Three days before the Mid-Autumn Festival

  Lu Na held her breath as she heard two servants walk by her hiding spot in the tight alleyway. Once they walked past, she skulked past the gates of the Lu compound.

  Lu Na laughed when she reached outside. As the Young Miss Lu, she never thought that she would have to sneak around to get out. Luckily her father had engaged every servant and guard in preparing her home for the Mid-Autumn Festival.

  Red lanterns hung on every door and paintings of the moon goddess Chang’e and her lover Hou Yi were everywhere. There was an army of jade rabbits roaming on the walls, hidden behind trees, and sculpted out of rock. Long, beautifully written poems hung off the trees. Her father spared no expense.

  A very important guest was coming.

  Not that it mattered to Lu Na. All she cared about was finally testing out her newest invention, the spirit wall. If it worked, she could prove to her father and everyone that her inventions wasn’t just an expensive hobby.

  Despite being outside of the Lu compound, she wasn’t safe yet. There were too many prying eyes. The only advantage she had was the maid’s uniform she stole from one of her maids. It wasn’t a bad trade. The maid got ten taels of silver, equivalent to a year’s worth of salary.

  It was for her silence as well, of course. Last thing Lu Na needed was a tattletale.

  Lu Na hurried to the back part of the Lu compound where her older brother trained. While technically not a part of the compound, it was still not the main street. She wasn’t a fool to test her father’s patience like that. The Young Miss Lu leaving her home without an escort?

  Lu Na wanted to test her invention, not get kidnapped.

  When she stood in the sandbox, she breathed a sigh of relief. No one should be coming here.

  Lu Na took out her mother’s silver phoenix hairpin and placed it back into her hair. It was her good luck charm and the only thing of her mother’s after she left.

  Finally it was time.

  Lu Na took a piece of yellow paper with a red string tied around it. It was her newest invention and her most ambitious yet.

  “Please don’t blow up,” Lu Na said.

  “Let’s hope not. You blew up your courtyard already,” her spirit said in her head. Even after all these years, Lu Na was still not used to that voice. How did all the other people do it?

  “I know, spirit. It’s why I’m here.” Her brother’s training ground was the perfect testing place. All it had was a bunch of dirt and some obstacles where he practiced his spear. She had come many times over the last week and used it for her own practice. She had placed many of her other inventions here.

  “Yeah, your father kicked you out of your own courtyard after the last one blew up one of his favorite rocks.”

  Lu Na chuckled. The look on his face when he showed more concern for a dumb rock sculpture than for her own safety was priceless. Luckily, after she activated the ward, she threw it away like a firecracker before it blew off her own hand. The ward was supposed to create an transparent spirit wall that stopped any spirit techniques from going through.

  A soft thud came from the main gate. Lu Na looked over, hoping that it wasn’t her brother or, worse, her father. She wasn’t allowed to be here as the training grounds was deserted. She waited quietly, hoping whoever it was would just go away. After a few minutes, she heard nothing else. Must have been a stray animal or something.

  Lu Na pulled the string and activated her new ward. She tossed it to the ground. A large spirit wall sprang up in front of her. It was invisible except for the occasional shimmer of spirit energy. She put her hand through and it didn’t explode.

  “So far, so good.”

  Lu Na took out her spirit wand and gathered spirit energy at the tip. She pushed it against the spirit wall and only the wand went through. The spirit energy couldn’t.

  “Success!”

  Someone clapped behind her.

  “Congratulations,” a man said.

  Lu Na turned swiftly.

  The man was dressed in a dark blue tunic flanked by a group of men and women in light blue tunics. There were five in all.

  “Who are you people? How did you get in here?” Lu Na asked. Her heart pounded in her ears. The adrenaline rush turning into fear.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t introduce myself. My name is Zhu. We are disciples of the Wintersweet Sect. We’ve come to invite you to our Wintersweet Sect for the Mid-Autumn Festival.”

  “I’m sorry, are you looking for Young Master Lu?” Lu Na bowed low toward the group, hiding her face. If they were from a sect, that meant they were summoners. They could rip her to shreds with their spirits. No one knew she was there.

  “These people are strong. Run,” her spirit said.

  “No, we’re looking for the Young Miss Lu.”

  “Oh, let me get her.” Lu Na tried to walk toward the exit, but was blocked by two people.

  “Young Miss Lu, we know who you are,” Zhu said. “We have been observing you here out on the far edge of your Lu compound. You don’t leave your home, but it seems our prayers were answered. We don’t know why you left your courtyard, but being able to speak with you here is a lot easier.”

  Lu Na cursed her father. If he didn’t ban her from tinkering with her inventions, she would be safe in her own courtyard.

  “If you wish to invite me, then you must know you have to speak with my father. I can’t make that sort of decision on my own.”

  “We tried. Your father is a very elitist person. He wouldn’t even see our Elder. So that’s why we resorted to climbing your wall.”

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  Of course they did. And since no one other than Lu Na’s brother used this training ground, there would be few guards that patrolled the area. All the valuable objects are under lock and key in the center of their compound.

  “We apologize if this feels sudden,” Zhu said. “We felt we needed to speak with you directly to offer you a great opportunity to visit our Wintersweet Sect and enjoy our hospitality.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “Then we must insist.” The group of summoners closed in.

  Lu Na had a feeling that was going to be the answer. She took out a ward from inside her pocket. With a simple tug, the ward activated. She dropped it to the ground. A barrel-like wall of earth raised from the ground and surrounded her.

  “How did she do that?” Zhu yelled.

  “Spirit, you remember better than me where the wards are. Please tell me before I step on them,” Lu Na said.

  “I’ll do one better.” Her spirit must have used one of her techniques because now Lu Na could see spirit energy all around her. Her earth wall glowed yellow.

  A green glow showed up on one side of the earth wall.

  Lu Na crouched close to the floor and stomped on the earth wall ward, breaking it. The wall fell away around her and she ran as fast as she could. Luckily, none of the summoners moved yet, so Lu Na knew exactly where to slip past them.

  The group of summoners chased after her.

  Lu Na saw a yellow glowing ward that she stomped as she ran past. An earth wall rose behind her. She heard a loud smack as one summoner slammed into it.

  “How is she doing that? She’s not a summoner,” a man said.

  Lu Na had entered her brother’s obstacle course where there were different sizes of rocks. He called it agility training. She hid behind a large rock that had spear sized holes through it.

  “Don’t stop here. Run and find that handsome brother of yours,” her spirit said.

  “I can’t. The only exit is behind them. This area only leads to the toilets,” Lu Na said.

  “And a short wall you can climb over to get to the servant’s courtyard. You can’t beat five summoners.”

  Lu Na couldn’t help but grimace.

  “I can’t do that. If they chase me into the servant’s courtyard, they might hurt the servants. They’re not summoners. I have to distract them here where I planted all those wards for my brother. Maybe I can hold them here until the guards arrive.”

  “No, Lu Na. You’re going to get hurt and I can’t have that.”

  “What are you, my mother?”

  “If I was, I would have left you years ago, as she did.”

  That stung, but Lu Na didn’t have time to think about that. She peeked through the hole and saw the summoners clenching their left fist. What was once only five summoners chasing her now became ten along with their spirits. She clenched her own left fist.

  “Spirit, why can’t I summon you like they can?”

  “You don’t have the training. You can only blame your father,” her spirit said.

  If Lu Na made it out of this, she’d add it to the list of things she blamed her father for. She waited until the summoners started moving before she dashed toward a raised platform. It went up into a collection of other platforms that tested your balance. She avoided all the wards she put up there to reach the center. From there, it was a quick drop onto the sand below.

  The five summoners and their spirits were not having a good time. Every few steps one of them stepped on a ward that Lu Na hid. An earth wall popped up in front of them in different shapes. One of them was so thick that they had to slash to break through.

  This gave Lu Na some time to set up her new wards. She took out the first one and almost dropped it. Her hands were shaking too much.

  “Calm down. Breathe. You can still run. The servant’s lives don’t matter as much as yours,” her spirit said.

  “That’s where you’re wrong.” Lu Na took a deep breath to calm herself. She pulled the string on the ward and activated them. She placed them on five platforms in front of her. A mostly invisible wall sprang up that shimmered with spirit energy.

  Lu Na pressed her hands together and prayed to her ancestors that these spirit walls worked. She only had the chance to test a few before the summoners showed up.

  “Spirit, should I use my mother’s hairpin now?” Lu Na touched the hairpin in her hair that she never took off. It was the last thing her mother left her before she disappeared years back.

  “No. This does not count as an emergency. If you break the pin now to activate the ward inside, you will waste it,” her spirit said.

  There was a lot of cursing before the summoners began blasting the dirt from Lu Na’s earth walls. By the time they reached the platforms, they were covered in dirt from head to toe. Their spirits weren’t any better.

  “Are you guys ready to give up and leave?” Lu Na asked. She held her hands behind her back to hide the shaking.

  Zhu wiped his face off and spat onto the ground.

  “I was trying to be nice. I was hoping you would see reason. But since you’d rather fight us, then forget it. We will not bring you to our sect.”

  “That’s good then. You guys can go back to your sect and I can go back to living my life. Everybody wins.”

  “No. Our sect leader ordered us to kill any Lu maidens that didn’t come with us.”

  “Wait, what? Kill? Why?” Maybe she should have listened to her spirit. At first, she thought they only wanted to kidnap her. But now they were going to kill her? This can’t be happening.

  “I told you to run. You still can. Don’t keep talking with them. Jump down from the platform and run for the toilets,” her spirit said.

  But before Lu Na could move, an arrow struck her spirit wall right in front of her face.

  They weren’t kidding. They really were trying to kill her. And if that arrow was a physical arrow and not one made by a spirit, she would be dead right now.

  The other spirits didn’t waste time before firing off other spirit projectiles. They all stopped when they hit the spirit walls.

  The other summoners were running up the ramp onto the platforms.

  Lu Na turned and dropped from her platform. The moment she hit the ground, another arrow whizzed past her, narrowly missing her. But she wasn’t that lucky as a ball of water hit her in the back. She stumbled forward.

  It knocked the air from her lungs and it hurt. There was a spasm shooting up her back.

  “Use your spirit wall behind you Lu Na,” her spirit said.

  Lu Na took out another spirit wall ward and activated it. It helped, but with just one the spirits focused their attacks and soon broke it with one volley. If she had not jumped down when she did, she would have noticed that they broke through all the spirit walls on the platforms already.

  There was a loud crack from the platforms behind her. It must have been one of the earth wall wards she set up on it. Hopefully, it threw the idiot hard.

  Lu Na ran for the toilets. She could already smell them before she saw them. She never made it.

  One summoner tackled her from behind, forcing her into the hard ground.

  Lu Na shoved the summoner off her with a kick and tried to scramble away. She was flipped onto her back, and Zhu held an arrow to her chest.

  “Don’t move,” Zhu said.

  “Just kill her and run before the guards come. That was too loud for them not to investigate,” one summoner said.

  “No, we can’t make an enemy of the Lu family here. They’re connected with the Sun family. They might be on a campaign, but they will come back, eventually. Our sect can’t win against an army. Since we have her now, we can go back. Help me—”

  A large earth wall rose from the ground and shoved all the summoners away from Lu Na. A hand on her shoulder pulled her back.

  “How is she doing that?”

  “Nevermind. Kill her now,” Zhu said. “Whoever is doing that is too strong for us to deal with.”

  Lu Na closed her eyes.

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