IV

Belonging

The days passed into a week until I found myself among them for a month. Joining their group was unlike what I'd expected.

Nysha had rounded us up for a few more thefts with many of those playing out similar to my first experience of them. I'd yet gotten any information out of her as to how they came into possession of that badge.

In a minor few of our holdups, we turned to some more heavy-handed methods. On those days, even fewer guards had been protecting their goods, so Grey and I would make short work of them. The loot had been as lacklustre as their attempt to protect it. It'd left Nysha grumbling for days. The unrest was 'killing her game,' and it all happened faster than she'd anticipated.

I spent my free time in the hideout teaching the twins. A great distraction for all three of us, and Nysha was also immensely grateful to me for taking them off her hands. She didn't object to the twins wielding weapons as long as they had someone knowledgeable watch over them.

At first, Rin had chosen a sword before I got her to at least try out something else. She was incredibly unwilling (like her brother who I couldn't convince), but Rin settled on a spear after much debate. She grew fond of it within a day. I gave her the staff later on, so she wouldn't injure anyone.

I refrained from teaching them any martial arts techniques, focusing on the basics. For one, that was the correct way to learn anything. Preventing us from being hunted by the Sword Dragon Sect or similar for divulging their teachings was another good reason, I'd say.

Teaching impatient children something as tedious as the basics could be difficult. They tend to jump ahead, asking for the advanced techniques they see their elders perform. The cool stuff. Ren was worse than his sister in that regard, but I knew a thing or two about how to go about it.

Nysha enjoyed watching us, as did Rael. She decided to join us whenever she got some spare time. I obliged her interest in martial arts that didn't rely on weaponry. Our bouts ended less in teaching than they did in sparring. Nysha was quick on her feet, her legs dangerous, carrying more range than I gave them credit for which earned me more than a hit or two. She relied on them; too much, I told her before abusing the gap between her strikes to close in. Once we were face to face, her weaknesses became blatant. I'd give her some advice without disrupting her form.

Rael had a despondent look on his face when he thought none of us were watching. He frequently asked questions and I spent a lot of time answering them to the best of my abilities, but I didn't miss the occasional glimpses he shot the twins, nor the longing within his eyes. He didn't hide it as well as he thought it did.

Grey declined any of my instructions when offered. He spent most of his time meditating in the corner or nodding off, I couldn't tell the difference. I hadn't seen him once without his layers of cloth draped over himself. How he could stand to wear all of that in this heat, I didn't know.

In this short span of time, I'd gotten used to this place. I was settled in a solid routine that left my days at ease. There was only one big problem.

"Eldest Brother!" Ren ran over with a sword in his hand. It'd taken some long convincing to get him to drop the second one he'd picked up in the beginning. I had the blade blunted; a more painless decision for me than trying to talk him into taking a wooden one. "Eldest Brother, how was it?"

"...Your step is too far. Swing again." He did, and when the sword came to a halt, I pushed him over with a light tap. "Now it's too shallow. Keep it tight like this. Remember, lose balance, you're dead."

Speaking in extremes and dramatizing every small thing was a great way to get him to listen. Ren took my advice to heart, returning to training with the look of someone about to face a battle of life and death. Rin stood in her corner, getting a grasp on wielding her long staff.

"Ren sure likes you," Nysha came over. It was time for her to leave to wherever she ran off to at nightfall. She'd always evaded my questions about it. "They both do."

"I kept telling him not to call me that, but he doesn't listen. He could stand to learn a lot from his sister."

Ren had taken a fancy to start calling me 'Eldest Brother' as an address of respect. I really disliked that one, but there was no stopping him.

"It took me months for them to stop calling me 'sister,'" Nysha chuckled, heading for the exit. "Don't forget to grab your share from Rael later. Good night, everyone. See you tomorrow."

Share?

I'd forgotten - the pellets.

***

"Rael?" I knocked on the door after the twins had fallen asleep on the couch. Grey was covering them with a large blanket when I heard some noises from the other room; a closet slammed shut and rolling marbles. I tried not to pay any heed to it.

"Come in."

A few makeshift beds cluttered the room, made out of sheets draped over stacks of empty crates. I'd never slept there. Rael sat on an uncomfortable-looking chair, squeezed into a desk with several, locked drawers.

"I thought you'd still be training the kids for another hour or two," his smile was strained. There was a slight twitch in his eyes and he had a breath half too quick. It reminded me of a servant that had offended me, hoping to get away with something. I suppressed the thought.

"Nysha told me to drop by," I sat on a nearby box. He nodded, dropping a small pouch into my hand.

"Fifty?" When I finished counting the pellets they felt twice as heavy as before.

"Too little?" Rael laughed, "it's not everything yet. We talked and we want you to take this as well," he handed me another pouch, "a bit extra for your teachings."

"I can't take this."

"Don't be shy about it," he closed my hand around it, "we've all learned a lot from you. Yes, I know, we can't grow complacent. Martial arts don't develop overnight, you've told us enough times, but everyone agreed on paying you back somehow. Grey as well, don't worry about it."

"No, I'm grateful for your considerations, but I still can't accept this," I forced the pouch back into his hand. "I agreed that we'd all get an equal share when I joined. This," I jingled the pouch of fifty pellets, "is more than plenty already."

"I figured you'd refuse," Rael shrugged, "Nysha made me do it."

"Are you sure you counted right?" I looked at my share. "So many just for some wine? What was Nysha complaining for?"

"It's the finest wine in the empire," Rael gestured like a merchant proclaiming his wares in the street. "You can't even buy it with gold. If it wasn't for the Guild regulations, no mortal noble would ever taste a drop of it again. Nysha's cranky because that's how she always is when things don't go her way. Don't think about it too much.

"It's all thanks to her," he continued, answering my doubts. "A lot changed after she joined. Our hauls may be worse compared to a month before, but she makes up for it by providing us with more targets. Before her time, it was a slug, sometimes. A lot of dry spells and more than a few had... died. Others were incarcerated; Zhanhai has little mercy for crimes involving pellets. Since she joined, nothing's gone wrong. She's like a charm that keeps dangers away, and every other haul a windfall until the, eh, incident."

I refrained from sticking my nose into her business, but there was one thing I couldn't help but point out.

"Is that everything?" I nodded towards one of the drawers. At a second glance, the desk was quite sophisticated. Bolts pinned it to the floor and multiple locks adorned its surface. I wouldn't be surprised if the wood was reinforced with metal.

"...You noticed?" Rael failed to hide the trembling in his voice.

"I apologize, I don't mean to pry," a certain gleam kindled in his eyes - one of wariness. "I noticed it earlier... so I thought it better to tell you."

It faded, but traces of his anxiety still remained. He must have noticed it himself when he looked away.

"Sorry, it's not that I want to hide things from you, but..."

"It's completely reasonable," I understood his worries; a month wasn't long enough to get to know someone to trust them. "But help me understand. Why?"

I sharpened my senses. The faintest trace of tamed Qi essence seeped out of its confines, mixing with the feral Qi in the world. I'd lived around enough pellets to drown myself in them, yet I'd only noticed their existences because I grew suspicious of the sounds he'd made.

"That's enough to fulfil all of your quotas," I said, confused, "and have some leftovers."

"It's..." Rael sighed, his shoulders sinking in defeat. "That pile in there is only mine."

"What?"

"It's all mine. Don't worry, I don't hide it from the others. I've been a part of this group the longest, so it's accumulated for some time now. Two hundred isn't cutting it for me.

"This is why," he knocked against his right leg and grabbed my arm - I barely felt his grasp. Rael had looked on the thin side, but now, my view of him changed. He wasn't just thin, lacking a few muscles, but weak. Ill, even. His skin became sickly white instead of pale. How had I not noticed it before?

"The Mortal Trial..." I murmured in understanding. I'd never considered someone being too weak to not even consider taking the trial itself. A wave of disgust welled up within me. Again. My understanding was born from my own perspective alone.

"I was born with this body," Rael gazed out of the window, lingering on the brightest star shining through the clouds. "A common occurrence in Nyrkan, but I don't intend to stay this way," his face hardened.

"You want to buy the essence," I took in a sharp breath as the idea came to me.

"That's right. I'll be more than fine with a beast essence."

Even that would be ridiculously expensive. Some cultivators hunted beast- and natural spirit essences. Selling the catalyst used by others to build their foundation was a great method of generating income, but it wasn't an easy feat to tame the spirits and beasts into a flask. They would usually sell them to sects - not to individuals. You couldn't expect them to pay such a price. That's one of the reasons why the Guild and its Mortal Trial existed.

"The beast essence would help your case faster," I thought aloud as my understanding of his situation grew. "It changes your structure after assimilation. You'd be healed."

In a normal case, it was one of the many problems of becoming a beast cultivator instead of a true one. A change in the structure of your body could be an enhancement. A true cultivator with a natural spirit essence was guaranteed an enhancement.

Rael nodded with a wry smile, "but let's be honest here, the real reason I'm choosing a beast essence is that I'm poor. I'm just being realistic. I'd be a fool otherwise to decline a true essence even if it were to heal me slower."

Realistic? Gathering thousands of pellets as you do is realistic?

"Why did you come to Zhanhai? All the way down here? How did you even make the journey?"

The questions left me before I knew to be considerate. I'd taken Rael as a smart person. Trustworthy, because Nysha let him deal with the finances. He was studious with a sponge-like curiosity born out of necessity. A potential scholar, maybe. Some sects employed people like him, granting them status. I thought about him along those lines because otherwise...

Rael was weak. He was a cripple.

Weak?

True, Ren would blow him over without breaking a sweat, but even so, he'd made it here. The distance from the north to Zhanhai was nothing to scoff at. Many mortals would never travel it in their lifetime. I looked at the tamed Qi swirling silently around the drawer. How many? How long? I knew he was older than me, but now I realized by how much.

Which of us was the weaker one?

"It's a long and boring story," Rael said and I understood it as my cue to drop the topic. I wrestled with myself, trying to think of a way to find out more without pushing him too far when something came flying through the door.

It was Grey. I guarded Rael with my back from the splinters of wood, leaving both of us stunned. There was some shouting coming from the other room. Rin and Ren. The rattling of metal. Neither of us had noticed. We looked at Grey for an explanation.

"Visitors."

One word before he grunted himself onto his feet. For a brief moment, I saw past his hood finding a pair of ashen eyes, the same grey as his trimmed hair that had eluded me thus far. He jumped past us, flinging himself back into the fray where he tossed an armoured man like a doll against another.