Threads 407-Courtesies 2

“Liming has been restless. It was quiescent during the summit, but as months have gone by, its temperament has only grown worse,” Cai Renxiang said. “I suspect I will not be able to advance beyond the sixth stage of the green realm without finding a solution.”

The crimson and yellow fabric splayed across her chest, the beastly eyes of Liming, rippled visibly, silk straining.

“I have the matter in hand,” Cai Renxiang said sharply, meeting her concerned eyes. “This does remind me, though; your own gown should be repaired in two months’ time.”

“I am glad for that,” Ling Qi said slowly.

She absolutely was. She was grateful to the tailors who had worked so hard to give her a mundane wardrobe, but she wanted her real dress back.

However, her mind was not on that. Her friend was bound to her own dress in many painful ways. It was her guardian, but also, her jailor. Renxiang hated it. She hated that Liming could, at times, control her.

At the same time, Ling Qi remembered the figure with glass eyes and Renxiang’s face, its mouth stitched shut with adamantine thread. A part of her pitied that.

“Renxiang, what do you intend?”

“A meditation and struggle as the last. My resolve against Mother was enough last time, but…”

Her friend was rarely so unsure.

“You said before that you had reached some kind of accord?”

“That is overstating the matter. I was able to…” Cai Renxiang paused, furrowing her brow. “… impress upon it my resolve to defy Mother, but not in the way it intended.”

“Her,” Ling Qi corrected.

Cai Renxiang frowned. Then she closed her eyes. “As you like.”

Ling Qi considered her liege, reaching out to pour a warm stream of tea into her own empty cup. “Do you want to reach an accord with Liming?”

“I do not know that such a thing is even possible. Liming is a thing of hatred and spite, even if much of it is aimed toward my mother.”

Liming snarled. Ling Qi’s eyes widened, and so did Renxiang’s. Qi pulsed off the garment, cloth straining away from Cai Renxiang’s body. The heiress’ sword was in her hands in a flash of light, fingers gripping the wrapped hilt tightly. A pulse of metallic qi followed, and Liming went limp and silent.

Ling Qi stared at the garment. It was the first time since she had awoken that she had not understood a communication. The hound spirit Qiu’s barking had been legible to her. Even the infant chick in Xuan Shi’s care had conveyed to her the basic concepts an infant could comprehend in her chirping.

Yet Liming’s snarl was nothing but a noise, a wall of wrath and hate to her senses no different than it had been before the development of her new domain ability.

“I don’t think she cared for that,” Ling Qi said.

“I suppose not,” Cai Renxiang said curtly. “Ling Qi, I appreciate your intent.”

“But you would like me to stop pursuing this line of query? I will if you truly do want me to, but will you answer? Not over what is possible, but what you want.”

Cai Renxiang’s fingers tapped along the hilt of her sword, and Ling Qi could understand Cifeng’s thrumming purr in response.

[Triumph][Conviction][Smugness][Order][Suppression]

There was little thought in it. The weapon was not a complex minded spirit by her measure.

“Contracts and accords are always desirable. To have rules defined, behaviors regulated… I would find this a comfort,” Renxiang said after some time.”But a contract may only exist between equal parties or in the presence of an overriding guarantor. Without such, they have no worth.”

Ling Qi understood that. It was the most basic legal theory. It was why vassals would approach their lieges to mediate deals. It was also why the Ministry of Law had been made, to allow for the empire to adjudicate disputes between their subjects with the weight of the throne behind a local judge.

“And you are not equal.”

“We are not. Only Cifeng guards me against… her control, along with whatever behaviors Mother stitched into her at creation. Behaviors I have not been made fully aware of.”

The only obvious one was the reaction that Liming would have if Renxiang’s life was in imminent danger.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Doesn’t Cifeng change that balance? If you have a tool which may…”

“You recall our exit from that dream trap.”

Ling Qi paused. She did remember. There had been the memory of Cai Shenhua vanishing and then confronting Liming on their way out. At that time, the spirit had deliberately impaled herself on the representation of Cifeng there to get closer to Renxiang.

“I see. However, I can guarantee that what Liming did was not painless to her. Why, then?”

Could a spirit as wild and unfettered as Liming even prosecute a lengthy lie?