“Thanks, Hojo.” Paui said to a staff member dressed in a white apron with blue trim, denoting her as a fluidity practitioner, which made sense for a chef. “I know it isn’t dinnertime, but we were pretty busy for a while.”

“Everyone’s heard about what Wix did some way or another at this point.” Hojo said with a nod, pushing off the wall she was leaning against and tying her hair back with a band she kept around her wrist. “A damn cowardly thing to do, not trusting his own daughter enough to get a bond for herself. Blow the roof off the trials to show him how wrong he was, Paui.”

Paui forced a smile and nodded. “I’ll do my best.”

“We know you will.” Hojo clapped Paui on the shoulder and turned to step into the huge kitchen. “It’ll be about twenty minutes for the food, so find some way to keep yourselves occupied.”

Sechen leaned on her hand as Paui made her way back to the table that stretched down an empty dining room, a hunk of wood and metal that could easily fit fifty people from end to end. “Everyone knows, huh?”

“Wix is kind of a celebrity around here, so news about him spreads fast. This time, I just happened to be part of that news.” Paui pulled up a chair next to Sechen and sat down with a long sigh, leaning forward and taking her head in her hands. “It’s going to be so embarrassing tomorrow when the entire staff comes out to watch me screw up the fast trial.”

“Come on, you just finished fighting Runfree’s clone. You can’t seriously think you’re going to fail the fast Issi trial?” Sechen asked, then shook her head. “Nevermind, let’s not get into that. I want to know how your dad managed to buy you through all the trials. It doesn’t seem like anyone here would be open to bribes.”

“The people here love Wix, so one day he asks you to misrecord a few numbers to help his daughter, and you don’t stop to think for a second why he’s asking you. But it was a little more complicated than you’re probably thinking.” Paui leaned back and sighed, her chair scraping against the wooden floor. “The first part of any trial is really simple; whoever’s overseeing the trial asks the kids if they actually want to be there. Just in case their parents are forcing them into it, or they’re doing it to impress a girl, or any reason other than actually wanting a bond with Runfree for themselves. Usually we got a handful of kids who dropped out at that part, and Runfree reported them to Hoalt just in case their family situation wasn’t the best at home.”

Sechen nodded. “Is that when you started thinking something was up with your trial?”

Paui waved her hand dismissively. “No, not at all. I’d always wanted to bond Runfree, just like Wix, so I was beyond excited to be there. I remember shaking in anticipation, feeling sick to my stomach as I worked myself up.” Paui smiled sadly and shook her head. “The sick feeling went away the moment I stepped into that whitestone clearing and felt Runfree’s Issi settle onto me, then I was just so happy to be there. I was only fourteen, so still just a kid, and I remember the joy slowly bleeding out of me as the trial went on. It was so damn hard, since I wasn’t exactly the healthiest kid, and I’d never used Issi before. You could see who the real prodigies were from the first second, and who’d end up failing out long before they got to the last trial.”

“I got hit by so many techniques that it was almost funny. If you were watching, you wouldn’t think I was the daughter of one of Runfree’s most powerful apprentices, you’d think I was some kid they pulled off the streets out of pity. By the time Runfree’s double came out, I’d overused Runfree’s Issi and could barely stand. I didn’t get destroyed by the double, unlike a few other kids, but watching the prodigies was really hard. Seeing them do exactly what I wanted to do, but way better, and they hadn’t lived with Runfree for their entire lives.” Paui sighed and put her hand palm down on the table, looking down at it in shame. “Then Wix appeared right at the end, when Runfree’s double was supposed to go away. They talked for a while, and I saw them shoot glances over at me, then Runfree turned around and announced who was moving on to the next trial. Everyone.”

“Everyone?”

“Everyone. Nobody got eliminated, even the kids who couldn’t move and had to be carted off to the infirmary. All because they couldn’t come up with any other reason for me not to be eliminated.”

“Wait.” Sechen shook her head and raised an eyebrow. “You dad bribed Runfree’s clone to get you through? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It didn’t make any sense to me either, until I asked Thana how the double worked. It’s not just creating a weaker Issi duplicate of Runfree, it’s taking a copy of them at that exact moment. So they can talk like Runfree, think like Runfree, and fight like Runfree. And, apparently, bargain like Runfree.”

“Wouldn’t that suck for the kids if Runfree’s in a bad mood that day? Or make the trial way too easy if Runfree was feeling generous?” Sechen asked.

“I thought the same thing, and so had Thana. They built in some kind of emotional normalizer, so Runfree would always be in a slightly pleasant mood whenever they doubled them.” Paui explained. “The Runfree knows they’re a double, and somehow doesn’t care that they’re going to disappear in a handful of minutes, and Wix did everything he could to get me through that trial. Which apparently meant that everyone had to make it through because of how horrible I did.”

“That sucks.”

“That’s an understatement.” Paui chuckled. “It wasn’t that bad in the moment, since I didn’t flunk out on the first real trial, but looking back, I really should have. It’s not like I couldn’t just train for half a year and come back, since Runfree lets people try the trial again, but Wix really wanted me to succeed that first time. So I leaned on the shoulder of one of the girls who did end up getting a bond that year, and she helped me into the part of the house where everyone stayed for the four days of trials. I couldn’t move until after midnight, when I got Hojo to make me a full meal so I wouldn’t go to the next trial hungry. Then I went straight down to the infirmary where I got full care as if I was a fully-fledged practitioner. No other candidates could have done that. If I’d just been a normal kid, I’d have failed out so quickly.”

“But that’s just the first trial, right? How’d your dad get you through the other two?”

“Three, actually. One for each of the other Issi types, then one final one that’s different for every group that comes through. You can probably guess what the fast Issi trial is, and the force Issi trial is us punching and kicking at things for a long time and seeing what kind of damage we can and can’t do to them.” Paui traced her finger along the table, frowning as it went. “If I’d had my Issi, you’d see that I just drew a symbol on the table. That’s the one thing I really remember from my force trial; I managed to break open one rock and found that inside. A glowing X with a dot between each of the triangles. It meant that the rock was worth four points, exactly enough for me not to get kicked out of the trials. Nowhere good enough for Runfree to consider giving me a force Issi bond, but just enough so I wouldn’t fail. The same thing happened in the fast Issi trial, too. I just barely passed.”

Paui sighed, and Sechen took a moment to consider what she’d just said. It all fit together perfectly. Her dad blatantly cheating on the fluidity trial, and making sure she just barely passed the other two. That left one question unanswered; did he help Paui with the speed and force trials, or did Wix sabotage her so she’d get the bond he wanted her to?

“Did you get put in front of that rock when you started the force Issi trial?” Sechen asked carefully, trying not to insinuate anything without proof. Wix was still Paui’s dad, after all. “Or did you, I don’t know, try punching a bunch of other stuff before you settled on it?”

“You’re wondering if dad made me go for my fluidity bond, right?” Paui asked, then shook her head. “I couldn’t find anything that looked like he made it harder on me in any of the trials. I think he just wanted it to look like I was the best as a fluidity practitioner, because when those results came up I did not deserve to be in first place. The other two? I don’t know.” She shrugged, but there was tension in her shoulders. “I came fifteenth in fast and eighteenth in force, but since nobody got eliminated in any of the trials, I didn’t get eliminated for those scores. I’ve got a feeling that’s what Wix did; made sure nobody got eliminated in any of the trials so it didn’t matter if I failed those two.”

“...Yeah, you pretty much hit all my questions there.” Sechen said. “Anything else about your trial I don’t know yet?”

“Well, Wix was in charge of the final trial.” Paui said with a smirk. “You don’t need me to say anything else on that, do you?”

“No, I’ve got the full picture from that sentence.” Sechen laughed. “Your dad pushed you to get a bond that matched his, and you’ve been stuck with dysfunctional Issi ever since. Anything interesting happen with your time in the army, or was that all just to get away from here?”

“Interesting? Except for meeting a group of practitioners consisting of a dead guy, a wisp manifestation that looked like nothing I’d ever seen, and a girl who I would have said hadn’t eaten anything since she got her bond, no. And I didn’t run away to the military; it was part of my deal with Mom. If I get a bond with Runfree, I have to join the military.”

“What if you didn’t get a bond with Runfree?” Sechen asked.

“Then I have to try and get a bond with Emperor Hoalt himself, just like mom.” Paui shuddered. “From all the stories General Temery told me, I’m really glad I didn’t have to go through that. Did you know Hoalt’s trial lasts for at least four months, and can take up to a year if you keep messing up? I’d have wasted an entire year of my life on that trial, and I wouldn’t have a bond to show for it, self-tainted or not.”

“There’s always a chance you would’ve done just fine in Hoalt’s trial.” Sechen pointed out. “Just because you didn’t do great at Runfree’s, doesn’t mean you’d be bad at all the manifestation’s trials.”

Paui shrugged. “Maybe. But General Temery’s stories don’t have me wishing to go do that trial. Did you know she lost three fingernails in one day? Ripped right out of her fingers by one of the monsters Hoalt had them fighting, and she didn’t even take a day off to try and heal them. Just kept on going with bloody bandages wrapped around her fingertips.”