Threads 178-Dawn 1

When Ling Qi found Cai Renxiang in her office, she stood in front of a mirror. It stood out in the perfectly ordered room, a foreign thing disrupting the geometric perfection of her liege’s decor. Full length and plain as such things went, it sat against the far wall of the study. Cai Renxiang stood in front of the mirror, arms behind her back as Ling Qi quietly closed the door behind herself.

“I didn’t even know you owned a mirror,” Ling Qi said, breaking the silence.

“How did you imagine that I arranged my appearance?” Cai Renxiang asked absently, not turning toward her.

“I don’t know. Maybe you used the flat of your saber?” Ling Qi joked lightly, crossing the room to stand behind her. Looking over Renxiang’s shoulder, she studied the contrast between them, white and gold to blue and black. She could almost be mistaken for a shadow. The way her reflection blurred at the edges didn’t help.

“Amusing,” Cai Renxiang said, though she didn’t really sound amused, even in the subtle way that she sometimes showed. “You know why I asked you here.”

Her smile faded. They had only just arrived back at the Sect; Ling Qi had not even greeted her mother again yet. Now, she wouldn’t have time until after the report to the Duchess. She didn’t hold the delay against Renxiang though. “I understand. What I saw…”

“I trust that you will not speak of such things to others,” Renxiang uncharacteristically interrupted. Her voice was stiff, and there was something unpleasantly fragile about it.

<Like she even needs to ask,> Sixiang scoffed, but there was no heat in the thought.

“Of course not, Lady Renxiang,” Ling Qi said. “I’ll swear it, if you like.”

“That is not necessary,” Cai Renxiang said, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment. “You have questions.”

“I do not want to pry where I am not wanted,” Ling Qi demurred.

“I would rather answer than leave you to imagine answers,” Cai Renxiang insisted.

Ling Qi bit her lower lip, remembering what she had seen in Renxiang’s dream. Sixiang hissed in discomfort as the memory of searing light and a doll with bloody hands surfaced. “Liming’s appearance is…”

“It has always looked like that,” Renxiang said.

“… She,” Ling Qi corrected without thinking.

In the mirror, her liege’s eyes flicked toward her. “Rather, it has always mirrored my current appearance. I do not believe any others have perceived that before however.”

She didn’t acknowledge the interruption at all.

<Probably not something to press. Honestly, I’m surprised you did in the first place,> Sixiang advised.

Ling Qi was surprised too. Perhaps it was just that conversation with Lin Hai surfacing. Perhaps it was her musing on what a person was. Somehow, depersonalizing Liming just didn’t seem right. “Is the resemblance because of what Her Grace did?”

“I can only assume. I am not privy to her methods,” Cai Renxiang said. “I do know that I am unable to form normal spirit bonds and that Liming cannot be attuned to any other person. I cannot even be very far from it for long periods of time.”

In the mirror, bloody light gleamed along the threads of the crimson butterfly splayed across her chest.

Ling Qi knew that Cai Renxiang had never had other spirits, but knowing that she was unable… She swallowed, storing the implications away. “Cifeng then…”

“A custom work. Mother made it work,” Cai Renxiang said, quietly stroking the hilt of the blade at her hip. Ling Qi felt the unhappy rumble in the room’s spiritual qi contrasted against the metallic purr. “Presumably, she believed a control instrument was necessary. I would not be surprised if Cifeng was a planned portion of the project to begin with, however.”

Ling Qi wondered about that, Liming hadn’t seemed terribly inconvenienced when she stepped into the blade in the dream. Perhaps because it was not the actual blade spirit? “I am sorry for breaking the dream as I did,” Ling Qi apologized.

“That foolish thing? Do not apologize.”

“It wasn’t foolish,” Ling Qi argued.

“It was a shallow and childish recreation of what I sought,” Cai Renxiang said harshly. “Perhaps because I am still a foolish child who even now cannot properly envision the world I wish to usher in.”

“Or perhaps because it was an illusion crafted by a mountain hag who had never experienced the existence of a hamlet, let alone a city,” Ling Qi shot back. “You are placing too much on your own shoulders again, Lady Renxiang.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Their eyes met in the mirror, and to Ling Qi’s surprise, it was her liege’s eyes who flicked downward first. “Perhaps.”

“Regardless, it was my method that I regret,” Ling Qi continued. “But in the end, I knew you would not want me to risk our mission with something less certain.”

“You know me then,” Renxiang said. “Through our actions, we might yet spare many lives, now and in the future. I would not sacrifice that for my own comfort.”