As I continued hurrying through the palace with my badly-injured mother in my arms, I couldn’t help but feel that this had to be a bad dream. It was just surreal, completely out of touch with the expectations I’d had for the day. But the thought didn’t last longer than a moment, because I had a perfect memory and because there were enough details grounding the present moment to make it clear this was reality.

I breathed in deeply, trying to ignore the odor of dust and battle, blood and excrement and sweat, in the air. My grip on Mother tightened just a little. Not much, of course, I didn’t want to jostle or hurt her any more than she already was.

It only took a few moments for us to reach the right corridor, where I took a sharp turn to the right. I hadn’t been here before, but I didn’t spare much attention for the walls of smooth stone or the short spiral staircase I hurried down. The guards moved closer to me, and I could faintly hear a whoosh of air, then the sound of more footsteps behind them.

I put on a burst of speed, racing ahead through another short corridor. This area was connected to the palace buildings but something of a separate structure, added on to it with copious use of earth qi. I could feel the change in my qi senses. They’d been almost unnaturally sharp for a while, my connection to Rijoko clearly present.

There was a large double door ahead of us, but it swung open before I reached it, in a quick, smooth motion. Apparently my qi presence had been enough to open it, or Rijoko tweaked things a little. With my current speed, I still had to slow down before I could enter. That gave me a moment to listen to the rising noise behind me. There was a blast, a bit of a rumble, and a choked scream. The second of the guards, who’d covered our backs, blurred out of my senses as he died.

I barged forward. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. There was a hot feeling on my back, and I caught the tail end of a spray of liquid as the other guard threw herself forward to cover me. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t spare the time. I just jumped forward, into the room beyond.

I made it just in time. A bit of qi flickered from the ceiling, extinguishing a spray of fire that had attempted to follow us through the door. Before I even took in the appearance of the place, I felt myself relax slightly, comforted by the feel of the room. It was a large, stone hall, with an ornate altar at the other end and several smaller structures set up at the sides, along with benches and open doors leading into side rooms. Several people stood up at our entrance.

I didn’t look at them, but finally turned around as I took a few steps backwards, further into the shrine.

A small group of people, all clearly powerful cultivators, were watching me. In the middle of the corridor, an old man had suddenly appeared. He stooped a little over a cane with a wicked-looking metal cap, his gnarly hand gripping it tightly. His hair was white and wispy, his beard only a little fuller. But his eyes still sparkled, with more life than when I’d seen him before.

“Patriarch Li?” I stared in surprise.

The old man frowned. “Not ‘patriarch’ anymore, thanks to you, Princess.”

I exhaled and smoothed out my expression, feeling a stab of annoyance that the word had slipped out. But it barely registered under all the other emotions I was feeling. Not least of which was bewilderment. I hadn’t expected the former patriarch of the Carmine Cloud Sect, where I’d spent some time shortly after coming back from my soul journey, before I dissolved it for breaking Imperial law and disciples attacking me.

“You advanced quite quickly,” I noted.

The man’s aura left little doubt that he’d reached the eighth stage. If I hadn’t stood in the Moon’s shrine, it would have oppressed me. Last I knew, he was still in the seventh. I would have guessed the middle part of it, although to be fair, it could have been the late. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if he had some help.

“It’s surprising what some adversity can do,” he replied, smirking a little. “Of course, I had many friends and acquaintances who were ready to help me after that farce of a trial.”

I frowned. I knew he’d gotten off lightly in the trial about the sect’s illegal experimentation, convincing the court that while he knew about it, he was only distantly responsible. He should still have been punished severely.

Well, no wonder this particular eighth stager was involved. I had given him more than enough reason to hate our dynasty, justified or not.

“Whatever my personal grievances, Your Highness,” he put a slight mocking emphasis on the title, “you may yet get out of this alive. You are not our primary target.”

I glanced down at my Mother, who was still breathing heavily and clearly had trouble keeping her eyes open. “You must be delusional to think I would give her up.”

“Consider your situation, Princess.”

“You’ll get to her over my dead body,” I repeated, glancing back up to meet his eyes and make sure he saw the certainty in my gaze. “Which isn’t going to happen here.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh? You think you could somehow take us on, take me on, and win?”

I scoffed. “It’s one thing to kill your monarch during an attempted coup d’état. It is another matter entirely to strike down a Greater Spirit’s child in their own temple.”

“Are you quite sure of that?”

“Do it and you will either die, or my father will afflict you with a curse to make you wish you had.” I didn’t doubt that was the truth, the walls of the temple almost called it to me.

He raised his eyebrows, pacing to the side. “So you intend to hide out here forever?”

I shook my head and turned around, stepping further away from the entrance. He must not feel confident in testing my threat, as none of them moved in our direction.

“Someone close the doors, please,” I said to the other people in the room, finally giving them my full attention.

They stared at me and their Empress in my arms with wide eyes. Many of them had dropped to their knees or even prostrated themselves, which probably made sense if these were worshipers of Rijoko. Now they stirred from their shock. One man, who was probably a priest, judging by the his robe, fiddled with a qi mechanism, and the double doors slammed shut.

“Help me get her comfortable,” I said, shifting Mother and pulling a pillow from my storage ring.

They sprang into action, and soon we had her bedded down on a pile of blankets and pillows in the aisle, shortly before the main altar. I brushed some strands of hair from her forehead and checked her temperature, even knowing how stupid the gesture was. Far too high.

“You were great, Nari,” Mother said, her voice quiet and a little raspy.

I smiled at her, but I knew it looked strained. We were safe for the moment, but we really couldn’t hide out here forever. Mother needed the best medical attention. If that’s even enough. I could at least try to care for her now, but I didn’t know what I could accomplish. And she seemed to be getting worse.

“Any doctors or healers here?” I asked the crowd.

They shuffled awkwardly, looking at each other. Finally, a young woman stepped forward, keeping her gaze fixed to the crowd. “I’m a physician’s assistant, Your Highness. But …” she swallowed audibly. “I’ve never seen anything like this. Her Majesty is in the eighth stage, she shouldn’t …” she trailed off, then shook her head, her voice a whisper. “I don’t know if there’s anything I can do.”

“Take a look, at least,” I encouraged her, trying not to let the way my stomach dropped like a lead ball enter my voice.

She shuffled forward, and I moved to the side to let her get closer to Mother. In the silence that followed, I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to center myself.

I was just starting to realize what all this meant. Even if Mother survived and we beat the attackers, that wouldn’t be the end of it. At least everyone seems to be careful not to bring the palace down around us, I noted mentally. There aren’t many eighth stagers involved, really. Many are probably sitting this out, waiting to see who wins. I frowned at the thought. Actually, this can’t be an isolated attack. It’s not like we can hear about what’s happening elsewhere, right now. For all I know, whole parts of the Empire could be in open rebellion.

After a minute, the woman looked up again and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Your Highness. It seems to be some sort of poison technique. I don’t have any medicines on me that would help. To be frank, I don’t know if we have anything that could save her.”

How helpful. I smoothed out my frown and nodded. “Thank you.” Then I looked down at Mother, who at least still had her eyes open. “Can you tell us anything useful?”

She grimaced and shook her head slightly. “No. My qi is too drained to successfully fight it. I can feel myself getting weaker.”

I exhaled slowly, then glanced up. “Mother, please release your aura. Everyone, back off.”

They all scrambled away, and Mother released the tight control she had on her qi presence. I felt it wash over me with a distinct sense of pressure. Even injured, she was still in the eighth stage. But I found it easily bearable, with the qi of the place, my father’s qi, reinforcing me.

I sat back and took a closer look at her aura. There was something itching at the back of my mind, the seed of an idea. I tried to trace the foreign qi that was infesting her, then turned my attention to her presence in my qi senses, itself, to the deeper layers of my aura. Even given the situation, it was fascinating.

I could almost see patterns in Mother’s qi signature. Nothing specific, I couldn’t really ‘read’ it, but with my special ability, I felt like I made some sense of it.

It was a good thing that I’d met Elia and had the opportunity to take a look at her qi presence. That helped me see how being a spirit-child would manifest itself, compared to my own aura. I also remembered Al’s, both before and after his soul journey, and other members of our clan. Taken together, this gave me some idea of what I was looking at, what I was looking for.

“Mother, what’s your special ability?” I asked. I’d known she had one for a while, but she’d never actually told me.

She smiled a little, and answered in my mind. ‘I have an ability to read and influence the emotions of others.’

I flinched. What?

‘Don’t worry,’ she continued before I could start to freak out. ‘It doesn’t work on you. In general, it only works on people I don’t care about. The more I’m emotionally invested in or connected to someone, the weaker it is. I couldn’t do anything with anyone I genuinely like, or even hate. Though it’s easier with enemies than friends. I won’t be able to influence these traitors enough to make a difference, even if I can tell they’re feeling angry, resentful, contemptuous, or determined. Besides, they’d have to be in the room.’

I scooted closer to her. ‘That’s a really interesting limitation. But you’re right, this doesn’t help us now.’

Mother groaned. ‘It might not help anyone, anymore. I can tell it’s not looking good for me, Nari.’

I took another long look at her qi signature, then smiled at her. “Have some confidence, Mother. Defeatism isn’t going to help you succeed.”

“With what?”

“Ascension.”

She just stared at me for a moment, then let out a raspy chuckle. “You think I can do it?”

“I’ll help you. I’m not the daughter of the guiding spirit for nothing.” I grinned at her, trying to project confidence, and laid a hand on her good shoulder. “Honestly, you ascending to the white stage is our best chance, and the situation is definitely giving you the push you need for a breakthrough, right?”

She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. Now, she looked calm and focused. “Alright. What do I do?”

I paused for a moment to gather my thoughts, recalling what she’d told me about the ninth stage and what I’d gathered from Isuro. “There’s more to it than a typical breakthrough. You could probably cultivate for ages and not get what you really need to ascend. I think that’s because it’s not really about qi, or not just qi.”

She raised an eyebrow.

I scratched my cheek. “I told you what I learned about our soul journeys, right? Inera’s curse? I think this ascension touches on that stuff, that has to do with the different worlds. Maybe the deeper fabric of the multiverse or whatever. We already had some contact with that with the soul journeys. I think I can even see it in your aura. Just focus on that.”

She nodded slowly. “Okay.”

“Start meditating, but keep listening to me. I’ll talk you through things as best as I can, okay? Deep breaths. Release your aura. Let the qi flow through your body on its natural paths. Settle down and let it do what it does.”

I tried to make my voice soft and soothing, but still strong. Mother closed her eyes and started to fall into what I recognized as a meditative state. I kept talking, guiding her into an almost trance-like state, although she was still focused on me. I could feel my father’s presence, almost looking over my shoulder, guiding me with subtle influence. I didn’t fight that or try to figure it out, just focused on Mother.

And I tried not to let the foreign qi creeping through her bother me. It wasn’t going to kill her in the next few minutes, and it didn’t really impact what we needed to do.

“Your body is dying, but we need your mind and spirit to move on,” I said calmly. “For that, you need to touch the fabric of existence beyond qi, beyond this world. It’s reflected in the qi. You already touched it when you lived through your soul journey, and your special ability is connected to that. You need to leave your body behind. That includes your core and vessels. Push all of your qi out, but keep it under control around you.”

This was the tricky part, and I focused on so hard that everything else seemed to fall away. Slowly, I guided her through the process of prepping for ascension to a different plane of existence.

“Now, you need to sever yourself.”

Mother opened her eyes, giving me one last look, light and darkness fading from her eyes. ‘I should have said this earlier, but … I am sorry, Nari.’

Then the world went white for an instant.

I felt my father’s presence more keenly than before, laid over the space of the temple, and layering over me. I’d closed my eyes and withdrawn most of my qi senses on instinct, but I still had a vague idea of what was happening.

Mother’s body started burning up with qi. Some tore free, swirling through the room. Part of it was drawn into me. But most of her qi kept a vague form. I felt her presence, no longer bound to her physical body, which was being destroyed in seconds. It seemed to spread out, losing some cohesion, and yet there was still order and structure to it. It shot upwards, through the ground and towards the sky. In a moment, it was gone.

I opened my eyes and sighed wearily, starting to circulate qi through my channels almost on autopilot. My mother was gone.

I knew that she had survived, but it hadn’t been easy, still wasn’t easy. Somehow, Rijoko let me know that she would need time to gather herself, to rebuild her self as something closer to a spirit. It would be years, probably decades, until she could come back and I would see her again.

I let my hands fall onto the ground, suddenly feeling tired, even as I kept drawing in qi. I knew what she’d apologized for at the end. It wasn’t leaving me alone, or at least not just that. It was what she’d explained, but never asked forgiveness for. What I’d said I understood, but never forgiven.

She told me she loved me, but I’ve never actually said ‘I love you’ back, I realized, coldness spreading through my guts.

I shook my head and pushed myself upward. Empress Acura the First of House Leri, ruler of the Empire of the Sky, was more or less gone. I still had a lot to deal with.