Wang Ben took his seat beside his father while the hearing chamber was still filling. Most of his injuries had eased, but his ribs still ached when he leaned back. He shifted until he could sit straight without pulling at the wound. The formal robe bore the Wang Clan's crest over his chest.
His father had restrained his foundation establishment aura without hiding it. On the walk over, he had explained that he wanted them to know he was there without giving anyone cause to call his presence a threat.
Now he leaned toward Ben.
"Answer what he asks. Truthfully, and no more."
"What if he asks about our protectors?"
"Then you say you cannot answer."
Ben glanced toward the empty seat on the raised platform.
"He may not be satisfied with that."
"Huo Zhenyang has survived here for centuries. He knows when to leave a question alone." His father lowered his voice further. "Give him room to do so. We need time."
An elder of the Huo Clan sat across the chamber with a writing brush in his hand. Several men from the merchant families had gathered near him. Farther back, Dao Zhen sat beside First Elder Dao Qingshan.
Ben nodded to him. Dao Zhen watched him without returning it.
A bell rang at the far end of the hall. Two attendants drew the curtains aside, and Huo Zhenyang stepped onto the platform. Ben rose with his father and the rest of the chamber.
The City Lord seated himself and looked down at the jade slip beside his hand.
"Wang Ben. Come forward."
Ben crossed the open floor and bowed. The movement pulled at his ribs.
"You have been called to give an account of the attack three days past," Huo Zhenyang said. The hall's formations carried his voice to the back rows. "Demonic cultivators fought in our streets. Xue Feng, heir of the fallen Xue Clan, died there. Tell us how it began."
"My mother and younger brother were at Physician Luo's clinic. Three men attacked me outside."
"Demonic cultivators?" Huo Zhenyang asked.
"Yes, City Lord."
"Their cultivation had been strengthened beyond its usual limits, according to the accounts I have received."
Ben nodded. "They were stronger than I was."
"And Xue Feng was with them?"
"He arrived after the fighting had begun," Ben said. "He wanted revenge for his clan."
"For its fall during the conflict with your family."
"Yes."
The scribe's brush moved. Across the room, the Huo elder paused over his own notes.
"Do you know the identities of the three men who attacked first?" Huo Zhenyang asked.
"No, City Lord."
Ben kept his hands at his sides and waited.
Huo Zhenyang consulted the jade slip again.
"You are still at early-stage qi condensation?"
"Yes."
"Then how did you survive?"
"Two of our guards had accompanied my family," Ben said. "My retainer, Zhao Yu, came during the fighting."
"The guards were at peak mid-stage qi condensation. Both are dead."
"I sent them upstairs to protect my mother and brother. They died defending them against the strongest of the three."
Huo Zhenyang turned to the scribe.
"Record their service."
Ben drew a breath. He remembered the two men lying in the receiving room, where his mother had stood holding Chen. He looked back to the City Lord before the next question came.
"Witnesses saw golden light around the upper floor," Huo Zhenyang said. "A defensive talisman of considerable grade."
"Yes, City Lord."
The City Lord let the scribe finish writing, then set down the jade slip.
"And Zhao Yu?"
Ben had been waiting for a question about where the talisman had come from. He took a moment to answer.
"He helped me fight the men outside. Together we brought down two of them."
A merchant leaned toward the man beside him. Ben could not hear what passed between them. Huo Zhenyang watched the scribe add the answer to the account, then dismissed the gathering.
"I will speak with Wang Ben alone."
His father went out with the others. Dao Zhen was slower to leave; Qingshan touched his arm before he turned toward the doors. The Huo elder put away his brush. Ben remained before the platform as the rows emptied.
The scribe gathered his writing things and followed the attendants out. When the doors closed, Huo Zhenyang gestured toward a chair.
"Sit."
Ben sat carefully.
"The Crimson Bastion has scouts in Redstone," the City Lord said. "They are watching your family."
Ben looked up at him.
"They answer to people whose authority I cannot question." Huo Zhenyang rested his hand beside the jade slip. "Those people will want an account of this hearing. I am required to send it."
"Then what I said today will reach them."
"It will. How much I write, and when I send it, are matters in which I still have some choice."
Ben glanced at the closed doors.
The City Lord waited.
"What would you want from us?" Ben asked.
"I want my city quiet. I want the powers behind your family to keep their quarrels out of its streets. And I would like the Bastion to stop demanding answers about things I cannot control."
"I can't promise that," Ben said.
"No. But you can avoid giving me more to explain."
Huo Zhenyang leaned back. With the hall empty, Ben could hear him draw a long breath.
"I have lived a long time, Wang Ben. I would prefer not to spend what remains of it caught between people who could kill me without troubling themselves."
"Keep your protectors quiet," Huo Zhenyang said. "Keep what you can of your family's conflicts within your own walls. If there are no more bodies in the street, no more mysteries demanding an answer, I can give uncertainty its proper place in what I send. Some matters can wait while I weigh them."
"And that would give us time."
"Some," Huo Zhenyang said.
"For what?"
"That is for your family to decide."
The City Lord stood. Ben rose with him.
"I cannot keep the Bastion from asking," Huo Zhenyang said. "I can make it less useful for them to ask me. For a while. Do not waste that."
Ben bowed.
"Thank you, City Lord."
"Thank me by leaving me less to worry about."
Huo Zhenyang reached for the jade slip again.
"I am not doing this for your sake. I do not want to learn what happens to Redstone, or to me, if I help bring those powers into an open fight."
Ben straightened and took his leave.
...
Dao Zhen stood clear of the departing merchants. When Wang Ben came out, he watched him cross to his father.
Dao Qingshan stopped beside him.
"You're brooding again, Zhen."
"I'm thinking."
His uncle waited.
"About the vassalage," Dao Zhen said.
Qingshan followed his gaze toward the Wangs. He said nothing, and Dao Zhen remained where he was as the other witnesses passed them.
...
Wang Ben and his father said little on the walk home. They went straight to the Patriarch's study, where Tiexin was waiting by the window.
His grandfather had stayed away from the hearing. The City Lord wanted it treated as a routine matter; the Wang Patriarch's presence would have made that harder.
Tian closed the door behind them.
"Sit," Tiexin said. "Tell me how it went."
Ben gave him the questions and his answers, keeping the account brief. Then he told both men what Huo Zhenyang had said after the others left the hall. Bastion scouts were watching the clan, and the City Lord had to send an account of the hearing to their superiors. He could choose how much to include and let some matters wait while he weighed them.
"What did he ask in return?" Tiexin said.
"That we keep quiet," Ben said. "Our protectors too. He doesn't want another fight in the streets."
His grandfather watched him for a moment.
"And what did you tell him?"
"That I couldn't promise everything he wanted," Ben said. "He offered anyway. He said he was afraid of what would happen to him if those powers began fighting openly."
Wang Tian rested his hands on his knees.
"An ally of convenience."
"Frightened," Tiexin said, "but careful enough to know what he can offer. That may hold for a while. Days, perhaps weeks. We should expect no more."
Ben looked from his father to his grandfather. Neither seemed surprised by how little time that was.
"It is enough," Tiexin said.
His father rose and returned to his workshop. Tiexin waited while Ben got up, then led him toward the archive.
Elder Hongwei was at the archive worktable when they arrived. He moved a chair aside for Ben and spread the pages before him.
"We continued while you were at the hearing," Tiexin said. "Come and look."
Ben leaned over the design. His grandfather showed him where they had resumed the work, then let Hongwei explain the changes. There were notes in both men's hands beside the diagram.
Ben read through them, stopping to ask Hongwei about one passage. The elder brought the earlier sheet alongside it and walked him through the correction. Ben went back to the beginning and read it again.
Hongwei had caught what the Archive had missed.
"I see it now," Ben said.
His grandfather waited while he finished. For the first time, they had the whole design before them, with the work they had left unfinished accounted for. Ben looked up at the two elders.
"I think it will hold."
"So do we," Tiexin said.
The last of the node materials were still on the road from Shen Wuyan's people. Until they arrived, the foundational work would have to wait. The crystal would not come before spring.
"Once we have the materials, the three of us will begin," his grandfather said.
Ben drew the chair closer to the table. If the array held through Ruoxi's breakthrough, the clan would keep a grand formation they could adapt for their own breakthroughs. He wanted to understand the work the elders had done before it was his turn to help lay it.
He set the two sheets side by side and bent over Hongwei's notes.