unfair, Ling Qi thought as the Sect Head announced Meizhen as the winner to a backdrop of cautious approval radiating from the audience. She offered Meizhen a small smile as the girl returned, and the other girl caught her eye for a moment before looking to Cai Renxiang beside her and offering a small nod of her own.

  Keeping up appearances could be quite annoying. Ling Qi held back the small sigh that wished to escape her as her friend took up her place on the opposite side of her liege in the rapidly shrinking line.

  Ling Qi watched with only minor interest as the next match began. The two participants facing off were Kang Zihao and another of the poor sacrificial second realms. She wasn’t concerned about the other boy as an opponent. Not only was he in the opposite bracket, but he would also be facing off against Bai Meizhen next.

  As Ling Qi listened to the two’s dialogue, she realized that Kang was going to be giving the other boy some face. From their conversation, it seemed that the second realm had been one of Kang’s subordinates. Ling Qi couldn’t recall this disciple’s face.

  Given her lack of interest in this “fight,” Ling Qi instead turned her attention to Zhengui, who was practically vibrating with happiness at winning his first fight. Praising her little brother for toughing it out against a third realm opponent was more important and more entertaining.

  Ling Qi did tune into the match from time to time. The other boy was a spear wielder as well, and Kang Zihao had decided to engage the other boy in a duel of pure spearmanship, showing nothing new. As boring as the match was to her, it looked like the crowd at least enjoyed getting to see a slightly longer match this time. In the end though, the duel reached its obvious outcome, with Kang’s speartip resting against the other boy’s throat.

  The next match, on the other hand, Ling Qi intended to give her full attention. As Gu Xiulan’s name was called, she gave her friend an encouraging smile, which the other girl returned with a confident smirk behind her veil. Gu Xiulan marched up the path beside her opponent with her head held high, as haughty and confident as the day Ling Qi had met her. She wore a single layered gown of dark red silk embroidered with flickering flames that clung rather scandalously to her figure. The red glove she had worn since the beginning of the year was gone, replaced with a fine golden gauntlet so well articulated that the plates seemed almost like a second skin.

  Wen Ai, on the other hand, kept a more demure expression, her steps flowing gracefully along the path. The girl practically had a whole bouquet of flowers woven into her hair, and the colorful blooms swayed with every step like the dangling ruby earrings worn below. Unlike Xiulan, her gown was a many layered thing, burying the smaller girl in a cloud of floaty silk and lace that seemed quite good at masking the movements of her limbs. Also unlike Xiulan, she was fully in the third realm.

  As the two reached the arena and took up their places, both girls bowed politely to one another in almost perfect unison.

  “I hope that we may have a good match,” Wen Ai said in her quiet, musical voice.

  “That is my hope as well,” Xiulan agreed easily.

  “Allow me to offer my condolences for your incomplete breakthrough, Sect Sister,” Wen Ai said. “It must have been a terrible disappointment after your sacrifices.”


  Xiulan’s eyes narrowed slightly in the fading light of the changing arena, sparks igniting in her dark brown eyes. “Thank you, Sect Sister,” she said sweetly. “Allow me to congratulate you on your own. A mere two years of effort for such a result is certainly impressive.”


  “Thank you for your acknowledgement,” the other girl replied, her voice unstrained as the sky darkened above them, and rough stone replaced the tiled arena under their feet. “I will, of course, endeavor not to worsen your disfigurement in the coming match.”


  “I will apologize in advance for any damage you suffer as well, Sect Sister.” Ling Qi recognized the look in Xiulan’s eyes well enough to know exactly what sort of sharp-edged smile hid beneath her veil.

  Their arena finished taking shape as the girls fell silent, leaving the two standing on a small rocky isle in the middle of a great expanse of water. White-capped waves rose and dashed themselves against the sheer stony cliffs that made up the isle, and overhead, storm clouds rumbled with unreleased rain.

  The starting thunderclap rang out.

  Threads 196-Liminal 5

  She continued her descent, keeping her eye on the flicker of green that she had spotted. It helped to focus on a goal, rather than descending without purpose. It kept her thoughts running in the correct direction and her body reacting to her own commands rather than those of fragmented signals from fleeting alternate selves.

  Forward. No turning. No retreating. That was the key.

  When she came to the bottom of the stairs, it was abrupt. One moment, she had been placing a foot forward onto another dry stair. The next, her foot had sunk into swampy muck.

  She beheld the sight of a low, wide cavern with a sense of creeping familiarity. It had been over a year since she had seen this place last, but she had seen it. Sluggish black water lapped at the muddy shore, and she remembered the treasures she had pulled from it: the shard of solid darkness from which her domain blade had been carved; the deathly mirror which sale had funded her cultivation for a year now; and the near forgotten seed pods still resting in her storage ring in the material world.

  In the center was the horned skeleton wrapped in vines and covered in black flowers. It was still bleeding the liquid that filled the pool. Driven into the earth at its side was the same bronze spear she had seen before, but in the Dream, the spear flickered with a ghastly green radiance.

  As she beheld it, she sucked in a breath when the bare skull twitched and rose to regard her with sockets full of black flower petals.

  “
” The voice that emitted from the skeleton dug into her mind with claws of icy cold, painful and ragged. Yet, through the pain, Ling Qi could feel no malice in those words. If anything, they seemed almost filled with wonder.

  She felt a sharp pain in her chest then and felt something part her skin from within. She looked down to see the point of her domain blade pulling free, glistening and black. It shot from her chest, and it took everything she had to halt it middair, vibrating with tension. It felt like someone had just yanked on her arm hard enough to dislocate it.

  “
” The worn whisper of the skeleton scratched at her ears. Its jaw didn’t move, and its voice seemed to be born from the rustle of petals and dried vines.

  “Honored Elder, you are mistaken,” Ling Qi ground out through grit teeth, feeling the strain of holding her blade in place, humming in the air between them. “I only took the gifts freely offered. I am not your blood.”


  Somehow, she could feel the futility of her effort. She could feel the strength of the skeleton. If it exerted itself just a little more, she knew it would have her blade.

  “
” Its voice was scolding but fond. “
”


  Air shimmered in a veil of glittering color, and chaotic qi washed out over the room like a tidal wave as Sixiang materialized in front of her at full height. "Let her go," the muse hissed, their expression strained.

  She jerked back as the pressure on her domain blade loosened, but the grip was not wholly gone.

  "

  " whispered the skeleton, seemingly not angered by the interference. "

  "

  "If she doesn't want to be here, you bet I do." Sixiang's words no longer came from their lips but rather on the sounds of an increasingly violent tide.

  "Thank you, Sixiang," Ling Qi said with a wince, laying a hand on the muse's shoulder. "Honored Elder, unfortunately, I cannot stay. I have many obligations."

  “
” the voice crooned. "

  ”


  The grip vanished, and Ling Qi nearly stumbled, staring at the skeleton warily. “Why do you trust that I would come back?”


  “Ling Qi, don’t question the thing,” Sixiang hissed in alarm.

  Somehow, the thorny vines framing fleshless jaws seemed to convey a smile. “
”


  Ling Qi felt something like an impact against her stomach and a rushing sensation like flying at top speed. Her back slammed against wood, and cherry blossoms rained down. She found herself staring up at the boughs which surrounded her starting point. The dream idol floated soundlessly above the shimmering ring gates.

  A familiar dark oaken door now stood at the edge of the clearing. It had no frame nor hinges, just a simple handle.

  Ling Qi shut her eyes. “I think that’s enough for one session.”


  ***

  The sights she had seen in the realm of Dream still filled her mind even now, well after she had passed back through the ring gates and packed both them and the idol away. She still saw the crumbling city ruins balanced so precariously, lives and experience piled high atop their predecessors’ until the oldest were but dust and sediment.

  The bleeding mountain and the behemoth with Gui’s eyes stuck in her mind as well, mysteries she was itching to unravel. Then, there was that itching whisper.

  She couldn’t deny that those simple words compelled her. Divorced from the immediate fear of the moment, she was left to dwell on what she had felt down in that moldering prison. She felt a draw to that whispering skeleton, a deeply uncomfortable kinship. Somehow, she was certain that they were similar.

  She couldn’t shake the feeling that he would be sad if she never returned. It was lonely to be a prisoner.

  “I can’t feel anything influencing you, but he might just be better than me,” Sixiang answered her unspoken question.

  Ling Qi acknowledged that. Then again, they had known exploring the liminal realm would be dangerous.

  “Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Sixiang agreed.

  “Hey, Big Sis! Are you alright? You’ve been staring off into space since the wagon got moving.” Hanyi’s voice brought her out of her thoughts, and Ling Qi cracked her eyes open.

  The young ice spirit, already somewhat dressed up, was sitting across from her in the cluttered and cramped workshop which took up the back of Bao Qian’s wagon. She wore a dark blue gown that contrasted with her pale complexion, a graceful thing that Meizhen had helped her pick out. Her hair had been tied back in several braids and was threaded through with white flowers, which her friend had assured her symbolized the coming of winter.

  All in all, Hanyi looked like quite the little noblewoman, despite the bare feet kicking away and sending the hems of her gown flapping.

  “Just thinking about things.”


  “It’s cause you went on that weird trip! You should’ve taken me and the dummy with you,” Hanyi accused, crossing her arms.

  “Maybe another time,” Ling Qi said noncommittally. She didn’t know how well they would handle it.

  Sixiang murmured.

  “Besides, you were busy. Bao Qian has told me how much work you’ve put into this,” Ling Qi said. “This isn’t just one show. It’s a whole tour.”


  “Yeah,” Hanyi said proudly, either mollified or forgetting her previous annoyance. “There was a whole bunch of work, and even though I didn’t get most of it, there was a bunch of local spirits and stuff about each stop that I had to memorize since I’m doing more than just singing.”


  “I trust that you’re well prepared,” Ling Qi said, glancing toward the front of the wagon. Whatever else she might say of Bao Qian, he was a dependable sort. Although, coming from the Dream…


  Ling Qi found herself eyeing the flows of energy through this wagon, lingering on the entrances and exits. Since her journey with Sixiang, she had found her senses sharpened in an unexpected way. The places between—doorways, boundary markers, and others—stood out more sharply to her. Training her senses to interact with the realm of Dreams had left her more sensitive to other liminal spaces.

  She wondered what it was that made Bao Qian regard this cluttered wagon as his home over the manors and lands of the Bao.

  “We will be arriving shortly, ladies and spirits. Prepare yourselves!” His voice called back to them.

  It wasn’t really her business, Ling Qi thought. She smiled and leaned over to pat Hanyi on the head encouragingly. She was looking forward to her junior sister’s performance.

  ***

  The first stop on the week-long tour was the largest venue.

  Bao Qian had begun by soliciting the barons of the south central valley region, and he had secured agreement from several before his efforts had attracted the attention of Vscount Chao. In this region, so close to the Wall, all but a handful of families were relatively young. This viscounty was no different, and its current owners had only held the title for some two hundred years.

  It was for this reason, Ling Qi suspected, that they were eager enough to try new things. Hanyi would be performing not in the viscounty’s capital though, but rather, its largest agricultural settlement.

  Ling Qi had thought that she understood what farmlands looked like, having seen the rolling tea fields of the Sect and the walled fields and pastures of Tonghou. This was much larger. Empty, harvested fields set for winter stretched in every direction nearly as far as she could perceive. Neat roads cut between fields, and scattered structures gave the feeling of a dozen tiny villages rather than a large town.

  However, between her efforts at gardening and her recent journeys, it was easy to tell that this region was as walled as any town or city. Thick lines of growth marked the border between wilderness and civilization with trees packed so close together that they were a living bulwark, reinforced with formation arrays old enough to have become part of the living qi network of the trees themselves.

  The venue itself was near the center of the widely spread settlement, a grand pagoda with a green tile roof and walls of living wood. Like everything else here, the pagoda sprawled, taking up an entire hill with its structure and grounds.

  “Quite a pretty structure, is it not?” Bao Qian commented casually as they walked up the winding ramp which led into the temple. Hanyi had left them, hurried away by attendants and junior priests to prepare for the show.

  “It is.” Ling Qi looked over the scrollwork on the handrails of the ramp and the glimmering garden that lay beyond. The air was filled by the faint music of a small river which wound around the hill and watered the fields beyond. “What did you say it was called again?”


  “The Springmist Temple,” Bao Qian replied. “It’s the second largest temple in the south central valley, and it looks after the yearly flooding and the fertility of the valley.”


  “Are you sure this is appropriate for Hanyi then?” Ling Qi asked, not wanting to fret but being unable to quiet her worry.

  “I have been assured that it is. Winters have been growing harsher, but the priests have not yet been able to pin down a spirit to propitiate for this. I have exchanged numerous letters with the head priestess of the temple and Viscount Chao to confirm the details.”


  “I see.” She was being ridiculous.

  As they passed through the entrance of the temple, her nose filled with the smoky scent of burning incense and fragrant wood smoke. Inside the temple, she saw people gathered. Lay worshippers would be outside for the procession that would follow so these must be the gathered nobles of the region, here to oversee and view the rituals and the performance that was part of it.

  Bao Qian’s voice tickled her ear, though he had not leaned closer nor had his lips moved. Indeed, he was smiling pleasantly at those who had looked up to see them. “There are two main groups here. There are the nobles whose agricultural lands line the main road which currently ends in the ruins of Black Lotus Pass, and the others are nobles whose lands are further into the hills and produce the valley’s metals and finished goods

  Ling Qi shot him a look out of the corner of her eye even as she bowed in greeting to the gathered nobles, and he looked back impassively. Well, it wasn’t as if she didn’t know the secondary purposes of these gatherings. Cai Renxiang and she had embarked on quite a difficult project, and they wouldn’t be able to do it alone. The Wang and the Sect would support them militarily, but protecting their land, once appointed, was only the first step. To thrive, it had to be made prosperous. They couldn’t expect to be directly supported by the committal clan of the area, the Diao, at least not at first.

  “If I wanted to speak to someone about the old road, where should I direct my attention?” Ling Qi asked under her breath.

  It wasn’t a completely vital route. Most of those went through the Wang lands in the foothills and outer mountains, but this pass at the extremis of the Diao’s southern holdings did still have value, opening access to these valleys, the river, and potentially, the Meng to the West. Besides that, from her admittedly limited understanding of such things, it was good to keep many routes so that any one becoming blocked wasn’t catastrophic to any trade they could develop. Having multiple escape routes and fences was always better than only having one.

  “A good starting point would be Baron Suo,” Bao Qian answered. She followed his gaze to a middle-aged man standing with a small group of other nobles by the refreshments table. He had dark brown hair speckled with gray and a round, friendly-seeming face. “Their land abuts the old road, and they are well liked by their neighbors. His father recently took up the role of patriarch so he is a newer clan head as well. He seems like a man open to innovation in my opinion.”


  “Thank you, Bao Qian,” Ling Qi said. “I will see when the performance starts.”


  “Of course. Good hunting, Ling Qi.”


  They split up, Ling Qi heading toward Baron Suo and Bao Qian moving off toward another gaggle of nobles.