Khana found him not much ter. Volithur hid his discomfort behind a mask of heroic stoicism.

  “Did the thirty-second son do that?”

  He clenched his jaw. “With one squeeze of his hand.”

  “That’s terrible! When you see the Lord General, tell him –”

  “I’ll tell him nothing,” Volithur interrupted. “I’m a commoner. Aramar is the son of a lord.”

  “He’s a petty tyrant,” Khana muttered.

  Volithur gnced towards the door to make sure it was closed. “Master Aramar is two levels above anyone else at the Fifth Household. That gives him four times as much potential power as the Marshal. The difference is probably even greater in terms of actual realized power. I don’t think the Marshal is anywhere near the peak of the sixth level.”

  The stark truth was that Aramar could sughter everyone present by himself. No one could put up meaningful resistance. Power trumped all else. That was the world he had been brought into. They had proved that point to him again and again.

  Volithur drew upon chaos, transforming it to pristine cosmic energy. He would just have to keep getting stronger. With the absolute cheat that was his insight, in a decade he would be more powerful than Aramar. Then the man would not dare to even look in his direction.

  The Casteln arrived while Volithur was angrily cultivating. The man observed for a moment before speaking. “Ward Harridan, you have the option of remaining in the infirmary or retiring to your regur room. Should you remain here, meals will be brought to you. That courtesy cannot be extended to you in your room. Let me know which you prefer.”

  Volithur didn’t bother to think on the question. He had no intention of lounging around the infirmary, whether or not that was medically advised. “I’ll go back to my room.”

  “Understood, Ward Harridan. You have no duties while you recuperate.” The Casteln’s eyes narrowed in cold calcution as he studied Volithur. “There may be some resources avaible for you to use during your downtime.”

  Already on guard simply by the presence of the Casteln, Volithur immediately suspected some nefarious plot. “I was told I cannot perform any body enhancement, Master Casteln.”

  “Of course not. But nothing prevents you from cultivating. The household has several bottles of uncut spirits that won’t be missed. One a week would speed up your progress tremendously without causing permanent liver harm.”

  Volithur pondered the offer. “I would hate to take resources from the family.”

  “The members of the Fifth Household ck the body enhancement to safely use uncut spirits. Typically the bottles are shared among the cosmic chamber attendants when they struggle to keep up with the demands of their job.”

  Such a casual admission. As if poisoning commoners so that they would produce better results in the short term was unproblematic. Volithur didn’t let his face show the distaste he felt. “If you are certain it would do no harm, then I of course accept, Master Casteln.”

  “Excellent. I have long been looking for a way to reward the cooperation you extended me on your wedding day. I will bring the first bottle to you ter tonight, Ward Harridan.” The Casteln departed with a spring in his step.

  Khana gnced his way. “What is an uncut spirit?”

  This was the first time Volithur had opportunity to teach his wife a fact about cultivation resources, so he rushed to expin, even forgetting in his excitement that his arm was injured and gesturing with it. “It’s something even more potent than wine from Tian. It tastes extremely unpleasant.”

  She considered him for a few moments. “Do you think I could try some?”

  “Absolutely not,” he said. “It’s a serious health risk.”

  “I took the gold psma elixir the same as you.”

  Volithur squinted at his wife, reaching out to assess her body enhancement. “The elixir didn’t benefit you nearly as much as it did me. I was close to the peak of my level at the time, whereas you never formally practiced body enhancement.”

  “Please?”

  “No. Khana, uncut spirits are not a safe resource.”

  “I just want a little. Don’t you care that I never get resources anymore?”

  “You can have all the resources you want when we move to Tian.”

  “When we move to Tian, I’ll be ridiculed for being as weak as a child.”

  “If you really want to get stronger, then spend some time doing aural cultivation.”

  “Without time in the cosmic chamber?”

  “That’s how I did it before I gained my insight. My talent with my aura is below average and I made it work. You just need to put in some actual effort.”

  Khana’s jaw dropped. “Actual effort? Actual effort? I cannot believe you would suggest I haven’t worked hard at my cultivation, Harridan.”

  “When? You spend most of your day in leisure activities. You only cultivate when you have resources, and using resources is the most passive version of cultivation.”

  Khana’s eyes began to glisten. “Now I know how much you despise your own wife!”

  Volithur felt his resolve soften in the face of her anguish. “Of course I don’t despise you, Khana. I only meant to point out that you never cultivate with your aura. That is the best way to improve here.”

  “It’s resources that make all the difference, Harridan, and you no longer share with me!”

  “This is the first time in a while I’ve received resources that aren’t dedicated to body enhancement.”

  “You had wine yesterday!”

  Volithur gestured at his broken forearm. “Which wasn’t enough! Would you have taken half my wine before I faced Master Aramar?”

  “You could have at least offered! Do you know how awful it is to not receive anything from the household? They shower resources on you, but I receive nothing!”

  “Why are you compining? They were going to send you to the Evergreen Institute. Instead you are living in the pace and pnning to move to Tian.”

  “I should be living here! I’m a descendant of the Lord General! You’re just a commoner from an unempowered world!”

  He flinched from the accusation. Not because it was a sensitive point to him. Volithur actually felt a masochistic pride that he was an outsider to the hateful Xian society. The way Khana said the words, though… it highlighted in that moment that despite everything they had gone through together, she still considered him to be inherently less than her. He had a deficiency from birth because his ancestors were not considered great.

  Khana seemed to realize she had gone too far and attempted to pull it back. “What I mean is that I am part of this family and they should treat me like it.”

  “They disinherited you. So far as I can tell, that decision still stands. You’re only in the pace now because of your association with me. If you don’t think I deserve the consideration of the Fifth Household, Master Khana, then perhaps we should move out of here.” Volithur didn’t give her a chance to respond. He exited the infirmary and slunk towards his own room, cradling his wounded arm.

  Somehow he had forgotten about Khana’s noble status. Even disinherited from the household, she remained above commoners. The fact that his efforts alone would determine their fortune in life did not make him her equal. He was a commoner. He would never be able to forget the way she spat the word like it was unpleasant in her mouth.

  He remembered how she had so ardently read the poem to Ulysses at the Evergreen Institute’s academic competition. That was how Khana behaved towards a man she thought her equal. When had she ever been so passionate about him? She had noticed his childish infatuation and engineered a trap that would let her harness her future to his. Her passion between the sheets could be easily expined away as the means she used to manipute him.

  In the grip of his anger, Volithur didn’t know if he was being unreasonable or seeing things clearly for the first time. Could he have been fooled so thoroughly? Was the indolent Khana even capable of such a long-running calcution and deception? He didn’t know. At the moment, he didn’t much care.

  His wife thought he was beneath her. She was on the side of his oppressors, the people he intended to take down. That enraged him. Volithur sat on his favorite chair in his room and seized upon chaos. If he gained enough power, nothing would matter. Not the dislike of Master Aramar, not the momentary whims of members of the household, and not even Khana’s disdain. He just had to climb to the top of the Xian world.

  The pain of his forearm spurred him to greater efforts. The resulting nausea allowed him to ignore meal times. Khana avoided their room and him, leaving Volithur to furiously cultivate. The sole interruption was when the Casteln arrived to drop off the bottle of uncut spirits that had been promised. The Casteln politely removed the cork since Volithur would not be able to handle that task with only one working hand.

  Sitting by himself, Volithur took a hearty swig and almost sprayed the liquid across the bed. It burned in his mouth and tasted of fire and smoke and sickness. He forced a swallow with every st bit of willpower he possessed, then sat still in queasy determination, worried that jostling his stomach would bring back up the caustic substance.

  The sense of wrongness only grew stronger as the minutes passed. It felt like his guts were being dissolved from within. It took at least ten minutes before the cosmic energy within that single gulp became liberated.

  A vast flood of energy rose in his body.