“No, no, I don’t think this is suitable at all,” Astronomer Wu muttered. He stood upon the air, calculated to glorious stillness and stability unlike the bouncing and unsteady perch atop the back of the wretched beast that he had ridden here. The narrow river valley full of dark and twisted vegetation, and crumbling ruins stretched out before him.

“It will be,” the woman beside him said. Her voice was flat and uncompromising.

Astronomer Wu involuntarily hunched his shoulders and lowered his head under the gaze of liquid steel and roaring flames. General Xia was terrifying. Astronomer Wu was not a man so proud as to not admit that. Frankly, she was far worse than the Duchess in his mind, who at least held appreciation for the arts and academics.

He always felt like kindling before a furnace when the general looked at him.

“It—” he tried, finding his voice dry. “It will require much construction. W-would the adjacent peaks be within acceptable range?”

Higher ground would be needed for an observatory. To do it here in this lower region, a tower would be needed, and even then, it would be suboptimal.

General Xia considered this, or he hoped she did. Behind that faceless, eyeless mask of steel, there was no reading her intent, save for the subtle kiss of a blade's edge across flesh which she projected to all who met her.

“That is within the established parameters. You may use the third survey team to find an appropriate site.”

“Thank you, General,” Astronomer Wu said, clapping his hands together and bowing low. Goodness gracious, he dearly hoped she would depart soon.

She turned away from him. Her own tread on the empty air cast up sparks which rained down into the damp forest canopy below where even now, spirits were crying out in struggle as trees fell and paving stones were laid. The great sledges carrying the blood price the foreigners had requested came up only a kilometer or two behind the work crews.

“Bring your supplies to the base camp. Speak with Quartermaster Jia, and he will see to the safe storage. I expect a report on suitable locations for construction by month's end.”

“Yes, General,” he said, not raising his head an inch. Sweat beaded on his brow. He held his breath, and she was gone. He stood there for a moment, merely breathing, taking in the comforting stability of the platform of air under his feet and running through the calming equations which perfectly matched its position to the rotation of the terrestrial sphere.

He descended back to his companions.

“You alright there, Brother Wu?” asked one of the drivers, looking at his pale face with some concern. It pleased him to have earned such a moniker from his companions. Let that high-handed rival of his try that! He would bet the drivers would spit that one's name as a curse by the end of a trip like this.

“Conferring with superiors is always stressful.”

He was greeted with understanding nods all around.

“But do not be disheartened by my lacking constitution,” Wu said, clapping his hands. “The base camp is ahead, and the quartermaster awaits. We’ll all soon have some well deserved rest.”

They got moving, though Wu remained off the ground, striding on air. They were safe now, regardless of his fright. No nomads would sense the expression of his calculations here under the protection of the General.

***​

A week later, Astronomer Wu found himself standing on the new cliffside overlooking the valley. He’d made his calculations and determined the most optimal location for the observatory based on the local geomancy and spiritual environment. Unfortunately the one had been in an impossible-to-build location so he had brought a number of secondary locations to the General’s consideration.

He had forgotten what it was to have the efforts of a Sovereign put onto his projects. He eyed the mathematically perfect plane of severed stone under his feet and in the wall behind. Millions of kilograms of stone had been carved into transportable blocks for the construction below.

It did rather ease the calculations, even if the local spirit court was rather badly disrupted. Officials from the Ministry of Spiritual Affairs were already arranging the new order though. The astronomer put the thought from his mind for the moment and instead gazed up at the sky.

The stars and the tapestry of night were so very clear here, and on the furthest southern horizon, he could see the hint of dancing, unnatural light over the mountains, his arts magnifying his vision again and again.

New mysteries of the Celestial Spheres to solve. Such a tantalizing prize.

The air rippled, and he drew from his core his domain weapon, a brass telescope with intricate formations, its lenses the finest, most precisely cut crystal glass. He did not truly need it any longer, but who would deny him this little bit of sentiment?

He peered through it, and a thousand leagues became as only ten, the base earth of mountains fading to shadows of mist, and he beheld the southern sky in all its wondrous color. What was the nature of these emanations, which called out to his soul so even from a thousand leagues away? They flickered flashily like the colored scales of fish in a noble garden pool.

“Be wary of seeing too long, Starwatcher.”

The moment of peace shattered, and Wu’s head jerked to the side. There, beside him, stood a wizened figure. A cloak of tattered faded crow feathers was thrown about his shoulders, and the only part of his body visible was a gnarled, three-fingered hand clasped around the knobbly head of a rough hewn cane. The old man’s face was lined and ancient, but most undignified with stringy white hair tangled with sticks and crumbling leaves and a chin rough with unshaven scruff. One strangely shaped eye looked back at him, the other a sunken empty socket.

Astronomer Wu swallowed thickly, a thousand thousand calculations spinning through his mind, equations to shield, to jump, to bind, but he held them back. Instead, he straightened his shoulders. “Are you among the delegation arriving? I must complement your mastery of the imperial tongue so soon after our peoples’ first meeting.”

“All tongues are the same with the wisdom of the runes.”

Wu’s brow creased. “A formation working then? Impressive still. But I must reiterate that the meeting is to take place in the valley below.”

“Northerners doing more strange things,” dismissed the old man, his single eye turning back to the southern sky. “Let them. The Crowfather watches. Why do you stare, Starwatcher?”

Some manner of protective watcher rather than a delegate then, Astronomer Wu supposed. He tried not to be worried; the young Lady Cai had indicated these people were quite civilized. “It is my Way to catalog the skies, and I have never observed such lights.”

“You were not warned?”The strange, beggar-like man cocked his head to the side like, well, a crow.

“Those who claim there are things not to be understood have ever been wrong,” he said haughtily. “If it exists, then we must comprehend it and catalog that existence. I do thank you for your warnings, sir, but I do have precautions against mental invasion.”

The man stared south. Wu did hope that he’d not offended, but this was not a matter he could bend on. Whatever the lights were, the Empire would understand them through him. That was why he was an astronomer.

“Interesting,” he finally grunted. “I see where you have begun to cut your rune, Starwatcher. Crowfather bless your eyes.”

And then he was gone in a rustle of feathers and a gust of wind.

Astronomer Wu sighed, his shoulders sagging a little as he let his worry out. That hadn’t been so bad. He’d certainly met old men far more cryptic, if much more well groomed. It seemed the heiress’ judgment was correct!