Ahren fumed as he awaited the arrival of his co-conspirators. Fellow Patriarch Rie Gian was on time, but Matriarch Shu was, as usual, late. The woman made a habit of arriving after everyone else, requiring the rest of them to wait for her.

  Ahren had spent over fifty years working closely with Rie Gian and Shu. The three together had close to a controlling share of votes on the Council of Thirteen, needing to sway only a single other chair to their side to win four of the seven actual votes. They didn't always agree, but had made arrangements to work together for the good of all the charter sects.

  The Empire’s course was like that of a riverboat flowing slowly, steadily, downriver. It carried precious cargo along with it and the lives of millions rested on its safety. The Office of Cultivation and the ordinary sects were banks of oars on either side of the boat, propelling it along. The Emperor was the captain, commanded things to be done. But the Council of Thirteen was the tiller of the ship, steering it gently from current to current, keeping it off of sandbars and snags which lay hidden beneath the surface of the water.

  When Shu at last arrived, Ahren acknowledged them both, then engaged the scripts warding his office. Rie Gian and Shu both could have torn through them easily enough; these were meant to prevent outside ears from eavesdropping. He felt Rie Gian and Shu stretch their wills out to test the scripts before the two returned his gaze.

  "What have you found out?" Rie Gian asked.

  Ahren spread the documents he had paid good coin to have copied from the Imperial Archives across the table. He'd had time only to peruse them at a high level. "The Sect of Morning Mist has been acknowledged as a charter sect not just by the Office of Cultivation, but by the Inquisition and the Emperor himself," he said.

  Matriarch Shu rolled her eyes. "I could have told you that, as could anyone else who bothered to attend the trial of their grandmaster last month."

  "Some of us have better things to do than attend every Inquisition hearing that's held," Ahren said with a sniff.

  "And some of us know that watching what the Inquisition does is likely to give us a heads-up on political events," Shu retorted. "I was right when I told you Prism Eri would make her move this year, wasn't I?"

  Ahren scowled. Shu had indeed predicted that Eri would move against the other prisms and the Emperor, and had been proven right. It had been obvious to anyone who paid the least amount of attention that Prism Eri was going to rebel sooner or later, but Ahren had expected it to be another handful of years. For one, Eri had a petition in progress at the time of her rebellion to elevate her own sect to charter sect rank. That was unprecedented. While prisms might arise from charter sects and temporarily elevate their own sect even higher, no sect had joined the rank of charter sects since the beginning of the Empire. And if Ahren had his way, they never would.

  "Their grandmaster is this man Noren who stood trial,” he continued. "I suppose you saw him there?” he asked Shu, who nodded.

  She placed her hands on the copied pages describing Noren. "This is accurate so far as it goes. He's unquestionably at the Lux Dominator stage, perhaps higher."

  The three of them were officially Lux Dominators. Each had the ability to crack Lumos and a limited set of circumstances in which they would be permitted to do so. Ahren had absolutely no doubt that he could go toe to toe with cultivators in the world beyond the Empire whose ranks were higher than Lux Dominator. But within the Empire itself, that was the highest grade of license issued. It wasn't particularly wise to boast that one's strength went beyond those domains.

  "He clearly has spent many years outside the Empire. Just as obviously, he's of our people originally,” Shu declared.

  "Then it is as I feared," Ahren said. "Kang Dai Rel has survived all this time. He has returned to the Empire."

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  He had shown Matriarch Shu and Patriarch Rie Gian the signature on the letter Dai Rel had sent him, though not the content of it.

  Patriarch Rie Gian frowned. "I think it's more likely that this Kang Dai Rel perished along with his original sect, and this Noren found their relics and resuscitated them," he said.

  "I tell you, Dai Rel is alive. No one else could know the things he said," Ahren retorted. "I would be the happiest of men if I were wrong."

  "What if this Noren found Dai Rel's shade?" Matriarch Shu suggested.

  That was possible. A Lux ghost could survive for some many hundred years if it was given an environment for doing so. A charter sect would unquestionably have a headquarters that included a shade library.

  Ahren's heart lightened just a bit at the thought of Dai Rel as a ghost and not a living being. If that was the case, then Morning Mist's knowledge and power would be fractured and divided. Lux ghosts always had their own agendas. The chance of one working harmoniously with this Grandmaster Noren was not high. "That's an avenue worth pursuing. We shall try to infiltrate some spies into their headquarters."

  Matriarch Shu nodded. "The Gem Court is hosting a series of parties in honor of Morning Mist."

  "What did they do to rate such favor?" Ahren asked, while at the same time making a gesture to ward off ill fortune. May the heavens preserve me from such favor, he thought.

  "They have a great many unmarried cultivators," Matriarch Shu said, with an edge of irony in her voice.

  The three exchanged knowing looks. "It does sound like someone found the relics of Morning Mist and re-established the sect without knowing what they are doing," Ahren admitted. "How many unmarried?”

  "Well over fifty percent," Matriarch Shu said. She couldn't keep the smile off her face as the two men chuckled. That was an absolute disaster waiting to happen. The Gem Court would never allow such a situation to stand. They would force cultivator marriages on Morning Mist's disciples. That would throw the sect into havoc. So many new cultivator spouses coming in would be a huge burden on their existing support structure, as well as distracting the cultivators for an unknown amount of time.

  "Better than that," Matriarch Shu said, “I’ll arrange to have several of my own unmarried cultivator disciples invited to the Court, the ones who also rank as Gem Court nobles." She smirked as she looked at the two men.

  Ahren nodded in agreement. "I'll speak to my head spouses and see if they can come up with some of our own.”

  It was a workaround many sects used to make sure that their most promising sons and daughters married spouses who were cultivators themselves rather than useless noble drones. The children of blue-ranked nobles were green-ranked nobles. The children of green-ranked nobles, yellow nobles. If those children also happened to be the favored sons and daughters of a sect, then they could marry into other sects, fulfilling the letter of the law’s requirement that a cultivator spouse be of noble birth. Sometimes these marriages were arranged from the cradle in order to share techniques across sect boundaries. Other times, they were happy accidents. "If we can get a few of our cultivators inside of Morning Mist, we can find out what exactly they are really up to," Matriarch Shu suggested.

  "Bind our own children to a sect with questionable backing and heritage?" Patriarch Rie Gian asked, his voice laced with dismay. "Never. I think we should take action to show them that we know that they are not truly a charter sect. I doubt they will be able to put together a proper team for the Four Continents Manifestation of Power, for one. Under the terms of our agreement the other day, that will remove their charter sect status, if indeed it holds up to the scrutiny that they're about to find themselves under." He smirked. "They've overreached. One of them is supposed to be marrying an Indigo Princess."

  At that, Matriarch Shu shuddered. "I think you're right, Rie Gian. I will tell my disciples to have nothing to do with them."

  Her tone caught his attention. Was her change of heart an act? Something about her manner suggested falsehood. Her face was inscrutable. He dismissed his musing. She was always up to something. Trying to unravel every one of her schemes was pointless.

  "In that case, I think a little proper intimidation is in order," Ahren said. "We shall show them that while they may have fooled the Office of Cultivation, they have not impressed us. I suggest we encourage some of our lower-ranked disciples to express their own opinions of Morning Mist. Nothing particularly dangerous, mind. But you know how young people are."

  He smiled, remembering a few pranks he himself had pulled off as a young man.

  Rie Gian was nodding. "Slogans scrawled on their walls, some of their lesser disciples roughed up in the street. Burning dung flung into their grounds, that sort of thing."

  "Precisely," Ahren said. "And we will send a command invitation to this Grandmaster Noren for our next Council of Thirteen. I think we should try to get his measure and decide if any other courses should be taken."

  It was good to have allies, and good to know that their continued steering of the Council of Thirteen would continue. Anything that threatened the stability of the Council threatened the Empire itself.

  It would not, could not, be permitted.

  And no ghost from the past would be allowed to try.