"I'm not sure what most of those do," said Xoi Xam, when Ki'el next had the op-por-tu-ni-ty to speak with her about the med-i-cines she was due to re-ceive. "Though I'm pret-ty sure that Spir-it Crys-tals and Spir-it Gems are ex-act-ly what they sound like--stones in which a lit-tle qi has been stored, nat-u-ral-ly or through ef-fort. Whether 'Less-er' or 'Low' is bet-ter, you'd have to ask some-one." She gave Ki'el a wary look, one Ki'el wasn't en-tire-ly sure she could read. "I'm not sure whether to be proud or up-set you didn't bring some with you in your new Space Ring. A ring should pro-tect its con-tents well, but... it would be easy for peo-ple at our lev-el to waste re-sources. Very easy."

  "It did not seem wise to take things sim-ply to have them with me," ad-mit-ted Ki'el. "Not with-out know-ing the first thing about what they were, how to han-dle them, or whether they would even be of use to us. Things like the Sil-ver and the time with the in-scrip-tion-ist were both..." she gri-maced. "They seemed too ad-vanced for us to use."

  "And yet too valu-able to just give up," Xam agreed. "You said the cost of an at-tempt to pass the wall was one hun-dred...?"

  "But not un-til the first month is com-plet-ed," Ki'el agreed. "And med-ical ex-pens-es are not cov-ered."

  "Cru-el. But, to be ex-pect-ed, I sup-pose." She frowned. "You gained a Star Rank in the last day, far faster than I had as-sumed. Do you ex-pect you will be ready to rise by the end of the month?"

  Had she? Ki'el had been at Two Gold Stars, and when she closed her eyes to fo-cus on the core with-in her, she dis-cov-ered that, true enough, she now stood at three, of a pos-si-ble ten. She... did not feel dif-fer-ent, but then, she had felt dif-fer-ent when adding pu-ri-fied qi to her dant-ian, al-though it had not im-me-di-ate-ly added to her rank-ing at the time. She had... ex-pect-ed, per-haps, that she would feel much stronger as she pushed through the rank-ing, but... then, if that were true, Xoi Xam would be worlds ahead of her.

  "I don't know," Ki'el said, hon-est-ly, as she re-opened her eyes, watch-ing the woman who watched her. "But I do not wish to leave Mian be-hind, ei-ther. Or Da Chi-an."

  Xam seemed to hes-i-tate, glanc-ing around. The two had met on the road lead-ing out of the Less-er House, Ki'el re-turn-ing from a sim-ple man-u-al la-bor job, and Xam leav-ing for an-oth-er. There seemed to be no one else around, not at the mo-ment, though Ki'el felt that there was a dif-fuse sense of an-oth-er's qi.

  "It is good to care for your friends," Xam fi-nal-ly said, straight-en-ing and forc-ing her-self back into shape. "And I would feel bet-ter know-ing that Mian will have help with the tri-als that are com-ing. But I wor-ry about you lin-ger-ing here, Ki'el. You made en-e-mies far too ear-ly."

  The voice that seemed to come from nowhere made Ki'el jump, though she didn't think that Xam re-act-ed so bad-ly. "En-e-mies?" Ki'el found, be-hind her, the woman in the red dress who had been wait-ing by the en-trance when Broth-er Du had brought them by--Sis-ter Lan Wu, Ki'el re-called. "Per-haps with some, though there will al-ways be those grate-ful to see... im-ped-i-ments re-moved."

  Lan Wu was, at the mo-ment, lean-ing her shoul-der against a tree, far too far into the woods to look nat-ur-al, giv-en her dress. She did not, this time, have a pa-per fan, though Ki'el not-ed one of her hands was be-hind her back, and what seemed like a sheathed blade was leaned against the tree, half con-cealed by her legs.

  "There is no ques-tion that Xan Bu was an im-ped-i-ment," Xam agreed, her voice too smooth and po-lite for Ki'el to see it as nat-ur-al. But then... Sis-ter Wu was no dif-fer-ent, in that re-gard. Ki'el frowned, re-call-ing the woman had put qi into her voice, be-fore, though she didn't sense any-thing at this mo-ment. Still, she pushed a lit-tle right-eous aether through her spir-it, notic-ing no dif-fer-ence.

  "Many of those who re-main here be-come warped by the strug-gle," Lan Wu pushed away from the tree, leav-ing her blade be-hind. "It is all too easy, es-pe-cial-ly for us no-bles." Ki'el no-ticed, with a start, that Lan Wu's at-ten-tion was en-tire-ly on Xoi Xam, though she wasn't sure why that felt note-wor-thy. "We are raised to be use-ful tools, for our fam-i-ly and our na-tion, and here we are treat-ed as use-less. While it makes some sense for the wor-thi-est to rise to the top... it is an in-sult to sug-gest that we are un-wor-thy of more re-sources than we are giv-en." She moved di-rect-ly up to Xam, cross-ing her arms over her chest, and met the oth-er woman's eyes unashamed-ly. "And we do need more than we are giv-en. You are al-ready dis-cov-er-ing that, are you not?"

  Ki'el could sense the ten-sion in Xam, and placed a hand on her shoul-der, press-ing a lit-tle Right-eous Aether into the woman through the con-nec-tion. Xam didn't star-tle at the touch, but did seem con-fused and up-set by the aether--though whether that was the aether push-ing out a qi ef-fect, or sim-ply her not un-der-stand-ing the sen-sa-tion, Ki'el wasn't sure. Af-ter a mo-ment, though, Xam firmed her re-solve, and Ki'el let her hand drop. "I've been here a cou-ple days, Sis-ter Wu. I would be a com-plete fool if I ex-pect-ed to be hand-ed re-sources with-out ask-ing for them or work-ing hard to achieve them."

  "Is that how you were taught?" Lan Wu tilt-ed her head slight-ly. "You are of the Xoi Trad-ing Fam-i-ly, are you not?"

  "I am," Xoi Xam an-swered, though Ki'el thought she sound-ed wary, again.

  "Are they not al-ready ex-pect-ing great things of you? Are you not ex-pect-ed to rise to the top with the re-sources they have in-vest-ed in you?" The woman's head tilt-ed back. "We rec-og-nize our own kind here, Sis-ter Xam. You have high ex-pec-ta-tions of your-self, and you see the lack of re-sources for what they are: they treat us as all as com-mon peo-ple, here. At first, I thought it was a no-ble cause--en-sur-ing that the hot-head-ed fools burn out ear-ly, and the lazy and ig-no-rant are taught their place. But even those with the strength and tal-ent to rise are de-nied the re-sources nec-es-sary."

  Ki'el found her-self giv-ing the woman an un-pleas-ant look, only notic-ing when Kuli forced her way into her thoughts. { You are not mis-tak-en, } the aug-ment said, { but you are too ob-vi-ous in your dis-trust. Try to keep an even ap-pear-ance. }

  So Ki'el turned away, re-al-iz-ing that her face had be-come pinched with her ir-ri-ta-tion, and she did what she could to ease up the ten-sion. Why does this woman think that re-sources are nec-es-sary to rise? As though this is sim-ply the na-ture of things?

  { I am not ed-u-cat-ed in the ways of this world, } Kuli an-swered, { but it seems most like-ly to be her-itage, or tal-ent. A child of oth-ers who only rose be-cause they were giv-en enough re-sources to as-sure it, and in turn is giv-en what she re-quired. Per-haps she could rise fur-ther if she fo-cused on her tal-ent in-stead of re-sources, but if that is not what she was taught... }

  Ki'el fo-cused on her breath-ing as Kuli, some-how, evened out her think-ing even as her words made Ki'el more an-noyed. Yes, most like-ly, the woman was ex-cus-ing her own lack of tal-ent--but it was an in-her-i-tance from her fam-i-ly, per-haps. Ki'el let the ir-ri-ta-tion pass, for now, not-ing that Xam had made some oth-er de-fense of her own, as-yet, lack of anger at the Sect.

  "You will see," was all Lan Wu said in clos-ing, be-fore turn-ing back to the tree and snatch-ing up her sheathed weapon, then walk-ing away. The woman didn't even sound an-noyed, or re-sent-ful, as though she didn't see the con-ver-sa-tion as a loss, though Ki'el thought that it was. She shook her head, turn-ing back to Xam, but her friend had a se-ri-ous look on her face as well.

  "It is not all about re-sources," Ki'el said. "There are ways."

  Xoi Xam glanced at her, and the se-ri-ous look eased. "Re-sources are more than stones, Ki'el. 'Re-sources' in a sect in-cludes time with in-struc-tors, ac-cess to scrolls and books of meth-ods and tech-niques." She low-ered her voice by a lot, so that Ki'el had to work to pick out the words against the rustling of the trees. "Your Kuli is a great re-source that you were kind enough to share last night. Those with-out such re-sources strug-gle not only to have enough qi, but to find the an-swers they need."

  Ki'el met the oth-er woman's eyes and nod-ded. Xam's fea-tures re-laxed some more in re-sponse, and her voice raised again. "You are kind, Ki'el. And I hope that you find oth-er good and wor-thy peo-ple to raise up with the re-sources you have ac-cess to. But don't mis-take that what she said is true. I have been ask-ing around about the cost of in-struc-tion, and it is not cheap. Even an hour of in-struc-tion from some-one in the Out-er Sect is not cheap--ten points for an av-er-age mem-ber of the sect, more for some-one with spe-cial knowl-edge. Ten points is five tasks for us--and only if we ful-ly sat-is-fy the pe-ti-tion-er. That may be very lit-tle time and ef-fort, or it may be hours or even days of it. And one hour of a nor-mal Out-er Sect Dis-ci-ple's time is not much."

  Ki'el blinked, not hav-ing looked into any of that. In truth... she didn't know what the val-ue of her la-bor had been, al-though El-der Gol had said she had four points from nor-mal tasks, which had been... two or three tasks, de-pend-ing on how they were re-port-ed to the El-der. And in-struc-tion... Ki'el wasn't even sure how much in-struc-tion from the Sect she re-al-ly need-ed, cer-tain-ly not yet. She had al-ready seen oth-ers, even Broth-er Du, whose an-swers clashed with what Kuli seemed to be-lieve was true.

  But Xam was also very ob-vi-ous-ly not wrong. What was the val-ue in be-ing tu-tored by some-one who had not ac-com-plished any-thing but scal-ing the Gold-en Wall? Was the tribu-la-tion re-al-ly so great? Or was in-for-ma-tion sim-ply that scarce?

  "I see," Ki'el said slow-ly, as she be-gan to un-der-stand the har-ried look on Xam's face. "That only makes me wish to of-fer more help to you and Mian, and Chi-an, and the oth-ers. Though..." she looked away, in the di-rec-tion Lan Wu had gone, catch-ing her walk-ing through the trees a ways away. "per-haps not all oth-ers."

  Xam laughed at that, as Ki'el had hoped she would. "No, Ki'el. Not all oth-ers." Xam pat-ted her shoul-der, af-fec-tion-ate-ly. "I should go to my task. I ex-pect I will med-i-tate alone tonight. See if you can do any-thing for my hus-band."

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Ki'el still felt strange to hear Mian spo-ken of in such a way, and felt the small-est flush on her face, but nod-ded and let the woman go. A few min-utes lat-er, she re-turned to see Sis-ter Futi, who had an as-sign-ment for her--clean-ing a roof, of all things, again in the Out-er Sect. Ki'el frowned, but ac-cept-ed the job, find-ing her-self a short while lat-er clean-ing goo that looked sus-pi-cious-ly like the im-pu-ri-ties she had ex-pelled at the start of Sil-ver from ce-ram-ic roof tiles. When she first saw it, she flashed back to the ru-ined clothes and boat from back then, but... with the brush and soaps that the Sect pro-vid-ed her, Ki'el was able to clean the tiles.

  With some ef-fort, of course.

  It seemed odd to Ki'el, though, and she con-sid-ered the goop as she worked. The mem-bers of the Out-er Sect should not be sig-nif-i-cant-ly more pow-er-ful than... well, at the very least, Ki'el didn't ex-pect them to have been above the last qi lev-el Ki'el had seen Sobon have, and Sobon had not had an-oth-er im-pu-ri-ty purge when she ad-vanced past Ti-ta-ni-um Qi. Per-haps there was an-oth-er purge lat-er with-in the sec-ond phase of Qi... or per-haps, there were pills to do some-thing sim-i-lar?

  Was the Out-er Sect filled with peo-ple who had ad-vanced fur-ther than Sobon had? The idea bog-gled her mind. She un-der-stood that Sobon had start-ed at the bot-tom and worked his way up--but he had left her to go fight an army. It was hard, in her mind, to dis-tance the stage of qi that he had at the time from the lev-el of pow-er he dis-played, though she knew that it must be true. Af-ter all... he had start-ed off weak-er than Ki'el was now, and she could un-der-stand that.

  Re-sources, Ki'el thought, con-sid-er-ing Xam's words. In that way, Sobon was a trea-sure be-yond all oth-ers, and Ki'el was be-yond lucky to have even a few words of his to guide her. Even so, it felt wrong to use the same word for that in-sight as one did for stone, or lum-ber, or... spir-it stones, or what-ev-er.

  { Peo-ple are not re-sources, or at the very least, not in the same way. } Kuli's state-ment, rather than be-ing dis-tinct from Ki'el's own voice, seemed to be an echo of her own thoughts, help-ing her put them in or-der. { Sobon was giv-en re-sources and ed-u-ca-tion from his own peo-ple, and he can choose who to pass them on to, just as you can choose who you pass your own knowl-edge to. To call peo-ple 're-sources' im-plies a lack of choice on their part; they ex-ist to be used. }

  Ki'el nod-ded to her-self, as she scrubbed away at the tiles. Per-haps in a place like this, where knowl-edge and time could be bartered away or sold for points, it made sense to think of peo-ple as not hav-ing the right to choose who they shared their gifts with, but it was not true in gen-er-al. She was for-tu-nate that Sobon cared for her and wished to raise her up... but it re-mained his choice.

  Ki'el briefly con-sid-ered whether Kuli had a choice in the mat-ter, but the aug-ment had ex-pressed more than once that it con-sid-ered it-self less than a per-son, and Ki'el, though she felt some-what of-fend-ed by that, could do lit-tle but re-spect its wish-es.

  Ki'el's day end-ed with-out fur-ther in-ci-dent, and she glad-ly ate the meal that Mian had once again a hand in cre-at-ing. Al-though she had not seen the oth-er cook again, she heard them oc-ca-sion-al-ly in the kitchen, and the oth-er man's voice was some-what less cut-ting, if still not kind.

  In the evening, the three of them, with-out Chi-an, went into the for-est again, though their last camp-site was tak-en by some-one else. Ki'el, con-scious that she felt them be-ing ob-served again, led them fur-ther away, to-wards the edge, and they sat and talked in qui-et voic-es, Ki'el hav-ing asked them with her in-tent to not speak of se-crets. In-stead, they all worked on Qi turn-ing cy-cles, and Ki'el and Kuli helped Mian in par-tic-u-lar with a with dou-ble cy-cle, one that passed his qi out-side his body, where it turned along-side a cy-cle of am-bi-ent qi. Al-though they did not get to a point where Mian's turned qi joined the thorn, ready to re-ab-sorb, the man was be-gin-ning to get the hang of con-trol-ling the flow of his qi out-side of his body.

  The next day start-ed qui-et, as every-one scat-tered to their work once again, but when Ki'el re-turned from her first task, she was all but am-bushed by a red-haired fig-ure.

  Da Chi-an's form flick-ered slight-ly the mo-ment she spot-ted Ki'el, and they were upon her al-most be-fore she crossed the fi-nal bridge. Ki'el stam-mered a greet-ing, try-ing not to re-coil at the sud-den ap-proach, but Da Chi-an grabbed her and took her aside with an in-sis-tence just short of vi-o-lence.

  "What is the mean-ing of giv-ing me your Sect points?" Chi-an's voice quiv-ered, and Ki'el was cer-tain that she saw ears half-ap-pear-ing in their hair. "I have done noth-ing to de-serve this."

  "Ah..." Ki'el blinked, try-ing not to fo-cus on the half-ap-pear-ing spir-it flesh. "It is not pay-ment, Da Chi-an. It is a part of the for-fei-ture from Xan Bu."

  "I know what it's from," Chi-an said, their voice sound-ing ir-ri-tat-ed. "I'm ask-ing why you gave it to me."

  But Ki'el could only stare at them, baf-fled by the ques-tion. "Were you not... also a vic-tom of Xan Bu's abuse?"

  "What--" Chi-an's spir-it seemed to surge for a mo-ment, but they forced it down. "Ki'el. Are you re-al-ly say-ing that you gave me those points out of some mis-guid-ed jus-tice?"

  "Mis-guid-ed?" Ki'el looked at her friend, strange-ly. "Do you not need them?"

  "Need?" Chi-an's spir-it surged again, but again, they fought it back. "Ki'el. I am a be-ing with strong spir-it blood. Do you know what that means?"

  Ki'el eyed the spir-it, un-sure of what kind of an-swer they were ex-pect-ing, be-fore shak-ing their head no.

  Chi-an stared at her, as though up-set, and fi-nal-ly let out a sigh, al-though their ten-sion didn't seem to ex-act-ly ease. "Fear, Ki'el. It means fear." They raised one hand, and Ki'el could clear-ly see claws ap-pear-ing at the tips of their fin-gers. "We fear oth-ers, oth-ers fear us. It is more than that, true. But spir-it beasts have very strong in-stincts. Hate, fear, love, lust, hunger, need. When peo-ple trig-ger our in-stincts, it makes us ir-ra-tional. And while you may not un-der-stand that, oth-ers do."

  Chi-an turned, then, and buried her claws in a near-by tree, for no rea-son that Ki'el could see, or even sense, though it made their anx-i-ety ease, for a few mo-ments at least. Chi-an turned to glare at her, and Ki'el could see plain-ly that their eyes held deep con-fu-sion and un-rest. "I have been trained, Ki'el, from a young age. Trained to be-lieve that every at-tempt to bring my in-stincts to the sur-face is an at-tempt to con-trol me, that it was bet-ter to be an-gry than naive. And they were not wrong. I was pro-posed to be-fore I was five years old. I bare-ly knew how to talk, but a man want-ed me to make a bind-ing promise to mar-ry his son. I only un-der-stood lat-er that I had been kid-napped, and was be-ing fed sweets and told love-ly lies. I only es-caped a ter-ri-ble fate be-cause I re-peat-ed what my par-ents told me to say. Over and over, when they tried to tell me to say some-thing else."

  Ki'el swal-lowed, feel-ing ab-solute dread in the pit of her stom-ach. She... could bare-ly re-mem-ber be-ing that young, and cer-tain-ly couldn't un-der-stand the idea of be-ing at-tacked or ma-nip-u-lat-ed at such an age. Would she have been able to de-fend her-self? Would she have even un-der-stood that she need-ed to do so?

  Da Chi-an turned to face her, and Ki'el got the strong im-pres-sion once again that they were not a girl, not now. But they sheathed their claws, and Ki'el could sense the faint out-line of a tail be-hind them. "I think I be-lieve that you mean it, when you say felt that you should do it. But do not gift me things with-out speak-ing to me first. It feels like..." Chi-an's face twist-ed into a gri-mace, a tense look that did not look good on them. "...chains."

  Ki'el looked down. "You are not bound to me, Da Chi-an, and I will nev-er at-tempt to bind you." She looked back up, able again to glimpse the shad-ow of their spir-it tail be-hind them. She glanced away and around, see-ing no one, but un-sure she could see things well enough to be cer-tain. "Ah... and your tail is show-ing, a lit-tle."

  "Prob-a-bly," Chi-an said, let-ting their spir-it ease up a bit. "I can feel it, so I'm not sur-prised. It's at least dis-guised, right?"

  "It's bare-ly there," Ki'el ad-mit-ted. "I just... don't know how sen-si-tive oth-ers would be."

  "Prob-a-bly less than you." Chi-an took a deep breath, and for a mo-ment, their tail flick-ered into ex-is-tence ful-ly, but then it van-ished, along with her ears and claws. Chi-an took sev-er-al more deep breaths, but when she looked back at Ki'el, her face was still se-ri-ous. "I am se-ri-ous, Ki'el. There are times when I can-not con-trol my in-stincts, and I will not let my-self be con-trolled. Things like that... when I do not un-der-stand what is hap-pen-ing, I can some-times..."

  The look on Chi-an's face shift-ed, sud-den-ly, and she looked away, her face red-den-ing with sud-den em-bar-rass-ment. "I... guess I can some-times be re-al-ly stu-pid," she said. "I guess it makes sense that you aren't an en-e-my. And you're right, the for-fei-ture should prob-a-bly have come to me, along with... a few oth-ers that were ha-rassed by Xan Bu. But it... I..." Chi-an sud-den-ly ran her fin-gers through her hair and shook it out, the tan-gled red waves be-com-ing only more chaot-ic in the process. "Aargh. I don't know. This is stu-pid. I'm stu-pid. I'm sor-ry, Ki'el."

  "You have noth-ing to be sor-ry for," Ki'el said, do-ing her best to sound gen-uine and not at all con-flict-ed or afraid. Pri-vate-ly... she knew that she was spooked by Chi-an's sud-den ac-tion, and ap-pre-ci-at-ed the apol-o-gy, but know-ing Chi-an's his-to-ry made it hard for her to think of her own com-fort first. In-stead of con-fronting the thought, she de-cid-ed to force a change in sub-ject. "Did you make any progress try-ing to cul-ti-vate in the new way?"

  Chi-an paused in her at-tempts to comb her fin-gers through her hair to smooth it out a bit. "The new way? Oh." She looked away. "I... got dis-tract-ed last night. I was think-ing about that whole 'tail cen-ter' thing, but I didn't try to ac-tu-al-ly con-trol my qi with it. The idea that I nat-u-ral-ly 'speak' to my own spir-it, or to oth-er spir-its, is in-ter-est-ing. But it was dif-fi-cult to put into prac-tice, be-cause that feels wrong."

  Kuli pushed a thought at Ki'el, who re-peat-ed it, though she felt like she didn't quite trans-late the thought cor-rect-ly. "Were you think-ing about us-ing your tail as a voice?"

  "As a voice?" Chi-an's re-ply sound-ed ob-vi-ous-ly con-fused.

  "Ah, sor-ry. Kuli..." Ki'el paused, try-ing to sense if any-one was around, and de-cid-ed against con-tin-u-ing, when she couldn't be sure. "I am try-ing to say that your tail is a part of how you com-mu-ni-cate. Com-mu-ni-cat-ing for you should in-volve it, some-how. Though... I do not un-der-stand ex-act-ly, my-self."

  Chi-an con-tin-ued to stare at her, and Ki'el won-dered if what she had said made any sense, be-fore at last there was a light in the oth-er girl's fea-tures. "Ah," she said. "In-stincts. Right."

  Kuli seemed like that was a cor-rect an-swer, but Ki'el asked any-way. "In-stincts?"

  "Sor-ry. You're prob-a-bly right not to speak about things now, but..." she ges-tured to-wards the Less-er House, and be-gan walk-ing. "They are used for com-mu-ni-cat-ing. Real ones, I mean, and spir-it ones as well, but they are more... pos-ture and in-tent, rather than words. To be in a cer-tain pos-ture or state is to con-vey cer-tain things about how you un-der-stand the sit-u-a-tion."

  Da Chi-an paused, then, and con-sid-ered, and cre-at-ed a small qi ball be-tween her fin-gers, study-ing it. Then, care-ful-ly, she shift-ed her spir-it slight-ly, and then flicked the qi ball at a near-by bush.

  Ki'el... could not tell what just hap-pened, but Chi-an seemed sat-is-fied.

  "I think," she said qui-et-ly as she moved, "I can change the in-tent of my qi af-ter it has left me. It's small, but... per-haps it is for the best that I think more about this. It might be very use-ful."

  Ki'el felt a strong urge to pat the oth-er girl on the shoul-der sup-por-t-ive-ly, but couldn't stop her-self from hes-i-tat-ing. In the end, though, she did, and Chi-an seemed to re-spond well to the ges-ture. But Ki'el... be-gan to un-der-stand that it would be dif-fi-cult be-ing friends with Da Chi-an. She had no idea what might set her off in the fu-ture.

  She sup-posed she would just need to ask, and learn, and do what she could to as-sure Chi-an of her good in-ten-tions go-ing for-ward.

  The Order and the Lost, which was one of the first two stories I started posting on Royal Road. Chandra was a redheaded half-beast type as well, but... had a much rougher time of things than Da Chian.