Chapter 4- The Poison Called Doubt

The overt illusions stopped. Tian had thought he was done being tested, and just waited patently in the gray mists as Burning Heaven flew endlessly along. Liren groaned, now and then. He could feel the struggle in her. He was helpless to help her, any more than he could clear away the mists. He didn’t even know if he was truly hearing her.

The doubts clung to him like ghosts. The thought that he failed the test prickled at him. On the one hand, he didn’t really care about being someone’s disciple, especially if that someone was a stranger to him. On the other, he wasn’t used to failing. Failure was habit forming, and he had unconsciously developed a strong dislike of it.

More frustrating still was that the poisonous words of the illusion were working. He didn’t think he was the delusion of a dying child, but how much of his achievements were just his own self-centered opinion? Was he any different than the One Eyed King? A tyrant hemmed in on three sides, roaring mightily over the stretch of dirt no one could be bothered to take from him?

Tian imagined he could see Brother Mao walking into the mountains through the mists. Back straight, wearing his dignity like armor over his dead heart. Tian had been so sure he was right in how he handled that. He still thought he handled that right. At the very least, he didn’t act out of malice or indifference to the wellbeing of his brothers and sisters.

And yet, there went Brother Mao, steady steps traversing the rugged mountainside. An old hero, a leader, someone who taught the next generation how to be good cultivators and good people under the broad eaves of his temple. His dao path cut short, his dao heart killed, not by losing to Tian but by realizing that Tian pitied him. An old memory rose- which brother had said that mercy was for the transcendently strong? He couldn’t remember, but one of them had.

Mercy, compassion, those things took a certain foundation, a certain internal strength, and you wouldn’t extend them to someone who didn’t need them. Tian, probably seventeen years old and definitely Level Eight, extended his pity to Mao, a true pillar of the Outer Court for nearly two centuries.

What room was there for Mao to argue? Tian had won the physical fight and the political one.

Ghost after ghost joined Mao in the mists. Suneater, furious at receiving Tian’s compassion. The mercenaries he killed in Burning Flag City. Oily and Doughy from the Five Elements Courtyard had been pricks, but had the instructions of Elder Feng been reason enough to ruin them in their sect? Had a mere display of fortune been reason enough to join Brother Wang in humiliating dozens of array masters and scholars? Even then, it had seemed a strange way to treat your allies.

He had certainly felt no guilt at the time. He wasn’t sure he did now either. But doubt was in him, curling inside his lungs on the misty air of the valley.

He was so sure he was soon to ascend to the Heavenly Realm. Why? Was he magically more entitled to a revelation than others? Did he have more merit than someone who had been serving the people with their lives for two centuries? Seemed unlikely.

He was so sure he had few or no material desires, no desire for secret arts or powerful weapons, nor spirit crystals nor a crown of gold. It was easy to not be tempted when you weren’t looking. What would he do if what he had wasn’t enough? What would he do if Liren said she wanted more? Everything changed when you entered the Heavenly Realm. Could he stab someone in the back for a trinket?

Could he kill a brother for a sword?

He was sure he couldn’t. But he had been sure about a lot of things, and been wrong about many of them. His guts slowly clenched, thinking this might be another thing he was wrong about. The sick rose in his throat. Four hundred years of brotherhood, and Dean whatsit still stabbed Martial Uncle Gen in the back. His few years in the sect weren’t even a fart compared to that.

Breathe in, breathe out, each breath accumulating more and more doubts.

Had he destroyed his relationship with Brother Fu in the name of his self centered forgiveness? Was it arrogant of him to forgive in the first place? He denied the Xia, but could blood be something truly denied?

He had told Liren he loved her, and she agreed. But was it just guilt? Did she really love him?

That was it. That was the doubt that cracked him open and ravaged him. The curling mist turned to stone in his lungs, doubling him over as he gasped. His fingers held seizure-tight to Burning Heaven’s feathers. Had she been in the Earthly Realm, he surely would have ripped them out without seeing what he was doing, blinded by his fears. His mind froze, plunged into the freezing yin acid of his very own hell.

Did she, had she, ever really said she loved him back? She had said, so often, that she still felt guilt for what the Hongs did to the Xia. That he meant too many things to her. That his forgiveness only helped, but could not cure, the pain that had defined the path of her life. Was becoming ‘dao companions’ with him an act of penance? A life of make believe, a delusion of love offered to the ghost of the dead boy?

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Did… did he really love her?

The doubt was through the lungs now, freezing his heart.