Kylo strides toward me with flattened ears and quivering whiskers. I can hear a low, simmering growl vibrating in his throat from where I’m standing. He glares at me as if I stole his favorite toy, almost making me flinch.

  “Sneaky, sneaky, BAD!” he accuses me, the culprit of his rightful indignation because how dare I betray him or something like that, the audacity of this girl.

  I blink in confusion. “What?”

  “Sneaky, sneaky, bad,” he repeats. “Mountain can see. Bae can see!”

  “The mountain can what?” My imagination goes wild remembering the illusion Bae used to scare that Turstan guy and his retainer. Is she toying with Kylo at my expense?

  He looks up at me, chest puffed, glinting claws stuck in the dirt at my feet. “Mountain can see!” An image of shifting ice crosses my consciousness.

  “Oh! You mean those Ice-spirits!”

  “Yes! Ice-tain.” He tilts his head. “Ice spirits can see. Sneaky, sneaky, bad.” He scoffs, sounding condescending. How can this human be so dumb to understand him?

  “Well.” How do I explain this? “That is because they see in a different way than we do. If I remember correctly, they have mana or heat sense. You need different runes for that.”

  He tilts his head as if processing what I said before looking back at me, ears no longer twitching. “Give, sneaky, sneaky Ice spirit,” he demands.

  “Sure, come here.” When did he become so bossy? Maybe he is miffed because he had a bad encounter with one of them, thinking he was safe in his invisibility. “I can’t do anything about Bae, though. She is strong enough to use soul sense. I don’t have runes to counter that.” I explain while shaving another portion of his belly.

  He looks at me as if judging if I’m telling the truth, then huffs and leans back to let me work. As soon as I finish, he walks away without another word, still seeming miffed.

  I lean back against the rough bark of a cherry tree with my eyes half-lidded, protecting my pupils from the warm morning light spilling over the meadow. The wind drags its gentle fingers through the grass, making it ripple like water. An army of bees and other insects dart between swaying wildflowers. Birds trill in the distance, fluttering between the branches of another cherry tree. I smile. I think I can make a nest out. If I close my eyes and listen, it’s as if I can almost hear the chirping hatchlings screaming for food. Their stressed parents flutter over the meadow, looking for worms, insects, berries, or whatever they may eat. I exhale slowly. The scent of pollen drifts in the air, carried by the breeze. The cherries are already swelling in size but are still mostly green. My fingers play with a piece of sap I found clinking to the trunk like molten honey, hardened into a glassy resin that almost resembles amber. It smells faintly sweet, of blossoms, of vitality. I can make out a trapped ant, immortalized inside for eternity.

  I let my head rest on the tree’s trunk. The sun warms my exposed legs, but the shade of the branches keeps the rest of my body refreshed. I sigh, trying to relax. These past few days have been a rush forward, trying to improve following Bae’s and Master Wen’s orders, a blur of days, hours, and fleeting moments. Here in the hush of the meadow, I can pretend that the time has paused, even if it’s just for a while. I smile again, closing my eyes. I can feel my new silver ranked gathering spiral sucking a flood of mana in from the environment. Even at just 5% completion, it’s already more effective than my old, tin-ranked one. I could use this time to advance it further, but who cares? Let me relax for a while.

  “Minae!” Bae’s excited squeals pierce over the hum of the insects. I sigh and roll my eyes. There goes my chance to rest. “I just got word from Hina, the seamstress. She has time to attend us now!”

  I stand up and follow her down the narrow dirt path that winds its way toward the village. It ends on a single-lane road, almost like the tributary of a river. A patchwork of uneven stones, worn smooth by years of footfalls, hooves, and wooden carts. Not the only way into the heart of the village, but the fastest. Grass and moss creep between the cracks, softening the hard edges under a green pillow. Some moisture from the morning dew remains on the flat surfaces and reflects the sky. As the sun warms the stone, it slowly evaporates, carrying with it the scent of earth and fresh grass that mingles with the distant smoke of hearth fires and the sweet and slightly acidic tang of crushed leaves and needles underfoot.

  We enter the village, weaving between houses built out of wood and thick bamboo trunks. Chickens scratch the ground, looking for worms. Children play uncaring about our presence. I observe the intricate lattice patterns of the walls. I never looked at them in detail before. Even the roofs are thatched with bamboo, cut in half, and overlapped like shingles. A stray dog lays beneath the shade of a raised stilt house and huffs at our passing.

  Villagers move about their day. The fishers are already on the lake, the farmers somewhere between the rice paddies. Only the young and elderly remain here. Most children ignore us, darting barefoot between the houses, entranced in their games as they are. A few old ladies greet us as we pass before returning to mend nets or weave baskets with deft, practiced hands, speaking of years of experience.

  We pass by a forge where a browless blacksmith hammers away at some crude iron farm tool, the rhythmic clang echoing between the bamboo walls. Finally, we arrive at the last house on the street, built in the same style as the rest, only a bit bigger.

  “Hina is an artist, you will see,” explains Bae, walking beside me with a spring in her step. “She used to be the empire’s most demanded seamstress and tailor until she got sick of working for nobles and indecent marriage proposals a few centuries ago and decided to move here.”

  “Oh,” I mumble. “Should we call?” Then I blink in confusion. What? She is a few centuries old. Can she even thread a needle?

  “Nah,” denies Bae. “She already sensed us. She is a Nascent-soul-stage cultivator, just two steps below the emperor himself.

  I suppress a gulp. Well, that explains it. She could be a thousand years old. High-ranked mages don’t age the same, even if they haven’t achieved immortality yet.

  The door opens, and a petite, middle-aged-looking woman smiles at us.

  “Bae! Come in, come in.” Her gaze wanders over me. “This is the girl, then?”

  “Yeah, what do you think?”

  “Hmm, something light and playful in a cut that enhances her figure without impeding her movements too much. You want her to be able to fight in it, don’t you?”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  “Obviously,” huffs Bae.

  “Figures.” Hina rubs the space between her eyebrows. “Something with some added protection then." She sighs and bites her lower lip. Bae smirks at her. "It’s never simple with you," she complains to the foxkin. "Well, come in, girl. Let me take your measurements. I think I have just the right silver-blue fabric that almost matches the color of your eyes.”

  Once inside, the tailor tells me to stand still. “Let’s see what we are working with,” she says, rubbing her hands together. She kneels before me, a measuring tape draped around her neck, humming softly under Bae’s attentive gaze. Her calloused fingers move in a blur as she wraps the tape around my chest and waist, marking numbers in a leather-bound booklet. She steps into the back of her shop and returns with some generic grey dress made of bast linen. “Try that on.”

  “Okay?” That can’t be it. Can it? This dress isn’t suitable to be worn in a noble gathering. It’s not that I don’t like it. It’s comfortable and barely restricts my movements, but it is just too plain and simple.

  “Well, throw a kick or something. Let’s see how it falls.” She wants me to do what? Crazy martial-arts-addicted people. I kick high, surprised that it is possible to do so. The fabric barely slows me down. “Good, good. We can take this model as a base,” mutters the tailor. She comes over to adjust a few pins at my hem. I watch her fluttering around me. The fabric tickles against my skin each time she pulls at it. Finally, she seems satisfied. “That should be enough,” she mutters, taking even more notes in her booklet. After a while, she looks up at us and blinks in confusion. “What are you still doing here? Shu! Out of my shop. I need space and peace to work. Come back in a few hours or so.”

  Bae snickers and pulls me outside by the arm before I can react. I let out a surprised squeak. “Wanna grab something to eat?” she asks.

  “What? Sure,” I respond. Then I remember something. “Wait! Is there even an inn here?”

  “No,” pouts Bae. “There aren’t enough travelers to make something like that profitable. But I prepared some stuff for a picnic. Let’s go to the park!”

  It seems that for Bae, some stuff means a veritable feast. She pulls out boiled eggs, three kinds of goat cheese, a mountain of still steaming flatbread, diced mango and vegetable salad, fruits, kefir, and juices. We could probably invite half of the fishermen floating over the lake in their boats.

  I munch on a handful of nuts, watching the reflection of the shifting clouds.

  Dragonflies dart over the reeds like shards of stained glass. Their gossamer wings catch the sunlight in flashes of green and purple. A heron stands in the shallow like a patient statue, its legs half submerged. Only its vigilant eyes give away its intention to dart after the first clueless fish that dares to come close to it.

  Swallows cut through the air in sweeping arcs, chirping and catching mosquitoes. Their reflections skim the water before they turn around to disappear somewhere in the village, where I suppose their nests must be. A family of ducks drifts closer, seemingly more interested in what we are eating than in the fish swimming beneath them. As they step onto firm ground, previously hidden frogs croak in a panic before jumping into the depths to hide under the lilypads.

  Bae’s laughter flits through the air before she throws a handful of bread crumbles toward the ducklings, who waddle closer in a hurry to fall over them. I imitate her, my fingers sticky with fruit juice. The scent of ripe mandarins mingles with the fresh tang of the water. The world seems to have slowed down here, as if time had softened its edges just for us, for this moment of idle joy, with bare feet in the grass, quacking ducks, and the hush of the lake lapping at the shore.

  I sigh, knowing it won’t last. “What should I expect at that gathering?” I ask.

  “Dunno. I haven’t attended one in centuries. Those pampered idiots always throw a fit when seeing one of my kind in their circles. Then they get scared when they notice my cultivation is higher than theirs,” she snickers. “I used to attend to see their reactions, but that got boring and tedious fast.” She peels an orange with her hands shifted into claws. “Now, I don’t bother anymore.”

  Shit! I will be alone there with Master Wen. I freeze just imagining it. Time flows like viscous honey, trapping me in its slow, suffocating pull. My breath feels shallow, my pulse hammers in my ears, a cacophony made by a crazy drummer beating my insides. My muscles lock, trapping me inside my body as if movement has become a foreign concept meant for other people but not me. People who are not drowning under invisible expectations. What will I even do there? Everybody will know I’m a fraud, a girl who doesn’t matter, with no family to back me. I wheeze, trying to break the ice around my lungs.

  “Don’t worry, Minae,” whispers Bae into my ears. She has come close at some moment and now embraces me from behind, an anchor of warmth in the frozen darkness. “In the grand scheme of things, none of those idiots matter, not even the emperor.”

  “Okay,” I mutter, slowly recovering my breath under the confused stares of the ducklings. They tilt their heads and quack before waddling back to the water, making me laugh at their antics.

  I breathe out slowly, feeling in control of myself again. What has gotten into me?

  “Wanna see if Hina finished your dress?”

  “Sure!”

  She has. I watch it, mouth wide open. It looks nothing like that simple linen dress she made me try earlier. How can this be based on that? What I have before me doesn’t look like a dress but some fancy battle garment.

  “Well?” The tailor looks at me as if waiting for something. “Come on, try it on, girl.”

  It fits me like a glove, hugging my form like armor fit for a queen. I watch my reflection in the mirror twirling around. It is a masterpiece of form and function, a fusion of elegance and menace. The fitted bodice is reinforced with subtle leather, offering additional protection and enhancing my waist and chest without impeding my movements. It has some give, almost as if it is slightly elastic. The fabric cascades in silvery panels from my waist. Each slit seems designed for swift, unhindered movements that reveal glimpses of the leather greaves beneath. The sleek and fitted sleeves are embroidered with runes of power stitched in golden thread that shimmers with an inner glow. The dress is enchanted! I don’t know what. I can’t wait to study the runes when I have time. The leather is also thrumming with mana. It must be mana-beast hide, which can be more resistant than steel. A high collar frames and protects my neck, lending me an air of command while a flowing mantle trails behind like a ghost of silk. Every detail speaks of purpose: hidden dagger loops at the hips, white leather gloves crafted for protection and grace, and high-laced boots that could be at home in a ballroom and a battlefield.

  “She looks fierce!” praises Bae. A wide grin plastered on her face.

  I do. I look almost like a commander or an assassin. It is not just a dress but a statement.

  “Obviously,” says the tailor, rolling her eyes. “The girl aims to be a warrior, not some shy princess.” She walks around me as if looking for the need for additional adjustments before nodding in approval. “Good, good. It’s enchanted for comfort, to keep itself clean and self-repair. But the last effect is slow unless the ambient mana density is high or you support it by channeling your mana into the specific runes.”

  Nice. Now, I don’t even need to guess what those runes do. I wonder if I can create a personal cleansing body rune for when I don’t have time or water, a thought for later.

  “A rapier strapped to the hip should complement the look nicely,” muses Bae.

  The tailor snaps her fingers loudly. “Yeah! That’s what is missing. But you can find a suitable one yourself. Don’t you?”

  “Obviously,” answers Bae. “Come, we need to get back. You should get some sleep while you can. You are leaving tomorrow.”

  The anxiety threatens to return, but I breathe through it until it falls back. I can do this.

  Kylo storms toward us halfway up the hill so fast my eyes barely follow him. He is a blur of fur that pounces across the meadow, paws barely skimming the ground. His fluffed tail curves like a banner behind him, twitching with every bound. The tall grass parts in waves as he charges forward, ears flattened by the wind, eyes wide and gleaming. A sudden burst of speed sends him skidding through a patch of dandelions, leaving golden petals and silvery-white seeds floating in his wake. Then he leaps, air-stepping mid-stride with all the chaos of a creature that knows no hesitation nor shame. He lands in a tumble, legs flailing. The grass swallows him, only to spit him out again as if nothing happened. A chirping sound escapes his throat as he finally reaches us.

  “Sneaky, sneaky, good! Mountain no see!” he declares, pouncing around us and launching himself against our legs and waists in a flurry of purrs and triumphant headbutts, drunk in his superiority over the pesky Ice spirits. “Ice-Spirit, dumb. No see. Kylo sneaky, mountain no see,” he explains, washing us with mental images of pride and excitement.

  Bae erupts in roaring laughter. I wince, then laugh, too. What have I unleashed upon the world?