The fire was small, a pitiful flicker of orange against the encroaching dark of the Blackpine Forest. As far as Mistress Bai was concerned, it perfectly matched the mood.

  She was exhausted. Her Qi reserves were dangerously low, her meridians aching with a dull, throbbing phantom pain that mirrored the cracks in her foundation. The barrier had rather cunningly hidden a secondary array that formed a feedback loop – any damage they did to the barrier was reflected directly back at their cultivation, using the Qi in their attacks to slip past their natural defences.

  It had taken her longer than she liked to think of to detect and destroy it. By that point, both Li Xuan and she had been in slightly worrying condition, particularly when one considered they had yet to actually fight the demonic cultivators that had brought them out here in the first place.

  It had been… humbling, to learn that the two children had managed to pull off what they could not.

  Across the fire, Li Xuan stood with his back to the warmth, staring out into the darkness towards where the fortress of Greywood lay in ruins. He had been pacing for the last hour, a tightly coiled spring of frustration and professional disappointment.

  “It’s unstable,” he said, breaking the silence for the third time. “The entire mountainside has shifted. The central keep is buried under thousands of tons of rock. If we try to dig, the rest of the cliff will come down.”

  “I am aware,” Mistress Bai replied, her voice calm. “Hence why we decided against digging. Besides, we both scanned the rubble as best we could, and agreed there were no signs of his Qi signature.”

  Li Xuan turned, his expression sour. “It is a waste,” he muttered, kicking a clod of frozen earth into the fire. “A profound waste. A Pact-bearer, lost because he couldn’t follow simple instructions. The Elders will be… most displeased. We had the asset in our hands, and now we have nothing but a pile of rubble and a story about a demonic cultivator’s suicide pact. We don’t even have a body to show them.”

  Mistress Bai generously ignored his repeated use of ‘we’ – after all, things were not looking good for the disciple, and it was only natural that he would try to shift the blame as much as possible. That didn’t mean she would actually let him shift the blame, of course, but he was welcome to his delusions. For now.

  As it was, she had to lower her gaze, hiding the flicker of amusement in her eyes.

  No body to be found, she thought. Yes. How convenient.

  She turned her senses inward, past the ache of her injuries, past the fatigue, down to the deep, esoteric web of her cultivation. The knot was still there.

  The debt.

  It pulsed with a steady, rhythmic beat, a tether stretching out into the darkness. It was faint, stretched thin by distance, but it was unbroken. If Jiang Tian were as dead as assumed, the debt would have unravelled.

  But it held.

  The boy was alive.

  And while she wasn’t exactly pleased to still be bound by that debt, she wasn’t so irritated as to reveal his duplicity. After all, it would be much easier for her to resolve the debt when he wasn’t trapped behind the protective walls of the Azure Sky Sect along with its ornery Elders. She could only applaud his desire to keep well clear of the Sects – she had, after all, gone to significant lengths to maintain her own independence.

  Not to mention, she would admit to taking some pleasure in watching Li Xuan’s ambitions crumble around him. It soothed the loss of her own power base in Qinghe.

  Misery shared was misery halved, after all.

  A rustle from one of the small, temporary tents broke her reverie. Zhang Shuren emerged, his face pale and drawn in the flickering firelight. He was wearing a fresh set of his Sect’s inner robes, but they hung a little loose on him, and the thick bandages wrapped around his chest were visible at the collar. He moved stiffly, favouring his left side. The physical wounds would knit in a few days thanks to the high-grade elixirs Li Xuan had poured down his throat, but the corruption lingering in his meridians would take weeks of meditation to fully purge.

  “You should be resting, Junior Brother,” Li Xuan said, his tone softer than usual. “Your foundation is unstable.”

  Zhang ignored him.

  His face was drawn, still too pale from blood loss, but his eyes were steady. He approached the fire, bowed once toward Mistress Bai, and then straightened with visible effort.

  “I have made a decision,” he said.

  Li Xuan opened his mouth again, likely to insist that any decision made while half-drugged was invalid, but Zhang kept speaking over him with surprising firmness.

  “If Jiang is dead… then he died because he refused to abandon me.” Zhang’s jaw tightened. “He fought to protect me. He fought to complete his duty. If he cannot finish it, then I will.”

  Mistress Bai raised an eyebrow. That was likely a somewhat generous interpretation of Jiang’s actions – but then people tended to look fondly on the dead, so perhaps it wasn’t a surprise.

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  Li Xuan’s expression pinched. “Zhang—”

  “The entire time,” Zhang pressed on, “his goal was to reach Biragawa and save his family. That was what drove him. If he is gone, then his family is now without help, without protection, and without the man who was willing to give up everything for them.”

  The fire popped, sending up a spray of sparks. Zhang didn’t flinch.

  “And so,” he said, voice steady even as his hands trembled faintly at his sides, “I will go in his place. I will bring his mother and sister back to the Azure Sky Sect, where they will live safely. Under our protection. I owe him that much.”

  The silence that followed was heavy.

  Li Xuan rubbed both hands down his face. “Zhang. Listen to me carefully. Your honour is commendable, truly, but this is not a task to be handled lightly. You are injured. The corruption hasn’t finished dispersing. A trip across the province is not just impractical – it is dangerous. To say nothing of how the Elders will want a full report, and to direct our next steps. You cannot simply—”

  “I can,” Zhang said quietly. “And I will.”

  Mistress Bai hid her smile behind the rim of her teacup. It seemed the little sect pup had found his spine. Unfortunate timing, but admirable nonetheless.

  Li Xuan opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. He looked at Zhang’s set jaw, the unwavering light in his eyes, and clearly realised that ordering him would be futile. Besides, Bai suspected Li Xuan wasn’t eager to return to the Sect and face the Elders with nothing but a failure to show for his efforts. A diversion, a chance to potentially salvage something – or at least delay the inevitable dressing down – would be appealing.

  “Fine,” Li Xuan sighed, rubbing his temples. “If you are determined to throw yourself into another fire, I cannot stop you. But I will not let you go alone. We will go to Biragawa together.”

  Of course, she thought with a mental groan. The universe has a sense of humour.

  If they went to Biragawa, they might find Jiang. If they found him, Li Xuan would drag him back to the Sect, debt or no debt. And if that happened, her own debt would remain unsettled, a constant weight on her cultivation. The best way to help him – and free herself – was to ensure they didn’t find him. Or, at least, that they didn’t catch him.

  She needed to be there to steer the ship away from the rocks.

  “How touching,” she said aloud, stepping forward. She plastered a look of moved solemnity onto her face. “Such loyalty is rare. It would be… heartless of me to abandon you to such a noble quest without aid. I will accompany you.”

  Li Xuan stared at her, suspicion plain on his face.

  She ignored him entirely.

  Zhang bowed deeply, gratitude shining through the exhaustion. “Thank you, Senior Bai.”

  How perfectly irritating. She was starting to think Jiang had done something to irritate the Heavens. This was going to be a disaster.

  — — —

  The room smelled of sandalwood and old paper, a scent Xiaoyu had decided she didn’t like very much, mostly because it smelled so different to home.

  “Focus, child,” Elder Ye said gently.

  Xiaoyu squeezed her eyes shut tighter, sitting cross-legged on the silk cushion that was far softer than anything she’d ever slept on back in Liuxi. She took a deep breath, trying to ignore the itch on her nose, and reached out with her mind the way he’d shown her.

  It wasn’t hard. That was the strange part. Everyone acted like this was supposed to be difficult, like lifting a heavy sack of grain, but to her, it just felt like listening to a sound that was always there, just below the noise of the wind. She tugged at the warmth in the air, and it flowed into her chest, settling there like a cat curling up by the hearth.

  “Good,” Elder Ye murmured. She could hear the smile in his voice. “Very good. You have a rare affinity, Xiaoyu. The Ninefold Jade Sect will be very lucky to have you, once you come of age.”

  He said that a lot. Lucky. Talented. Special.

  Xiaoyu opened her eyes. The Elder was watching her, his hands tucked into his jade-green sleeves. He looked kind. He always brought her sweets, and he made sure the servants brought extra blankets for her Mama because the draft in the guest quarters was bad at night.

  But Xiaoyu had always been clever, and she had noticed how there was always a disciple nearby whenever either one of them left their guest quarters. Always smiling. Always watching.

  Still, Elder Ye was nicer than most adults Xiaoyu had known. Kinder than the merchants, gentler than the guards. Kinder than the bandits – Xiaoyu shut that door in her mind quickly, before the memory could gather shape or teeth.

  Elder Ye stepped closer, his gaze drifting past her to the open window. A black bird sat on the sill – a raven, large and silent, its feathers gleaming like oil. It watched them with beads of obsidian eyes. It had been there for days, following them from the slave market to the Sect estate.

  The Elder looked at the bird with a hunger that made Xiaoyu’s stomach twist. It was the same look the bandits had given them.

  “Has the spirit spoken to you yet, child?” he asked softly, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Has it asked for anything? Can you feel anything?”

  Xiaoyu looked at the raven. It tilted its head. She didn’t hear – or feel – anything. No voices, no whispers. Just a bird.

  “No, Elder,” she said.

  “Patience,” he smoothed her hair, his touch light but possessive. She resisted the urge to squirm. “These bonds take time to mature. But do not worry. We will ensure you have everything you need to nurture it. You and your mother are safe here. The Sect protects its own.”

  He straightened, adjusting his robes. “Practice your cycling for another hour. I will have the servants bring your dinner.”

  He swept out of the room, and when she strained her ears, she could hear the faint click of the lock. Xiaoyu let out a breath, her shoulders slumping. She looked back at the raven. “You’re going to get me in trouble,” she whispered to it, not even sure herself if she wanted a response.

  The bird didn’t answer. It just stared, unblinking, before spreading its wings and launching itself into the grey sky, heading south.

  Xiaoyu watched it go until it was just a speck against the clouds. She thought about the direction. South was where they had come from, in the cramped, smelly boat. South was where her home was… where her home used to be.

  South was where her brother was.

  Her brother should have been with them. He always had a plan. He always knew what to do. He would have kept Mama from getting sick, or figured out how to sneak away from the bandits when they were distracted. He would have—

  Xiaoyu swallowed hard. Her fingers tightened around the edge of her mat.

  He wasn’t at the village when the bandits came. Nobody had seen him after. Some of the others had whispered that he was dead, or had run away, but she knew that wasn’t true. Jiang was brave and strong, and… everything she wasn’t.

  Xiaoyu looked down at her hands again. She felt the warmth of the Qi coiled in her chest, waiting for her command. Just because she was weak now didn’t mean she couldn’t change. The Elder said she was special. He said she had power.

  Good.

  She crossed her legs again, straightening her back. If Jiang was coming to save them, he would need help. And if he couldn’t come… well, then she would just have to get strong enough to take care of Mama herself. And one day, she would be strong enough to leave, no matter what anyone said, strong enough to not be scared of bandits.

  And when that happened, she would find Jiang and make sure no one could ever hurt them again.

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