"And then there's you." Sobon turned back to face the last re-main-ing at-tack-er. Ki'el had a wild look in her eyes, al-though she stayed cool; Sobon could ad-mit that af-ter all of this, she was also sick of House Mofu and all of its ilk. It wouldn't take much--re-al-ly, any-thing--to kill the man, not with Ki'el there to re-strain him un-til Sobon could form an-oth-er ri-fle rod or a sim-i-lar com-bat pat-tern.

  Old in-stincts, though, re-strained him. It wasn't be-cause Sobon had been a cy-borg; it was be-cause he had spent years try-ing to reach the spir-i-tu-al de-tach-ment nec-es-sary. He had fought, and lost friends, and hat-ed, but if that ha-tred had soaked into his bones and into his heart, he would nev-er have been able to sep-a-rate those heart and bones. His old teacher came to mind, the seem-ing-ly age-less woman as-sess-ing him with cold eyes.

  Are you a war-rior, or a jilt-ed lover? A spurned friend? You think this is un-fair? Get over your-self.

  So Sobon just took a breath, not even a deep one, and let it the in-tense, bind-ing parts of the ha-tred blow away, leav-ing just the ugly warmth of anger, which she held dis-tant, where she could re-move it lat-er. Al-though she tried to dis-tract her mind with thoughts of aether spins and fates, and was even most-ly suc-cess-ful, it was dif-fi-cult to look at the en-e-my be-fore her and not just want to kill him.

  Be-cause it was un-fair, every-thing that had hap-pened--de-lib-er-ate-ly un-fair, with the in-tent of break-ing the wills of healthy peo-ple, and killing Sobon and his... her peo-ple to prove that their house meant busi-ness. Even so, Sobon couldn't af-ford to war with the en-tire coun-try. She had to pick her bat-tles, and while killing him would be ex-pe-di-ent, it would be a waste of a tool, even if she wasn't quite sure what she would use him for, ex-cept per-haps bait.

  So Sobon strode up to the man, who re-turned her look of ha-tred. A part of Sobon tried to an-a-lyze that face ob-jec-tive-ly, de-cid-ing that hate made the man look dull-eyed and stu-pid. Was he ex-pect-ing Sobon to hate him back? Be over-come with rage? Be just like him? That was tempt-ing, but it was how peo-ple fell, and she knew that.

  "Tell me," she said, as she stared into the war-rior's eyes. "What are you to House Mofu?"

  The man sneered with de-fi-ance, al-though some-thing about his face shift-ed at Sobon's voice, or ques-tion. "I am third son of the Mofu Kai Branch fam-i-ly, Mofu Kai Shin, and I will watch you from hell with plea-sure when the Clan Pa-tri-arch comes to shat-ter your soul and grind your bones into soil. Va-pid, for-eign witch, you and your whore chil-dren--"

  Sobon would like to say that she felt noth-ing, or that it was pure-ly from Alas-si's body, but when she fo-cused her aether into a nee-dle and stabbed the man in a bit of at-tuned flesh near his heart, caus-ing him to stop speak-ing and scream, she had to ad-mit it felt good. It was the wrong kind of good feel-ing--prob-a-bly In-verse Aether, which the Ri'lef called Cor-rupt. The word cer-tain-ly fit; it liked to dri-ve it-self deep into peo-ple and twist. So Sobon took an-oth-er breath, ad-just-ing her body spir-it to com-pen-sate, push-ing back the pres-sure.

  That kind of ha-tred was just an-oth-er en-e-my weapon, and she knew how to re-sist it.

  "I know you think I'm no bet-ter," she said. "That I'll be bro-ken by ha-tred as long as you twist the knife enough. And you def-i-nite-ly de-serve death for what your... clan el-der, or what-ev-er, did. Mofu Gin, was it?"

  The man, in-censed, pulled free from Ki'el's blade, al-though she sliced his neck in the process. But Sobon had her dy-namos spun up, and a set of three dif-fer-ent telekine-sis pat-terns sprung into ex-is-tence in time to pick the man up by his head and slam him back-wards into the ground. He thrashed around on the ground, but Sobon held him, pinned, let-ting him strain him-self try-ing to break out of it with force.

  Af-ter three in-creas-ing-ly weary at-tempts to force his way out of Sobon's tight, un-yield-ing grip, the man's strug-gles stopped.

  "Are you re-al-ly try-ing to im-press the per-son who killed your boss in a sin-gle shot, with that kind of dis-play?" Sobon let hu-mor fla-vor her voice, in-ward-ly keep-ing a bal-ance be-tween be-ing vig-i-lant to the en-e-my's move-ments, and loose and calm enough to avoid the in-tense anger that threat-ened to boil up again. She just shook her head. "Per-haps if you tell me what you know about House Mofu, I would be will-ing to keep you alive as bait."

  The man, al-though his face was dis-tort-ed by Sobon's tele-ki-net-ic grip, sneered. "All you need to know is that you stand no chance. Who-ev-er you bought your toys from, how-ev-er much they cost you, they are all bro-ken now, and your pa-thet-ic hov-el's de-fens-es are shat-tered. The Pa-tri-arch, when he comes, will lev-el this en-tire city in his fury. Per-haps if you piss your-self, crawl on the ground, and beg, he will--"

  Sobon shift-ed the tele-ki-net-ic pat-tern to lodge a spiky ball in-side the man's mouth, forc-ing her-self not to do any worse. When she fi-nal-ly looked away, she no-ticed that Mian was fi-nal-ly up and about, if still look-ing like had stared di-rect-ly into the sun un-til he went half-blind.

  So she an-chored the pat-tern and moved over to him. "Mian. I'm sor-ry about the flash."

  He turned to look at her, blink-ing mul-ti-ple times like that would do any-thing to clear his sens-es. "I've... nev-er felt any-thing like that. Not even close. I didn't think I was even sen-si-tive to those kinds of qi im-pres-sions."

  "It hap-pens when the pow-er is in-tense enough. The trau-ma should fade in time, as long as you cy-cle in fresh qi. Pu-ri-fied aether would be bet-ter, but any clear, fresh qi is good for you." She glanced at the gate. "Maybe go see if you can find Lui."

  "Yeah. I imag-ine she and Lady Fau are near-by, now." He shook him-self, and start-ed to move for-ward, but Sobon held out a hand to stop him.

  "Here." She re-turned the man's large blade to him, now re-paired. "This cir-cle on the back of the hilt--if you vent your qi while press-ing on it, it should force your qi into the blade. Not very strong-ly, be-cause the qi you vent is too dif-fuse. But, it will help."

  Mian had to fo-cus to test it, and Sobon saw his face fall as he saw the stark dif-fer-ence be-tween the blade in his hands and how it had looked and be-haved in Alas-si's. But he cov-ered it im-me-di-ate-ly, and nod-ded at her. "Thank you. I'll prac-tice, but... maybe not now."

  "Go." She turned to look at the... at Mofu Kaishin or what-ev-er. Af-ter a mo-ment of con-sid-er-a-tion, she be-gan to form an-oth-er aether pat-tern, this one to turn more sand into quartz. "Just watch him for an-oth-er few min-utes, Ki'el. I'll put to-geth-er an im-pris-on-ing script set."

  So Ki'el placed her blade back on his neck, and Sobon man-u-fac-tured a set of three--no, six sim-ple quartz cal-trops, then be-gan script-ing them to cre-ate a cylin-der of force be-tween them, one that would stop al-most every-thing but sound, light, and air. A sim-pler ver-sion of the script would have tak-en only mo-ments, but Sobon dragged through her mem-o-ries to cre-ate some-thing much more like stan-dard Crestan re-straint fields, which were ide-al for keep-ing dan-ger-ous peo-ple in-ca-pac-i-tat-ed with min-i-mal en-er-gy use.

  By the time she was done with all six, all it took to com-mand the six points to sur-round and bind the man was a flick-er of her will. The cal-trops hummed qui-et-ly--a re-minder to those out-side the field that they were pro-duc-ing flux waves in-side the con-tain-er, enough to make it al-most im-pos-si-ble to fo-cus. They caused the part of Ki'el's blade that was still near the man to fuzz out of ex-is-tence.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Ki'el with-drew the blade with a look of alarm, but the ef-fect van-ished once she got it away from the field.

  "That's enough. You can rest." Sobon looked at the girl, see-ing signs that she was near-ing the end of her adren-a-line high. "Thank you, Ki'el. I asked a lot of you, even to hold him off."

  The girl nod-ded at that, but when her blade van-ished back into its hilt, she let her-self smirk where the cap-tured man could see it. "Even be-fore he was blind-ed by your at-tack, he wasn't much. He had strength, but no idea how to use it."

  Sobon tsked at the girl, shak-ing her head. "Don't gloat. He was also hit by the ex-plo-sion be-fore he got in-side. But... I wouldn't have asked you to han-dle it if I didn't be-lieve you could." She ap-praised the girl again. "In time... I think you can be-come tru-ly strong, if that's what you want."

  Ki'el surged with pride, but also de-flat-ed as her adren-a-line wore out. "Thank you, ...Alas-si." Sobon could tell that she al-most used the wrong name, and caught her-self. "I will keep an eye on the pris-on-er, if you want to go look for Lui."

  "In a mo-ment." Sobon used a tele-ki-net-ic pat-tern to pick up the re-mains of the gate, bend them back more or less into shape, and then place them near the en-trance. Then, she moved over to the aether bar-ri-er sur-round-ing Mofu Kai Shin. The man, one hand on his bleed-ing neck, glared back at her. "One thing, war-rior of House Mofu. You said that Mofu Gin shat-tered the de-fens-es around my house, but you ought to know bet-ter."

  "When my de-struc-tion beams tore through your fel-lows and oblit-er-at-ed Mofu Gin, their shields ex-plod-ed into pieces, be-cause they were over-whelmed. When Mofu Gin over-pow-ered my bar-ri-er, it dis-abled it-self to pre-vent harm. This is only pos-si-ble if the one who cre-at-ed the ar-ray knows ex-act-ly how much it can safe-ly take. Now that the ar-ray has cooled and recharged," Sobon snapped her fin-gers the-atri-cal-ly, as she sent the de-fense ar-ray an aether pulse to re-ac-ti-vate it, caus-ing the fields to re-turn and the gate to snap into the air and cov-er the en-trance, "My home is in no more dan-ger now than it was be-fore."

  That, nat-u-ral-ly, was a bluff, but it served to cut through the man's in-sane faith that he and his fel-lows would be avenged. Sobon watched him grind his teeth to-geth-er, his jaw mus-cles clench-ing, and the man even tried to slam his fist into the bar-ri-er--then re-coiled strong-ly when the bar-ri-er re-spond-ed to the force with a small aether dis-charge.

  Dis-ci-plined, he is not, Sobon as-sessed bland-ly, then gave Ki'el a smile and nod, and turned to leave the com-pound.

  Out-side, things were nat-u-ral-ly still a mess, with city guard and a few oth-ers try-ing to break or lift pieces of rub-ble. Sobon could eas-i-ly spot Mian, Lui, and the woman who must be Lady Fau Mide, the al-chemist, as Mian was keep-ing sev-er-al in-jured peo-ple or-ga-nized as the Lady tend-ed to them, and Lui as-sist-ed. Also near-by was Lord Shi-da--sur-round-ed, seem-ing-ly against his will, by sev-er-al no-ble-look-ing types, among them Kibar, and the man he'd seen at the City Lord's man-sion and pre-sumed was from House Xoi. Per-haps be-cause of the com-pa-ny, none of the poor-er folks at the scene were will-ing to get close to the City Lord. Or was Sobon wrong, and the man him-self dis-dained the poor-er folk? He had cer-tain-ly not tak-en him for the type.

  "Ah, our mys-te-ri-ous de-fend-er at last shows her-self." A man, who had only a mo-ment be-fore been glar-ing dag-gers at Lord Shi-da, stepped to-wards her. "I am Xoi Mon, pa-tri-arch of the Emer-ald Val-ley Xoi fam-i-ly. You, I be-live, are the Lady Shi-va Alas-si?"

  Sobon gave Lord Shi-da a dis-pleased glance, but only in pass-ing. "I am."

  Xoi Mon and his ridicu-lous-ly wide, thin mous-tache spread into a seem-ing-ly gen-uine smile that seemed en-tire-ly out of place in such a dis-as-ter. "Oh, don't blame poor Lord Shi-da. Many peo-ple were in-ter-est-ed in you from the very start. Lady Alas-si--if I may call you such? You are with-out a doubt an anom-aly, but per-haps a wel-come one. I for one would have been quite dis-pleased if our dear City Lord was re-placed by some stooge of House Mofu, to say noth-ing of the dam-ages that might have been done to our own busi-ness-es."

  Your busi-ness-es and in-ter-ests, and not a word about in-no-cents. Sobon gave the man a flat look that she doubt-ed con-veyed any-thing to him, then stepped past. "Lord Shi-da. What are the dam-ages?"

  "I doubt we've found all the dead yet," he said, tired-ly. "though we've found a dozen al-ready. The best of my guard are all ei-ther dead, or en-tire-ly qi de-prived--how-ev-er, your swords did work as ad-ver-tised. I don't be-lieve any of the blades was so much as nicked, de-spite be-ing wield-ed by those of Sil-ver Qi against those of Ti-ta-ni-um."

  "What?" A voice from a ways away turned out to be... ac-tu-al-ly, Sobon didn't know his name. The in-scrip-tion-ist whose shop she'd vis-it-ed be-fore, who'd been a bit bog-gled with the idea of just mak-ing swords with qi chan-nels and vents. "This... woman dares make and sell swords in my city? And af-ter hav-ing the gall to come in and study my de-signs?"

  Is he... sug-gest-ing that I stole his de-signs? Sobon blinked at the man, find-ing the con-cept al-most ab-surd enough to laugh at.

  "Her weapons are... not com-pa-ra-ble to your own, Lord Pan," Lord Shi-da said, try-ing to fill his words with a pa-tron-iz-ing calm.

  "Of course not," the man said, straight-en-ing like he'd just been paid a com-pli-ment. "Any of my de-signs would out-class some-thing a woman could do. I'd stake my name on it."

  A cold set-tled over those peo-ple near-by who, un-like this man, had ac-tu-al-ly been pay-ing at-ten-tion. Sobon could feel eyes flick-ing be-tween her and Lord Pan, won-der-ing just how she was go-ing to re-solve this.

  "You stand be-hind your weapon de-signs, then? You'd con-sent to, say, a friend-ly duel, each of us with a weapon of our own de-sign?" Sobon had no heat in her voice, though she heard in it a very dry amuse-ment.

  "Of... of course!" The man nod-ded, try-ing to keep a sales-man's look on his face, still ob-vi-ous-ly un-aware who he was speak-ing to.

  "You with your best sword, and me with, say, the weapon that I de-signed just this morn-ing." She paused, then just as the man would have replied, added, "The one that killed Lord Mofu Gin, at the peak of Mithril Qi, in a sin-gle blow."

  The rip-ple of amuse-ment--mixed with shock and as-ton-ish-ment--that spread through every-one else in the crowd was mild-ly cathar-tic, eas-ing Sobon's stress, but she let that, too, pass her by. There are nice emo-tions that come with flesh, some-times, she re-flect-ed. But they're too bind-ing, re-stric-tive. I'd rather be work-ing right now. Fix-ing some-thing, de-sign-ing some-thing, build-ing some-thing.

  [ Just en-joy this, you've earned it, ] Alas-si tried to urge, but Sobon ig-nored her.

  "Any-time you'd like to test your weapons against that, by all means let me know. Un-til then, I have oth-er busi-ness." She let her eyes pass to Lord Shi-da, then Kibar, then Lord Xoi. "Lord Shi-da. We will still need to talk some-time when you are free, but per-haps not now. I will need to pre-pare to face what re-mains of House Mofu, if there is ever to be peace for every-one else."

  Sobon was just start-ing to turn away when Lord Xoi spoke up. "You're that con-fi-dent? You say you took out Lord Mofu Gin with a sin-gle blow, but he was also weak-ened, was he not?"

  "Lord Xoi." Sobon half-turned and gave the man a glare. "I will ask you to re-call that I said I de-signed that weapon this morn-ing. De-signed. If a week ago, Lord Mofu Gin had all of his arms and legs ripped off, but to-day he was here to kill you, could you de-sign, con-struct, fuel, and wield a weapon ca-pa-ble of killing him in the space of even one full day?"

  Al-though Sobon couldn't have said why, her words seemed to ac-tu-al-ly tear at the aether. She paused, run-ning the Ri'lef pat-tern to de-tect myth shear--but no, what-ev-er vi-o-lence she had done to the peo-ple lis-ten-ing, it wasn't that spe-cif-ic sort of ef-fect.

  When fi-nal-ly he spoke, Lord Xoi's voice was de-feat-ed, with no sign of the crisp amuse-ment he'd had be-fore. "Ah... no, Lady Alas-si."

  "Then trust me when I say that if giv-en more than a morn-ing to pre-pare, I am a match for sev-er-al peo-ple of Lord Mofu Gin's stature."

  "Yes, Lady Alas-si."

  Be-fore Sobon could turn away again, this time Kibar spoke up. "Lady Alas-si...?"

  She sighed, and turned back to him. "What, Lord Kibar?"

  Her choice of phrase there seemed to con-fuse or up-set oth-ers. Con-sid-er-ing that she knew Kibar lived in a slum, she could un-der-stand that--but giv-en how the oth-er Lords were be-hav-ing, she saw no rea-son not to raise him up to at least their lev-el.

  "What should a man do, if he want-ed ...just per-haps, to be put to use, and not be sim-ply an-oth-er piece of crys-tal buried in this... small jew-el of a city?" The man seemed to be pick-ing his words, if not quite ex-pert-ly.

  She gave him a side-eye, con-sid-er-ing, but in the end, just shook her head. "Right now, I have much to do, Lord Kibar. If I find an an-swer to your ques-tion, I'll be sure to bring it to you."

  She glanced away, catch-ing Lui and Mian look-ing at her, and even Lady Fau, whose mouth was turned into a smirk, even as the rest of her face had the grim set of a doc-tor in a war-zone. Sobon nod-ded to them, but turned away.

  Much to do, and less time than she had been hop-ing to do it.