At the top of the tallest tower in Phoenix Home, Ai Xiaoli watched the army marching from the outer gates of the city. From her perch upon the fragile balcony of shaped glass, they appeared as nothing more than a dark river cutting through the yellow white sand. She did not need to rely on such paltry things as eyes to perceive her husband at their head. She could, naturally recall every line of his noble and handsome features without them. More importantly she could feel him, even now with his power banked.

He was a blazing column of white fire, hot enough to disperse any cloud. He was an immense crow, his wings covering the sky and shading his men. He was a ray of sunlight, stark and honest, illuminating a shadowed world. She loved that man, the most honest she had ever known. She feared for him, with much the same reason. His straightforwardness would be his downfall one day. This world of knives would see to that.

So too did Ai Xiaoli feel her youngest daughter, riding at his side, uncertain in her mannish armor, her flickering spirit shot through with a terrible pain. She was a tiny chick, struggling to fly on wings that had not yet grown. She had already come so close to death once. It frustrated her beyond words that she had been overruled and that her foolish, foolish daughter would not only receive no censure, but would instead be encouraged on her path.

Ai Xiaoli loved each of her daughters. She was grateful beyond words that they had grown here in the east rather than the miserable halls of her home, where they would have been set against one another as she and her own sisters had been. She had taught them all the lessons she had learned, but that at least she had spared them.

In truth though, she was not displeased to have not borne any sons. For all that she loved her husband, she did not truly understand him, nor his clan’s way. She had seen his surviving brothers, chained in the underground, helping to fuel the forges and steelworks of Gu, forever aflame, barely contained. They had found the true Way of fire and their minds burned for it. She did not know that she would ever be prepared to see one of her children consigned to the same fate.

The faint sound of pouring liquid stirred her from her thoughts, and she glanced to the side to see the graceful arc of amber liquid filling the porcelain cup set on the table at her elbow. It was poured from a matching pot, and the coolness of the tea send streamers of fog through the hot desert air.

“Your tea, Lady Ai,” murmured a soft voice, and she spared a moment to look at the pourer. Cheng Fei, her head maid stood with perfect poise as she set down the pot without a sound. Her plain crimson gown was impeccable and her stance was one of precisely minimal deference. The woman’s lesser cultivation meant that time had made more of a mark, with the lines of silver in her hair, but she still could have been mistaken for Ai Xiaoli’s sister, had her clothes been finer.

The similarity of their features was truly a mystery, and certainly nothing to do with her late fathers appetites.

“Thank you, Cheng Fei,” Ai Xiaoli said softly. “Take a seat, I believe I will be here for some time.”

“Lady Ai, you are too kind, this humble servant is unworthy of such an invitation,” Cheng Fei replied, remaining in her poised pose, head slightly bowed.

“I offer it all the same. Sit, Fei.” Ai Xiaoli replied absently watching her husband and her foolish, foolish daughter ride away at the head of a column of marching men.

“If the Lady insists,” Cheng Fei replied, taking the second wicker chair which had been coincidentally set out, despite Ai Xiaoli intending to take her tea alone. It was a familiar dance.

It was less familiar than the churning nameless discomfort that filled her as she looked upon her husband, and saw the happy pride which burned in him as he gave some instruction, and her carefully listening daughter moved to obey.

She was proud of her unshakeable poise, the carved face which had seen her through the trials of the imperial court. How was it then that the family she had made here could hurt and confound her so easily?

“Is Lady Ai still unsatisfied with her censure of Lord Gu?” Cheng Fei asked. She had already settled herself. Knitting needles had already appeared in her hands, clicking and working. It was a small band of red and gold, a child’s sash. Her head maid did have a new grandchild on the way, if she recalled correctly.

“Seeing as he has expressed no regret, it seems I have not been harsh enough,” Ai Xiaoli replied frostily. Taking up her tea, she enjoyed a sip of the cool liquid as she stared down at the vanishing specks far below.

“Lord Gu is not a man for regrets. I recall that lady Ai was most pleased by this in the past,” Cheng Fei replied.

“Xiulan is not ready, she needs medicine and meditation, not further encouragement to burn,” Ai Xiaoli said softly. It had barely been more than a decade since she had held her, fragile, soft, and mortal. Yanmei was bad enough, at least her way was a more sensible thing. The reckless wildfire she saw behind Xiulan’s eyes made her heart ache.

“If Lady Ai will excuse my rudeness. I do not think it is wholly Lord Gu who is at fault in this matter,” her head maid replied, not looking up from her knitting.

Ai Xiaoli’s brow crinkled in distaste. That Fan boy. No, it was beneath her to blame a child for having little talent. Not when it was she who had been so eager to set the match at an age before such things could be certain. The Fan were among the wealthiest clans in the province, their support would give further pause to the Han and her instincts had taught her to strike where she saw an opening. Her daughter should have been secure and happy, with a talented and respectable husband.

“It is the most human of things I think, to believe ourselves wiser than our parents, only to make their errors again ourselves,” Cheng Fei said companionably.

“Perhaps,” Ai Xiaoli replied, watching the retreating aura of the man who she had defied clan and kin to be with. It stung however to imagine that it might have been her nature which had put her daughter on this path.