Chang-li led the sect as they approached an enormous glass tower at the edge of the Imperial gardens. The tower was three enormous round sections stacked on top of each other, the floors decreasing in size as they went up. The bottom floor looked as though it were at least one hundred and fifty feet across and was thirty feet tall. The top tier was probably a quarter as big.

  The tower glowed with a faint shifting light. He could see people already present inside. The acolytes seemed awed by the structure. Chang-li checked with his enhanced senses and confirmed, as he'd suspected, that the whole thing was deeply suffused with lux.

  He couldn't imagine what kind of skills and techniques could have built this. The Emperor had the service of the greatest lux technicians in the world and apparently liked to take advantage of that.

  The bottom floor had arching doors everywhere, with narrow walls of glass separating one arch from the next in a scalloping pattern. The entrance was obvious because of the vast white awning stretching from it to the road where the sect approached. Beneath the awning lay a black carpet. Guards lined the approach, watching Chang-li and his sect as they strode toward the glass tower.

  Min's presence beside him was the rock keeping him steady. She had warned him of her fears, and he hoped to be able to help keep any of them from coming to pass.

  One of the ubiquitous Dowagers, the first he'd seen dressed in white, stood waiting alongside an official with a long scrolling list.

  Chang-li bowed to the Dowager. "Your Radiance, I present the Sect of Morning Mist."

  "You are welcome, Cultivator Wu, along with your spouse and your sect. Enter. Tonight we celebrate you."

  She extended an arm to usher them inside. Chang-li stepped up next to her and gestured for the sect to begin trooping in. They had been warned, in every way possible, how to behave. Like Min, he was worried this was a disaster just waiting to happen.

  "The schedule for tonight is fairly relaxed," the Dowager continued. "There will be refreshments throughout the evening and a dinner at midnight. We have arranged for several cultivation contests, one before and one after dinner."

  A note of worry rang in Chang-li's mind. Cultivation contests? Min hadn’t mentioned that.

  Now the official spoke up, holding his paper in front of him like a shield. "Appropriately advanced cultivators from the charter sects have been invited to this event. You will have the opportunity to mingle with your peers on safe grounds."

  "What sort of competitions?" Chang-li asked, still focused on that.

  "The other charter sects have arranged that matter," the Dowager said, dismissing his question with a wave. "We received your Grandmaster's regrets and are not expecting his presence tonight."

  That was something, at least. Chang-li followed the last of his sect into the enormous tower. The bottom floor of the tower was a rotunda encircling an inner core. The core, too, seemed to be made from glass, dark red and impossible to see through. Doors opened into it. He caught a glimpse of the chambers within. Lux lamps blazed beside a sofa and a pair of chairs.

  The rotunda itself was already full of people. The servants were easy to pick out. They wore dull brown robes and carried trays.

  The cultivators from rival sects wore their sect robes. He noted that a handful of them wore sashes across their chests, like he did. His was red, indicating that he was married and the rank of his spouse. Some of the other cultivators instead had three stripes of a solid color up their sleeve and no sash at all.

  "What does that mean?" he whispered to Min, as they passed a pair of Weathered Stone cultivators. Their badges indicated they were both at the Peak of Spiritual Refinement.

  "That's their own Gem rank. Remember, these charter sects are full of the children and grandchildren of cultivators. They have inherited a Gem Court rank from their own parent. A large part of what the Gem Court does is ensure that there are no close cousin marriages. Two cultivators who inherit Indigo status from their Violet parents would be banned from marrying."

  That made sense to Chang-li. The vast majority of people present, however, were not cultivators at all, but Gem nobles. They wore robes denoting their rank, solid red or blue or green, and any decorations they chose. About three-quarters of the Gem nobles were women, the rest men.

  Currently about seventy percent of Morning Mist’s cultivators who had reached the Peak of Bodily Refinement or beyond were male. Chang-li hoped that number would balance itself out more in the future. Obviously, the Gem Court knew their numbers.

  As his acolytes spread out through the room, he kept his head on a swivel, watching to make sure they stayed in groups of three. As soon as a group got a little ways into the room, servants descended on them, offering food and drink. Once they moved off, the Gem Court sharks slipped in.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  "Are all of these really determined to marry a cultivator? Any cultivator?" he asked Min in a low undertone. They accepted tall glasses of a shimmering pink liquid from a servant, but neither drank. Chang-li knew his lux-enhanced body could handle most intoxicants without so much as making him blink, but he needed an absolutely clear head here tonight.

  Min had a distracted look on her face. He expected she was working on her Thousand Whispers technique, ensuring that the pale strands of blue lux connecting her and all of the Morning Mist acolytes remained strong. As far as he could tell, there was no threat to her weave just yet. She gave a shrug. "Remember, I wasn't in a Gem Court very long, and I had my own goals. But yes, my impression is that many of the nobles will look for any cultivator they can get their hooks into, as long as he or she seems like a solid prospect for advancement. With Morning Mist's reputation, any of our acolytes are a tempting target."

  "What reputation?" Chang-li asked.

  Min glanced up at him, gave a little sigh, but her eyes were sparkling. "You mean the fact that our two senior disciples climbed from nothing to a Lux Endowment rank in less than a year?"

  He frowned. Those records were not supposed to be public knowledge, but the Gem Court was hardly the public. He allowed Min's explanation to sink in. The two of them circled clockwise. Brother Stone and Joshi were taking different meandering paths around the room, keeping a close eye on the disciples.

  Chang-li would have liked a chance to enjoy himself at a party with Min, but he couldn't relax. Every time they passed some of his acolytes, he found himself using his superior hearing to eavesdrop on the conversation they were having with the Gem nobles in their orbit.

  There was a fanfare from over by the door.

  Chang-li turned to see a pair of women in Imperial livery lowering their trumpets, as yet more Dowagers swept into the room. These were accompanied by higher-ranking Gem nobles in blue. The noblewomen's hair was piled atop their heads in elaborate styles, sprinkled with white and blue flowers or gemstone pins, wearing gold bracelets all up and down their slender, bare arms. Their faces painted white with dark kohl at their eyes and mouth, rendering them all, to Chang-li's eye, nearly identical.

  There were twelve of them. They swept into the room, followed by four men in blue who stalked in, heads held high. Chang-li suppressed a laugh. One of the men was wearing an enormous peacock feather jutting up from his head. The rest carried long knives at their waists as though they were soldiers. Their hands were as delicate and manicured as their female counterparts.

  Chang-li started to make a derogatory remark to Min as the crowd of blue broke apart, spreading throughout the room to reveal a single woman garbed in deep purple.

  It was Hiroko.

  She wore her hair down in curls that fell past her shoulders to cascade down her back, pinned at the ears with a single purple flower seeming to hold it back. A silver coronet at on her hair, twinkling with tiny colorless gems. She had a single silver bracelet on one wrist and a pair of amethyst studs in her ears. Her makeup was subtle, a faint touch of red to her lips and black paint around her eyes.

  Beside him, Min caught her breath. “She does know how to make an entrance,” Min murmured. “Look,” she said, nudging Chang-li, and he turned.

  Over about twenty feet away, Joshi stood staring. His bald head reflected the light from the room, giving his skin a bit of an otherworldly reddish cast. He wore his robes, as he customarily did, cut low on his chest and without a tunic underneath. He wore an expression of utter shock, his eyes wide, mouth hanging open. To his credit, he recovered quicky and his features were impassive a moment later. As Hiroko took another step into the room, he came forward and claimed her hand.

  “Oh, well done,” Min said, as the pair turned to face the rest of the party. A wave of applause filled the room, Min and Chang-li joining in as Joshi and Hiroko swept into the party.

  “Come on,” Chang-li said, and dragged Min over to have a word before the other partygoers could have a chance.

  As soon as they reached the pair, Min said, “Hiroko, I’m so glad to see you tonight.” There was an air of palpable relief in her voice.

  “Yes,” Hiroko said. “I need to speak with you.”

  She lowered her voice, glancing around. Chang-li understood at once what she meant. He delicately wove together some green and blue, tossing it around them. The weave wouldn’t last long, but it should muffle their words for anyone trying to listen in.

  Hiroko’s eyes narrowed as she felt it settle around them. Then she spoke quickly, explaining what she had learned from questioning palace functionaries. Chang-li felt cold anger sweep through him. So. The Gem Court and the Thirteen were working together, against Morning Mist.

  Min swore as Hiroko finished. “I suspected there was some sort of scheme, but it sounds worse than I had thought.”

  “We should leave,” Joshi said. “When the enemy has prepared an ambush, the best strategy is not to walk into it.”

  “We can’t leave,” Min and Hiroko said together. The two shared a quick smile. Then Min said, “The Gem Court is hosting this in our honor. If we leave, we are showing enormous disrespect to the Emperor himself. At the very least, it would probably have us fined. At worst, they might try to cancel your betrothal.”

  Joshi made a dismissive noise, but he stood still as Hiroko continued. “I don’t know exactly what’s being planned here, but the other sects are going to use this to ambush you.”

  Joshi shook his head slowly. “What does an ‘ambush’ at a party like this even mean? They aren’t going to straight up attack us, surely? Then what can they do?”

  Min’s look was grave. “Shall I start listing the possibilities? I have heard stories of capital politics, but honestly I never really understood them. They can take many forms and it isn’t just about wining, but how one performs in-” she waved a hand vaguely “-whatever the contest is. I’m sorry. I’ve studied some of this but it’s all wrapped up in court etiquette that would take hours to explain. It all depends on what the contests are.”

  Hiroko bit her painted lip. “I know losing contests can cause a sect to lose face. But the few times I have watched lux contests in the capital, I didn’t really know what I was seeing. I didn’t have much training back then.”

  “All right,” Chang-li said. “We’ll just have to take things as they come.” He attempted a smile. “They may think they’re laying a trap for us, but they don’t know what we are capable of.”