The smell of dried and cracking books surrounded Grypha, as did the books themselves, piled high in stacks against the rough stone wall. The sect library was a massive collection, containing what Grypha could only assume had to be copies of nearly everything ever written. She was far beneath what most disciples knew to be the library, examining far less popular things than the technique or martial manuals most studied. She was deeper now , deeper even than where they kept the scholarly papers. The books she was perusing were kept shelved in a labyrinthine series of caverns.

  This material wasn’t carefully compiled like what could be found in the proper library. Each manuscript here was a raw source. Travelers’ journals, merchant coin books, village girl diaries. Grypha had skimmed through a painful number of the last in search of an off-handed mention of the plant she was tracking down, thankfully there weren’t many of those in this section.

  She missed Lata, she missed being able to properly control her qi without it shaking through her whole body. She was done with this little diversion from her path. So, she was doing her research for the sponsor she was going to betray, looking for an excuse to get back to Sumoon city, to end this.

  This section of the caverns contained almost exclusively sources that had come from the frontier in the last decade or so. Grypha wasn’t just looking for information on the odd spiritual herb Elder Ming had tasked her with finding, she was looking for any way she could disrupt or cut off the city from the sect itself.

  The obvious route to do so would be destroying the gate that linked the sect to the frontier city. It would take months to reach the city again by foot unless a powerful elder intervened, and they weren’t exactly likely to emerge from their cultivation to do so. The idea wasn’t exactly viable though, at least not if she expected to get out alive. Even if she were ready to give her life to free Lata, the construct was nigh indestructible. No, she needed another method, something less easily traced back to her.

  “No luck still?”

  Grypha didn’t need to look up from her reading to know who it was. Each word seemed to come with the scrape of tooth on tooth. There was only one person who visited her down here anyway: Rak Ulvax, her relentless gathering tutor. He peered over her shoulder when she didn’t respond, leading her to sigh. “All I have is a name still, and even that is probably more of a local or even personal nickname.”

  Rak Ulvax leaned against a nearby wall, examining the books, realizing what they all pertained to. “You think you’ll find this mystery herb on the frontier?”

  Grypha had practiced her argument for this in her head. She knew what to say, how to breathe while doing so. Ulvax was a shark, with senses better than just about anyone she knew. He tore gatherers apart about their reasons for being late to his lessons, never being thrown by a single falsehood, seeing right through them even when everyone else was fooled. Fortunately, Grypha wasn’t exactly lying here. Her argument was technically based on the facts she’d gathered, and was technically sound, even if it did lean pretty far to suit her purposes.

  “I’m confident there aren’t significant quantities to be gathered on the northern continent.”

  Rak Ulvax raised a thinly cut eyebrow. “Why do you think that?”

  It was the same infuriating question he’d asked her plenty of times before. She heard it almost every time he made her harvest roots or plant spiritual herb seeds in the sect fields. Sometimes it meant she was doing something horribly wrong, sometimes it meant nothing. He had a disconcerting habit of using the question just to make sure she was completely confident in what she was doing. Of course, this time she really was doing something wrong, and she knew that full well. Her response was ready.

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  “The lack of mentions of the plant.” Grypha pulled a pad of parchment out with a diagram of books she’d read grouped by region. “I’ve only found rare sketches or mentions of the herbs in this section of the Vayala range.” She pointed to a mountain range whose nearest point was some two months journey from the sect, bordering the province of Uvaria to the north. “The rarity makes me suspect that the seeds may be carried from a different location.”

  The diagram was a trick. It showed mentions of the herb from those books she’d read, yes, but she’d only actually read travel logs and such from that exact area. If the lectures she’d been forced to attend had taught her one thing though, it was that everyone in the sect seemed to love and trust diagrams, even though it was remarkably easy to make them show something completely wrong.

  Rak Ulvax sighed. “You think the seeds are being carried by migratory birds, do you?”

  “Demonic beasts would be more likely.” Grypha suggested. “Iceveils.” The Vayala range was known to have a high concentration of demonic beasts. Some such beasts, mostly those that could fly, the ice aspected iceveils in particular, were known to make their way to the mountains in the summer seasons.

  “Perhaps.” Rak Ulvax leaned further back, his posture becoming oddly skewed. “I’m not here to talk about that though”

  “What then?”

  “I can tell. You do not enjoy herb gathering.”

  Grypha frowned at the words. That wasn’t really true. Of everything the sect had introduced to her, she found learning about spiritual herbs by far the most rewarding. She just…struggled to enjoy anything with her brother’s life at stake.

  “At least, that was what I thought at first.” Rak Ulvax looked at her, his head slightly cocked, sharp teeth somewhat visible. “You don’t seem to enjoy anything you do here.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Yes.” Rak Ulvax tilted his head back as if remembering something. “I once had two seniors who I thought were far more talented than myself. Both were expected to climb into the upper-echelons of elders one day, perhaps even higher. Now though, you would only know them as the patriarchs of the Mond and Sono clans. Guardians of families that will never be allowed to grow beyond the sect’s grip.”

  Grypha took in the words with some curiosity. If he was going to divulge information on Summon city’s two biggest clans to lecture her, she could handle the lecture. “What went wrong?”

  “They stopped.” Rak Ulvax looked her in the eye. “Like you, neither of them ever seemed to enjoy what they did. Instead of finding the right occupations for themselves, they burned themselves at both ends, choosing the most efficient approaches, whatever would advance their cultivation. One day, not at the same time, not at the same hurdle, they each just lost their motivation. Despite their talent, despite their ability to walk over obstacles that I had to climb meticulously over, they just gave up, just stopped. From my conversations with them, it seems they’ve each stopped even attempting to cultivate.”

  That took Grypha back a little. Was that her fate too? Probably. If she couldn’t get Lata back, she’d only be further driven away from her path. Would she even bother with cultivation? No, not if she couldn’t become the person she wanted to be. Cultivation wasn’t about the rewards it gave. If she couldn’t follow her path, there would be no reason to cultivate.

  Rak Ulvax seemed to notice some part of what he said nestling into her because he propped himself back up with his elbows, moving away. As he did, he called out over his shoulder. “You’re ready. I’ll make some arrangements, get you some local guides. I hope you’ll be able to find what you’re looking for.”

  He left and Grypha grinned. The story about the patriarchs sounded interesting. Perhaps they had lost their motivation, perhaps they had stopped their cultivation. Then again, sometimes ambitions, dreams, paths, just took diversions, horrible directions that just needed to be overcome before they could be bypassed. She believed that things could be set back on track for herself, and perhaps one of these patriarchs could gain the same benefit. Perhaps she thought, recalling all of the requests after rare metals she’d gotten from the Mond clan, one already had broken away from whatever diversion he’d been forced down. Perhaps he can help me get through mine.

  …

  Unknown, unseen by Grypha, Rak Ulvax hadn’t left when he’d pretended to, instead silently watching what he’d hoped would be his promising new student from inside a thick layer of shadow qi. There was something off with her. She certainly wasn’t devoted to her mission. She’d shown him a messed-up diagram, and her breath and qi had both been shaking throughout the encounter like she was scared of something. No, she was not to be trusted. He would have to watch her movements. He’d been put in charge of the sect’s gathering curriculum not just because of his skill. Rather, the elders knew exactly what he’d suffered from the great clans, knew how much he hated them. He’d caught and killed plenty of their swine trying to sabotage the sect, the empire. He would not hesitate with Grypha either.

  Only, that wasn’t quite right either. Ulvax knew she was no spoiled girl like he’d seen come for the clans before. Her story rang true, her movements, the way she watched her back, the way she carried herself, they spoke of a wandering cultivator. That made him hesitate. Was she up to something different, or perhaps a victim in her own right? It would be best to keep watching for now. He would let her go on her expedition, but she wouldn’t be alone, even if she thought she was. He’d be watching.