The next few days found Sobon most-ly ig-nor-ing his young pupil, and in-stead work-ing on re-fin-ing four pat-terns on stones, to help his mem-o-ry: telekine-sis, an en-er-gy bar-ri-er, the ri-fle pat-tern, and a grenade pat-tern suit-able for use with in-spin aether. The last two were very dan-ger-ous, not be-cause of the type of aether, but be-cause they could only op-er-ate above a cer-tain in-ten-si-ty of aether; there were no test-fir-ings of those pat-terns, not with his lim-it-ed stores, and not in a place he wished to de-fend.

  It's not that he ex-pect-ed to blow up the vil-lage if he got the pat-tern wrong, but decades of train-ing told him to only ex-pose ar-eas to hos-tile aether pat-terns if they were en-e-my con-trolled, shield-ed, or could be re-paired. To do oth-er-wise would not only hin-der re-cov-ery in the area, but also... it would leave a very de-tectable trace. While he sus-pect-ed he would be fight-ing in the vil-lage, or at least in the near-by sea, there was no rea-son to draw them in, not if they might still pass the area by.

  By the time the ap-proach-ing ship was vis-i-ble, it had long since been a mas-sive bea-con to his sens-es. When he fi-nal-ly car-ried his pat-tern stones to the shore, he found Ki'el al-ready there, star-ing out across the sea rest-less-ly from be-hind a tree, her aether and qi not so much qui-et as drowned out by the waves of en-er-gy. Nev-er-the-less, he not-ed that she sensed him ap-proach-ing, even when she didn't turn.

  Such a cheeky stu-dent, he thought qui-et-ly to him-self with ap-proval. Thinks she's be-ing sub-tle.

  "It is a ter-ri-ble aura," she said, as he hopped up to a tree branch near her, and Sobon not-ed the word, for fu-ture use. "I do not know what it is, but it feels... ter-ri-ble. Like death."

  Sobon stud-ied the waves, as pas-sive-ly as he could. Like all qi he had seen, it was a com-plex mix of greater and low-er spins; he thought he felt left and right, in, and... on-ward-spin aether? Per-haps both on-ward and re-verse, at once. [ It is the... aura of a band of killers. Some pieces of it are util-i-ty for them-selves, strength-en-ing them and keep-ing their spir-its up. Oth-ers are a mes-sage to oth-ers--a promise of vi-o-lence and cru-el-ty that they will doubt-less keep, if giv-en an ex-cuse. ]

  Ki'el shiv-ered, but he chose not to no-tice. In-stead, he spoke qui-et-ly, in case he should not have an-oth-er chance to of-fer her guid-ance. [ The pat-tern--the promise of vi-o-lence, en-forced in aether--helps them to do ter-ri-ble things if they de-cide to, at the cost of cor-rupt-ing them. It gives them courage against stronger or equal foes, and it helps them crush their own re-sis-tance to harm-ing in-no-cents. Your dai-ly habits are sim-i-lar--a pat-tern that ex-ists out-side your-self, which you hold to in or-der to make dif-fi-cult things eas-i-er to ac-cept. The pat-tern it-self may be used by he-roes, or mon-sters--as with weapons of all types. ]

  There was a minute or two of qui-et, as Ki'el, in her own way, ab-sorbed that. Fi-nal-ly, though, she shift-ed her weight, slight-ly. "I am no hero," she said.

  [ I don't mean that only he-roes and mon-sters ex-ist, ] Sobon replied, sud-den-ly wor-ried that he had been mis-un-der-stood. [ It can be used by teach-ers, el-ders... I am sure that your vil-lage had many such pat-terns. Sim-i-lar things teach lessons from par-ent to child, both in the womb, and through-out their lives. It is im-por-tant that you un-der-stand that these things are ex-ter-nal, and they can be cre-at-ed and de-stroyed... as well as cor-rupt-ed. ]

  There was a long stretch of si-lence, and then Ki'el shift-ed again. "I should not have said what I did that day," she said, and he felt her strug-gling to find more words, to find a way to make up for what she did.

  [ You should not have, ] he sim-ply agreed. [ It is the na-ture of... ] he al-most said chil-dren, but chose not to. [ ...stu-dents, to make mis-takes, and be cor-rect-ed. And even grown men like me, ] he added a wry sense of irony to the thought, over-layed with a men-tal im-age of his cur-rent form, [ are still stu-dents. I have much to learn, and in or-der to learn, I must be cor-rect-ed, and this is true of all teach-ers, of all ages. When you feel some-thing is wrong, you should speak. ]

  Ki'el did not speak for a long time. Even-tu-al-ly, she just turned to him, said one fi-nal, "I'm sor-ry," and re-turned to the vil-lage, or so he as-sumed.

  Min-utes be-came an hour, and it be-came clear to Sobon that the ship in-tend-ed to pass by. That should have been no sur-prise; he and Ki'el were not enough to at-tract at-ten-tion, and if they were the pi-rates who had ran-sacked this vil-lage, they had al-ready done a thor-ough job. If not, they like-ly didn't even know it ex-ist-ed.

  Still, he stud-ied the aether giv-en off by the boat as it steered by. By the time it was near-ing its clos-est ap-proach, and get-ting ready to pass, he had be-come cer-tain of some-thing that he had been grow-ing to in-creas-ing-ly sus-pect.

  He looked away, search-ing for Ki'el, to find her not far away, sit-ting against the base of a tree and star-ing dag-gers at the ship from the shade. He hopped down from his own spot and ap-proached her. [ There are pris-on-ers, slaves, aboard that ship, ] he said. [ I will need to take your boat. I am go-ing af-ter them. ]

  Ki'el stood, her ex-pres-sion not seem-ing to change. Per-haps she knew, or had sus-pect-ed, or maybe she sus-pect-ed that her own peo-ple had been hauled off, or at least some of them. As they moved through the woods, though, she spoke, qui-et-ly. "I will be com-ing with you."

  Sobon didn't both-er ques-tion-ing, or ar-gu-ing. His own mind re-turned to thoughts of his home-world be-ing in-vad-ed. [ It will be hard to pro-tect you, there in the mid-dle of every-thing. I will try, but be pre-pared. ]

  All Ki'el said in re-sponse was, "Death would be prefer-able to know-ing that I did not try."

  It was not long af-ter that she and Sobon were on a small boat, the girl pad-dling smooth-ly, every stroke pow-er-ing the craft no small amount. They were on the op-po-site side of the is-land from the ship, still, but Sobon knew that it wouldn't take long for them to make their way around. "...Mas-ter," she said, fi-nal-ly, af-ter too long in si-lence. She hadn't called him that, he re-flect-ed. "Do we at-tack in the day, or...?"

  [ If it were clos-er to evening, we might wait. Un-less you think we should? ]

  "At their speed..." Ki'el frowned. "No. By the time evening comes, un-less they stop, they will be in wa-ters I do not know."

  [ If you can think of an am-bush spot... ]

  Ki'el just shook her head. "We will sim-ply move swift-ly."

  When they came around the end of the is-land, and found the ship with its sails start-ing to bil-low a bit more strong-ly in the wind, Ki'el took the op-por-tu-ni-ty to re-al-ly dig in with her oar. A life-time of ex-pe-ri-ence kept her from mak-ing too much of a splashy mess with it, but Sobon was sur-prised to find that she could still put great pow-er be-hind each stroke. Still, every smack and every gur-gle of the wa-ter made him wish he had come up with a stealth pat-tern. He had known one or two, but they seemed too tech-ni-cal to him, and would take too much guess-work.

  "Boat ap-proach-ing!" Sobon heard the cry, al-though it was very dis-tant. More dis-tant, he sus-pect-ed, than he should have heard it from; his hear-ing was good, but he had nev-er no-ticed a faint sound be-ing so clear. "One girl, un-armed, or maybe a staff."

  There was a smat-ter-ing of laugh-ter.

  [ I will do what I can to keep you safe, ] Sobon promised, even as Ki'el be-gan push-ing her-self even hard-er on the oar. [ But... ]

  She didn't stop work as she replied, "But what?"

  [ You would also make an ex-cel-lent dis-trac-tion. If you are will-ing. ]

  "No mat-ter what, I in-tend to board that ship," she said, her qui-et voice in-tense. "I hope to at least beat one of them to death. Af-ter that, we will see."

  Ki'el bare-ly paid at-ten-tion when Sobon hid him-self, and didn't both-er look-ing for him or try-ing to sense how close he was. When she got the boat close enough to the side of the pi-rate ship, she snatched up her staff with one hand and leaped over, grab-bing one of the planks on the side that served as a crude lad-der. Even with only one hand, she found her-self mov-ing more smooth-ly than she had ex-pect-ed, step-ping up and snaking her climb-ing hand up to the next plank be-fore she could be-gin to pull away. It wouldn't have been odd if that was a thing that she prac-ticed... but no, she just felt her body mov-ing with pur-pose and clar-i-ty.

  It was hard-ly the time to be dis-tract-ed with thoughts of why.

  When she got near to the edge of the ship, there was an ugly, wiry Djip lean-ing over to grab at her shirt and pull her up, but she braced her-self quick-ly and jabbed the staff at his face, in-stinc-tive-ly pres-sur-ing both of her new cir-cu-lar cores. As she did, she felt them both push-ing en-er-gy into her, and... as Sobon had said, one of them felt right with-in her, while one of them felt wrong. With her bare-ly pay-ing at-ten-tion, all she could do at the mo-ment is back off the pres-sure--which she was only able to do be-cause the man at the edge of the ship backed away for an in-stant, spooked.

  She held on to where she was only long enough to lay a men-tal hand on the right-hand cir-cle and re-lease the oth-er, and be-fore she even had it un-der con-trol, she pulled her-self up onto the ship. As her head cleared the edge, she saw a group-ing of two dozen sailors, some Djang, some Djip, some Iji, and even some Il-lans like her-self. The crew were all men, though, and they all had the same ill taint to their spir-its, at least as far as her sens-es could tell. The group had a mixed group of ex-pres-sions on their faces, none of them pleas-ant; some were just an-gry, oth-ers, pained or tired, oth-ers show-ing an ea-ger-ness to fight that she dared not think too hard about.

  As her feet fi-nal-ly reached the deck, the most heav-i-ly built man took a half-step for-ward, his greasy skin shin-ing in the ear-ly af-ter-noon sun. Al-though he was at least half Il-lan, he spoke Djangese with lit-tle ac-cent "What a lit-tle treat has worked its way up onto our deck. In-ter-est-ed in sign-ing up, lit-tle lady?"

  The laugh-ter that rolled through the crowd could have meant any one of a num-ber of things, but none of them were good. At least, not know-ing who these men were.

  "This crew," she said, "de-stroyed my vil-lage."

  One of the crew-man turned and boffed an-oth-er on his shirt-less chest. "I said it was this place," he said in bro-ken Djangese, proud-ly, though no one seemed im-pressed with him at all.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  Ki'el took a deep breath and tried to steady her thoughts. She would have han-dled this very dif-fer-ent-ly, if she didn't have Sobon with her. If he didn't say he need-ed a dis-trac-tion. Even so, it felt very much like she was throw-ing her life away for noth-ing, or maybe, for her own pride.

  She just opened her eyes and looked at the man who'd stepped for-ward. "I'll have my sat-is-fac-tion from you. One on one du-els, un-less you are afraid."

  The roar-ing laugh-ter of the en-tire crew is not what spooked her. No, what made her soul shiv-er in its deep-est depths was just the slight-est trem-ble in the aura that suf-fused the whole ship. She turned to look, but the source of the aura was be-hind a door--the large door on the stern of the ship. Which, she rea-soned in-stant-ly, must be the cap-tain's quar-ters; it made sense that the strongest man would lead, es-pe-cial-ly on a crew like this.

  Her at-ten-tion was drawn back when one of the men took his al-ready-bared saber and leaped at her even as most of the rest were laugh-ing. She was quick with the staff, knock-ing the ver-ti-cal slash aside, and im-me-di-ate-ly shift-ed for-wards and dropped her weight, bring-ing the end of her staff down on the man's foot with that weight plus all the force she could muster. She would have known with-out look-ing that she had shat-tered the man's foot with the strike, but she didn't ex-pect the blow to also push her staff a fin-ger width into the wood deck, blood and splin-ters ex-plod-ing from the strike.

  She ig-nored the ob-ser-va-tion and caught her weight, slip-ping for-ward, yank-ing her staff clear and spin-ning it into a blow to the back of the pi-rate's head, which knocked him clean off the ship, and also made a loud crack like it had split his skull, though she... couldn't imag-ine why her blow would have been that strong.

  "This bitch..." At least two men charged her af-ter that, and Ki'el put aside all thought of lis-ten-ing, or even hear-ing what they said, her mind clamp-ing onto that right-hand cir-cle that her mas-ter had giv-en her, as she forced her mind into the pat-terns she had drilled. They were not war-rior pat-terns--not tru-ly. They were counter-at-tacks and dodges, ones that would have been use-less if she were much slow-er than she was now. The two blades charged in, mov-ing aside to give them-selves space from each oth-er, each poised to thrust.

  Ki'el picked one and stepped for-ward, mov-ing her staff as though she was go-ing to con-front the man, but in-stead putting the staff in mo-tion so that as soon as the oth-er blade was thrust at her, she could ma-neu-ver it to block. In the mo-ment of con-fu-sion, when the blade didn't meet its mark, she stepped a half step for-ward, twirling the staff to re-gain mo-men-tum, and then aimed a blow up-wards into her first tar-get's crotch.

  The man's feet left the deck, briefly, and he dropped his sword.

  Ki'el whirled and had her staff ready to deal with the sec-ond blade, but he had start-ed to raise his own qi, and she knew even be-fore the wood struck that her blow would bare-ly find pur-chase. She al-lowed the blow to con-tin-ue but weak-en, ready-ing to turn it into a feint, but she also no-ticed, in her pe-riph-ery, that sev-er-al of the oth-er crew were now start-ing to cir-cle around her, weapons out, all with ter-ri-ble looks on their faces, now fo-cused and in-tent.

  She would lat-er re-al-ize that there was a sin-gle mo-ment, per-haps, when at least ten of them lined up. In the mo-ment it-self, how-ev-er, she flinched, with-out know-ing why. It felt like a line was burned through her thoughts, and when that in-stant passed... in-stead of men, there were charred half-corpses of men, all in a line, and be-yond them, a leg-sized hole in the edge of the deck, which she could see went straight through and out the side, though it was high enough it wouldn't en-dan-ger the ship it-self.

  She, with every-one else, turned to look, though she knew who it must have been. Sobon float-ed there, next to the corpse of the pi-lot, one of his lit-tle rocks glow-ing red to her eyes, and shed-ding sparks of aether to her sens-es, like the coals of a fire when stirred. In that mo-ment, she also felt the aura of the Cap-tain stir, and she knew that what-ev-er came next, it would be be-yond her abil-i-ty to deal with.

  So in-stead, she turned to the near-est, half-stunned pi-rate, and put all of her strength into thrust-ing the end of her staff into his neck. He al-most re-cov-ered in time to block it, or at least re-sist it with his qi, but it was enough to stun him ful-ly, and she spun in place and put as much mo-men-tum into her staff as she could, smash-ing him in the chest with it. The pi-rate, with no words but an un-pleas-ant crunch-ing noise, flew off the ship.

  The re-main-ing pi-rates seemed as ea-ger as her to avoid be-ing use-less, al-though bare-ly a third of them de-cid-ed that she was the next rel-e-vant threat. That worked out in her fa-vor; the four men bran-dish-ing their sabers at her didn't look like the bravest or strongest of the lot, and two of them brushed each oth-er and had a mo-men-tary spat, tak-ing their eyes off of her to glare dag-gers at one an-oth-er, pre-sum-ably each want-i-ng to claim the right to fight next. Of the oth-er two, one had a near-ly blank look on his face, al-though he kept his sword mov-ing nim-bly, and the oth-er had a tense look on his face that Ki'el didn't both-er try-ing to read. She took her staff in both hands and force-ful-ly blocked a heavy blow from the more ag-gres-sive fight-er, slid his blade aside, and start-ed to turn to-wards the blank one.

  His fist was a sur-prise as it knocked the air out of her lungs. In the mo-ment of shock, she looked again at his eyes, won-der-ing if per-haps they were a look of deep con-cen-tra-tion, but still, all she could see was empti-ness, even as his lips peeled back into a nasty gri-mace.

  At that mo-ment, the Cap-tain's door opened, and a man stepped out, a man whose aura par-a-lyzed near-ly every-one aboard the ship the mo-ment he ful-ly un-veiled it. His own sailors flinched back from it, and Ki'el lost feel-ing in her legs, bare-ly man-ag-ing to catch her-self on her staff and keep up-right, in or-der to bet-ter see the man. He was ugly, most like-ly, though Ki'el could only un-der-stand him in terms of that ter-ri-ble aura; it was an oily black-ness that ra-di-at-ed out from his soul, soak-ing into every board, rope, and stretch of can-vas in sight, claim-ing them with fa-mil-iar-i-ty and fi-nal-i-ty. His own peo-ple seemed to shy away from the all-cor-rupt-ing waves of en-er-gy, but when they could not es-cape, af-ter only a mo-ment, they straight-ened, look-ing back at their cap-tain more brave-ly, per-haps, or per-haps just with no re-main-ing will to re-sist. Ki'el felt the wave flow into her, but in-stead of claim-ing her, she could feel it crash over her like a curse, her mus-cles siez-ing, her bones weak-en-ing, her eyes go-ing dark.

  "Who dam-aged my ship?" The words were sim-ple and to the point, and the oth-ers point-ed to where Sobon must have been, but Ki'el couldn't see him any-more. She could see very lit-tle ex-cept the deck, and the dark-en-ing sky, and the Cap-tain who strode through it all. He turned to look, one man in a sea of sil-hou-ettes, and squint-ed, and looked in-cred-u-lous-ly at the man who must have been his sec-ond in com-mand.

  [ I'm aware that my form isn't in-tim-i-dat-ing, ] her mas-ter spoke clear-ly, this time not only into her own mind. [ But sure-ly you're one who knows just how wrong per-cep-tions can be? ]

  "Keep talk-ing, meat," the Cap-tain said, and Ki'el felt waves and waves of dark en-er-gy pour from him. "I'll dunk you whole and alive in cook-ing oil and only bring you out to breathe. Once you're fried alive I'll eat you in a sin-gle bite, and you'll suf-fer your fi-nal undig-ni-fied death in my stom-ach, fi-nal-ly know-ing your place as you're un-made and con-sumed by my core."

  [ ...Hum, ] Sobon's men-tal voice man-aged to clear Ki'el's head, just a bit. He sound-ed... im-pressed. [ That's quite a threat. My counter will be... ]

  And then, with a speed Ki'el had only sort of known the squir-rel was ca-pa-ble of, he flew through the air next to the Cap-tain, and un-leashed an-oth-er blast like the first, which blind-ed Ki'el's mind like the sun once again, straight into the side of the man's head.

  The re-sult-ing wave of qi wash-ing over the ship was like the tolling of a bro-ken ship's bell, off-key and un-mis-tak-able. A heavy strike had met a high-ly ar-mored shell... and the shell held. Ki'el's eyes snapped open, and she blinked away shad-ows that had nev-er been, look-ing up to see the Cap-tain still stand-ing there, Sobon still float-ing next to him, a burned and bloody gash along the side of the pi-rate's head, but noth-ing more.

  It felt like min-utes passed, but Sobon must have re-act-ed in-stant-ly, and the Cap-tain wasn't far be-hind. As the fly-ing squir-rel dashed away, the pi-rate's saber was coat-ed with an in-deli-ble black, which rip-pled off the tip of the blade, ex-tend-ing it first inch-es, then feet, then a whole ship's length, be-fore re-tract-ing, but Sobon had dodged. Ki'el glanced at a mast, well with-in range of the swipe, but the dark-ness with-in it didn't seem phased by the cap-tain's own strike; no hiss or thunk came off of it as the strike passed through. The pi-rate dashed for-ward, far faster than a hu-man should have been able to move, but Sobon man-aged to ma-neu-ver a whole bar-rel into his way that hadn't been there be-fore. The pi-rate cap-tain bare-ly hes-i-tat-ed, cleav-ing through it with a sin-gle swipe of his saber, and spilling wa-ter across the deck.

  Ki'el tried to fol-low Sobon with her eyes, but she felt like she was watch-ing a dream, as the squir-rel's po-si-tion shift-ed rapid-ly and con-fi-dent-ly, as though fol-low-ing a plan she couldn't be-gin to fath-om.

  Fi-nal-ly, the cap-tain stopped, and with a shout of, "Enough!" reached up with a hand, his qi scream-ing the tech-nique name, Sphere of Pitch, into her mind. In-stant-ly, black en-er-gy from the whole ship con-verged on Sobon, sur-round-ing him in a mas-sive black shell.

  "Enough!" the cap-tain re-peat-ed, and Ki'el felt strange, re-al-iz-ing that his voice wasn't car-ry-ing any qi-based pow-er to her any-more, most like-ly sav-ing it for the fight. "I'll ad-mit that was per-haps the sec-ond most pow-er-ful blow to the head I've ever tak-en, rat, but you won't catch me with it again. I don't know what kind of name-less tech-nique you in-her-it-ed, but if that's the best you can do--"

  [ The best I can do? ] Sobon's voice was amused. [ How about this, then? ]

  Ki'el must have sensed it a few mo-ment af-ter the cap-tain did. It was, af-ter all, too pow-er-ful a feel-ing to be missed, most like-ly even by those with-out any qi sense; Ki'el rec-og-nized it as Sobon pour-ing sev-er-al of his rings of pow-er all at once into one of his float-ing stones, which cap-tured that en-er-gy and com-pressed it into a point. The waves that she felt--that every-one felt--didn't feel like a tech-nique be-ing ex-e-cut-ed. In-stead, it felt... a lit-tle like a scream, mut-ed by be-ing con-tained be-hind a wall, but heard clear-ly through the cracks. A scream that was only grow-ing loud-er, mo-ment by mo-ment, and if even the noise of it was so in-tense...

  The cap-tain waves his hand to scat-ter the sphere of black and leaped for-ward, his saber length-en-ing with black pow-er to try to stab at Sobon, but the squir-rel just ca-su-al-ly tossed the stone past the cap-tain and to-wards the ship. Ki'el flinched; she was sure, if that tech-nique re-leased, she would die, along with the cap-tain, crew, and pris-on-ers. But the cap-tain, no doubt think-ing the same, threw his qi into stop-ping his own mo-men-tum, and spun and bat-ted the rock away from the ship with the flat of the blade, his qi all di-rect-ed at push-ing the tech-nique away. Sobon, she was sure, al-lowed it to go, float-ing away from the ship in the oth-er di-rec-tion.

  When the rock fi-nal-ly ex-plod-ed, the ship rocked so hard that it near-ly cap-sized, and Ki'el was thrown over-board, along with many of the crew, and this time Ki'el was sure that most of the oth-ers were also blind-ed and stunned by the wave of qi--no, aether--that fu-eled the ex-plo-sion. It took her long, long mo-ments to awake from a sense of dev-as-ta-tion that she couldn't un-der-stand or place; Ki'el, though, found her-self lay-ing safe, and even dry, in her boat. Im-pos-si-ble, she knew, since it should have fall-en well be-hind the ship af-ter she board-ed. With a jolt of pan-ic, she sat up and looked around, in-stant-ly spot-ting Sobon and the Cap-tain--the squir-rel float-ing serene-ly, and the Cap-tain stand-ing on an im-pos-si-bly calm sec-tion of the tur-bu-lent wa-ters.

  [ I am not afraid of you, pi-rate, ] Ki'el heard him say, from quite a ways away.

  "Then you'd bet-ter kill me," the Cap-tain said, and in the qi of his voice, she could feel an im-age of his face, sneer-ing in con-tempt, along with a set of words she couldn't un-der-stand.

  [ Yes, ] Sobon sim-ply replied, tired-ly, [ I sup-pose so. ]

  And then, with an-oth-er spark that mo-men-tar-i-ly blind-ed Ki'el--this a spot, and not a line like the ones be-fore--the Cap-tain's head sim-ply ex-plod-ed into pieces, and his body dropped in-stant-ly into the wa-ter, the ar-ti-fi-cial still-ness be-neath his feet van-ish-ing like it had nev-er been, the wa-ters churn-ing and thick streams of red run-ning through them for a mo-ment. There was qui-et, for a mo-ment, and Ki'el looked around, for any of the oth-er sailors to be swim-ming or stand-ing on the wa-ters, prepar-ing one last come-back--or per-haps, strug-gling to get away, to fight an-oth-er day.

  She saw noth-ing.

  [ Ki'el. ] Sobon's voice was close, and she turned to find that he had ap-proached with-out her even know-ing, and was now perched on the bow tip of her boat. She... didn't know too much, ex-cept that she could tell he was tired. Per-haps, very tired. [ You have done an ad-mirable job. Thank you. ]

  Ki'el stiff-ened, un-cer-tain about why and how the words seemed to weave around her... only to re-al-ize, af-ter a mo-ment, that she was sag-ging, her qi long since de-plet-ed, and she col-lapsed to the floor of the boat, ex-haust-ed.