On the lowest floor of the tower, the party was in full swing. Min moved carefully through the crowd, surreptitiously checking each Morning Mist member she passed, verifying that their Intoxication Weave still showed green.

  The acolytes mostly seemed to have gotten over their earlier awkwardness. Now they were engaged in cheerful conversation with members of the Gem Court or junior members of other sects. Servants moved freely through the crowds, offering food and drink.

  There was a babble of voices and laughter. Music played from somewhere off to one side. The place was warm, comfortable. Min felt badly on edge. She dipped in and out of each Thousand Whisperers strand, trying desperately to listen for keywords.

  Brother Stone caught her elbow. “There you are.”

  “What’s amiss?” Min asked. “Other than all of this?”

  “I've lost track of seven or eight disciples,” he said grimly, his gesture indicating the party.

  Min swore. “Which ones?” she asked, fingering through her Thousand Whisperers.

  Stone named them all, and Min tried to match a name and a strand to each face. She tugged gently on one, forcing her attention on it, and whispered, “Disciple Neu, can you hear me?”

  There was no reply. She focused hard, heard a laughing voice and distant conversation. She couldn't make out the words. Then, sensing no Weave, she surfaced and shook her head. “I don't think he's wearing his robe right now,” she said grimly.

  Brother Stone's gaze hardened. “Should we interrupt?”

  “How can we?” Min asked. “There was no warning before he took it off, so he probably isn’t in trouble. And, well, this is exactly the sort of scenario the party is supposed to be setting up. The Gem Court wants our disciples married off, and they'll do it one way or another.”

  She had a brief memory of guards bursting into the chamber at the inn where she and Chang-li had spent an overly familiar evening together. The Gem Court generally had more decorum than that. None of her people would be marched out half-dressed and forced into a humiliating conversation with their superiors.

  No. The Gem Court would merely take note of assignations and send her a polite notification of betrothal in the morning. “We can't help those who've got themselves entangled willingly,” she said harshly. “I just want to make sure no one is coerced.”

  “A couple of the disciples have had their Intoxication Weaves activate, but I've looked into it and they've just had too much to drink, nothing more sinister than that. I have people watching them. For the most part, our cultivating trios have completely fallen apart.” Stone shook his head with disgust. “As soon as the Gem Nobles got a whiff of the way we'd arranged for the disciples to go about in trios, they targeted and split them up. They're two steps ahead of us, Min.”

  ~~~

  Chang-li spent the excruciatingly long and extravagant feast feeling fairly good about the evening so far. Yes, Morning Mist had not won the contest, but he felt as though he had saved face for the sect. Meanwhile, Hiroko and Joshi had turned supper into a social triumph.

  The meal was held on the topmost floor of the tower, where a long table ran the length of the room, with cushions for the diners to sit upon. As the honored guests for this event, the senior Morning Mist cultivators were seated with Joshi and Chang-li in the middle, Hiroko between both of them. The Dowagers presided over the ends of the table, and the senior members of the other sects were seated all up and down. Gray-clad servants brought in exquisite dishes.

  Hiroko regaled the table with stories of the sect’s triumph over Prism Eri. She painted her father, the General of the West, as the Emperor's own champion and their efforts as a sect as key in helping defeat her. Joshi sat beside her, offering monosyllabic answers to questions. They made a striking pair, the princess and the barbarian cultivator. Chang-li was glad to have them take some of the attention.

  Hiroko bragged of how Morning Mist had encountered and defeated three Tower Guardians within the last year. Her words painted vivid pictures. Chang-li felt a whisper in the back of his mind and realized she was subtly reinforcing her words with a delicate touch of blue lux. If any of the other cultivators noticed, they didn't call her on it.

  The younger of the Dowagers at dinner, Lady Nabiki, plied Hiroko with question after question. There was a hint of desire in her voice, as though she missed her own days as a cultivator. “When you say your sect has defeated three Tower Guardians within a year, surely you mean that different members of the sect have led teams against these towers?” Lady Nabiki was smiling, but there was definitely an edge to her question. It didn't seem to be addressed at Hiroko, though. Chang-li paid more attention. He wished Min was here to explain the nuances, but she was busy trying to keep the junior sect members out of trouble down below.

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  “No,” Hiroko said, shaking her head. “I mean my betrothed Joshi and Cultivator Wu have personally defeated those champions.”

  Chang-li thought it was something of a stretch to say that they had defeated the Tower Guardian at the Riceflower. In fact, the Tower Guardian had been killed by Prism Eri, destroyed, in fact, and replaced with the Prism she had killed. They had persuaded the man’s shade to aid them and had profited by it. So perhaps it counted. Certainly he wasn’t going to correct her in front of an audience that seemed to be hanging on her every word.n

  “Well, then,” Lady Nabiki said. Her eyes flickered, definitely seemed to settle on Matriarch Shu of Climbing Vines.

  “Great-Aunt Matriarch Shu,” she continued, “was the Climbing Vines record two tower culls in a year? And that was with myself and my sister leading separate teams.”

  Matriarch Shu’s face was a frozen mask. “We anticipate at least that many in this coming year. Our protégé, young Master Jian, shows great skill.”

  The Dowager rolled her eyes. “That’s my sister’s son,” she said in a loud whisper to the man beside her. “My sister’s always been jealous that I was selected as a bride and she wasn’t.”

  There was definitely a note of rivalry there. Chang-li wondered if there might be a way to exploit it, but it also explained why the Dowager was being so obliging as to ask Hiroko questions that allowed her to show off.

  “None of that impresses when your sect is clearly a bunch of brutes,” a Lux Endowment Cultivator from Light of Stars said coolly. “Anyone can smash and crush their way to the top of a tower and seize its bounty. It takes true cultivators and artisans to make use of what they find there.”

  “I suppose that remains to be seen,” Dowager Nabiki said cheerfully. “I am looking forward to the next competition. A matter of spiritual Luxes, is it not?”

  Patriarch Ahren fixed her with a glare. “We will speak of the terms of the competition at the correct time.”

  Chang-li hoped Min was having a better experience, wherever she was. He would have liked to have her beside him at dinner, but if she was looking after the junior disciples, that was probably the best place for her.

  He got through the meal somehow and was jealous of Joshi, who merely had to throw in a casual answer to some of Hiroko’s comments now and then in order to receive a shower of approving looks and comments.

  They were playing off the “beautiful, welcoming princess and stoic barbarian” vibe very well, he thought. A few times, as the conversation lulled, Chang-li’s nearest neighbors would lean in and address an inquiry. But it was only when Dowager Nabiki skewered him that he really felt like a document being scrutinized for errors. “Cultivator Wu, your demonstration at the end of the challenge I personally found very impressive. It was not a Greater Skill Transference Script, was it?”

  “No, of course, it was a Lesser Skill Transference Script,” Chang-li replied politely. Nabiki had been friendly so far. Maybe this was another opportunity for them to score points. “I have neither the talent nor the raw lux to create a Greater Skill Transference Script.”

  “That explains it then,” Master Ahren declared. He was smirking as he addressed the other cultivators at the table. “A Lesser Skill Transference Script is entirely within the abilities of even a Lux Endowment cultivator.”

  Chang-li stiffened, but before he could respond, Hiroko leaned forward and, blinking her eyes a little too rapidly, injected a note of curiosity into her voice. “Master Ahren, I'm afraid that these distinctions are a little much for a mere Gem Noble like myself. What exactly is the difference between a Greater and a Lesser Skill Transference Script?”

  Ahren puffed up and Chang-li hid a smile. Many men of a certain age were flattered to have a beautiful young woman asking them to explain their superior knowledge, and Ahren was no exception.

  “A Skill Transference Script, as the name states, allows for a more advanced cultivator to share knowledge of a technique by means of a lux script. A Greater Skill Transference will allow the knowledge to be permanently imparted. A mere Lesser Skill Transference Script allows the skill to be used once but with the same level of expertise attained by the originating cultivator.”

  “But if it's something that any Lux Endowment cultivator can do, why is it so many here tonight seem impressed by Cultivator Wu’s display?” she asked, keeping her tone light and full of that same puzzled disbelief.

  It was one of the female cultivators, Matriarch Rim, who spoke up next. “Perhaps not every cultivator can do it, but it is a complete waste of lux. Even for a charter sect, with our superior resources and access to lux stores, creating a one-time use Skill Transference is incredibly wasteful. Even the lux required to transfer the skill to a Bodily Refinement cultivator,” here she nodded to Chang-li, “is an absolutely profligate amount. Why, I'm somewhat surprised that a Lux Embodiment cultivator had so much blue lux available to him. I do hope you don’t regret it later.” She smiled, like a predator, and Chang-li’s heart sank.

  He felt as though he had won points for his sect in this exchange. Let the others dismiss Morning Mist as crude or uncouth. They also would know that Morning Mist cared about its members’ advancement.

  At last, a gong rang. The Dowagers rose, and everyone else with them.

  Chang-li felt as exhausted as when he had finished the steps of the sword pattern on the floor below an hour ago.

  “Now,” Dowager Nima said, “we shall make an appearance on the first floor, circulate, and mingle. When the gong sounds three times, that is the signal for the next competition.” She smiled. “I look forward to seeing whether Morning Mist can surprise us yet again.”

  Chang-li would have given anything to run and hide. This evening seemed to have lasted days already. Idly, he wondered if there was some violet Lux at work here.

  As they returned to the bottom floor, he took a moment to whisper to Hiroko, “Well done, and thank you.”

  She flashed him a smile. “I can’t have my sect and my future husband appearing weak. You did well, Chang-li. Good luck with whatever comes next.”

  She moved away as the platform reached the bottom floor, Joshi with her. Chang-li felt as though all the weight of the world was on his shoulders.