Forge of Destiny

Ling Qi hummed to herself, folding her hands into her sleeves as she stood across from Jaromilla over the hearthfire. She met the woman’s eyes as her hum took on a tune, becoming the first bar of her song. Tendrils of frost spread from under her gown, and the brightly burning fire guttered lower, the merry glow turning a sullen red.

Cold and darkness were intertwined in her mind. They were different manifestations of the same fundamental principle of consumption and want. They were both absences, yawning voids which devoured light and heat. Her ice, her thoughts which she had woven into Zeqing’s art, was the frozen winter cold blanketing the world, consuming and ending the year before, but it was in service of the spring to come after. The energy taken was to be released with the spring.

Jaromila’s head tilted back as the cold washed over her. Slick, clear ice formed over the carpet and creeped up her gown. Her lips parted, but she did not sing. The foreign woman was not a singer or a musician. Jaromila was a speaker, and she argued now without human words.

It was like being struck across the face with a mace. Jaromila’s ice, the mantle she wore at least, was expressed as pressure. It was the immense, crushing pressure with all the weight of the world behind it, ice that could grind the mountains flat and carve valleys and gorges. Jaromila’s ice was not a season that ended in human timeframes; her winter was more akin to Zeqing’s.

The furniture in the room groaned, and fractal spiderweb cracks formed in the ice creeping up the walls.

Yet, she sang back and found there was still a cycle there, advance and recession, similar to the way Xuan Shi had described the tide to her when she asked about the ocean, if far, far slower.

Cold as consumption and cold as pressure clashed and met in the room between them. The now sullenly burning fire flickered and nearly went out. Its orange core blackened, and wood snapped and crackled from the shattering of deep cold. The tongues of the fire became a dark, dark blue.

Jaromila considered her in the new darkness of the room and spoke another wordless phrase. A thousand years of glacial grind was compressed into the space of a human sentence.

Ling Qi rocked back, catching herself on her heel. It was a question, an interrogation on the nature of transition and of where the line between spring and winter came. Where came the release of the floods and the warm spring wind?

Mixed. Too mixed. Her metaphor was still brittle and muddled, and the lyrics and melody unharmonious. Ling Qi frowned as she sang out, seeing the flowers of frost blooming, twisting,and shattering on the walls.

Was she still trying too much to encompass what wasn’t hers? She knew she was not the spring. That was for others But perhaps she had still been trying to fight her own nature in some ways?

She considered her vision of a field of white, twists of frost blooming in the shape of flowers. Snowblossom Shattering. That was the name she had thought of for her finishing technique, fancifully taken from the river and lake of her new home. It was reminiscent of the patterns made by the cracking ice when seen from above.

Adjusting the notes in her mind, Ling Qi met the looming pressure with her own resolve, the unrelenting killing ice of deep winter. That was the core of the art even now. The difference between hers and Master Zeqing’s arts lay in the desire to gift what she had taken, rather than hoarding it for herself.

The clear ice forming on every surface in the groaning room deepened, turning opaque, the frost within turning white and blue as it buried what lay beneath, the faint lines of petals traced in cracks and frost.

She wanted to freeze and take and consume so that the spring might come after and use that which had been taken. It was easier to admit to what she wanted, now that she had accepted being bound by her own choices.

The mantle of pressure around Jaromila’s shoulders and the timeless, patient darkness that had crept in behind her blue eyes rumbled and bore down on her. She did not bother to try and stand against the inevitability she felt there. Her persistence was not the mountain, standing astride the world until it was at last ground down.

The world changes. It is the truth, not the shape, which is to be preserved. Let the glacier pass on its way. Her winter would still be there, long after it had receded back to the mountains. It could no more stop the end of winter than she could stop it.

The ice shattered, and in the center of the room, the blackened fire roared back to healthy orange and yellow, burning bright.

“Interesting perspective,” Jaromila said. “It cannot be easy, shaping a mantle with no godmother to guide.”

“It is,” Ling Qi acknowledged. “It’s still not complete, but thank you for helping me realize where some of the flaws lay.” Ling Qi said.

There was more adjustment to do. More refinement. She had to tighten the story, making it more cohesive. She’d been trying to do too much at once with the technique, Ling Qi thought, leaving it sloppy. The technique still was not complete, but it was certainly closer to it and the intent to gift energy stolen from the targets to her allies and to empower them was clearer now, And she would have to step back after using it because the cost of striking so powerfully would be immense, even for her rather impressive qi reserves.

“You two are done bellowing at each other then?”

Ling Qi looked up as the contemplative silence was broken by Ilsur’s dry voice. The cloud tribesman sat in the same place where he had been when they’d begun. Unlike the rest of the room, there was no frost or ice on his bench. The man radiated a crackling heat, and the empty plate in his lap showed the time that had passed in their debate.

Ling Qi considered the rest of the room. Icicles hung fanglike from the rafters, the tapestries were frozen under slabs of clear ice, and the ankle-deep soft white snow carpeted the floor.

“Yes, I think so,” Jaromila said, looking around herself. She smiled wryly. “We usually prepare spaces for this.”

“So do we.” Ling Qi sighed. “Thank you for indulging my impulse. Please rest a moment while I clean this up.”

“As you like.” Jaromila glanced at her husband. “... Ilsur, did you honestly not save me anything?”

Ilsur picked at his teeth with the tip of a skewer. “You did not ask.”

“I shouldn’t need to,” she complained mildly, sitting down beside him. “Give me that. I’m parched now.”

Ilsur grunted as she took his pitcher away. Ling Qi observed them out of the corner of her eye as she turned to the ruined room. “Ruined” was probably too strong a descriptor. It wasn’t that bad.

Silence.

She stifled a grimace as she began to hum under her breath, stretching out her hands as she pulled at the lingering icy qi. The snow on the ground began to kick up and disperse, the fangs of ice ran like wax, and the frozen walls began to thaw. Moisture returned to the air, and what could not rejoin the air gathered in a glittering coil of icy cold water around Ling Qi, which she guided into an emptied pitcher and under the door to the well hidden storage closet, filling the cleaners’ buckets there.

There was still some water damage, but it was… fine. It was probably fine.

She was sure she could justify it as an expense to Renxiang anyway. Deepening her understanding of her foreign counterpart was vital. Ling Qi looked at her handiwork for a moment longer. She was probably going to have to fill out all the work orders.

“May I ask what your own plans are going to be for the month of preparation remaining?” Ling Qi asked, turning on her heel, petty concerns hidden away for now.

“Ensuring that all parties on my side of negotiations are as united as possible and overlooking the construction project that you have all agreed upon,” Jaromila said.

Ilsur interpreted, “Soothing ruffled feathers and displaying our wares like an over-eager trader.”

His wife gave him a look. He shrugged.

Jaromila sighed. “Something like that, yes.”

“Well, I suspect you’ll have an easier time of it than I,” Ling Qi groused. Getting her side united was a pipe dream. She would settle for everyone mostly coming to face the same direction.

Truly, her ambitions were as high as the heavens.

“Let us both work hard then,” Jaromila said kindly.

“We will have to, but success will be worth it. Emissary Jaromila, I look forward to arranging peace with you.”

“Well said,” Jaromila agreed, raising a newly poured cup. “Shall we discuss how we will keep in contact during the rest of the preparations then?”

“Yes, let’s.” Ling Qi grabbed a drink and sat down. Together, they began to discuss their plans.

By the end of the meeting, they’d decided that they would meet in person once a week to discuss any issues that had come up, put forward concerns from the other party, and just generally talk. Ling Qi didn’t think she’d have to push particularly hard to get Renxiang to approve the time spent. It was a fairly obvious bit of diplomacy. And since she’d not taken on any particularly time-consuming duties in previous meetings, she would easily have the time for it.

They also decided that, for the sake of not raising tensions any further, Ilsur and his fellow tribesmen would stick to acting as an honor guard for their “Sun-Sledge,” which would remain parked by the base of their sovereign cultivator, the weeping tree, for the duration of the summit. There was some talk of inviting select envoys aboard at some point, but that would be more summit business. Any such invitation would probably end up being tied to access to the observatory.

She made a mental note to speak with Meng Dan and maybe that astronomer fellow again soon.

But soon, it was growing late. Ling Qi could feel it in the slowly chilling air. The sun was descending toward the horizon, and they needed to part ways for now.

Ling Qi stopped with Jaromila and Ilsur outside of the embassy building to extend a hand and clasp arms with the older woman while their respective guards hung back and gave them space. “Thank you for meeting me this day, emissary. It was my pleasure to receive you,” she said, fully formal, now that they were out here in public.

“It was our pleasure to be hosted, and your hospitality was without flaw,” Jaromila replied, just as formally. She clasped Ling Qi’s arm, and then, releasing it, she offered a proper imperial bow, to which Ling Qi responded with a proper inclination of her head.

“I only hope it is the first of many meetings. Farewell, and good fortune.”

“Good fortune to you as well,” Jaromila said. “I will be in contact soon.”

Ling Qi watched the two of them go, standing straight and still, her hands clasped under her sleeves. Only when they were out of sight did she turn around. She eyed the ministry-provided guards.

It would not hurt to play the right role.

“Were there any troubles? Anything you noticed?”

“The foreign warriors were deeply tense after Lady Ling’s suggestion. The emanations of your contest with their emissary discomitted them,” the one she had spoken to before reported.

“They have an external power source,” the other analyzed quietly. “Something in that device of theirs, I think. It is likely that the house guard at least may enjoy significantly greater strength than they appear to from cursory examination.”

Ling Qi nodded once. “Thank you. I will be meeting Lady Cai now. You may return to your normal posting.”

The two of them clapped their fists together, bowed, and left. Ling Qi considered them as she watched them leave.

The ministry was fully sincere in their devotion to the empire’s security. It would be best to remember that. They were only opposed as they were because their definitions of security and the best path to it differed from Lady Cai’s and hers.

She didn’t know if she could change their definition at this point in time with her influence, but in the end, she would have to bend it enough to fit.

Anything else would be a failure.