Wang Ben moved aside as the two Wang guards came down the stairs, each carrying one of the men from the receiving room. His mother followed them out with Chen in her arms. Wang Feng stayed beside her as they left for the compound.
Ben watched until they turned out of sight, then sat on the entrance step beside Zhao Yu. His ribs hurt when he bent. He kept his bandaged left forearm against his side.
Zhao's hands had stopped shaking. His sheathed saber lay across his knees, and he was looking down at it when Wang Tian came through the door.
Zhao stood at once, taking the saber with him.
"Elder Tian."
He bowed. Wang Tian waited for him to straighten.
"Li Mei told me what you did. You protected my family when I could not be here. Thank you."
"I only..." Zhao glanced at Ben. "I helped where I could."
Wang Tian took a small jade box from his robe and opened it. A pale-blue pill lay inside. Zhao looked from it to Wang Tian, but did not reach for it.
"For me?"
"A grade eight Meridian Refinement Pill. It will help stabilize your cultivation after today's breakthrough and make later consolidation easier."
"Elder Tian, that's too much."
"My wife and sons are alive. Take it."
Wang Tian held the box out. Zhao accepted it with both hands, his saber tucked against his body.
For a moment he only looked at the pill.
"I don't know how I did it," he said. "I saw him going for Ben, and I moved. I wasn't thinking about how to stop him."
Wang Ben remembered the saber turning aside the killing palm. The System had linked Zhao's timing to Battle Soul. He stayed where he was on the step and let his father answer.
"Such instincts are rare," Wang Tian said. "Some cultivators have them before their strength catches up."
Zhao looked down at the box again. Wang Tian did not ask him to explain further.
"Go home and rest. I'll speak with your father this evening."
"Thank you, Elder Tian."
Zhao closed the lid and bowed again. He nodded to Ben before leaving, still carrying the box in his hand.
Wang Ben rose when his father turned toward him.
"Walk with me," Wang Tian said.
They turned into a side street. Wang Tian kept to Ben's pace until they reached an empty stretch, then took a small formation disc from his robe. He set it against the wall and activated it. A faint hum rose between them.
"Tell me what you left out."
Wang Ben looked at his father.
"Before he died, Xue Feng said his master had wanted him as a vessel all along. He'd told Xue to use his hatred for us. He said the harder he pushed, the more his master took from him."
He described the fight after the wounded cultivator fled, and how Zhao returned and broke through while fighting Xue. They had been forcing Xue back when his leg gave way. Neither blade had reached him.
"He tried to gather his qi again, but it scattered. Then the marks began burning through him." Ben could still remember the smell. "He said there would have been nothing left of him. I think his master had been refining him for months. Turning him into a puppet."
Wang Tian listened without interrupting. At the word puppet, he lowered his eyes to Ben's bandaged arm.
"A living puppet while the host breathes," he said. "A corpse puppet if the body outlasts him. Both are old demonic arts."
"Then his master could still use the body?"
"The City Lord has it now. I doubt he'll allow that. I expect he'll see Xue Feng laid to rest."
Ben looked back toward the mouth of the street.
"He tried to reach the clinic again at the end. Zhao stopped him. His saber broke the qi without touching him, and Xue fell."
"The marks killed him?"
Wang Ben nodded. "They went dark. I couldn't feel his qi any longer. He never moved again."
His father rested a hand on his shoulder. Ben stood with him until the hum ceased. Wang Tian had deactivated the disc. He picked it up and put it away.
They walked home together.
...
Jade formation lights lit the windowless chamber beneath the Crimson Bastion's compound in the domain capital. Commander Tie Yuan stood before a chart of Blackwood Domain. Cultivator positions crowded the western border around Azure Dragon Fortress. East of the capital, the marks were scattered among half a dozen border cities.
He kept his core formation qi drawn close. The two junior cultivators waiting beside the table stood with their hands at their sides.
"His Highness first."
The older man placed a jade slip on the table.
"Prince Huo Zhanlong has spent the past fortnight in Greenstone Domain, examining its forces and the roads carrying supplies to the front. He intends to enter Blackwood within the week. Three border cities are on his route, including Redstone."
Tie Yuan found Redstone on the chart.
"What do we have from there?"
The second man stepped forward. He was a foundation establishment cultivator recently assigned to the eastern outposts.
"Mostly accounts of the clan war, Commander. Months old. The Xue Clan had been losing its struggle with the Wang Clan. They made a bargain with demonic cultivators to attack the Wang and Dao Clans. Three mortal shedding cultivators, with core formation and foundation establishment followers."
Tie Yuan turned from the chart.
"Three?"
"Yes, Commander. They burned streets and destroyed clan halls. The killing spread beyond the Xue Clan's enemies. The Dao patriarch and grand elder died. What remained of their clan became vassals of the Wang Clan. Afterward, the City Lord and the Wang Clan destroyed the Xue Clan together. Redstone had four major clans a year ago. Only the Wang and Dao remain."
"How did the Wang Clan hold?"
"Their formations, and Wang Tian's return. He was an alchemist of considerable promise before his meridians were damaged. Nine years crippled, then he recovered and began raising the cultivation of his clansmen. The Wang Clan was much stronger when the fighting began than anyone had expected."
Tie Yuan set down the slip he had been holding.
"That does not account for three mortal shedding cultivators."
"The City Lord credits a passing loose cultivator with killing them. The lesser demonic cultivators were killed or driven out."
"Who was he?"
"A loose cultivator is all the report calls him."
Tie Yuan looked at the two men.
"What did our people say?"
"We lost three in the fighting. Yan Qing was among them."
Tie Yuan knew the name. He had met the spear cultivator once, years before. She had been capable beyond her cultivation, and honest. He looked down at the report on the table.
"She sent us most of our word from Redstone."
"Yes, Commander. Since her death, we have had to rely on the City Lord's accounts. He says the demonic remnants are accounted for, order has been restored, and there is nothing further that needs the Bastion's attention."
"Do you believe him?"
"We cannot tell whether he is concealing anything. We have no one there who can give us what Yan Qing did."
Tie Yuan left the report where it was.
"And the delegates we have been sending?"
The man took another slip from the table.
"There have been repeated visits over several years. More than a city of that size should need. Spirit stones have also passed through Bastion ledgers into the local clans. Much of that money went to the Xue Clan before the war."
"Whose money?"
"Lord Cai Hongwen's seal appears on much of the funding. Since the Xue Clan's fall, it appears the same hand has turned against the Wang Clan."
"Cai may spend his wealth as he pleases. That does not give him the right to send Bastion cultivators with it." Tie Yuan held out his hand for the slip. "Whose authority do the orders name?"
"The Domain Lord's. They bear Tie Wushan's seal."
Tie Yuan took the slip but did not read it at once.
Tie Wushan had been occupied with the western war for the better part of a year. Azure Dragon Fortress had asked for reinforcements twice in the last month. Materials were going by the wagonload to the fortresses along the Frozen Jade border, while the king watched Blackwood and the emperor watched the king's handling of the war.
He found it hard to believe that Tie Wushan was also directing spirit stones and repeated delegations into Redstone's clan disputes.
"Are these Tie Wushan's orders," he asked, "or is someone giving orders in his name?"
Neither man answered. The younger one still had his hand half-raised from passing over the slip. He lowered it.
Tie Yuan put the slip beside the City Lord's report.
"His Highness's preparations remain mine until he reaches Redstone. Bring me the original registers for every Bastion delegate sent there in the past five years. They are in the lower archive. I have enough summaries bearing the Domain Lord's seal."
"Understood, Commander."
He dismissed them. Once the door had closed, he turned back to the chart. His eyes moved from Azure Dragon Fortress to Redstone.
Then he untied the personal jade slip at his belt and recorded a question for himself.
Whose hand moves under Tie Wushan's seal?
He put the slip away, extinguished the formation lights and left.
...
The City Lord's summons was waiting outside Wang Ben's door when he rose in the morning. He broke the seal and read it. He was to attend the formal hearing the following afternoon.
He took the message with him to the main hall. His father and grandfather were already there.
"The Bastion will make inquiries," Wang Tiexin was saying. "Or those acting in its name will. Huo Zhenyang cannot refuse them."
Wang Ben stopped beside the table with the summons in his hand.
"He can be careful about what he sends, and when," Wang Tian said. "That may give us time to find our footing."
"What footing?" Ben asked. "What can we offer that makes them hesitate?"
His grandfather looked up at him. For a moment Ben thought he had interrupted too sharply, but Tiexin drew out the chair beside him.
"Sit, Ben."
Wang Ben sat and laid the summons on the table.
"You have grown," Tiexin said. "A season ago, you would not have asked me that."
"I still don't know the answer."
"They do not know who protects us, or why. That uncertainty makes them cautious. We must use the time it gives us."
His grandfather rested a hand beside the folded message.
"Complete your obligations. Give people more reason to want this clan standing. I would rather they had something to lose by moving against us."
Wang Ben looked at the seal on the summons. He had answered the City Lord's guards already. Tomorrow he would have to answer again, before people who could send those answers far beyond Redstone.
Tiexin rose. Ben and his father stood as he left the hall.
"How close is the array?" Wang Tian asked.
"The main framework is laid out. There are still parts of the design to finish, and we need the remaining materials before we can begin the foundational work."
"And the crystal?"
"Not until spring. But the foundation circles and nodes have to be finished and proven before it goes in. We need time to correct whatever fails."
His father nodded toward the door.
"Then work on what you can finish now. Shen Wuyan is waiting too."
Wang Ben picked up the summons and folded it along its crease. He put it inside his robe, then left for the archive.