Unintended Cultivator

The prince summoned a servant to lead him back out to the gate. Sen was pretty sure he could have found his own way, but he supposed that the prince and his guards weren’t comfortable having a stranger wandering around the building. Sen knew that he wouldn’t want strangers roaming his home if he had one. He’d barely left the prince’s compound before he sensed the cultivators start following him. Sen briefly wondered if they intended for him to notice, then realized that he was holding them to his standards of evasion and hiding. While he could debate his skill level in most things, he knew that his ability to go unseen was, if not unmatched, the next best thing to it. Sen devised a quick plan. He kept close track of the cultivators so he could time it properly. He waited until he rounded a corner, then he hid, and used his qinggong technique to reach a nearby alley. He wrapped himself in shadow and waited.

The cultivators who had been following him didn’t waste any time. He saw a very confused-looking man with an unfortunately patchy beard round the corner. His eyes swept the entire area frantically. Sen was most interested in the uniform he wore. It was the same as the ones worn by Falling Leaf’s attackers. A moment later, three more cultivators converged on the man. There was enough environmental noise that Sen couldn’t make out what they were saying, but they all looked agitated and nervous. After another nervous exchange, the group split up. Some of them went into nearby buildings, while others started searching the foot traffic and peering down alleys. Sen smiled as he watched one of the cultivator’s eyes pass right over where he was standing. He waited until the cultivator turned away to look somewhere else, then grabbed the man and threw him deeper into the alley. Sen stalked toward the man, his body still wreathed in shadow. The cultivator thrashed around in the garbage pile Sen had thrown him into before he realized that a large shadowy figure was closing the distance.

“You’re courting death,” the man said, although there was no conviction in his voice. “The Steel Gryphon sect will see you dead for this.”

“I didn’t care about that yesterday. Why would I care now?”

“It’s you,” said the cultivator.

“Yes. Why are you following me?”

“We were sent with a message.”

Sen drew his jian and cycled for lightning. “I’m sure you were.”

“Not that kind of message!” the man shrieked.

“I don’t believe you,” said Sen, looming over the man and pressing the tip of his jian into the hollow at the base of the other cultivator’s throat. “If your friends come any closer, I’m going to kill all of you.”

“We really were sent with a message,” said a woman from behind Sen.

“You don’t stalk people you have messages for. Everyone in this damn city knows where I’m staying. You could have gone there.”

“Let the others go,” said the woman. “I’ll stay.”

“You’ll stay anyway,” said Sen, pressing the jian in enough to draw blood.

“Please,” said the woman. “This was my idea. They shouldn’t pay the price for it.”

Sen wasn’t particularly inclined to let any of them go. He didn’t believe the woman, but the other option was another bloodbath. There had been so much blood and death in the last year that it made Sen tired every time he considered it. In the end, though, it was the woman’s use of the word please that tipped the scale. He pulled the jian away from the throat of the man on the ground.

“If the other three aren’t gone in the next five seconds,” Sen said over his shoulder to the woman, “I’m going to send your sect another message.”

When no one moved for a moment, the woman snapped out an order. “Go!”

There was a scramble of footsteps and the other three cultivators raced away, no doubt to get more help. Sen didn’t even bother turning around.

“So, are you going to stall for time, or we should get right to it?”

“I didn’t come to fight,” she said.

“Assassins never do.”

“I’m not an assassin!”

“That would be more convincing if you hadn’t acted like an assassin,” said Sen.

Sen activated his qinggong technique and launched himself into the air. He tapped a foot against a wall and launched himself onto the rooftops. Unlike his rooftop trip the day before, he took more care not to leave a trail of architectural carnage in his wake. While he fully expected to run into more Steel Gryphon sect members, no one got in his way. The cultivators he did identify were always at a sufficient distance that he was relatively confident they weren’t looking for him. Still, he was aggravated when he got back to the inn. He wordlessly collected the pile of scrolls and letters that were waiting for him and went upstairs. Sen had barely gotten back to his room when he heard a knock. A quick scan told him it was Falling Leaf, and he suppressed the urge to tell her to go away. It wasn’t her fault that other people had put him in a bad mood. He went over and let her in. She eyed him for a moment.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I ran into some Steel Gryphon sect members.”

Her eyes went hard. Then, she was scanning him, looking for damage. “What did they do?”

“Nothing. Although, I have no idea if that’s how they expected it to go. I caught them off guard.”

“You let them live?”

Her tone told him all he needed to know about her thoughts on that matter. Sen couldn’t really blame her. She’d taken the brunt of the abuse from them. If he was in her position, he’d probably want them all dead, too.

“I did. I don’t want to develop a reputation,” Sen sighed, “more of a reputation for leaving piles of dead bodies behind me. That kind of reputation can attract a lot of attention, most of it of the kind none of us want.”

“They should know better, now.”

“You would think. At any rate, nothing happened, so we don’t need to do anything about it. I’m taking that as a good thing for the moment.”

Based on the smoldering fury he saw in her eyes, Falling Leaf clearly didn’t share that opinion. Still, she hadn’t gone out looking for trouble. Sen had half expected to come back and find her gone.

“Did you learn anything from the prince?” she asked.

“I did. He thinks that they attacked us because of him. He’s involved in some kind of ongoing conflict with them. I didn’t ask for details, although I probably should have. I’ll ask him about it tomorrow. Beyond that, he just gave me a general picture of the local political situation.”

Falling Leaf frowned a little. “That will be helpful for you?”

Sen shrugged. “I expect it will.”

Falling Leaf fell silent for long enough that Sen wondered if she was still feeling the effects of the injuries she’d taken.

“You came to help me,” said Falling Leaf. “I didn’t thank you.”

Sen stood up and walked over to Falling Leaf. He looked her in the eyes.

“You don’t ever have to thank me for something like that. I will never knowingly leave you in danger.”

Falling Leaf smiled, but there was something sad in it. “You may have to one day. None of us know what the future will bring. When I was young, I thought I would live with my pride for my whole life. Then, they were gone. You are my pride now. Even the Feng, the Kho, and the Caihong are my pride. Sometimes, you must sacrifice yourself. Sometimes, you must let others sacrifice for you.”

Sen shook his head. “No. I won’t sacrifice you. If that means we fall together, then we fall together. If that means I die so you can live, then I’ll die, and I’d do it gladly.”

“My life is not worth more than yours.”

It was Sen’s turn to smile if with less sadness. “Yes, it is. It is to me.”

Falling Leaf fell silent, her eyes distant. “I don’t like this place. This city. I can’t see the dangers here.”

“I don’t like it either. I promise we’ll leave as soon as we can.”

Falling Leaf never got the chance to answer as there was another knock on the door. Sen lowered his head, heaved a breath, and answered it. One of the inn’s staff was standing there and looking profoundly nervous.

“Yes?” Sen asked with an extra helping of weariness in his voice.

“I’m sorry to disturb you. There is someone asking for you. They were very insistent.”

“Did they say who they were?”

“They’re from the Steel Gryphon sect.”

Sen felt Falling Leaf start getting her qi ready for violence behind him. He felt his own expression harden.

“I see,” he said. “I’ll be right down.”

The inn employee read the mood in the room, offered a hasty bow, and disappeared. Sen felt his anger bubble up in a way that had been almost entirely absent since his time with the dragon. He let his eyes drift over to where Falling Leaf stood. Her expression was openly murderous. Sen had no idea what his expression looked like, but he expected it was much the same.

“Let’s go greet our visitor,” he said.

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