I plopped down on the sofa, pulling my outer robe off and throwing it haphazardly over the back of a chair. The hem dragged on the floor, but those were probably cleaned every day, so it didn’t matter. I leaned back and allowed myself a sigh.

Yarani followed me and Kajare in, closing he door behind her quietly. She then stayed standing and leaned against it, while he threw himself into another chair.

“You don’t want to stay with Ceion?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

I shook my head. “No. Whatever he might have said, he’s not going to be feeling very well-disposed towards me at the moment. I think it’s better if I personally, at least, give him some space. Putting too much pressure on him would be a mistake.”

“Little bastard would deserve it,” Kajare muttered. “And he’s still going to be a prisoner, regardless.”

“Anyway,” I continued, choosing to ignore his comment, “I want Ceion to realize he really is reasonably safe with us. I think I’ll give him a few days to understand we’re not going to torture him for information before I start talking to him again.”

Yarani nodded. “That’s a good idea.”

I ran a hand through my hair. I’d originally planned to rendezvous with Kiyanu in Aliatin, but it looked like that would have to wait. I already knew Kiyanu wasn’t going to be happy with any of this. I definitely didn’t want to throw him and Ceion together right off the bat. Of course, I should probably still make a report to Kiyanu. While I would usually prefer talking to him in a dream, in this case I was just as happy to only use written correspondence. Less room for heightened emotions or even harsh words.

“How are you doing, Yarani?” I asked quietly.

She blinked, looked at me, then snorted softly. “I’m alright, Nari. You don’t need to treat me like I’m spun from glass just because I had a brush with a spirit-child’s technique.”

“No one’s trying to do that, we’re only concerned because we care for you,” Kajare said. “You haven’t talked about it at all, just shut the topic out. Of course that’s not going to reassure us completely.”

She glared at him for a moment, then sighed. “Alright, alright. Thank you, Kaj. I know.”

“Kaj?” I raised an eyebrow.

“I decided it’s about time he got a nickname.”

“I told you not to call me that,” Kajare groused. “It means ‘fertilizer’ in my native language.”

Yarani pulled a face. “Alright. I’ll think of something else.”

“You’re still skirting the issue,” I noted.

She rolled her eyes, then shambled to one of the other chairs and flounced into it. “Well, I really don’t have any lingering adverse effects. It wasn’t exactly the most comfortable feeling in the world, but Nari was fine and it lasted only for a few moments. And even that’s all in my head, anyway. It’s not like I was physically hurt, I just had my body moved without conscious input.”

I leaned forward a little. “That sounds a little fascinating, but still disturbing.”

“And it makes sense that any problem arising from this is mental,” Kajare commented. “I mean, this is basically your body betraying you, or it could easily feel that way.”

And I imagine that’s a particular blow to a soldier, who relies on their body to work properly and stay under control. I didn’t voice that thought.

Yarani shrugged, a slight grimace on her face. “You’re not wrong. I think I’m over it, though. In the end, it’s not like a stronger cultivator or spirit beast couldn’t hurt me much worse with me being just as helpless. That’s just the way the world works.”

“Hm.” I leaned back into my chair, studying her for another moment, but didn’t comment. Sometimes, I despised this world. Even if I also had more than enough reason to love it.

“You’re wearing your ‘my old world was so much better’ face again,” Yarani commented.

I scoffed. “I don’t have a ‘face’ for that. And obviously we didn’t have anything like that there.”

Sighing, I stood up and walked to the window. It was long and narrow, the glass done in an old style that made it distort the view at the edges of its separate geometric forms and only gave a clear look through their center. The whole town outside the window looked old. It was a moderately big settlement, and had some houses with at least six stories, but the streets were still worn cobblestone, the streetlights might have been used with oil lamps, and the wall around it was actually crumbling in a few places.

This had never been considered dangerous territory before. Sure, you had to guard against the odd monster attack everywhere, but this town was deep in Zarian territory, with no qi anomalies nearby, and its surroundings were almost all cultivated fields. Now, it stood uncomfortably close to the swath of destruction the Zarian had wrought. You could see it easily from this window, like a dark splodge on an otherwise idyllic pastoral scene. No wonder the townsfolk all seemed so subdued, most of them clearly preferring to hole up in their houses.

I muttered a curse to myself, knowing they wouldn’t understand the language. I was feeling decidedly cranky, which generally wasn’t a good sign. It didn’t help that I still had a subtle but persistent feeling as if another shoe was going to drop. Maybe not right now, but sometime soon. I hated not knowing what my enemies were up to.

“If you’re thinking of calling up Mior for a chat,” Kajare said, “maybe you shouldn’t do that where Ceion can sense it.”

Startled, I turned to look at him. Then I nodded. “You’re right. That would have been my next move, but it’s not like it can’t wait.”

“Speaking of the spirit, are you going to be building temples to the Moon where the burned down ones used to be?” Yarani asked.

I moved away from the window, grateful for the change of subject. “Some. Most of the places are going to get a use for the Empire in one way or another. We might also build more shrines to the Moon elsewhere, but honestly, I’d rather not get too directly involved in that.”

“We could talk to Tenira,” Kajare said. “Maybe Clan Leri wants to sponsor a few new temples. If Kariva isn’t already doing it.”

I nodded. I was technically the head of the clan, so it wouldn’t exactly be far removed, but that was still a good idea. Especially considering the question of where exactly the money should come from. The bureaucrats had set aside an item in the Imperial budget for, basically, ‘royal whim’. I much preferred to spend that on new universities and research centers. The clan had funds of its own, especially considering the lands it still held across the Empire, on several continents. I knew those hadn’t been touched much in the last few decades.

The conversation trailed off here. Although the awkwardness had been broken, it didn’t seem like any of us had much to say. I started pacing up and down the room slowly, wishing we’d set up a proper laboratory in this dinky little town.

Something brushed over the edge of my awareness and I frowned. That was a familiar qi presence, wasn’t it? I stopped and looked out the window, cycling some qi to my eyes. I could just make out an orange spot on the horizon.

“It looks like we have company.”

I didn’t wait to get the others’ reactions, but headed to the door and left the room. Kajare and Yarani scrambled to follow me. The two guards posted outside the door straightened, then fell into step as I started walking.

Unfortunately, I didn’t know the layout of the estate well. While it wasn’t particularly grand by the standards of where we’d previously been put up, it was built low to the ground and sprawling. It took me longer than I expected to make my way outside without running.

It looked it might have been a mistake not to hurry more. Just as I stepped out of the estate’s main gate into the dirt square in front of it, a fiery presence descended from the sky. His aura was far stronger than I would have expected to feel it … and more combative. I froze for a moment, taking in the scene, before understanding dawned and I cursed.

Ceion was in a corner of the square, escorted by two soldiers. It looked like they’d just been heading into or out of the estate in the direction of the neighboring buildings housing an army command center and Elis’ operation, among other things. He’d frozen now, staring wide-eyed as a red streak winged down from the sky towards him.

I started moving before I’d settled on any kind of tactic. A meteor of flames bloomed from the sky, crashing towards them. My shield of darkness qi only barely caught it. The attack flickered, bursting through it. I threw up a second shield, catching the rest of the flames, and staggered to a halt.

At least it appeared that everyone else had hesitated to attack the irate phoenix now flying above the square. Considering this had almost wiped out my reserves, I could understand why. And now that I was there, they seemed to be okay with leaving it to me. At least, no one attacked or made any aggressive moves beyond putting up qi shields, though the soldiers around me and from other areas did draw together into a tighter formation. Of course, he’s supposed to be a friendly and I only had my intuition to go on that he’d be hostile.

The Red Phoenix screeched, whirling around. The fiery corona around him intensified, and fire pulsed around him.

I threw up my hand, trying to wrestle what control I could from the flames. That actually seemed to startle him more than my previous defense, and the phoenix aborted the technique before it was fully formed, beating his wings to descend further.

“Stop this!” I shouted. “Honored ancestor!” I took a deep breath, then gave a polite bow. “I am very glad to see you, but please, let us talk in private and stop making a scene.”

The spirit beast had grown since the last time I’d seen him. He was now just a bit smaller than an eagle, though his coloring hadn’t changed. He didn’t seem inclined to take those intense fire-blue eyes from his target, and he clearly had no trouble using normal speech despite his current form. “You have one of the Auditor’s spawn infesting this place, child,” he declared. “I will take care of it for you.”

“No.” I placed myself between Ceion and the phoenix, pulling on more darkness qi. “This man is my prisoner.” I glared up at him challengingly. “He is mine to deal with. You are being very discourteous, grandfather.”

That finally seemed to give him pause, and the phoenix dialed back his aura to be a bit less oppressive, the fire banking. He descended in a flutter of feathers, his shape expanding amid a fiery haze as he closed in on the ground.

“This beast is your grandfather?” Ceion muttered in Zarian.

“Great-great-grandfather, actually,” I clarified absently as I watched the Red Pheonix step on the ground in humanoid form.

He seemed to have grown up in this form, too. Instead of a young teenager, he now looked to be only a year or two younger than my biological age. He’d grown taller than me, and carried himself like he was even taller.

He bowed politely. ‘It is good to see you again, my scion. I apologize if I caused a stir.’

I smiled and waved my hand dismissively. “Not at all. Be welcome here, honored ancestor.” I turned. “I don’t believe you’ve met my partners. This is my husband, Prince Kajare of the Terbekteri and the Empire. And this is my consort Lady Tia Yarani.”

The two of them had followed me outside and were now coming closer. They both bowed as they were introduced, while he returned the gesture. I could sense Ceion relaxing as it became clear that we’d moved past the possibility of an altercation and into talking.

“Perhaps we should speak inside,” Yarani suggested.

“A good idea. We have some water from a spring located in a local qi anomaly with very dense qi, I’m told it tastes quite good,” I suggested. “Unless you’d like something more substantial.”

Aston and the guards started to spread out farther and disperse the onlookers, most of whom seemed to turn back to what they were doing anyway now that the show was over.

The Red Phoenix snorted softly. “I suppose that will do well. I never could understand why humans insist on drinking poison like alcohol.”

“Me neither,” I confessed in the tone of someone sharing a secret. “Let’s go in, then.”

Luckily, my ancestor seemed happy to take the lead, while Yarani and Kajare maneuvered themselves to escort him inside the mansion like good hosts. That let me get a moment with Ceion and his escorts.

“Take him into the base near the gate,” I told them. “It’s probably better if you stay out of his sight for now.”

“You’ll get no argument from me on that, my lady,” Ceion agreed. He moved as if to wipe sweat from his forehead, even though my enhanced eyes could tell there wasn’t much of it in the first place. Still, the tension in his body language was obvious enough, and hardly surprising, though he had kept his calm remarkably well.

“What did you do the Red Phoenix to provoke such a reaction, anyway?” I asked.

Ceion smiled with little mirth and shrugged. “I haven’t the faintest idea.”