Commission: Tales of Sun and Steel 3

Rain burst into steam, wailing from the transmutation. Wings of sunfire beat and scattered steam and rain alike, ripping a pocket of clear air through the downpour.

Her wings beat with the force of the Law of Progress, and the air itself parted to not impede her path, there was no thunder, only a rippling curtain of moving wind. Her eyes remained fixed on the crumbling peak of the mountain which sat just within the bounds of the Outer Sect. The shadows of sinuous forms danced in the sky above the clouds, and lightning struck stone in an unending rhythm, bolts falling from the sky and casting up plumes of semi-molten stone from the pockmarked hide of the Thunderfall Peak, over which the dragons of the southern court came periodically to dance.

And her foolish little sister had gone there, tonight of all nights. She did not care that she was breaking the sequester of the Outer Sect, she did not care that her sister was within the rules to challenge any site in the Sect she liked. Of all places, she could only imagine a handful of reasons for her sister to approach this mountain. None of them were good or wise.

She would…

Her eyes zeroed in on the peak, where a molten crater lay scorched in the earth, a fresh scar among many, and where a slender for lay…

The air did not have time to part for her law. It detonated with enough force to shatter a house, wind spirits wailed, her path left rings of expanding steam.

And, she came to a halt a half dozen meters away, stopped dead in the air, the steam, broken stone and wind rushed past her, tearing at her hair and gown…. And splitting in a wide cone around the crater where her sister lay, and the stooped figure standing in front of her.

Elder Ying looked at her with a gimlet eye, her plain brown dress untouched by the wind, the rain and the lightning. “And just what do you imagine you would accomplish, arriving at this girl's side like that young Lady.”

Gu Yanmei trembled, feeling uncharacteristically strained. Like her mind’s careful pathways had been made crooked…. And they had. “I… forgive my trespass. Elder Ying, my sister…”

“Will live,” Elder Ying said. “For all that she tried her hardest not too.”

Her hands trembled, her thoughts cooled…. And she felt a terrible heat in her chest, a heat fit to burn in the forges of the Gu. Against the impossible pressure of a mountain crushing down on her every direction, trembling fingers struggled, spasmed, and managed to clench weak sparks flitting from her fingernails. “You knew what she was attempting, Elder. Your eyes…”

“Do not fail to see a girl making her way to this mountain.”

Gu Yanmei tasted blood on her tongue. “Why?”

“No teacher has the right to deny a student knowingly seeking tribulation.”

It was not an old woman's wan, creaking voice, but the grumble of an ancient mountain. Jade eyes observed her clinically. It was an easy thing to see their kindness, but Gu Yanmei knew very well that Elder Ying’s affability was a distant thing, and never impeded her lessons.

“It is only for us to pick up the pieces after,” Elder Ying said. “And you will find your sister is in less pieces than you think, though rather more than she wished.”

The pressure let up and Yanmei fell to her knees, flames guttering out, wings flickering away as if they had never been. Looking past the Elder she saw that her sister lay crumpled in the middle of a patch of slowly cooling orange stone. Her skin webbed with lightning scars and her arm… She could see bones, ashen black, under drooping loops of charred flesh, and spasming cooked muscle, that still sizzled and crackled with popping melted fat.

But threaded through the burnt out meat were potent veins filled with raw contained lightning, they flashed, casting the rest into grisly relief. She could feel the tinge of her Sister’s qi. She was, despite everything, processing and cycling the heavenly energies, if far too slowly.

But Elder Ying’s qi was woven around her like a babe’s swaddling. The crackling flames still burning along her shoulder did not crawl any further. It clung like cool river mud to vibrating lightning filled meridians, keeping them from splitting open from the pressure inside.

“Such desperation, and driven by so little. The young are truly passionate,” Elder Ying observed clinically.

That hot anger flared, she wanted to retort. Never in her life had she slapped down the name of her Gu family as a threat or a warning like many young scions. But the words ‘You dare’ sat frozen on her lips.

But the Elder did dare. The dangers of cultivation were known, the price of ambition was high. The Great Sects were not responsible for the risks Disciples chose to take in seeking the Way.

She was furious, but no one had made Xiulan do this, had tricked her into doing this. Her breathing evened out as raging heat stilled and became controlled. She had seen the signs, and she had thought that her own efforts to bank her sister's agitation and growing frustration was enough.

It was not.

“Elder, she will recover?”

“The Sect’s medicine pavilion will see to that. She has gotten her wish after a fashion, such a galvanization of cultivation… But it will be painful. She will be recovering until her body reaches a much higher stage, to hold these sparks of heaven without pain,” Elder Ying sighed. “She may wish to simply have the limb and the qi alike removed after feeling what will be her new reality.”

Gu Yanmei rose to her feet. She was composed again, the jagged splinters of thought returned to harmony. “She will not.”

“Because she will not risk shaming your clan?” Elder Ying wondered.

“Because my sister is too stubborn for such regrets,” Gu Yanmei said. That too was… Of the Gu.

Oh Xiulan. How badly had she misjudged her sister's troubles? “May she be moved?”

“My qi will have settled by now, so long as the motion is not too sudden or energetic. If it is disrupted, the lightning will rage again.”

Gu Yanmei stepped into the scar on the ground where her sister lay and knelt, unmindful of the soot and the scent of lightning and burning flesh, and carefully gathered her sister up. So many scars.

She did not often think about how much more fragile those of lower realms were, compared to even her freshly fourth realm body. But it was impossible not to think about it, holding her sister like this.

“I hope you do not think you will be trudging back on foot young lady,” Elder Ying said. The scab of broken earth under them groaned and cracked as it rose from the earth, on a bed of grit and mud and sand. Elder Ying stood beside her without having moved a single step as they began a gentle acceleration. “She will require much attention, in order to tame the energies she has chosen to take in.”

“Though the lightning is not my chosen medium, I will remain at her side until she is stable enough,” Gu Yanmei replied quietly.

“Oh?” Elder Ying said.

“If you object, you may expel us both Elder,” Gu Yanmei replied. “This is not a matter which I will argue over, and neither will my Gu clan.”

Elder Ying glanced toward her, showing no concern. “I would not be so cruel, child. Though it was her responsibility to make her own choices. This is yours. I will have your Sect duties cleared until this is settled.”

“Thank you, Elder Ying,” her response was too hot headed. Elder Ying could be colder than she appeared, but not like that. She lowered her eyes as the platform of stone launched out from the mountainside, drifting slowly through the air.

Her temper was not as mastered as she had thought.