He ended up spending most of his pearls on a suitable outfit, but if he was going to mingle with the nobles, he figured he had to look the part. It wouldn’t be smart to stand out. After all, while he was going there to help Nika out, there might also be an opportunity to snoop around. A noble’s mansion was not a bad place to look for secret shortcuts to Coral.

  Although this was definitely more a fortress than a mansion. He whistled as he looked up at high stone walls, complete with ramparts and towers with an impressive, adorned gate in the middle. The place was famous enough that he’d only had to ask one person who immediately pointed him in the right direction.

  The Hashira fortress looked as dramatic as it did lonely, perched upon a hill outside of the city gates, closer to the pillar than any other building. There was an empty field of stone leading up to the fortress, then another stretch of rock and jagged spikes of crystal between it and the pillar, making it hard to see anything besides the giant beacon; without any buildings to cover the light, its glare was hot and blinding.

  Dario approached in the eternal shadows cast by the fortress towers, staying away from the hot, light-bleached stones to either side. A fancy-looking piece of fabric that the salesman had called a ‘handkerchief’ was used to pat the sweat from his brow, and then he strolled up to the guards by the gate, straightening his back and clearing his throat in his best Nika impression.

  “Good day to you, fine sirs. I have come for the gala.”

  They exchanged a quick glance before one of the guards opened a list. “Welcome, sir, might we ask your name and title?”

  “I’m with the Houjo delegation, though I’ve arrived shortly ahead of the Lady herself. In order to, uh, make sure that everything is prepared.”

  Another glance, slightly longer this time. The guard with the list looked Dario over again, eyes pausing on his hat and vest.

  “If you’ll pardon me, sir, I cannot trace the crest and I do not have any other names registered for the Houjo clan. Could you produce an invitation letter?”

  Dario coughed into his fist.

  “Never mind. I’ll just, uh… Wait for Nik- I mean, my Lady to show up,” he said, quickly walking off.

  He hurried back in the direction of the city, ducking behind a large boulder to break line of sight. Then he focused on a new trick he’d been practicing. In the past he’d always just drawn the light away from him when he wanted to hide, but in an open field like this, a moving shadow would stand out too much. So instead, he made himself invisible by projecting an image of the surroundings onto himself. With another working of light Ki, he made a simple mirror effect appear on the boulder in front of him, until he was satisfied that he was well hidden.

  Then, he snuck back over, moving as silently as he could between the two guards. He was worried they might hear a trace of his footsteps on the rocky ground, but they were too busy chatting.

  “And what was up with that outfit? It’s like he walked into a costume shop and asked to be dressed like a noble from the stories.”

  The other guard chuckled. “Haven’t seen that kind of hat in at least ten years. They say fashion is cyclical, but I can only pray to Tenjin that one doesn’t come back.”

  Dario frowned as he tiptoed past them and through an open doorway in the gate.

  “I’ll join you in those prayers. Say, did you see him moving away from that boulder?”

  “No. That’s strange, huh? If he’d kept walking we should’ve seen him in the distance from this angle.”

  He tensed. If they went to investigate, what should he do? They might sound the alarm if they found that he’d just disappeared. Knocking them out might be a bit extreme and would just delay his problems…

  “...You don’t think he’s just crouched behind that boulder, waiting for his master to appear?”

  “What, like a toddler playing hide and seek?”

  There was a brief silence, but then the guards burst out laughing, so he fought down the urge to punch them and moved on into the mansion.

  “Unprofessional bastards,” he muttered as he made himself visible again, making sure his clothes were straightened before lifting his chin and turning a corner.

  There was another staff member standing by the next door, seeming to hesitate, but he just flashed a smile and strode confidently past her.

  The place was about as fancy as he’d expected, with crystal chandeliers lit by artefacts that reflected the light off high-quality pearls. The walls and ceilings were made up of smooth slabs of stone in earthy colors, familiar enough that he wondered if it might have been built by Nika’s people. But unlike the simple design of the Houjou residence, here there was barely a wall that didn’t hold a massive tapestry or painting. All of the artworks depicted historical scenes taking place in some kind of temple, though some were more abstract, displaying a highly artistic interpretation of what he figured might be the pillar and a bunch of eyes.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  He passed another pair of staff, one asking his name, then announcing him to the next room, which seemed to be where the party was at, though it had barely started yet.

  “Dario, of the Houjo clan.”

  That got mainly frowns and a few funny looks, but there weren’t too many people here yet, anyway. He just nodded and smiled, keeping his back straight and his chin lifted in his best imitation of Nika as he made a beeline for the buffet. Even before he got there, a butler walked up offering a sweetened rice wine, which he accepted with thanks. He was staring hungrily at the rich array of dishes, from stir-fried vegetables to fried meat, with all kinds of fresh and pretty looking things placed in between the giant plates.

  He was leaning in to sniff at a dish that had thin stripes of some root, cut to look like matchsticks, when a noble lady walked up to him.

  “Dario, of the Houjo clan, was it? I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.”

  It was clear that if she hadn’t grown up right here in this fortress, it would have been somewhere else even closer to the pillar.

  Her skin was the darkest he’d ever seen, nearly as black as the obsidian stone of the Asomatous Floor. The palest white hair fell down her back, but it didn’t stand out against her ivory dress. The few loose strands of hair that peeked out were so light that they seemed almost translucent. But the most remarkable were her eyes, colored in a blue that was so faint, they seemed almost empty. He wondered for a moment if she might be blind, feeling the urge to wave a hand and see if she would track it, but she had walked up to him without any problems.

  “That’s me! Who are y- I mean, who do I have the pleasure of addressing?”

  “My name is Enmei, of the Hashira clan. The host of tonight’s gala.” Her voice was high-pitched yet soft, almost child-like. She gave a small curtsy, and he realized he probably should have bowed at some point, but it felt like the moment had passed.

  “Of course. Great party!”

  She didn’t react to that, only gazing at him with a calm, knowing look. He felt an urge to turn back to the food and start stuffing himself.

  “There is something… curious about you. You announced yourself as one of the Houjo clan, yet you do not bear their crest, nor the features of noble birth. And yet, there is a certain… weight to you.”

  He frowned. Was she talking about his belly? The shaming never stopped on this damn floor. No, more importantly, she was on to him and he hadn’t even gotten the chance to dig in. His eyes flicked to the buffet again, wondering how much food he could manage to shove in his pockets before they pulled him out of here. Enough to cover dinner at least, if he channeled his Ki into his arms and maybe his jaws.

  “I’m a friend of the family. What’s the word she keeps using? Ah right, attendant! I’m an attendant. But like… an important one.”

  “Dario the important attendant,” she said through a ghostly smile, pale eyes moving up and down his body. “You do not appear to be partaking in a training program. Do you not wish, like so many others, to rise through the floors and lay eyes upon the Final Ceiling?”

  “Sure I do. I wanna see it all,” he said, smiling as his eyes flicked up. “But maybe my path will be a bit different than the well-trodden one. More bendy and adventurous, you know? But also shorter!”

  “A path walked by countless cultivators over thousands of years is not good enough for Dario the important attendant?”

  A bead of sweat ran down his back as her unsettling eyes remained fixed on his, though he thought she looked faintly amused.

  “Yeah, well, people are still making discoveries every day, aren’t they? Besides, finding shortcuts is kind of my thing. Before I left, I said that if I was going to climb, I would do it my way.”

  “Freedom motivates you?”

  He nodded slowly. “I guess you could say it’s about freedom, yeah. What about you?”

  “The Hashira believe that freedom is an illusion. Everything is predetermined, including whether or not I may reach the seventh floor.”

  “Predetermined? How does that work? I mean, I don’t even know what I’m going to do tomorrow, let alone a year from now.”

  “Imagine emptying a bucket of water atop a hill. You may not know exactly how its content may flow, how the streams may split, but that does not change that it will flow how it must. If the same bucket were emptied under the same conditions a thousand thousand times, the flow of water would not change by even a single droplet.”

  Dario scratched his head. “Hmm, maybe, but then what’s the difference? If you don’t know what’s going to happen. Seems the same as just being random.”

  “There are ways. One can study the water and the hill, learn to read its cracks. Or one may seek the pillar’s guidance.”

  He frowned, pushing some Ki into his eyes as he looked her over. There was an impressive amount of Ki in her seams, concentrated in her torso, but it was hard to tell her Kaku. From the color, he thought that she used water Ki, but he wasn’t sure which aspects she cultivated. Something to do with force, if he had to guess.

  “Is that what you do? Study the flow of water?”

  She nodded, smile widening. “Precisely. I study the Lake. How to interpret its motions. At a gathering like this, few things will surprise me.”

  She took a step closer, her eerily pale blue blue eyes boring into his. “Except for you, Dario, the important attendant. Tell me, truly, why are you here?”

  He felt cold sweat prickling his skin, his pulse beating faster. She was onto him. What should he say? He had a strong sense that if he lied, she would know.

  In order to buy himself some time, he absently grabbed a pretty piece of food from in between the plates and stuffed it in his mouth. Her eyebrows lifted as he chewed, thinking. Could he say that he was here to help Nika? Help her do what, though? Maybe he should keep it vague, just say that he was supporting her.

  His jaw kept working, but whatever kind of vegetable this was, it really wasn’t breaking down. Something kind of crunchy but incredibly chewy. Not too much taste to it, either. He redoubled his efforts, first biting down harder and grinding his teeth, then chewing faster and faster. Maybe this was some kind of special cultivator power food, and he’d need to energize his jaws with Ki to get it down?

  Enmei’s knowing smile changed to an expression of surprise, eyebrows rising higher as he kept chewing furiously. Her soft voice was tinged with amusement when she next spoke.

  “...That was a piece of the decor.”