Rising Kite - A story from the world of HWFWM

“Sevenfold curses of the heavens upon that blasted Stoic Boar and his whole line.” Peony half whined, half snarled where she ran through the forest, the two jade mantises still in pursuit. That there were only two bronze-ranked specimens and not one of their silver-ranked giant brethren was not much of a comfort to her right now.

Feeling one of her spells becoming available again, she chanted it as she ran.

“Ferric transfiguration; shackles”

Touching some of the nearby trees and bushes even while she continued her sprint, patches of dark iron quickly spreading in a trail behind her. The mantises had been gaining on her, but Fortune seemed to favor her as the spell had time to transfigure enough of the plant matter for its effect to kick in. The vegetation formed a dozen iron shackles which darted out towards the monsters, clamping shut around legs and arms. But she already knew that it would not hold them for too long as the hellishly sharp blades of their forearms started cutting through the iron bands and chains.

But Peony knew that each second she survived was a second where a solution might present itself. And it was in times like this that the so-called ‘safe’ life of a craftsman proved to be a lie. She was painfully aware of this as she felt her stamina fading faster than she would like, and had already taken a pill for recovery earlier which left her unable to aid her diminishing reserves. From the sounds of screeching metal coming from amongst the trees and bushes behind her, the hunt would soon resume.

Bitterness and frustration had fueled her so far, but she also knew that they were a false sense of strength, and she had just begun to start looking for a place to make a desperate stand when her aura senses suddenly picked something up. Not far away, she could sense another bronze-ranked aura, definitely an essence user, in conflict with a single monster whose aura was becoming a bit unstable.

It was potentially salvation and assistance, but it did not sit well with Peony to just plunge a stranger into danger like that. But as she felt her spell wink out, meaning that her pursuers had broken free, the primal part of her brain with only survival in mind brutally overrode such ethical qualms.

“Warrior, give this stranger what is needed to prevail, and Fortune, please have me stumble upon someone who will not just finish the job.”

As Kite had set out that morning, he was once more struck by the stark reality that he had now well and truly left the Autumn lands. Almost all the foliage around him was now green. While he logically knew that this was indeed the prevalent color of the leaves of non-magical plants around the world, it was still quite alien, almost to the same level as if the sky had suddenly turned red or that one of the moons would just up and disappear.

But he had still enjoyed the trip, skimming just over the treetops on Glint’s back at a quite respectable pace. Even with his familiar, the trip would take just over a week should he be able to constantly keep maximum speed, and had he been on foot he would have been on the road for well over a month. And the trip had not only been leisurely.

While his aura could scare off many iron-ranked monsters, he had still fought off a rather persistent flock of opal drillbeaks, but it had been his encounter with the crown catcher that had given him most pause. One moment, he had been cruising along on Glint’s back when a mass of tentacles had suddenly burst up from the foliage to start grabbing at him. One of them had caught Glint, Kite just managing to sever the limb before anything more worrisome could happen.

The monster itself looked as a more arboreal cousin to the catcher of the rapids, the tentacled monster uncle Walker had fought on their first trip together. It had a central bulbous body firing wood shrapnel at them while the tentacles, thinner and more numerous than its aquatic cousin, had tried entangling both Kite and his carp. But once the surprise had worn off, Kite had managed a reversal where he had Glint go into full evasive maneuvers while he used his new blade and the intent of his evolved racial ability to sever some of the limbs before conjuring some platforms of force to let him get in close and eventually finish it after a protracted battle. Because unfortunately for the crown catcher, its favored environment did not help its bulky body much in the way of movement, so Kite had been able to lay siege to the monster perched high up in a particularly stocky and sturdy tree.

But other than that incident, Kite had an overall enjoyable time as he spent his days traveling and taking in the sights while his evenings were spent in meditation and playing with his familiars. While Glint was easily entertained, it had taken a bit of trial and error to find out if there was anything Sage could enjoy. In the end, the classical game of two dozen questions had been the key, the alien familiar seeming to thoroughly enjoy guessing at something only through questions to define the parameters. And it had grown almost eerily good at it too.

Kite had deemed himself to be about half a day from his destination when Sage had hinted at a magical manifestation that could be triggered nearby. This had happened quite a few times during his travel so far, and with the exception of a single pile of stone quintessence, all of the opportunities had been monsters. And the latest had continued the trend.

What he would later find out was called a spite dryad once more lashed out with its five willowy arms against Kite, the thin and flexible ends reaching speeds which would easily tear through flesh. The flexible attacks had proved a bit of a difficulty to Kite as they were very fast and often reached around his smaller barriers, leaving him grazed multiple times as he was just now finding the optimal size of his personal ward. Other than that, he felt that he had the battle under control as the monster’s thicker and more rigid wooden body was scored, shattered and punctured by resonating force damage from his weapons and special attacks.

In a slight fit of pride, he was even using the final stretch of the fight to practice his barriers more against such opponents to gain more from the encounter. But when his aura senses suddenly picked up another set of bronze-ranked auras; one essence user clearly in flight pursued by two monsters, he knew that he had to close out this practice session.

“Sage, if you please.” he said, batting away another whip-like arm as his familiar took position. Just a moment later a white beam of resonating force damage shot through the body of the monster, another quickly following as the first didn’t quite take it all the way. His wooden assailant hadn’t even hit the ground when Kite’s expanded vision saw a human woman bursting out from the nearby underbrush. She was clad in robes plated with some kind of lustrous metal, and going by the tears in the material it was clear that she had already been injured.

As he did not sense any hostility from her, Kite projected his own aura even further to envelop hers without suppression, hoping that it would indicate that he was friendly. But to be sure, he backed it up with words.

“To me!” he called, starting out towards her when he sensed her pursuers close the distance. Two huge insects with almost stone-like jade carapaces leapt out from the terrain, each bigger than a heidel. It was obviously some kind of mantis, although quite far from the ordinary insects Kite had been fascinated by as a child.

Sending the impulse of ‘left’ to Glint, Kite activated his speed-enhancing boots to close the distance. The leftmost of the leaping mantises was suddenly halted as it splashed into a huge ball of conjured water and was left suspended there as it flailed wildly. The improved control over water Glint had shown after ranking up had not only increased her mobility, but let her wield a few defensive and controlling options as well, the encapsulating blob of water being the most prominent.

As for the second monster which closed in on the fleeing woman, Kite’s staff had already appeared in his hands as he swung. His intent carried the strike past the woman, impacting the airborne mantis in the side just as it was halfway through its downward trajectory. While not powerful enough to have it come to a dead stop, it did throw it to the side and into a more awkward stumbling landing.

He met a pair of brown eyes wide with the adrenaline of flight as they passed, but there was no time to convey much else before the moment had passed. Kite had almost closed in on his target as he let his saber appear, the spatial-locked sheath appearing in just the right angle to let his momentum draw the blade free and strike. He was glad that he had practiced extensively with the new weapon and its peculiar sheath, as there had been many awkward draws where he instead found himself half stuck at an odd angle.

The curved blade trailed the spatial tears of Void-Sunders-Firmament as Kite went for a crippling strike, being only about three meters away when his intent once more let the strike carry the distance. The resonating force damage allowed the blow to shear through half of the leg he had targeted, and moment later the sword’s enchantment took effect as a burst of force was emitted from the slash, ripping apart the leg from the inside. This left the huge insect staggering slightly, making its downward slash at Kite come in at an awkward angle which enabled him to easily deflect it on the barrier of Heaven-and-Void Warding. Taking advantage of the opening, a strike with his staff cracked the chitin of another leg leaving it a bit unsteady.

After the initial exchange, Kite was pushed onto the defensive for a while as the mantis had time to find its new balance and start a relentless counterattack which had Kite utilizing both barriers and blocks. As the insect used nothing in the way of enhancing effects or special attacks, Kite’s dispelling measures became more of a means to deliver the small amount of transcendent damage from Undeniable, the passive power helping to wear down the giant insect. Had it only been one of the monsters, he would have been comfortable in warding it off for long enough to mount a more substantial counterattack, but Glint’s controlling spheres of water would not hold on forever. And two of the monsters would leave him a lot more pressed.

But just as the suspended monster had started working its way free, Kite felt a pang of relief as the escaping woman had apparently not continued her wild flight, instead throwing out a few metal spikes in the area around the mantis. Where they landed, the area started shifting into metal shackles which honed in on the still trapped monster, further locking it down. As she followed it up with another spell which seemed to almost instantly freeze the sphere of water to solid, magical ice, Kite dared to count on that she and Glint together should at least be able to keep it occupied.

This left him calmer as he continued to deflect the attacks from the mantis in front of him. Choosing his moment, Kite chose to forego the barrier and instead brought out his saber horizontally before him, blocking the downward strike of one bladed arm on the reinforced sheath and following it up by smoothly drawing the sword out to the right in a void-enhanced slash which struck the monster’s other arm in a repeat of his earlier strategy. The violent severing of the arm brought him some satisfaction as he let the blade and sheath return to his void sheath while jumping backwards to avoid a swipe from the remaining arm.

With only one arm remaining, Kite could retake the initiative as he started using barriers and counterattacks in concert, his attacks already being delivered even as the barrier appeared. And as the monster seemed to have its strengths in speed and its hard carapace rather than endurance, he soon managed to deliver a devastating crushing strike to its head.

The fallen mantis's companion was not faring too well under the controlling duo of Glint and the stranger. While Glint did not have any conventional offensive measures to speak off, the woman had thrown out more of the metal spikes which either struck the mantis to weaken its defenses as its carapace looked to be rusting where it was hit or create larger spikes from the ground to pierce it from below. Another beam from Sage and a void strike from afar ended the creature’s struggles, leaving their part of the forest with the almost eerie silence after a battle.

While he was rather used to it, part of Kite’s mind was still fascinated by how much carnage could be unleashed in just a minute or two, and the participants had only been bronze rank. And while the woman seemed stable of body and mind, it was still rather obvious that she was not as used to fighting for her life as him. Her stance remained tense and she seemed to still be on the lookout for the next foe to fight.

“Greetings, mistress.” he called to her when he drew close, giving her a formal bow. The words and motion seemed to snap her back to reality even as Kite got a better look at her. She was a willowy woman slightly taller than him, with almond skin and magenta hair gathered in a braid. Had it not been for her brown eyes, Kite might have thought her a celestine. Her bronze rank aura was unmistakable, as was the tinge of monster cores in its depths, although she had an acceptable level of control for a core-user.

“Blasted- heaven-cursed- son of a-” was the response he got, although from her looking toward the sky as she said it, Kite deduced that the curses were not directed at him in particular. After spouting some expletives for a few more seconds, she seemed to sag as she plopped down on the ground as the anger and frustration were replaced with a morose exhaustion. An awkward silence followed, where the woman just covered her face with her hands where she sat while Kite was left standing in front of her.

Not knowing what to do, he once more leaned against the sage advice of his auntie.

“When you don’t know what to say, then say nothing. A silence usually wants to be filled, which leaves it to the other person to do so.” auntie Crow had told him many times during his life.

So he chose to walk up to her and sit down at her side, albeit at a respectful distance, and just waited. Glint shrunk down to her normal size and joined him, happy to have him stroke her scaled back as she floated back and forth in front of him.

After sitting there in the middle of the woods for a while, listening to the rustling leaves, she eventually took a deep, deep sigh.

“I… I’m sorry.” she said, her voice a bit shaky as the more intense emotions which had propped her up so far were allowed to peter out. Switching to a kneeling position, the woman turned towards Kite and bowed so low that her forehead almost touched the ground.

“I, Daybreak Peony, extend my most sincere gratitude to you, savior, as well as my deepest apologies that I brought my troubles upon you. From this day on, I will ever endeavor to see our karma severed and balance restored.”

While Kite sensed that her gratefulness was genuine, he thought that they still carried a lingering shadow of frustration. Still, there was little to do but to greet her in turn, and perhaps he would get to know more in time.

“Greetings, Daybreak Peony. My name is Kite flown in on Winds of Fortune, but I would be grateful if you would call me Kite.” he said to the still bowing form of his company.

“Then, benefactor, please call me Peony. And allow me to take the first step to repaying your kindness.” she said, rising to her feet and briskly walking off towards the two fallen mantises. She knelt down by the first and touched it before quickly skipping away from the carcass, which started dissolving just a moment later. Most turned into the rainbow smoke of a monster returning to the ambient magic of the world, but Kite could see part of the dissolving magic instead condense and gather in a pile where the remains of the monster once lay.

Meanwhile, she repeated the process with the other mantis, eventually gathering up the small piles of items which had manifested and laying all of it down at Kite’s feet. A pile of what Kite quickly deduced was bronze-ranked insect quintessence, simple pouches of spirit coins and a blade from one of the mantises.

“Benefactor, I would be grateful should you accept this small offering, but one of many which I will provide you should you wish for it.” Peony said, bowing once more.

While the part of Kite who still idealized the storybook heroes wanted to deny the gift and declared that nothing remained unbalanced between them, his time as an adventurer had taught him two facts; that people didn’t always react as well as one might hope if they thought themselves patronized, and that adventurers such as him would almost never find themselves without the need for more money and resources. From the determined look in her eyes, it would seem that Peony was one who put great importance to this perceived debt. And even with his own strange looting power providing him with great benefits, he had still spent the lion’s share of his savings on his different commissions.

As such, he bowed to her in return. “Thank you, Peony. I will put them to good use.” he said, while he stowed the gifted compensation away. “Is that a looting power? I must admit that I have never seen a conventional one in use before.”

“But you have seen more unconventional ones?” Peony half asked, half stated as she righted herself.

“Indeed. The master of a friend has one which only produces more condensed magic, such as quintessence, awakening stones or essences. I think it stems from the force confluence.” he said, while nodding. “I have one as well, but of a different variety. And from what I can feel-” he continued while sensing the progress of his own, “- it is just about done.”

Deciding on a practical demonstration, he gave the mental assent for the gathered energy to coalesce. One small vortex of rainbow light later, a peculiar weapon manifested. It was a sickle-like blade which curved inward, very close to that of the mantises they had just fought. While it had a handle, said handle had a long and flexible vine fastened at its bottom, turning the weapon into something akin to a rope dart or kusarigama.

“It takes a bit longer to pay dividends, but it always provides equipme-” he began explaining, but his words almost caught in his throat when he saw Peony staring at him as if he had suddenly turned into one giant spirit coin, and what he could sense from her now barely controlled aura, he was unsure if she wanted to lock him away in a vault or eat him on the spot.

“May I… see that?” she asked, voice as intense as her stare.

Wondering if he had made a mistake in coming to this particular person’s aid, Kite slowly handed her the bladed vine. She quickly took it, retrieving an eyepiece from a pouch at her side and started inspecting it.

“Bronze rank… decent quality… stretching… severing…” he could hear her murmur as she turned the weapon over in her hands. “And your looting power produces this? And equipment like it?”

“So far, yes. Mostly weapons and armor have come of it until this day.” he said, not hesitating to share but still a bit taken aback by her intensity, although he had to admit that his curiosity of her behavior was steadily increasing.

“Do you choose? Or are they random?”

“I- uh- they are mostly random, but since bronze rank my needs seems to influence the randomness a bit in my favor.”

“This…” she said, looking down at the weapon in her hands. “You- I- we-” Suddenly interrupting her own floundering, Peony threw herself down into a proper kowtow right there on the forest floor.

“Please become my business partner!” she all but shouted into the ground, continuing in a steady stream of words. “Benefactor, I would hate to ask more of you, but this meeting must have been ordained by fate and the heavens themselves. Your mere existence is a boon to me- nay- to all the people of this lands. Please let this lowly practitioner of the craft tie herself to you glorious ship, as your fate will truly be one to-”

During her tirade, Kite tried to get a word in a few times before finally giving up, giving her aura a hard poke with his own. While not quite an aura spike, it was still close enough for the sudden discomfort to jolt her out and look up at him with wide eyes.

“I am sorry for that, Peony, but you were getting a bit ahead of yourself in your haste.” he said, taking care to smile and show her that he was still in a good mood. “But if you tried to get more words out at the same time, I was afraid that you would erupt like one of the geysers of the northern steppes.”

“Benefactor, I’m-”

“Please, do not apologize, Peony. I can see that this is important to you. And my auntie always said that important matters need to be given both the proper time and place. So I would suggest that we make our way back to the road, find a clearing to make a proper camp and then we can talk about it over a cup of tea. Would this agree with you?” he said, keeping his tone measured and maintaining eye contact the whole time to keep her from spinning into another gout of words. From her look and what he felt from her aura, he deduced that she was probably still quite shaken from the run-in with the monsters, and when added to the sudden and intense excitement that she had felt when hearing of his power, it probably became quite overwhelming.

“I- I…” she took in a shuddering breath. “You are right. Please, lead the way.”

The stranger- no, Kite- Peony reminded herself, had indeed been right. The warm tea and the heat of a magical lantern worked wonders for her frayed nerves where she sat against a tree. Her host and savior had just finished pouring himself a cup, and sat down next to another tree close by.

Peony studied him from the corner of her eye while sipping at her tea in silence. She placed him somewhere in his early twenties, probably just shedding the last teenage features with his ascent to bronze rank. She scanned his features; distinct jawline but otherwise not that spectacular. Black hair with a hint of gray mostly gathered in a loose topknot. He had the luster and lean athleticism of a bronze-ranker. And his blue eyes tinged with gold around the pupils looked kind as they were looking at her. At her.

Realizing that she had been caught staring, she started slightly which caused him to smile. Still, this was no time to get too flustered by social faux pas, so Peony decided to soldier on.

“Sorry, I- I just didn’t have the time to really look at you before. I must have been truly shaken, and you had the hat on and-”

“Do not worry, I understand.” he said gently. Although she knew he meant to be kind, part of Peony still bristled a bit at being handled almost like a skittish animal. “Would you like to explain from the beginning why you were out here? And what made you so excited before? From your aura, I would imagine that you are a crafter, as other core-users such as the nobles and dignitaries would probably not venture out like that.”

While part of Peony was instinctually more on guard from his questions, she swiftly and brutally buried that part. If she was to have any chance in strengthening her ties to this heaven-sent stranger, she should not bring him anything but honesty. Him probably having saved her life weighed in a great deal as well.

“Yes, you are right. I am indeed a crafter. Together with my husband and family, I run a business in Bastion.”

“As you are of bronze rank, I would assume that you are either quite successful or come from a family of means.”

“No, at least not in the family part. My mother’s side has run a small mercantile business trading in mortal craft goods for a few generations. Never anything huge, but good enough to save up to a set of essences for one descendant. As an only child, they didn’t really have much to choose from.

And as for success, that is… complicated.”

“How so?”

“I-” Peony began before stopping. “Actually, it might be better to tell you about my essences first, as a lot of context depends on them and what they gave me.”

Kite leaned forward as a response, curiosity clear on his face. As most in his line of work, hearing about the path of others always gave a certain thrill as there was so much to explore and understand in the magical world.

“My essences are iron, adept and magic, creating the transfiguration confluence.”

Kite’s eyebrows raised a bit in surprise. “Transfiguration? Are you a shapechanger?” That was the powers he himself associated the most with the confluence, having seen several essence users wielding its power during the war. One who had transformed into a humanoid octopus with eight tentacles extending from his back had left a rather distinct impression in his memories.

“No, even though most assume so. As you might have seen when we fought, I transfigure the world around me; change and remold it into other things. At least temporarily. And that relates to my craft as well. One of my powers, probably the most central one to my whole craft, allows me to take two items, break them down to varying degrees and recombine them to a greater whole.”

“Just like that? That sounds amazing.” Kite said, wonder in his voice.

“Well, no. It was quite hard to learn to use properly, at least if I wanted to make something other than a warped abomination of an object. There is a lot of visualizing and something akin to composing the different elements and finding ways that they can fit together to create something new.”

“Does it work on anything?”

“Most inanimate objects, yes. In the beginning, I actually used it to make art. To practice and bring in some coin. But my family helped me learn more about the art of making weapons and armor, as we had decided to choose a more narrow field to allow me to learn the finer points of the craft. In a bigger city with lots of adventurers moving through, buying excess gear and selling more powerful products should have been a steady stream of revenue. And in the beginning, it really was.”

“But not now?” Kite asked, knowing that she was building up to some kind of trouble.

“Indeed. During iron rank, few even noticed the change in our business. I managed to get a membership in the adventure society, getting to tag along on contracts with some other adventurers in exchange for splitting the loot from my ability which had evolved from absorbing my confluence. That gave us the funds for more stones and materials for me, bringing in more revenue. I also got enough monster cores to advance.

Overall, things looked good until just before I hit bronze rank. Then people started noticing.”

“Not the people you wanted?”

Peony sighed. “No. Bastion is rich in crafters, many falling under the purview of the different influential families. The Stoics are one such family, smiths under the wing of the Stellars. At first, we got along fine. But as we began seeing more success, they began to approach us with offers of a merger; we were to join our business to theirs to reach new heights together. While it was ostensibly a decent deal, having someone else controlling our fates like that did not sit well with us. So we declined, offering deals of cooperation instead and favorable rates.”

“I take it that they did not relent in their ambitions?”

“Our story is indeed one oft repeated in these lands; someone noticed by someone more powerful. Someone who will not stop until they get what they want.”

“So they pressured you?”

“Not directly, no. Did not want to risk their patron’s good name to be besmirched. But they worked through other means. Rumors, bribery, warnings, offers of better deals to adventurers who would not cooperate with me or my family. The Stoics are the most well known maker of arms and armor in Bastion, and few adventurers would want to be on their bad side. So fewer would take me along, even if it would enrich them. I could see that they were sorry about it, but sorry would not match up to the discount they would get from the Stoic family.

So our coffers were gradually being drained. We had enough to afford the cores to get me to bronze in the hope that would change things, and the mundane side made enough revenue to assure we did not go hungry. But I… I found myself stuck and unable to progress. And our project in providing essences for my husband ground to a halt after affording two.”

Just talking about the deadlock made Peony want to throw something and scream at the heavens. All those polite refusals from people she thought she could depend on. Those smug smiles from Stoic Boar when he met her, asking if they had given further thoughts to their generous offer. The pained smile of her husband when he assured her that it was no rush; that things would work out in the end if they just persevered even as he had such beautiful dreams about wielding magic of his own.

A small head covered in pink scales and wriggling mustaches brought her out of her spiral of frustration as the fish appeared from under the cup she clutched in a deathgrip. It gave off a happy little wiggle, floated in a circle around her before returning to Kite who fondly stroked the flowing fins.

“So it was a prison without bars; you lived while your potential was being shackled. Did you not consider moving to another city? I am sure that your business could thrive elsewhere.” he asked her, and she looked down in a mix of shame and helplessness.

“We did talk about it. But- but Bastion is our home. All of us have lived there for our whole lives. We have friends and extended family, contacts and a house in a premium spot. In the end, we might do it. But we are not ready yet. I am not. Not because of bullies like them.”

Kite looked as if he sympathized with her, his gaze distant in remembrance for a moment. “So that was why you decided to come out here? Bring in some revenue on your own?”

“I just wanted to feel like I was in control. Take out some iron-ranked monsters. Maybe a single bronze-ranked one if it was the right kind. Do something worthwhile with all that the family gave me.”

“Do they even know where you are?”

The questions caused Peony to freeze and avert her eyes, the gesture apparently giving him all the answers he needed.

“Then I am sorry for saying this, but coming here was probably one of the most foolish moves you could make. What would dying out here bring to your family but sorrow and regret?” he asked. While his voice was kind, his words were sharpened by uncomfortable truth delivered without preamble. “But I can also sympathize with doing something rather stupid because of frustration, especially that born of being the focus of powers greater than you which seeks to use you.”

Peony was silent, still unable to meet his eyes as her heart clenched. It had been over a day already. Her husband’s worried face appeared in front of her mind’s eye, trying to keep up his cheery facade even when the smile kept slipping. And her mother who would stay up late fretting. The shame intensified, enough that Peony didn’t notice that her companion had stood up and was now kneeling in front of her.

“So, you would like me to partner up with you and your family? To provide you with excess equipment and maybe also bring you with me on contracts? Even if this will alienate me from one of the most prominent and influential suppliers of equipment in the city?” he asked, tone kind but words not painting a pretty picture.

Peony’s heart sank, but refused to give up. She had to find some way to convince him, to appeal to him, to-

“Then I would expect quite the beneficial deal out of this. I do have a lot of equipment to spare after all, and having a crafter who could tailor to my needs does have a nice ring to it.” he said with a wink, interrupting her scrambling mind.

“You- you will do it? Really?”

“Yes, really. As long as you have been honest with the circumstances, I will do my best. Honestly, your abilities sound like something heaven-sent for me as well. I definitely gain more equipment than I can use, and as I lack conjured arms or armor I will be in constant search for new additions.

While the attention sounds a bit troublesome, it doesn’t sound like I will need much from the Stoic family and their services anyway.

So, Daybreak Peony, would you deign to accompany this humble and weary adventurer to Bastion? While I have other business, I will remain for at least half a year in the city. So we best get started as soon as possible.” he finished, reaching out his hand for Peony to clasp.

As she did, it was as if the mantle of frustration she had worn for so long became just a little bit lighter. Peony now had one thread, a golden one at that, to grasp. And by the gods, she would not let go.