The days passed quickly, as they always did, when the autumn winds grew fell and long, and touched, by bitter cold embraced. They all had so much work to do, always, more to be done, and subsumed beneath the almost living tide of it all Lily mostly forgot about the entire matter until a week and a bit had passed and a canceled class gave them an opening in their schedule.

  Lily scratched down the final figure onto her paper, pushing it away from her with a smile that was just a little too tight to be natural. “There.” A soft light shone in through the window down across them, catching dully off the table surface and beautifully off Avyr’s fur, as all light tended to. Lily tried her best not to be jealous at how naturally good her friend looked in the sun. It wasn’t as hard as one might’ve thought. She wasn’t a cat, after all. “That should be all. Finally. Who does she think we are, calculators?”

  Avyr shifted across the table from her, glancing up for a moment at the completed assignment then leaning back down over his own work, the movement short enough that he’d probably not seen anything. “More or less. Maybe that’s the point, you know— to help us set up our foundation while we’re still so early in our cultivation path.”

  “That’s…” a good point, actually. The math homework assigned was challenging, yes, but it was ultimately an act of thinking— and any act of thinking could be an act of meditation, done right. “Well, I still don’t have to like it.”

  “I thought you liked math?”

  Lily huffed. “When I’m doing it, sure! When it’s like this, though…” it wasn’t that she didn’t like math, and more that she vastly preferred the sorts of mathematics that more tangibly interacted with her formations. Those, at least, she could get a grasp of in the ways they interacted with her each and every work, physically more than mere mentally…

  Which just brought her back around again to the annoyance that was her own, personal meditations. She groaned, thunking her head down on the desk. If only those had been going better… but, alas, the whims of fate or her own talent or whatever didn’t quite seem to be working out for her.

  She was sure that someone like Raya would’ve been able to get it by now, but, alas, she was stuck with a mere Shedding-stage cultivator’s mind. “I’m going to go. Cultivate, that is.” She stood, pushing back her chair with a dull screech for a second and then gently lifting it back into place flush against the table. “If you need anything, feel free to interrupt me. I doubt I’m going to be making any real progress.”

  “Don’t sell yourself short…” but, to Lily, it couldn’t have been clearer that Avyr was making only a token gesture of encouragement. She smiled softly, not encouraged, but… grateful, she supposed, nonetheless, that Avyr would at least try. That meant more to her than any stranger’s success at the same could.

  She just ruffled the fur on his head, feeling him move softly in response to the touch, and purr— a quiet sound she could have missed if she hadn’t been familiar with it— before she left, once more heading out towards her usual training spot.

  The inner courtyard was an odd mix of overgrown and barren— overgrown towards the edges, where Avyr fiddled with plants to get the perfect environments to grow his herbs and nothing further, and barren in the center, where they’d flattened a ring for their training. Lily’s hand drifted down towards her sword— Qinfu’s sword, really— tempted for a moment to unsheathe it and start practicing again the forms that her liaison had shown her… but, no, that would be going against the purpose of what she was trying to accomplish.

  It would be giving up, and if there was one thing that Lily did not do, it was give up.

  Instead, she pushed herself into a sudden sprint, running the wall and— with a bounding leap and a cleverly placed box— ascended onto the roof in only two steps. The tiles shifted and clattered beneath her feet, a shard of baked clay knocked off one and tossed, tumbling and skittering down, off the roof and into the jungle-in-miniature below. Probably never to be seen again.

  From there, it wasn’t a long walk to her final destination. A bit of a precarious walk, maybe, but… as she settled into her little meditative area, the sun beaming down her, her vision catching on the lurid qi that shifted and played and swirled, and burst out over the skies of East Saffron with something that couldn’t possible be described as anything less than surpassing beauty, that was fine.

  She settled into a meditative posture, and closed her eyes, and opened herself to the world… and, in turn, the world opened itself to her. She could feel it, far more than her Shedding cultivator’s sight could show her, the way the qi around her flowed. It caught up against the formation beneath her— like a sharp rock in a stream, an obelisk named metaphor standing strong against long ages… There was a lot to be gained, from that. She had already gained a lot from that, and with how much her formations relied on the natural qi of the world, she’d probably have to learn a lot more from that in the future… but for now, observing the flow of natural qi wasn’t why she’d come here.

  She breathed in, and let the yin qi that her formation had filtered in flow into her, pooling in her chest and swirling around for a moment before it flowed— half pulled, half by its very nature slipping naturally— towards her dantian and settled in there, subtly expanding her qi capacity just a little before joining the rest of her qi within there. She kept doing that for a short while— just breathing, in and out, replenishing herself, until her dantian felt bloated and her spirit strained, and she knew that she’d not be able to absorb much more qi, if any.

  For a long time, beneath the sun and its yang brightness, she sat still. Then, breathing out, she cycled her qi. Just a meditative thing, and certainly nothing as complex as whatever Avyr had been doing when he’d gathered qi for his breakthrough atop the mountain over winter break. It helped, though, to focus her on the one task, the one thing…

  It worked, she was pretty sure, and in the moment, gently tugging or pushing or simply guiding the qi through her body on its revolutions, she didn’t have the wherewithal to contest it one way or the other.

  Finally, with all that in place, she turned her attention at last to the heart of the problem. Runes. They were the center of the art of Formations, and she had a strong suspicion that they at least relevant to arrays as well. Even if arrays were more of a pure qi-theory thing, there was still a lot to be said about formations and how similar they were. In some ways, arrays were better. They were more gentle, she knew, and much more resilient in some ways. In other ways, though…

  Runes. The difference lay in the runes. She knew that, and knew them, inside and out like not many did. If the annoying way her formations class was taught was any indication— and she had no reason to think it wasn’t, given what she remembered faintly from their brief stop in Chongtian— then that wasn’t something commonly pursued. Which meant that Mingtian had given her a treasure, in teaching her the real way runes interacted and interlaced with one another to create the formations that were of such ubiquity in East Saffron. Which meant his advice— to meditate in search of these greater heights, was sound. Probably.

  She breathed in, focusing on keeping her cycling in rhythm. Focus. She knew well enough that thinking about things extraneous to formations themselves weren't going to get her anywhere. Anytime she’d been close to success before, she’d been thinking about the formations themselves, or the underlying principles of formations…

  There was a relationship between formations and qi. That, she knew. There was a relationship between qi and runes. That, she guessed, and though no mystical signs appeared out of nowhere to tell her that she was on the right track, she was pretty sure she was. Runes and qi, made formations. Formations and qi made results. Runes and formations made… larger formations, or different formations, or something— Lily grimaced as the thought kinda fell apart there, and rather than trying to hold onto that train of thought, she let it slip away from her and flutter off to the back of her mind with all the other ideas that hadn’t resulted in anything.

  A different thread, then. She was, after all, trying to bend runes to fit them in formations where they never would otherwise. A rune’s shape was its meaning, and to bend its shape is to bend its meaning… she pulled her focus inwards, letting go of her cycling rhythm and allowing the gathered qi to disperse as she fought to focus fully on the thought— and not the sudden glimpse of understanding that pressed indescribably at the very back of her mind.

  A rune’s shape was its meaning, and a formation was the art of taking those meanings, those attenuated and oftentimes strange, but just as often also profound meanings and mesh them into a grand whole. That was how she was able to take a formation and make it do something bizarre, like bind people with immaterial changes of pale light, or how Mingtian was able to do… whatever he did. To bend a rune would be to fit in another meaning into those rune-writ sentences, and make of them something so subtly different. Maybe that was part of what made Mingtian so masterfully good at runes? As a mortal, he would never be able to reach the comprehension she strove towards, but even with just the basic two dimensional runes, he could do great things if he was to truly master the art of them— the ability to use runes for anything, more or less…

  For a short moment she imagined all the things she’d be able to do, and maybe even could already do with two dimensional runes— but that short moment was enough to break her concentration and banish the fleeting touch of that so deeply desired comprehension. She cursed, grappling for a second to try and wrest it back— but who could grapple with their own mind? Certainly not her, because she wasn’t insane, even though it certainly felt like it sometimes…

  She sighed, opening her eyes and just staring up at the swirling qi. Close to noon as it was, even the cool autumn sun still cut through the city’s qi with a suffusing yang, bidding all the plants to grow and burning the land. Lily frowned. She’d forgotten to put on sunscreen, which meant she’d probably get a sunburn.

  Of all the stupid things… she didn’t bother descending from the roof, just finding what scant little bits of shade existed on the rooftop. Pulling out her notebook, she just… started scribbling out formations. Small, simple things, so beyond basic that she could probably draw them in her sleep, but they were fun nonetheless. Relaxing fun, more like what she imagined drawing— or painting, or sculpting— or whatever to be like than the usual rigor of formations work.

  She pushed her qi through each as she wrote them, watching the paper they were written on smolder away as whatever affect she’d inscribed burst into the air— sparkles, or a pulse of color, or a pleasant scent, or one of the many impossible sensations she’d felt when searching for the qi of the world. They were such a stupid waste of time, but they made her feel better, which was….

  Valuable or not, she’d still failed. Again.

  “I thought you were meditating.” Her gaze suddenly snapped up to Avyr— she’d not heard him coming at all, which never failed to be at least a little disconcerting. That something so big could be that quiet…

  She glared at him— if only halfheartedly— as she folded up her notebook and slid her pen back into her pocket as if she’d meant to get distracted from the start. “The paths to the great dao are many, and the steps are innumerable. Who can say whether or not those small prestidigitations of mine were useful or not?” Her, and obviously not, but the point was less to be right than it was to sound right. Avyr snorted softly. “Anyways,” she continued, unbothered— “why are you here?”

  “You have a guest.” She blinked blankly— “Aomao. She’s looking for you.”

  “Oh.” Well, if it was Aomao… she’d been waiting to hear about what she’d been up to for a while. She pushed herself slowly to her feet, yawning widely for a long second before slowly making her way towards the front of the house. “Thanks for telling me.”

  “It’s no bother.”

  “Really.” She leapt down from the roof, alighting on the ground with a slight poof of dust— only for Avyr to land beside her, so much more smoothly. How he managed that… “I know you’re just as busy as I am—”

  “I’m really not—”

  “You are, so thanks for coming to get me.”

  “You’d have forgotten otherwise.”

  “I wouldn’t have…” well. Maybe. Maybe, and it wasn’t because she was forgetful! She was simply just… busy. Yeah. That.

  The two of them glanced at each other as they paused in front of the exterior gate— before bursting into laughter. Moments like these… Lily just shook her head and pulled open the door, waving a greeting to Aomao.

  The woman nodded back, as genial as ever. “Blessings upon the both of you. It’s good to see that both of you are doing well. Classes haven’t been too hard?”

  Lily stepped out, waving a hand dismissively. “Not too hard, not too hard… you know how these sorts of things go. My formations instructor has been getting on my nerves a bunch, but that’s just because they suck and formations—” Aomao winced, Avyr just snorted— “and I have plenty of things to keep me occupied regardless.” She didn’t say what, but even still… it pressed on her a little, that she’d still failed. “Come on, let’s go find a place to chat.”

  “You two can come in, if you want. You won’t distract me— I was actually just about to leave to go meet up with the cats, actually.”

  “Oh.” Lily shook her head, but kept walking. “I kinda wanted to get out of the house anyways— if that’s okay with you, Aomao? I heard they had a new thing down at the teahouse nearer to the central areas.”

  Aomao perked up a bit. “Oh? You mean the bluecurrant drink? I’ve heard about that too! Haven’t had an excuse to go there yet, but I’ve heard it’s remarkably good.”

  “Where did they even get those by the way? I’ve never even heard of bluecurrant before…” She waved Avyr goodbye as they left, passing beyond the familiar shadow of their house and the little neighborhood they lived in, and continued, forward into the sunlight deepness. It slanted through the streets, past the buildings that seemed to rise from nowhere and spear the sky, filtering through the bamboo and gnarled branches and casting delightful shadows over the whole area…

  They filled their time with idle chatter, for the most bit, as they made their way towards the teahouse. At first it was mostly about random things of interest; whatever bubbled up from the morass of unpredictable conversational drift became their topic, grabbed and chewed up and tossed away, transforming in the action into the next. A discussion about bluecurrants as they meandered through the outskirts became a discussion on off-world horticultural products, which became a discussion on invasive species, which became a discussion on migration between worlds and how much more limited Aurelia was, now that Bexian had been destroyed.

  Slowly, though, the conversation shifted. First, to dreams of home— of Hontian-si and the majesty that Aomao could seemingly never tire of speaking of, a vast edifice which had survived eons and eons more, before then, in the hearts of those who had kept it alive. She even had a few pictures that Lily hadn’t gotten to see before. They weren’t the most professionally taken pictures ever, clearly more personal effects than postcards, but even then Lily could catch a glimpse in the way the red walls seemed to ascend forever, sheer walls dividing the earth and upholding heaven, of the ancient splendor she spoke of.

  Turning the picture over in her hands as they paused to cross an intersection, letting the early evening light spill off its glossy finish, she couldn’t but ask— “is this how the Bloody Saffron Sect looks?”

  Aomao was quiet for a long while, as the intersection blinked and they walked across, contemplative. “Probably not.” It was a quiet thing. “I’ve never been to the Bloody Saffron Sect grounds, and you know how famously secretive they are about them…” some of the pictures she’d seen might have been real. There was one famous one, of the Sect Master standing in a field of red flowers, surrounded by sparkling motes of crimson light, that most people agreed was probably real— but beside a few major exceptions, the sect was very private with its inner grounds. “There are parts that would be similar to Hontian-si, probably… but, they have more space. They have always had more power. If this is what a mere temple can accomplish over not even half the time the sect has existed, then imagine what the Bloody Saffron Sect has accomplished over the past eons?”

  “It must be magical.”

  “It must.” Aomao smiled wistfully. “You really do love the Bloody Saffron Sect.”

  Lily gave her companion a befuddled look. “Who wouldn’t? They’re awesome! Supremely powerful, just, kind… secretive, mystical, all the things a sect should be.”

  “Removed from the affairs of mortals?”

  “No sect has been removed from the affairs of mortals since the Empire of Twelve Constellations took over, obviously.”

  Aomao waved a hand. “Sorry. I’m not attacking you— really, don’t take anything I say personally. I just…” she sighed. “We are the best of East Saffron, but only a scant handful of us will ever join the sect at the end of this, and most of us know it. You at least have the advantage of being in the upper half of the lot; there’s a good chance that you at least could get in.”

  “You’re not at all bad yourself. There’s no way you’re all that much worse than I am.”

  Aomao giggled, the sound light and airy and amused. “My case is a whole fair bit different than the others. I’ve been let in here by the grace of the Bloody Saffron Sect, but ultimately my allegiance belongs to Hontian-si, and everyone knows that. They’ll consider me for discipleship only if all their other options have been quite thoroughly proved inadequate."

  “Oh. I couldn’t imagine coming here knowing you were going to fail. I think that’d discourage me far too much. If there was no possibility of success?”

  “Success and failure are what we make of it. These distinctions, these artificial delineations between victory and loss— what are they but our own ideas, imposed over reality? Yes, I have failed in getting accepted into the Bloody Saffron Sect, but if I never desperately wanted that in the first place? Then what even is that failure?"

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “That’s… very philosophical.”

  “I am a monk. Technically.”

  Lily snorted, pushing down an amused chuckle. “I’ll give you that. Still, without knowing what is and isn’t possible, then how are we supposed to choose our battles?”

  “My master likes to say that we never really pursue what we pursue logically anyways. He always says that there’s a motion to everything, not borne by logic but by some deeper innate nature, encapsulated by our goals and our virtues rather than the logic of the world— and that it is these that push a cultivator upwards.”

  “I… see.” They’d reached the teahouse— a lively, bustling place, the whole small square in front of it colonized by nice wrought iron furniture. Gossamer shades blocked out the worst of the sunlight without making too deep a darkness, pastel colors scattered in slanted shapes across the cobblestones and customers as the sunlight passed through them. “A while back, someone asked me something very similar.” Slowly, she walked up to one of the empty tables, both of them sitting quietly for a long moment, in expectation— of the server, of what Lily had to say next. “He asked me…” she spoke, slowly, the memory thick as it dripped down, honey over mind, “why do you cultivate?”

  Aomao nodded thoughtfully. “One of the most important questions any budding cultivator can ask of themselves. Ours is often an unforgiving path, and all power— great and small— is prone to corruption. To hold that question in our hearts, and to hold in the heart of that question its answer… it is important, in more ways than one.” Then, in a clear attempt to cut the tension— “was it another monk that asked you?”

  “No, actually. It was a former soldier in the Dragonspine range that hunts monsters that would threaten the mortals there. Actually, it’s a bit of a funny story, because despite him being in early Foundation Establishment, we ended up fighting him later…” she chuckled as she told the unfortunate tale of how— due to a misunderstanding— they’d gotten caught up in a battle with a foe that far outclassed them, and how only her talismans and Avyr’s skills had saved the two of them from certain death… and so on, and so forth. Aomao looked torn between incredulous, impressed, and bewildered as the tale went on, and for a few parts it took her scribbling down miniature versions of the formation for her to believe that she’d actually even done any of it in the first place.

  At the end, she just shook her head and leaned forward on the table, resting her head in her hands. “Damn. And here I thought that having to deal with my Master’s eccentricities was adventure enough, while you were actually going out on adventures into the wilds of the Dragonspine range. That’s insane.”

  “It wasn’t that dangerous. We mostly stuck to the safer, documented regions.”

  “You’re very lucky that you didn’t tell the Association about what you found in the depths of the mountain. They might have killed you to keep it secret.”

  “I’m sure they’d have loved to get a piece of me.” Aomao wasn’t laughing. “You’re serious? They’d actually go that far over a cave with pretty plants?”

  “And the egg of some sort of creature whose innate yang is enough to transform an entire mountain and create the perfect environment for extreme-yang natural treasures just by existing. Even I could tell you that thing’s probably at least a Sundering-level treasure.” Lily had known that, if only tangentially— Core Formation or Sundering or above, because it had clearly been beyond Ruqian— but with almost a year’s worth of exposure to actual cultivators sense… she imagined the sort of treasure that someone like the Outer Elder would fight over, and shivered violently. Maybe she really had dodged a sleeping dragon…

  “If I reported it to the University, do you think I’d get contribution?”

  Lily noticed the slight flash of greed that flicked across Aomao’s face, but it was forcibly buried the next moment. “Probably. You won’t be able to do anything with it for a long while, and if what you told me was true there’d certainly be more lesser treasures around there… the egg, at least, they would probably at least send someone to go and check. Anything below Sundering, the Bloody Saffron Sect either leaves to its disciple’s discretion, or to the lesser powers of the region.”

  “They’re the only sundering level force on the subcontinent, though? Surely they can afford to step on a few minor group’s toes, no?”

  Aomao chuckled. “It’s less that they care about stepping on people’s toes— you heard about the feud with the Shancun Sect, no?”

  “There’s a feud with the Shancun Sect?” Since when? Well, since always, but she’d thought that had been quite thoroughly put to rest, what with how the Bloody Saffron Sect was clearly their superior now. That and how they were both on the same side against the Empire of Nine Sunlights.

  “Apparently our Sect Master beat up their Sect Master.”

  “What? Really?”

  “Really! My Master told me, and while he’s not timely when it comes to these sort of things, he’s very rarely wrong. I heard a rumor that a Grand Elder of the Ever-Joyous Harmony of Bells Sect had to step in to stop our Sect Master from killing theirs.”

  “That’s insane.”

  Lily shrugged. “Take that with a grain of salt, though—” then they had to put their conversation on temporary pause as their waiter finally came, though ordering itself was pretty fast— there was only one thing that most everyone who was coming over really wanted.

  “Would our Sect Master have actually killed theirs?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t hear that from my master, and, well, you know how rumors tend to grow in the telling. Personally, I’d say it's much more likely that they were having a minor spat over something that escalated a bit, and people are taking things out of proportion. Or, well, you know— taking it in proportion, because Sect Masters fighting is not… typical.”

  Lily chuckled. “If the TV Dramas are right, that’s the sort of thing that should only happen at the end of the super awesome and glorious conflict.” Aomao just rolled her eyes. “Anyways. We’ve gotten a bit sidetracked with all of this. You wanted to talk to me about something?”

  “Oh! Right!” Aomao laughed, the bright sound drawing some stars from the other patrons— most of whom quickly looked away once they realized they were part of the elite cohort. “It worked! I’m only just starting to get it to do anything, sure— I’ve a long way to go before I reach the level of achievement that you have— but it worked! I can finally perceive external qi in my meditations!”

  “That’s great.”

  “My Master was very interested in your technique— oh, sorry, I told him about your technique.” She winced. “I really should have been a little more discreet, but I was just too excited, and I wanted a second opinion, and he is a bit of a genius when it comes to cultivation…”

  “It’s fine.” She waved her off, and she sighed in relief. “I don’t really mind. If I can help a fellow student, then why not?”

  “You should really be a bit more selective with who you share your techniques with… at higher levels, the secrecy of certain key techniques can be crucial for a Sect, and for your own safety too. If people know too much about you, it just makes you easy to counter. That sort of discretion might be part of what the instructors are looking for in their evaluation as to who’s suitable for the sect. The technique you gave me wasn’t too incriminating, but it is a powerful training technique, so—”

  “A powerful training technique.” An eerie sort of silence had fallen around them, and it was only when that so slightly familiar voice interjected that Lily realized. “How interesting. Mind sharing, would you?” Lily turned around in her chair, trying her best not to look stupid as she craned her neck up to look at Song Banwei. His clansmate stood off to the side, arms folded over his chest and a thoroughly bored look on his face that still, somehow, managed to appear smug. “Lily Ward? I was talking to you.”

  Her face scrunched up in anger for a fraction of a second before she smoothed it down. It had been such an unexpectedly petty thing to say that she’d almost let it get to her. Instead, she simply stood, crossing her hands over her chest with the sort of dissatisfied air of utter superiority she’d seen Zhihu adopt at times. “What do you want?”

  “Direct. How refreshing.” He leaned back— on her chair, no less, pulling it out from under her and using it as a crutch as he leveled a profoundly unsettling stare her way. “We’re all students here together, are we not? All I want is the technique, and I’ll walk away happy.”

  Beside her, Aomao raised an eyebrow, fixing Banwei with a thoroughly unamused stare. “Really, now. Is this what the world has come to, that seniors bully their juniors in the streets and the sanctity of honor is made as trash, to be trampled beneath the feet of those who bark like dogs?”

  “Stay out of this, monk. Go and pray to your fake gods, or yap about your idiot philosophies to someone else— this is a matter between those who will actually fight.”

  “Hongtian-si is not a pacifist order. The far shore of heaven washes away those who cannot stand, and the greatest temple of East Saffron has long since learned to stand. Do you dare, young master, to imply that Hontian-si is not worthy of respect?”

  That seemed to catch Banwei off guard for a second— but only for a second. “Hontian-si of course has the respect of the Twin Pines clan—” Lily sucked in a sharp breath at the name, a name she recognized, should have recognized earlier when she realized what was going on— “but this is a matter of family honor. Lily Ward has paid insult to my clan.” Banwei grabbed her porcelain cup of tea from their server, who’d shied back at the start of the altercation— and dropped it, the dark liquid scattered in libation to violence for a brief, luminescent second before it hit the ground and shattered into a thousand pieces. “Lily Ward, I challenge you to a duel.”

  “Here? Are you insane?”

  “Here— or are you too cowardly to accept?” Matter of cowardice or not, she knew she really had no option but to accept; by making it into a matter of his clan’s honor, he’d probably not stop pursuing the matter until one of them one, or something far worse happened. The question that kept coming up, though, was why? The matter had been between his clan and the Bloody Saffron Sect, not her— and much as the Song clansmen were boors, they didn’t go around starting random clan feuds. Why her, specifically?

  She frowned, trying her best to delay as the rest of the establishment’s guests started to realize that they really needed to leave before they got caught in the middle of a fight between cultivators. “Surely, this has to be against some sort of rule.”

  “A duel is a duel.” It was a different voice entirely, standing off to the side with his arms crossed behind his back. “This seems as good a venue as any, no?” Dressed in the familial robes of an outer disciple of the Bloody Saffron Sect— face set into a furious frown, authority all but tangibly weighing down the area around him. Lily could not but despair a little. If even a sect disciple said it was okay, then there really was no backing out.

  Except…

  Except. She’d won against Xinshi as a mortal. She’d been training in the art of the blade. Her talismans had improved, even if they hadn’t improved as much as she’d have liked— and she’d be fighting on a level playing field this time.

  Victory might not be entirely out of reach. Logically, perhaps, it would be difficult. Song Banwei was no Xinshi; his clan was one of the most powerful in the city. It’d probably be harder than Xinshi, and Xinshi hadn’t been easy by any metric. Yet… it was not the logical chance of victory that bid her to fight.

  She would become a disciple of the Bloody Saffron Sect, and right now, Song Banwei was standing in the way. “I accept.”

  A wide smile split Banwei’s face. “Good. Very good.” It was not a nice smile, by any means of the imagination, nor an entirely cruel smile, just… satisfied. As though the outcome had never been in question for him. “Then let it not be said that the Song family is honorless.” He pressed his hands together, almost as though in prayer— but Lily could recognize a handseal when she saw one. “We begin on the honored disciple’s call.” Even Aomao had retreated a fair bit, now, leaving a wide circle empty of any living thing, but for the two of them.

  Lily sucked in a deep breath, and dropped her hand to the pommel of her sword.

  Banwei smirked.

  The disciple’s hand chopped down. “Begin—” and it all started. In the space of a second Banwei was enveloped in a sheen of sparkling green qi, glittering across his features for a moment before disappearing—

  But Lily hadn’t been taking that second idly. All the qi around her suddenly wrenched to a halt, sucked inwards as the sheaf of papers she was holding ignited with a brilliant light. Dropping her hand to her sword had been a feint— and an effective one at that. Watching Song Banwei’s eyes widen as he realized he really hadn’t the time he thought he had… there was something delicious about that.

  The formation was filled, the talisman burst into flame, and a beam of light, fierce and hot and instant, the sort of speed she’d relentlessly incorporated to catch Avyr at his fastest— sliced the air between the two of them, and it was all Banwei could do to merely flinch backwards before the beam reached him. The green qi flared into visibility, sheared off by the force of the beam before it sank viciously into his arm, gouging a jagged burn into his flesh before his power was exhausted.

  Banwei groaned in pain, visibly stunned— but, not defeated. Lily frowned, instantly going for another talisman— that beam should have been enough to punch a hole through his arm, not… that. The green qi had weakened it—

  “Die!” No technique, no finesse— Lily barely leapt to the side as Banwei crossed the distance between them far faster than he should’ve been able to, sword slicing a heavy arc through the air. “I’m going to kill you for that, you—” she tuned him out— the rage, the seething almost mad anger, elevated from something clinical to something manifestly real. She threw out a handful of weaker talismans, a shield to block his next blow and a few darts of flame that skittered off the green qi still clinging to his body, doing no damage— and then he was on her again, relentless, imminent, unstoppable.

  His sword swung, a simple arc, the most deadly arc, silver bright through the air at the speed of a cultivator’s wrath—

  Lily’s body responded where her mind did not, before she even had time to react— she drew her sword. All the movements that Qinfu had trained until they became rote, the time spent honing her abilities until they were almost instinctual— she finally, truly understood why for the first time as her sword cleared its sheath, slicing through the air and perfectly deflecting Banwei’s to the side.

  For a second, a breath in the pattern. Banwei stumbled back, wincing as the burned flesh around his shoulder cracked ominously. “You… you… hiding this all along? What a… dog.” Then, furiously, he threw himself at her again.

  Their fight became more a flurry of blows— mortal bladework, cultivator strength, both of them dancing through the abandoned chairs and tables on the knife’s edge of victory and loss. Clearly it was much closer a fight than Banwei had been expecting— he had his weird green qi shield that seemed to block most of her attacks, but she had her talismans, and as those didn’t require her to actually cast a technique for the most part, she could use them profligately.

  They didn’t have their own qi reserve, either, so she had to be careful. She ducked underneath a sweeping sword thrust, kicking out only to be blocked with a kick of his own, then activated two shield talismans when a single one could have stopped the same blow— all because Song Banwei wasn’t an idiot.

  Her talismans weren’t quite strong enough to exhaust even the weak ambient qi of East Saffron, but they still strained it— and in that strain, was an opportunity. Banwei snarled, swinging his blade around with more force than he should have been able to, Lily forced to deflect the arm-numbing blow even as a spike of qi ripped into the last two talismans she’d thrown at him.

  It was an opportunity for her enemy, unfortunately. She was being forced to use more and more of her talismans, as— so long as he noticed them— Banwei could disrupt their formations between attack and completion. It was still a pure qi manipulation thing— blunt, dumb, yet genius in its simplicity. Lily would’ve never thought of disrupting formations like that… She supposed Banwei was in the formations class for a reason, though.

  Still…

  There had to be something. She should be the master of her own formations! Snarling in agony as one of Banwei’s swings nicked her arm, she wrenched her qi into motion, pushing the bloody energy into an arrow talisman and subjugating its formation entirely to her will. This time, when Banwei tried to spike it, she just— stepped to the side, and the formation stepped with her.

  Laughing at his momentarily stunned expression— she leapt forward, sword descending perfectly in one of the few moves that she’d begun to practice with Qinfu. The flame dart formation finally completed— weakened by incompatible qi, yet still enough to distract, and, point forward, step, thrust—

  A haphazard, desperate thrust to the side was all that saved Banwei from being skewered through the heart.Instead, her blade passed between his arm and body, drawing a jagged line of blood across his pale skin. For a fraction of a second, the two of them locked eyes, and Lily realized— the outer disciple wouldn’t step in.

  They would live and die on the word of their blades.

  Before she had a chance to slice his arm off or something, Banwei twisted to the side, kicking her hard in the chest and throwing her back a few feet. She barely managed to remain standing— but then again, much the same could be said for her opponent. By this point, blood was running freely down from his shoulder, and he wasn’t looking in good shape. His qi reserves couldn’t have been doing well either. “Just…” she gasped for air. “Draw. Give me a draw.”

  “I cannot… for the family…” he hefted his sword again, and— against that, what could Lily do but raise her own? Even as her strength flagged, and her body began to fail her— she would not, would never give up. “La’ao demanded that I… and so I…” he laughed, then a weary, a viciously unhinged sound. “Die like the dog you are.” The green qi around him blazed, and laughing all the while, he attacked. Just for a few seconds— his strikes were inelegant things, his technique lacking even the shadow of finesse it’d had before— but they were constant. She felt herself the iron affixed in the gaze of the smith, hammered, hammered—

  Strike, and strike, and strike, each classing with an almighty clamor of steel on steel, all she could to just stand still beneath the enormous onslaught—

  Pain.

  The world… bent, like a rubber band, bursting into insensate color and nonsensical sound, and a deep and sullen and empty quiet that sung with the spinning of her head as she… everything snapped back together and she hit the ground hard, head knocking against the cobbles and blade clattering out of her hand.

  The whole world seemed to go silent.

  Out of the corner of her eye she saw the green qi surrounding Banwei gutter out, the man almost dropping to his knees before he managed to drag himself forward. His laughter had turned into more of a wheeze, by then. “Got… you.” His foot was bloody. It wasn’t his blood.

  He was dragging himself forward towards her, blood covering the entire side of his body where she’d mangled his shoulder and sliced his chest. In the hazy distance— and when had the distance started to be hazy? She could see Aomao struggling against a bloody qi binding, shouting… something. The outer disciple was clearly restraining her. Huh…

  So this was what it felt like to die as a cultivator, surrounded by what seemed to be the entire school, alone, together. She found herself… smiling, as Banwei slowly stood in front of her, struggling to so much as raise his sword. Was this what it’d felt like, for them— her parents, off in some foreign land, for East Saffron fighting that terrible, terrible war, at the very last moment of their lives when they’d faced that final oblivion?

  Then, she noticed something in the distance, all but unnoticeable, and she really did smile, then, laughing brightly. A distraction. Just a little distraction. Just a tiny delay. That’s all she needed. “Didn’t know…” she managed to gasp out— “that you were so much of a pussycat.” Heavens above, that was so cringe. It made no sense, either— surely she could have thought of something better? She didn’t think Banwei would hesitate to kill her—

  Still, it made Banwei hesitate for that single moment, and it was enough.

  A blazing star crashed into him, and Lily finally allowed herself to sink into blissful unconsciousness.