Hiroko was a leaf drifting about in a storm of furious activity. The whole expedition bustled with purpose as they busied themselves, making use of the Primal Tower's first floor.

Her father's soldiers were busy drilling and cultivating, refilling their lux cores and raising their new recruits to the Peak of Bodily Refinement, while the older hands perfected the techniques they would soon be called upon to use in battle against Eri's sect.

The Darwur had begun to cultivate. Joshi, Min, and even Chang-li were busily teaching them cycling patterns, techniques, and theory, while also exploring the entirety of the first floor, mapping out its challenges and preparing to climb.

And she belonged in neither group.

She had a tent of her own pitched near the edge of the army encampment beside a couple of the senior officers who were married. Their wives served as quartermasters and support staff for the army, and those women were too busy with their own duties to pay attention to Hiroko. She sat and cycled moodily, frustrated at the lack of blue lux here. Though she'd gotten better at using red and now had a reliable technique for strengthening her body, it wasn't her color.

She ached to do more with the tricks she had learned from Parvah. Blue lux had only just started to reveal itself to her before she'd been forced to flee from Parvah and Governor Jah. Hiroko felt like she could keep going on her own if only there were more blue lux.

That wasn't really what chafed. No, it was how everyone here had a purpose, except herself.

Before her father left, he had taken her aside. She was still getting used to him. After so many years apart, he hadn't had much time for her since her arrival here in the camp. Now, on the eve of their entry to the tower, he had taken her out of the camp and raised her high into the sky to look at the emerging tower and the camp beneath.

"I know we've had little time together since your mother's death, Hiroko," he said, clearly distracted with other concerns. Hiroko was used to that in important cultivators. Their senses were almost always taken up with lux's fluctuations and keeping an eye out for enemies. That he'd made the time to speak with just her was enough.

"It seems only a few days ago you were an infant, and now here you are, a grown woman, coming farther along the cultivation path than I had expected. Your mother would be proud of you."

He had turned and looked at her then, smiling.

"I'm sorry. I'm going to have to leave you alone again while I protect this tower. It will take your friends some time to do what they must. And I expect at the end of that, our enemy to come."

"Prism Eri, you mean," Hiroko whispered.

Her father had nodded curtly. "Yes."

"Did she really kill Mother?"

"She — put an end to her on this plane of existence." Her father let out a sigh, his eyes going distant. "Eri is a jealous woman. She's also both powerful and charismatic. Always has been. When your mother and I were cultivating together, we fell under her charm to some extent. Believing her to be our friend, we allowed her to become important to us. It was your mother who snapped that spell for me and snatched me away. She was right. Eri is not to be trusted. Eri resented that and always looked for an excuse to destroy our happiness. She made it look like an accident, but I knew from the beginning what she had done. I've been waiting my chance for revenge ever since."

"And you'll get that now?"

"I will," he told her. "If everything goes as planned."

Hiroko forced herself to raise her eyes to his face so she could see how he reacted. "The Emperor, what will he do? This plan of yours sounds dangerous, like you're taking power that he would not see fit to grant."

"The Emperor may call himself divine, little one, but he is merely a god, not the most powerful, nor the only one. I have been beyond the borders of our empire. I have met beings who could humble him to the ground should they choose. I'm not afraid of him."

That was no kind of answer at all. It filled her with questions. Her father cleared his throat and looked away. "You will remain with the army while I am gone. Once this is settled, we can talk of your future. Your betrothal to that Darwur fellow is at an end, of course."

He spoke so casually, not even looking at her, as his words drove spikes of ice into her heart. Hiroko froze. She forced her lips to move.

"What do you mean, 'of course'?"

Her father waved a hand dismissively. "I've already spoken to him, and he saw reason at once. It was never a good match. I assume whatever member of the Gem Court allowed it had an inadequate sense of my position and yours. You are the daughter of a Violet Princess. More than that, you are the only Indigo royalty who is the child of the General of the West."

He smiled off at the mountain. Hiroko didn't think he was paying any attention to her at all. "Once matters have been settled with Eri, we will discuss your future. Depending on how all of this shakes out, there are several useful directions we can go. Should the worst happen and I am forced to take my army and seek other lands, then you might need to enter a union with a foreign power. There is a certain pastiche in many outsider circles for royalty from the Forbidden Kingdom, as they call us. We will have to see how it is most advantageous to bestow your hand."

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Very, very carefully choosing her words and pushing her own feelings deep down into her empty core, Hiroko said, "I understand your instruction, my father. What of my cultivation?"

He looked back at her in surprise, eyebrows raising. "Once I have this tower at my disposal, I will be able to shower you with the resources to raise you to the Peak of Spiritual Refinement within days, with a little proper guidance. That ought to be high enough, don't you think?"

She looked away. "What rank did my mother achieve?"

He smiled as if caught up in an old memory. "Lux Endowment. Of course, to compare the two of you is not possible. Your mother was driven to cultivate with every fiber in her being. It's a passion that does not often arise inside the Gem Court, one that many of her rivals sought to stifle. For whatever reason, your grandfather chose to indulge her. Why, she had reached the Peak of Spiritual Refinement on her own while I was still at Mental Refinement. I remember how she teased me, said she would never accept me as a spouse until I was able to stand equal with her." He broke off, looking back at her.

"But that's neither here nor there, Hiroko. With your extreme attunement to blue lux, you need extra resources not easily provided. I will be able to give them to you once I've attained this tower. Another advantage, of course, of breaking off the betrothal with that barbarian. He would never have been able to give you what you need."

Something stirred inside Hiroko's breast: an unsettled feeling, memories of how she and Joshi and Chang-li had cultivated together in Golden Moon Tower, their strengths shoring up each other's weaknesses, with Joshi urging her to cultivate as much as she could.

"You're right," she said quietly. "Joshi never offered to give me anything."

"There you are then," her father said. "Well, Hiroko, I've enjoyed speaking with you and I will do so again once I have achieved my goals. Farewell for now."

Hiroko sat in the war camp, cultivating, pondering her father's words. Each cycle of lux inside her core made her heart beat a little fiercer, a little more angry.

Why should her father's words upset her so? She had been raised to understand her duty, that her lot in life was to sacrifice her own cultivation, her own progression, her own happiness, her own future, in order to preserve the stability of the realm. That the Gem Court nobles were sacrifices raised by the Emperor to make sure that war and strife between cultivators never got out of hand.

And here she was in a war camp preparing for battle against a sect that was seeking to take power not given, with her father doing the same thing. When his men and Eri clashed, it would be a terrible battle. Fortunate that the scene was to be these wastelands, where only the nomads lived. Presumably they'd be able to get out of the way.

But she fumed as she saw the hollowness of everything she'd ever believed. Her marriage, the marriage of her cousins, had done absolutely nothing to prevent any of this.

So much for the Divine Emperor's perfect plan.

Her father disagreed with the role she had been given in it, but not in the idea of her as a pawn in a scheme. Because that's all she was to any of them. By virtue of her birth and her status, she was a tool to be used to its limit, with no thought of her own desires.

The only people who had ever treated her as an equal, as someone who should be allowed to fight, to strive, to test herself, were Joshi and Chang-li.

And she had rejected them.

No more.

Hiroko got up. It was near midday. The officers' wives would be gone for hours. She strolled out of the war camp across to the Darwur encampment.

They too had tents and people: some tending to chores, preparing food; and others cultivating. A couple of Imperial herbalists and alchemists were here preparing the day's allotment of purification rations to cleanse the Darwur initiates of their lux buildups.

Hiroko strolled to the tents in the middle of the encampment where Chang-li was staying with his wife Min. As she approached, one of them opened and Min emerged. The woman smiled when she saw Hiroko.

"I was just about to take a walk and see how things are going," she said cheerfully. "It's good to see you today. Care to come with me?"

Hiroko accepted. She wasn't sure who she'd been hoping to see or what she'd been hoping to say, but Min was a good place to start. "How are the cultivation lessons coming?"

"Very well," Min said. "It helps that we've done this so recently with my people. We know the pitfalls, and Joshi's kin are a little more martially oriented than mine were. It seems to be helping their advancement. I think we'll have our first couple of core condensations here in the next day or two. I'm hoping that happens before it's time to begin the climb."

"And you really are going along with them?" Hiroko said.

"I am."

"You're not afraid of the danger?"

"I've reached the Peak of Bodily Refinement, and Chang-li is helping me through the veils on my way to Mental Refinement."

Hiroko felt a stab of envy. She didn't know anything about the next steps. She had been sitting here at the Peak of Bodily Refinement for months now and was no closer to her next step.

Min looked at her shrewdly. "You have something on your mind."

She did, but she didn't know this woman very well. Hiroko hesitated. Then she made up her mind. Min was the cultivation spouse of the Sect of Morning Mist. She and Hiroko had gotten along well enough in the past, and if Hiroko was going to get anywhere, she needed an ally.

"My father wants me to wait until he returns, and then he will advance my cultivation for me."

Min made a noncommittal noise. "There are perks to a powerfully connected family," she said, her voice carefully neutral.

Hiroko knew that both of Min's grandfathers were powerful men, though, of course, not on the same scale as the General of the West. Neither of them were cultivators at all. "It is. But at the same time, sometimes one wishes to advance on one's own."

"Hmmm," Min said. She frowned. "I think you're talking about the difference between a handout and a hand up."

It was Hiroko's turn to be puzzled as they passed a pair of Darwur women slicing meat off a freshly roasted tower beast. Hiroko's nostrils flared. She hadn't realized how hungry she was.

Min grinned. "Lunchtime," she said.

They stopped and snagged a few slices of the meat, wrapped in perfectly ordinary flatbread with an added garnish of herbed salt provided by the Darwur.

Hiroko bit into the meat. It tasted delicious, and its energy flooded her body. She let out an involuntary sigh.

"I know," Min said. "It really does good things for your spirit, doesn't it, Tower Beast meat? I can't get enough of it now that I've made it to the Peak of Bodily Refinement. We're giving some to our junior cultivators in very carefully controlled situations with the purification rations available to wash out impurities. We've decided it's an acceptable risk to strengthen their foundations."

Hiroko nodded. She was filled with momentary jealousy. Min had such a sense of purpose to her. She was busy helping her sect and their allies advance. Finishing her meal, Hiroko licked her fingers, swallowed, and said, "Lady Min, I need your help."

Min's gaze came to her, suddenly serious. "Yes, Princess?"

Hiroko took a deep breath.

"I want to come along with you and Chang-li and Joshi when they climb. My father won't approve, but if I'm going to advance, I have to prove to myself that I can do it."

Min pursed her lips together. "You're asking for my permission?"

"I'm going to come one way or the other," Hiroko said. "But I'd rather it be with you."

Min hesitated only a moment before nodding. "I'll tell Chang-li we can expect you to join us when it's time."

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