The day arrived at last when Broken Nose came to them bearing pills which would be the pillars of their cultivation.

“You bought a whole bag’s worth?” Daphne asked, counting the number of pills inside.

“You’ve asked for it twice now,” Broken Nose said. “I thought it’d be better if you had a stash on hand. Won’t need to keep ordering a new batch each time that way. I like to be proactive.”

She couldn’t fault his reasoning. “How much did it cost?”

He scratched his neck. “Eight gold crowns and nine silver clouds for twenty-one pills. That’s … uh...”

“Five silver clouds apiece,” Daphne finished for him. All in all, it had cost four hundred and twenty bronze quarters then. She picked one pill out of the pouch and handed the rest to Maid. “Keep this somewhere safe.”

“Yes, Lady Daphne,” she said with a curtsey.

“Just the one pill?” Blaise asked.

“You’ve never taken one before, so it would be better if we start the two of you with a half dose to see how well you take to it,” Daphne said. She had no idea how potent each pill was, but if it was anything like the last one, it was too potent for anyone in the qi condensation stage. She herself had only managed its effects because of her profound understanding of the dao.

Daphne scanned the room, before her eyes latched onto a wholesome portrait of a harpist playing as tribulation clouds gathered overhead. Daphne stood up, unhooked it from its mount, and used its wooden edge to smash the pill open, setting free its white powdery content. With great care, she divided it into equal halves, and gestured for Blaise and Tracey to snort it.

“Are you sure this is safe?” Blaise asked, eyeing the white powder warily.

Tracey, on the other hand, needed no further prompting as she inhaled it. She was turning out to be such an obedient disciple.

“You’ll be fine,” Daphne said. “Look at Tracey. Be like Tracey.”

“She’s strawborn, she doesn’t know any better,” Blaise said.

“Maybe, but she trusts that I know best,” Daphne said. “That is the first lesson you must understand. Your master is always right, even when they appear wrong.”

“This sounds like a terrible method of learning,” Blaise grumbled, but he snorted the powder too. “What now?”

“You’ll know when you start feeling it,” Daphne said. “The opening of your meridians can vary from person to person, but it is always unmistakable. I suggest taking a seat.” She held out a hand, and Maid leapt into action, pouring her a cup of tea. In the time that it took her to finish sipping on it, the first effects began showing.

Tracey closed her eyes softly and leaned into her chair. “It’s beautiful.”

“It can be beautiful,” Daphne agreed. “Focus on that sensation. Try to hold it.” She could see beads of sweat forming on Blaise’s forehead. “Relax. Don’t force anything.”

Tracey’s hand reached for invisible butterflies, palms opening and closing like a newborn babe. “I don’t think I can.”

“Do you think you can take over the universe and improve it? I do not believe it can be done,” Daphne quoted. “The universe is sacred. You cannot improve it. If you try to change it, you will ruin it. If you try to hold it, you will lose it.”

Tracey nodded in understanding, a small smile flitting across her face. “I think I get it.”

“Don’t improve things?” Blaise repeated. “Accept the universe as it is?”

“Can you accept that?” Daphne asked him.

He did not answer, but the creases on his face deepened, and that told Daphne all she needed to know.

“The Dao is forever undefined. Small though it is in the unformed state, it cannot be grasped. If kings and lords could harness it, the ten thousand things would naturally obey. Heaven and earth would come together, and gentle rain falls. Men would need no more instruction and all things would take their course.” In between such passages, Daphne would hum a soothing melody. One of her paintings took that as their cue to begin playing their harp, helping to drown out any of the noise from outside.

Artificer’s Week was coming to an end, and the explosions were significantly less frequent now, but it still occurred now and then. Such disruptions could break the meditation of her juniors, and as their senior sister, this could not be tolerated.

The door popped open slightly, and one of her knight’s stuck their face inside. “Lady Daphne, an urgent message from your mother.”

“Make sure they drink plenty of water,” Daphne said to Maid. “Keep them calm. I’ll be back soon.” She stood, then paused. “It may be prudent to close the windows. We don’t want them jumping out of them.”

Maid frowned. “Does that happen often?”

Daphne shrugged. “Sometimes.” When a junior took a pill that their body could not handle, when the excess qi could not be channeled into the dantian, it would course recklessly through the body and make one jittery.

Maid rushed to close the windows, obeying as a servant should. Daphne entrusted Blaise and Tracey to her care. “Keep focusing on the qi, the energy which surrounds anything and everything,” Daphne said to them on her way out. “See how it flows, how it takes the path of least resistance? It is like water, flowing everywhere, both to the right and to the left. The ten thousand things depend upon it; it holds nothing back. It fulfills its purpose silently and makes no claim.”

She stepped out of the room, and was confronted with a half-dozen knights led by Sir Ronald the Red. “What’s this about?” she asked.

“We’re here for your penal servant,” Sir Ronald said, face set in a tight line. “Your mother has demanded he be interrogated further.”

Daphne bristled. A filial daughter she might be, but Broken Nose had proved his worth to her. He was hers, to do with as she pleased, and not even the heavens had the right to take away what was hers. Only a hero had that right. “Broken Nose is my penal servant. He goes where I say he goes.”

“My lady, please, step aside,” Sir Ronald said. “There are … developments you don’t know about.”

“Then enlighten me,” Daphne snapped, crossing her arms and planting her heels firmly into the carpeted floor.

“The bandit hideout was found,” Ronald said.

“What did you find?” Daphne asked, eyes becoming ever more intense. What she was really asking was “Did you find any treasure?” Of course, as her master liked to say, if they were too simple to understand the question within the question, they were not ready to hear the question.

“Four corpses,” Ronald said. “There were six men who stole you away, meaning all of them are dead except for their leader and your servant.”

She frowned at the implication. Peeking back into the room, she gestured for Broken Nose to join her. However, when the knights moved to take him, Daphne placed her body between him and them. “I will ask the questions.”

“My lady, your mother’s orders—”

“She ordered that he serve me too, until his death,” Daphne reminded them. “And so if you truly care about her orders, then only I may interrogate him.”

“This would be highly inappropriate,” Ronald murmured. “You’re a glove.”

“I am whatever I want to be,” Daphne said, narrowing her eyes into slits. The gall of him to say she could not do as she wished! That she’d informed them of her choice was just to give face. This was no democracy where every man had a say, nor would she ever abide by a system where her say was equal to every other person’s. “Broken nose, they say your conspirators are all dead save the leader, who has gone missing.”

“Poisoned,” Ronald added.

Daphne nodded, and pinned Broken Nose with a look. “Anything you’d like to say?”

“They’re dead?” Broken Nose asked, clearly shocked. “I—I mean I knew Jared, we came from the same village. But the leader … never worked with him before. He just recruited us for the job. Never even gave us his name now that I think about it.”

“What did you call him?”

“He said to call him Dolos,” Broken Nose said.

“An Ilyosi name,” Ronald said. “Not at all common this far south.”

“Yeah,” Broken Nose said, nodding. “That’s why I never thought that was his real name.”

Conspirators poisoning each other, dead ends, a fake name … all of this reeked of something foul and underhanded to Daphne. It was not unlike the prelude of war between great sects with their dagger games. “There’s more to this than meets the eye,” Daphne said.

“Politics,” Ronald said.

“Go tell my mother of what you’ve learned here, and tell her to be careful,” Daphne said. “I will do the same here, and find out what I can from my end.”

“You really won’t surrender him to our care?” Ronald asked.

“And risk his death in transit?” Daphne asked. “No, it’s safer if he is here with me for now. Easier for him to blend in with the other strawborn.” That was his greatest shield at the moment, and it was hardly worth letting so many knights die in his defense. He was no favored son of heaven.

She returned to the room, mood considerably soured. Schemes were afoot, and she didn’t even get a sacred treasure out of this.