With Com-man-der Rai's in-sis-tence that Sobon was free to go, Sobon would have im-me-di-ate-ly set off, but there were a cou-ple ex-tra tasks that she and Ki'el saw to in the morn-ing. One was get-ting a set of pa-pers for Alas-si and Ki'el, which of-fi-cials in the town out-side the base saw to on a timescale only a bu-reau-crat would call fast. Then, Sobon met one last time with Com-man-der Rai to speak on the mat-ter of that 'fa-vor' the woman sug-gest-ed she owed.

  Sobon knew well that she could have any num-ber of dif-fer-ent re-quests, but giv-en that she didn't have over-whelm-ing trust for the woman, she lim-it-ed her-self to two spe-cif-ic things.

  "Of-fi-cial mil-i-tary per-mis-sion to fly across the coun-try," Sobon said, "And as-sis-tance with buy-ing a small piece of prop-er-ty some-where in Djang, any-where near a ma-jor city. Not im-me-di-ate-ly, but when I am ready to do so."

  The woman had giv-en Sobon an inscrutable look. Sobon knew that both re-quests were very rea-son-able--cur-rent-ly, al-though Alas-si had a cer-tain lev-el of cit-i-zen-ship for her mil-i-tary ser-vice, she had been told by Alas-si that it was the low-est lev-el, be-low non-Djang res-i-dents, com-mon Djang res-i-dents, and Djang no-bles. While the mil-i-tary it-self would some-times hold the rights of a war-rior over the rights of a com-mon res-i-dent, few oth-ers would, and very few in-deed would ever hold the rights of a non-Djang over those of a full-blood cit-i-zen. And the per-mis-sion to fly would do lit-tle to pre-vent Sobon from get-ting in trou-ble if, or rather when, she end-ed up do-ing any-thing more than trav-el-ling.

  "The first is easy," Base Com-man-der Rai said af-ter a few mo-ments, "at least in this sec-tion of the coun-try. How-ev-er, any bear-er to-ken I give you will only af-fect sol-diers with-in my purview. When you trav-el over any oth-er sec-tion of the coun-try, you may be chal-lenged, and the to-ken will only en-sure you are seen by the near-est mil-i-tary com-man-der. As for the sec-ond..." she shrugged. "I can give you a bear-er to-ken or a writ, and sug-gest some peo-ple who would re-spect it. I trust that you un-der-stand, how-ev-er, that land own-er-ship is very com-pli-cat-ed. The pol-i-tics of it, es-pe-cial-ly for a non-Djang, will be ex-haust-ing. And es-pe-cial-ly for a non-Djang still in the Com-mon Met-al phase of Qi. It will im-prove slight-ly when you are pro-mot-ed to Ti-ta-ni-um Qi, but..." she shrugged. "Not a lot."

  "I have need of it, so I will sim-ply need to make do," was all Sobon was will-ing to say to the woman.

  The last task, which Sobon un-der-took in pri-vate while oth-er things were be-ing done, was ad-just-ing the way that her flight frame op-er-at-ed, adding a wind shield and sep-a-rate sup-ports for Ki'el, and ad-just-ing the an-gle of the thruster. Sobon had got-ten the hang of fly-ing with Ki'el's added weight on the flight from the ship, but ad-just-ing the an-gle of the thruster slight-ly let her use more of the wings' lift ca-pac-i-ty for ma-neu-ver-ing if nec-es-sary. Sobon was not ex-pect-ing to get into any aer-i-al dog-fights--she sus-pect-ed that if any of the lo-cals de-cid-ed to fight her while she was fly-ing, they would be most-ly ex-pect-ing her to stand and fight, in one lit-er-al way or an-oth-er.

  Sobon's flight to-ken and prop-er-ty writ were de-liv-ered at the same time, along with a map of ma-jor mil-i-tary bases in the Em-pire, each with a cir-cle that sug-gest-ed ei-ther the size of the base or the size of their con-trol ar-eas; which ex-act-ly was un-stat-ed. It also, of course, showed the mil-i-tary cor-don area around the Coro-na, al-though it was sim-ply marked as "dan-ger", and it marked a rel-a-tive-ly large sec-tor of the Em-pire as be-ing, Sobon as-sumed, un-der Base Com-man-der Rai's ju-ris-dic-tion, with a few unlabeled points that Sobon as-sumed were cities. Sobon com-mit-ted the map to mem-o-ry, and with the Coro-na as a guide-point, found her own lo-ca-tion. She didn't know where home was on this map, not yet, but it wouldn't take much ef-fort to find out.

  Sobon took off with-out any fan-fare or fur-ther good-byes, Ki'el sto-ical-ly pressed against her. Her first task was to get clear of the mil-i-tary base's in-flu-ence, to a place where she could get a rel-a-tive-ly clear trans-mis-sion path to the Coro-na, and ping it with a cou-ple re-quests.

  [ Re-quest cur-rent co-or-di-nates for my-self and the Coro-na, and a ter-rain map if you have one. ] was the first, and when the Coro-na pinged her back, she sent along a cou-ple packed que-si-tons to the Ri'lef en-gi-neer. With the co-or-di-nate pack-ets, and a slight-ly more de-pend-able ver-sion of the map she was able to place her-self, the Coro-na, Emer-ald Val-ley, and the mil-i-tary bases along the way into a sin-gle men-tal map.

  Then, go-ing some-what slow-er just as a mat-ter of low-er ur-gency, she fi-nal-ly turned in the di-rec-tion of what was tem-porar-i-ly, at least, home.

  Ki'el was in a bet-ter mood, no sur-prise, with her knee very near-ly com-plete-ly healed. She spent much of her time look-ing down and around, for a good long while, al-though she seemed a bit un-com-fort-able with the height. Be-fore long, though, she switched to practicing speak-ing with aether puls-es with Sobon.

  [ You speak to (Will of the World)? ]

  Her first at-tempt caught Sobon off guard, but Sobon's sub-con-scious would have cap-tured any halfway valid aether pack-et un-der al-most any con-di-tion. That was less a mat-ter of Sobon's own will, and more of a pro-grammed re-flex giv-en to him by the Crestan Mixed Marines. [ Yes. That is not what it is. ]

  [ It friend. ]

  [ To us. The Djang war with it. It came with the Star-beasts. ] Sobon wasn't sure ex-act-ly how to phrase that with-out sound-ing like she was in-crim-i-nat-ing her-self, but she thought she did well enough.

  [ Star-beasts friend? ]

  Sobon looked down at Ki'el, who was look-ing back up at her, still an in-tense look on her face. [ No/maybe. (Will of the World) is (Tidal Coro-na), an-oth-er war-rior from be-yond the world like Sobon. Sobon is work-ing with those war-riors. But Star-beasts are beasts. ]

  Ki'el was qui-et for a mo-ment. [ Thought com-pli-cat-ed. Lost part. ]

  [ (Will of the World) Coro-na al-lies with Sobon. Star-beasts ally with Coro-na. Star-beasts may not ally with Sobon. ]

  [ Ah. ] Ki'el was qui-et. The next pack-et was con-fused, as though Ki'el didn't quite know how to put it to-geth-er. [ Coro-na Sobon im-mor-tal-type? ]

  Sobon men-tal-ly picked that a part, just to try to get an ap-pre-ci-a-tion for what Ki'el was think-ing, but re-lied. [ Coro-na makes Sobon im-mor-tal. If Sobon dies again, the Coro-na will help. ]

  [ Would... Coro-na im-mor-tal Ki'el? ]

  Sobon was qui-et for a long time, think-ing about that. In truth, she had no idea what re-sources the Coro-na had, or didn't have, but she didn't want to com-mit to any-thing. And also... as much as she liked Ki'el, and Lui, and prob-a-bly would like oth-ers, she couldn't ex-pect to be able to ask those kind of fa-vors, not when it had no bear-ing on her mis-sion. [ Un-sure/no. Ex-pen-sive. ]

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  They were qui-et for a while, as Ki'el con-sid-ered that. In truth, Sobon didn't think the girl would re-ally want to live again, es-pe-cial-ly not the way Sobon had. She was prob-a-bly tough enough, but get-ting thrown into some-one else's whole life, liv-ing along-side their spir-it, and pulling them out of their suf-fer-ing and mis-ery by force of will...

  [ Lat-er. Sobon said, in-sight. Djang mil-i-tary. ]

  Sobon mo-men-tar-i-ly lost her train of thought, but reshuf-fled things in her mind and picked up the thread. [ She want-ed fa-vors. She showed me a prob-lem, a war-ship not work-ing the way it should. I chose a small part of the prob-lem and showed a way around it. The wouldn't have un-der-stood it oth-er-wise. ]

  [ War-ship work now? ]

  [ No. Maybe make new war-ships in many years. Not stronger, work bet-ter. ] That was slight-ly de-cep-tive, but not an out-right lie. If the Djang did every-thing right, they would make a war-ship with sep-a-rate com-mand and pow-er lines as a proof of con-cept, and only af-ter prov-ing that con-cept, mas-sive-ly ex-pand how much pow-er they could put into their weapons and de-fens-es as a sec-ond or third ver-sion. But the en-gi-neer-ing ex-per-tise it would take to de-sign the ship around the con-cept of Com-mand Qi with-out flaws, in a sin-gle it-er-a-tion, was more than Sobon ex-pect-ed from them--es-pe-cial-ly since Com-mand Qi it-self had to be cre-at-ed from scratch, and then for-mal-ized into a con-cept that the Djang could use in a de-sign. Sobon could imag-ine that fifty years might pass with-out any fin-ished, func-tion-al war-ship de-sign based on Com-mand Qi, but for an im-mor-tal like Com-man-der Rai, she might over-see the whole pro-ject and still be in a po-si-tion to take cred-it, or even com-mand, when it's fin-ished.

  [ No im-prove-ments now? ]

  Sobon hes-i-tat-ed be-fore mak-ing a promise about that, and Ki'el seemed to no-tice. In truth... even if they didn't re-ar-chi-tec-ture their ships, if they prac-ticed split-ting their qi into com-mand and pow-er, they might be able to im-prove their ship's func-tions, at least a lit-tle. [ No im-prove-ments now. If they are smart, small im-prove-ments in a few years, more lat-er. I don't think they're smart. ]

  [ Nev-er ex-pect a dumb en-e-my. ]

  Sobon laughed a lit-tle at that. Her thought was bet-ter formed than most, or per-haps Sobon just trans-lat-ed it very eas-i-ly. [ I know. Nev-er (un-der-es-ti-mate) the en-e-my. ]

  Ki'el was qui-et, then ques-tioned her again on the med-ical qi, which she'd also promised to talk to her about. So she re-layed her ear-li-er thoughts, about how it was healthy heal-ing qi from plant ex-tracts that was slight-ly dam-aged by be-ing am-pli-fied, leav-ing be-hind im-pu-ri-ties. And af-ter a time, she asked an-oth-er ques-tion, and an-oth-er.

  All the while, Sobon kept their flight as sta-ble as she could, and ma-neu-vered around mil-i-tary bases and cities. Above, the sun crawled through the sky a lit-tle too slow-ly, as they trav-elled west fast enough to change the ap-par-ent time of day. Sobon also not-ed, as they flew, the pow-er-ful qi to the north that she as-sumed was the Di-a-mond Lord, try-ing to get a rough es-ti-mate on ex-act-ly how in-tense it was. It wasn't re-al-ly nec-es-sary to lo-cate it; Com-man-der Rai had said that he lived on the 'Great Moun-tain', and the ter-rain map from the Coro-na left no ques-tions about that. The only fea-ture in the mid-dle of the na-tion that was worth of such a name was also un-am-bigu-ous-ly ar-ti-fi-cial, a mas-sive moun-tain in the mid-dle of a wide plain with its top cut per-fect-ly flat.

  Sobon wasn't able to tell much about the Di-a-mond Lord from his qi alone, and nev-er ex-pect-ed to. But as she flew, she stud-ied, us-ing only pas-sive tech-niques. Even that was dan-ger-ous--aether, as a gen-er-al rule, con-nect-ed things, and it was very easy for pow-er-ful users of aether to no-tice some-one else look-ing at them. De-pend-ing on their pow-er, and who was do-ing the look-ing, some would be very para-noid about any-one pay-ing at-ten-tion to them. All Sobon re-al-ly got from it was a vague sense that she re-al-ly was sens-ing the aura of a sin-gle per-son, which broad-cast qi with cer-tain, spe-cif-ic prop-er-ties. Prop-er-ties that, Sobon thought, were af-fect-ing the qi of all oth-ers in the coun-try, and per-haps the world.

  When there was even a slight stir in re-sponse to Sobon's analy-sis, she sim-ply let her mind slip aside, us-ing prac-ticed aether tech-niques to de-flect any re-turn at-ten-tion. For what-ev-er rea-son, Sobon didn't imag-ine that her stealth was suc-cess-ful... but also thought that the Di-a-mond Lord didn't ob-ject to Sobon, or even her analy-sis. For whichev-er rea-son, the gaze that passed mo-men-tar-i-ly over her seemed... un-sur-prised.

  Still, Sobon had to force her-self not to hold her breath as the Di-a-mond Lord's at-ten-tion came and went. She was sure that so far, she had done noth-ing to be on the Em-per-or's radar, not un-less he had sensed her ar-rival, or rein-car-na-tions, or if Sobon were par-tic-u-lar-ly un-lucky, her com-mu-ni-ca-tions with the Coro-na. More wor-ry-ing, though, was that idea he had some un-der-stand-ing of Fate-ma-nip-u-lat-ing aether spins--that he had some im-pres-sion about what was com-ing, and per-haps, that he had al-ready de-tect-ed, and per-haps even pre-pared for, an en-counter to come.

  The Ri'lef had talked about aether struc-tures that could ma-nip-u-late fate, for-wards and back-wards in time, but--

  [ You think-ing, ] Ki'el not-ed, break-ing into Sobon's thoughts.

  Sobon shook her head to clear it, putting those thoughts aside for now. [ Think-ing about my duty. About try-ing to do the im-pos-si-ble. ]

  [ Duty? ] Ki'el's men-tal voice was a lit-tle wor-ried, and Sobon rec-og-nized that all of her un-der-stand-ing of the sit-u-a-tion had come since leav-ing the girl. But com-mu-ni-cat-ing via aether puls-es, about this in par-tic-u-lar...

  [ Lat-er, ] She replied, and Ki'el left it at that.

  It was late af-ter-noon when Sobon and Ki'el made their way back to Emer-ald Val-ley. They were prob-a-bly lucky not to have been in-ter-cept-ed by any-one at all--or per-haps, there sim-ply were too few de-fend-ers of the na-tion to go pry-ing into a pow-er-ful qi user who was sim-ply pass-ing through. Ei-ther way, with a lit-tle help from the Coro-na, Sobon was able to di-rect her-self straight at the city, and once she was close, it wasn't dif-fi-cult to find her way back to her own small bit of prop-er-ty. She could--prob-a-bly should--have stopped at the gates like a nor-mal per-son do-ing busi-ness, but Sobon was tired, hav-ing dealt with sev-er-al dif-fer-ent kinds of frus-tra-tion and dan-ger. In a city where she was one of the few real pow-er-hous-es, Sobon cared lit-tle for what the guards would think about her very ob-vi-ous-ly go-ing home.

  When she ar-rived, Lui was still at work, but Mian was there to greet her, im-me-di-ate-ly of-fer-ing a lo-cal ver-sion of a salute when she came in through the front gate. "Alas-si!" He hur-ried over, and his eyes fell on Ki'el. "And you must be Ki'el, the friend she went to save."

  Ki'el, for what-ev-er rea-son, pos-i-tive-ly blushed at that, or maybe at Mian's at-ten-tion. "Y-yes," she said, look-ing away from the man. "I am Doua Ki'el, and I... I am a friend of Sobon."

  For what-ev-er rea-son, it took Mian a mo-ment to straight-en his thoughts out, though it shouldn't have sur-prised him that Ki'el thought of him as Sobon and not as Alas-si. It was only a mo-ment, though, and he nod-ded. "Of course, I wel-come you, Ki'el. Though, I sup-pose that is for Alas-si to do, since it is re-al-ly her home?"

  Sobon just rolled her eyes, re-mov-ing her flight pack and set-ting it down. "I don't re-al-ly care about be-ing for-mal, Mian."

  "Of course." He smiled, look-ing at Ki'el. "Well... I am Dat-ta Mian. I was a fol-low-er of Alas-si, not Sobon, but Sobon has been kind to us all. The oth-er one who lives here--"

  He was in-ter-rupt-ed by Lui open-ing and rush-ing through the gates. Sobon turned, hap-py to see her but a lit-tle sur-prised that she seemed so ex-cit-ed by her re-turn, af-ter only a cou-ple days.

  "Grand-ma Alas-si!" The girl leaped at Sobon, and Sobon caught her in a hug. "I'm re-al-ly glad you're safe." She squeezed once at let go, turn-ing to the girl and bow-ing. "I am Kalai Lui, grand-daugh-ter of Alas-si."

  "Doua Ki'el. I am a friend of Sobon's." She paused, look-ing tense, and in the si-lence, asked, "You do know... that Sobon..."

  "I know what hap-pened to my grand-moth-er. I have spo-ken with her." Lui looked down, clear-ly still a lit-tle con-fused or overwhelmed, but con-tin-ued eas-i-ly. "Sobon... brought her back, in a way. It was painful watch-ing her, be-fore. Since then, she has said more to me than in many re-cent years. I'm not hap-py that... but..." She shook her head. "I know what hap-pened."

  Ki'el re-laxed at that, and Mian clapped his hands to-geth-er. "Now... per-haps a meal to cel-e-brate? In town?"

  "Oh! I'm get-ting paid by Lady Mide. A sil-vra a day when there is no busi-ness, and a share more than that when busi-ness is good. And I have been think-ing about my hands, since we were talk-ing about it be-fore you left..."

  Sobon kept a smile on her face, one that she tru-ly did feel, even as she couldn't help wor-ry-ing about the prob-lems still to come.