Hiroko rose early the next morning and walked in the garden in the cool hours of dawn. A few small droplets clung to the underside of some of the plants around the pond. Servants moved about, watering the others by hand.

Hiroko breathed in the air and practiced her cycling. Today, with luck, she would meet a blue lux trainer, if what Governor Jah had said was to be believed.

She did, in fact, think he was telling the truth. The easiest way to keep her docile in captivity was to make her want to stay here, and blue lux training would do that. Governor Jah had brought her here at considerable danger to himself, should he be found out. He did it for one reason and one reason only: to use her to influence her father.

Would that work? Hiroko considered as she walked. She had met her father only a handful of times growing up. She had been raised in the Imperial Gardens like other Indigo prince and princesses, surrounded by the emperor's household. Her father, though a favored general and great cultivator, was not a member of that household, especially not after her mother's death, and his visits had been infrequent.

It had been some five years since their last meeting, and though Hiroko wrote him letters regularly, his responses were almost as rare as those visits. She didn't know if it was because he didn't care about her, or if she reminded him of her mother in some way.

Had that union been a happy one? No one spoke to Hiroko of her mother. Even her grandmother, one of the Dowager Pearls confined to the Imperial household for the rest of her life due to her status as the mother of one of the emperor's children, had spoken about Hiroko's mother only rarely. Dowager Pearl Lin-Ya had mentioned her once or twice in passing, but the few times Hiroko had tried to ask more she had been evasive.

Hiroko did know her mother had been a cultivator in her own right, achieving the Peak of Spiritual Refinement before Hiroko's birth. That was not common in Violet royalty. Many of them never left the Imperial Gardens, being wed to outside cultivators who would pay them occasional state visits. To be given a Violet spouse by the emperor was a mark of high distinction.

And yet, the brief, tantalizing hints she had heard made her think her mother and father had chosen each other for love. How that had happened, she had no idea. Now she wished she knew. Perhaps if she'd understood their story, she would have been able to find a path for her and Joshi beyond mere duty to the emperor. That had not been enough to entice Joshi into marriage. Hiroko was missing something, and it pained her not to know what.

She returned to her rooms as the sun rose high enough to send its rays slanting over the walls of the garden and found breakfast laid out for her. As she sat down with a bowl of fruit, she disturbed a small piece of paper she had not previously seen. It fluttered to the floor. A servant hurried to pick it up, but Hiroko snatched it and glanced down. You have a friend here.

That was all it said.

Hiroko quickly crumpled the paper. "It was nothing," she told the servant, who eyed her with suspicion.

Hiroko ate the fruit. When the servant's gaze was turned, she stuffed the paper into her mouth and chewed it, along with a bite of fresh melon, until she was able to swallow the mass down.

Did she have a friend here? How would she know them? Well, if it was someone able to leave a message in her room, they had resources she didn't. She would wait for them to make another move. Meanwhile, she had an appointment to keep.

She allowed the servants Governor Jah had given her to dress her in fine new Indigo robes, and to do her hair and set gems in her ears and at her neck. They painted her face with white paste, then drew on dark shadows around her eyes and red lips. When she looked at herself in the mirror, she seemed the serene image of Imperial beauty that she was supposed to be.

Inside, Hiroko felt turmoil.

Dowager Pearl Akiya came to her, bowing low.

"Highness, if you are ready, "

"Please," Hiroko said, smiling. "The two of us surely need not stand on such ceremony. We are of near rank. You may call me Hiroko, and I will call you Akiya."

Akiya colored. "I wouldn't presume, Princess, "

"But I insist." Hiroko set a hand on the woman's upper arm and smiled sweetly at her. Akiya blinked. She looked very young and lost. "You are my guide here in a foreign land," Hiroko said. "You understand both the life I have grown up living and the customs of this strange place. I place myself entirely in your hands and depend upon you for aid. Please take me to this tutor, and as we go, tell me what you know of these lands and Governor Jah."

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Akiya went pink. "Of course, Highness, ah, Hiroko. Come with me."

She led Hiroko from the rooms. They were accompanied by a pair of ladies-in-waiting and a discreet guard who kept their paces. Hiroko wound her arm around Akiya's and leaned in close. The other girl mumbled as they went, telling all Hiroko about the palace and those who lived in it. As she spoke, Hiroko felt more sure that she was right about this woman. Akiya was alone, scared, lost.

But, Hiroko reminded herself, she was also a resourceful cultivator at the Peak of Mental Refinement, if not higher than that. She had beaten out dozens of other competitors to win a place in the Imperial Harem. Then that plan had come tumbling down upon her ears, and she found herself thrust out to the edges of empire. She was desperate now, eager for a friend, vulnerable to Hiroko's manipulations, but she was still a powerful cultivator in her own right, which made her doubly interesting as an ally, if only Hiroko could win her over.

Hiroko found herself a little taken aback by her own scheming. Never before had she so deliberately set out to undermine those in authority. But then, Governor Jah had exceeded his mandate by sending cultivators to seize her. He was not doing the will of the emperor, and therefore anything Hiroko did to extract herself from this plight was acceptable.

She would not hurt Akiya more than the girl had already been hurt. She would learn from her, and seek her help and wisdom, but she would not do anything to injure the woman.

"Tell me about this tutor," she said, as Akiya ran out of words to describe the palace they were in.

"She has rooms in the Outer City, but we've asked her to come here for these lessons," Akiya said. "She's been issued a permission to visit the lux repository twice a month, as long as she is tutoring you. That's great munificence for a sectless woman in these parts. We are over two hundred miles from the nearest cultivation tower. All of our lux comes from the repository or is brought here in lux crystals, and you must be able to guess how fabulously expensive that is."

Hiroko nodded. "Yes, indeed."

"Most of those go to the Army," Akiya continued. "The caravans of supplies pass through here every fortnight, heading out to supply the General's forts along the frontier."

"Have you word now of where my father is?" Hiroko asked carefully.

Akiya shook her head. "I'm afraid not. Governor Jah likely knows. He and the officials and officers of the province have regular meetings and I know letters go back and forth to the frontier, but I'm afraid that's not considered to be part of my purview, Princess."

"It's just," Hiroko sighed, "here I am, closer to my father than I have been in years, and yet... it still seems as far away as ever. If you should hear word of him, would you tell me?"

"Of course, Princess," Akiya said eagerly. "Anything I can learn. I can even ask the governor, "

"Don't do that," Hiroko said hurriedly. "I mean to say, I'm certain the governor will tell me such things himself. What I'm hoping is, if you happen to hear rumors, things the governor might think don't need to come to my ears. Even a scrap of knowledge about him would ease my worries."

"Of course, Princess Hiroko. Now, the tutor is not permitted inside the guest wing where we stay. She is waiting for us in an audience chamber in the outer sections of the palace."

"This palace looks to be nearly half the size of the whole city," Hiroko observed.

"It is," Akiya nodded. "Westgate itself serves largely to support the palace and as a trade hub. This is as far into the Empire as outlanders are permitted. But because of that, access to the city by our own people is limited."

"I don't know much about trade with outlanders," Hiroko said. "It never came up in my own upbringing."

"Nor mine, Princess," Akiya blushed. "I had been training for a life inside the palace grounds before I came here."

Of course, as soon as she was confirmed with child, Akiya would have been prepared for a life as one of the Pearls who would remain within the Imperial Harem for the rest of her life. But then she'd lost her child, and that future, and been thrust out to an insignificant posting on the far edge of the world with very little preparation.

"I've been remedying my lack of knowledge as best I can. Of course, even to me, specifics are forbidden. The outlanders are not permitted to speak in great detail of their homelands, nor do we talk to them of anything except trade. They bring spies, you know, trying to sneak into the Empire to learn our secrets and find ways to undermine our Emperor. We have to be constantly vigilant, and yet, the treasures they bring..."

Akiya's voice trailed off with a hint of awe.

"What do they trade to us, and what do we trade to them?" Hiroko asked as they passed through the functional sections of the palace. Here, scribes, servants, and bureaucrats hurried about through much less opulent, more workaday corridors. Tall arched windows let in fresh air, shaded by wide fabric canopies to block out the sun's more piercing rays. The air here felt horribly dry. Hiroko's knuckles were cracked already. She would have to ask for some liniment to preserve her skin.

"Mostly they are seeking spices and silks," Akiya said. "From what I gather, no one in the outlands can weave silk as fine as what we have. They bring ingots of iron and brass, as well as strange medicines and curious devices. Those devices are assessed by lux technicians and brought before the Emperor himself. Should he approve a device for sale, it can be imported. The counterweight clocks were introduced about two decades ago, I believe, from an outland design."

"Really?" Hiroko said, surprised. She had been used to the clocks all her life and hadn't realized they were from beyond the Empire's borders.

"But here we are," Akiya said as they reached an open door into an audience chamber.

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