I stretched and felt my neck pop. It felt good to work out the kinks, even if my qi-strengthened body didn’t really need it. Even after a few hours of remaining more or less in the same position, I knew I was ready to run or fight right away. Just one of the little benefits of cultivation, which most people didn’t think much about.

I retreated carefully, keeping an eye on the gate and the traffic from and to it, or just passing it. Not many people were allowed through. The Zarian had set a sizable force to guard it, though, and two of them had to be in a high stage.

I ducked into an alley, then breathed a sigh of relief. No one seemed to have noticed me, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t followed. I extended my domain to unlock the door in front of me, then entered, pulling it shut behind me.

Then I froze for a moment, before I continued stepping into the room, shaking my head. “Elia, why are you here?”

The girl, who was sitting on a ramshackle table with her feet kicking in the air, shrugged. “Wanted to see what you were up to, and you’d been gone for a bit …”

Something in her expression was off. I frowned, thinking back to what might be the cause of that, before it hit me.

She was off the table and on her feet in a flash, backing away toward the other door. “Please don’t kill me.”

I crossed my arms — stupid, crap, I need to be more careful — then extended my domain again. It caught the door, securing it. Then I grabbed her with light-spotted darkness and towed her to a spot against the wall, where I could keep her better.

I stayed silent for a moment, considering if I should, in fact, kill her. A large part of me was in favor of it. She’d seen me using my domain, which meant she knew I was in the fourth stage and had been hiding my identity. That made her a risk, one that could set the Zarian on me and really ruin my day.

I eased my grip, shaking my head. “I’m not going to kill you.” I took a step closer, anyway. “You didn’t seem surprised. At least, not surprised at the fact I have a domain.”

She sighed, visibly relaxing as she leaned against the wall. “Yes, I knew you were a lot stronger than you pretended to be. Like me, so I’m in no position to judge, I suppose. You must have noticed that, I doubt my veil would fool you.”

I nodded. “You’re in the third stage and cultivate fire and light, though you’ve only used the former here.” I suspected there was more to her than that, as well, though I didn’t say that.

“Right. Could we talk about this later? Not the best place for this kind of discussion, boss.”

I cocked my head, then shrugged and let her go. If she hadn’t betrayed me yet, then it wasn’t like sparing her life after finding out that she knew would make her more likely to do it. I just needed to keep an eye on her. “Sure. Let’s head back.”

She dusted herself off and smiled, then got the door for me. But despite her cavalier attitude, I noticed that she was careful sure not to make any sudden movements, or any that could be construed as threatening. We stepped into the street and started walking back.

The city hadn’t changed much. By now, I knew it had some overly complicated, long name that translated to something like ‘Two Riverbeds’. It had been a few days. Things might have gotten more tense, with people preferring to walk in groups, keep weapons on hand, and get their business done quickly, but there had been little change from the Zarian. I wondered how long they’d keep the city this locked down. Well, maybe they only needed it as a staging point for military operations, and didn’t care much about long-term effects on the local economy.

No one gave us more than a second glance as we made our way through the streets. The gate was some distance from our lodgings, but the streets were empty enough that we could move quickly. People even moved out of the way for me on occasion.

I glanced at Elia. With my current appearance, I looked closer to my mental age, rather than the teenager my body was really stuck as. That still made me young for the third stage. Common enough even for wealthy families or minor sects, but clearly ‘better’ than most people. Especially in places this influenced by the Zarian Dominion. It meant both that Elia herself was talented and probably not from a poor background, and that she had to suspect I had some backing.

Of course, I imagine things are different for spirit-children, aren’t they?

After half an hour, we were walking deeper into the poor quarter of the city around our current home, and were closing in on it. I kept an eye out for the various people that were on the street and watching it. A fair number of them were younger and had some signs of their allegiance to a gang or local syndicate. Farther on the edge, there were women whose clothing and attitude didn’t leave much doubt to their profession, but they seemed to stick to the outskirts of the area. Only toughs and people with the look of refugees hung around the more dilapidated part.

I took a deep breath, then fought not to grimace as the stink washed over me. We were almost there, although we’d taken a circuitous route. I could see a boy from our group on the rooftop of a dilapidated building. His head nodded at me before he ducked down further, out of my view.

“You know,” Elia commented. “They’re all gushing about how sophisticated and classy you are. You do a good job of hiding it, but I can see you’re not used to these conditions, and you probably couldn’t be a crass and vulgar low-tier if your life depended on it.”

I stifled a sigh. You’d be surprised. I hope. “There’s little hope of convincing them I’m some ‘gutter trash’ nobody, anyway,” I pointed out. “It’s not like many of the refugees around here didn’t use to have more, before the Zarian confiscated or the war destroyed what they relied on to maintain their livelihoods.”

“Sure,” she agreed. “But some people, especially from the other gangs, don’t like it.”

I snorted. What did I care if they liked it or not? Hopefully, I wouldn’t have to deal with this sort of problem for much longer, anyway.

Once we reached the building, I got nods and half-bows from a few boys loitering around it. One of them opened the door for us. I nodded at them, glancing around to check that everything was in order and trying to sense if anything was amiss. Besides a few people that must have been from local gangs watching us from a distance, I didn’t notice anything. Those had been keeping an eye on us for a while.

On the inside, people were a lot more relaxed around me now. They didn’t try to avoid catching my eye, just continued with what they were doing. A few days of seeing I wasn’t about to hit someone for looking at me the wrong way must have done it. I quickly refilled the water basin, which was nearing empty again, grumbling under my breath. But I was glad that they all looked cleaner. Not only did it help my nose, the last thing I wanted was an epidemic breaking out. And while it was annoying, having to create water didn’t bother me.

I was just about to head back to my room and work on my formations some more, when I noticed a change in my qi senses. One of the young men outside had flared his qi in a signal. Farther out, although beyond the range I was supposed to have, I sensed another boy who’d done the same, a bit earlier. They were raising the alarm, or at least putting us on alert. I sighed, made sure I had my bag, then headed for the door again.

Elia and the stronger members of the group were already gathering. The others bowed to me when I showed up. I noticed that most of them held knifes, wooden posts, or whatever could serve as weapons.

“The Red Dragons are coming, boss,” the lookout reported. “They brought a strong one.”

I suppressed a sigh and nodded. “Alright. Be ready and stay alert, but don’t provoke them or pick a fight if you can help it.”

We didn’t have much time until the gang showed up. They all wore a splash of red, at least an armband, and carried better weapons than my side. Most of them were in the second stage, and the man in the middle was in the third. He had the look of someone aged by circumstances and lifestyle, probably no older than his thirties but with bad teeth and sunken skin.

“Hello, friends,” Elia called out in the local language. I didn’t catch most of what came next, just enough to tell that she was trying to be friendly.

“Shut up,” the third stager replied. He led the pack forward, facing me, with the others fanning out behind him. “You, third tier,” he said in Zarian. “We don’t want your kind here. Foreigners and those growing rich off others’ work. If you leave, we’ll leave the rest of them alone.”

“You just want me to go?” I asked.

“Don’t,” Elia cut in. Some of the others echoed her.

“They’ll treat us worse than before,” one of the boys mumbled. “Let’s kick their teeth in, boss.”

I looked at my group. They seemed, if anything, grimly determined to stand their ground. Maybe that was my fault. By giving them good treatment and a bit of hope when they were at rock bottom, I might have only made them clutch onto it harder. I didn’t know if I could keep them from turning this into a fight, even if I gave in.

And there was a Zarian patrol heading this way, quickly coming closer.

“These people don’t want me to leave.” I shrugged at the gang in a ‘what can you do’ kind of way. “Isn’t there some other way to settle this?”

Their leader growled and stepped forward. Earth flew towards him from the ground, forming gauntlets around his hands and dotting the ground between us with small molehills, dislodging paving stones. “No.”

I took a step forward as well, calling a fireball to my hand. Then, recognizing that I should show off just a bit, I formed a technique that shrouded the people behind me in flickering light. It was a modification of my Light’s Speed buff that made it more obviously belong to fire instead of light. They could set things on fire with it in addition to moving more quickly.

The other gang members hesitated at that, glancing at each other nervously. Maybe proper techniques were rarer here than I realized. Especially complex, well-executed combat techniques.

But their hesitation ended the fight before it had the chance to begin. I could tell when the second stagers realized the Zarian patrol was approaching, by the way they flinched and turned in that direction. I grimaced, suppressed a curse, and took a step back again. Why did they have to move so quickly?

“What is going on here?” a loud voice boomed in Zarian, just as the group of six soldiers rounded the corner. They stopped in front of us, letting some of their auras be felt. The weight was enough to send the weaker people present to their knees.

I bowed towards the speaker. “Nothing of significance, sir. Just some ruffians doing a bit of posturing, but we just about turned them away. I’m sorry to inconvenience you.”

The gang leader gritted his teeth, then bowed as well. “As she says. Nothing of consequence, just some ruffian where she doesn’t belong.”

“You were coming to our accommodations,” I countered, still calm. “But it doesn’t matter, as we are both going back inside now, aren’t we?”

“Do that,” the soldier said. “I don’t care about whatever petty gang dispute you have going on, but we won’t tolerate fighting in the street. And whoever did this to the street better fix it before I decide to start caring.”

My opponent gritted his teeth harder, then used some earth qi to patch up the changes he’d caused in the street.

“Actually …” one of the other soldiers mumbled. “What’s that voice?”

I glanced at him, then had to force myself to continue the motion and turn around without tensing up.

I hadn’t recognized him before, because he was in the back and had been concealed by another soldier, but now that they’d shifted I could see his face. The talkative soldier, the one who’d escorted me from the room I’d woken up in on the airship. Dammit.

“Excuse me, sirs, ma’ams,” I said, already starting to walk away.

The other gang was leaving, and the people from my building were taking my cue, even if they glanced at the Zarian soldiers hesitantly. But I couldn’t worry about them now. I needed to leave. It took most of my willpower to keep walking in a brisk but relaxed manner instead of running.

I hadn’t really altered my voice. Another stupid mistake, with potentially dire consequences. Shit. Sure, there was a small adjustment due to the changes I’d done to the rest of my body, but I couldn’t bank on that being enough of a difference. Any moment now, the soldier might realize where he’d heard my voice before, and I needed to be gone before they started to hunt me down.

I didn’t go back to my room, but instead continued moving through the building to the back door. I hadn’t left anything here that I needed, or that would be damning if it fell into enemy hands.

“I’m going out again,” I said. “Stay put, okay?”

Then, without waiting for more of a response than a few nods, I walked. I couldn’t say goodbye to them, or warn them. That would just be time lost and maybe a clue for the Zarian.

I was starting to be sick of this whole thing, though.

I was waiting for an outcry to go up from the Zarian, maybe for soldiers to try and chase me down. But I got out of the building and the side street without any trouble. I headed to the most populated area close by and joined a crowd without anyone running after me, too. By the time I was on track to leaving the quarter, I could sense Zarian presences, or at least ones of similar strength, moving. But I avoided them, keeping to the crowds, changing my appearance a little bit.

I ducked into an empty alley for a moment to exchange my robe for a green shirt and matching jacket, and put my hair into a ponytail. Then I moved on, into the more respectable part of the city. I wanted to take a more circuitous route, but it was more important to get to the gate quickly.

I’d begun to relax, thinking I might have run on a false alarm, when I noticed the familiar presence following me.

I hesitated for a moment, then stepped into another alley and into the shadows. My pursuer followed me inside, looking around. When I stepped out of concealment, a knife raised, she was already backing away, hands held up.

“It’s me. I don’t mean you any harm, and no one else followed you.”

“Elia.” My tone was flat. “Why?”

“The Zarian are tearing up the building right now. They’re interrogating the rest, but I managed to slip away. I knew you’d head for the gate.”

“That’s good to know, but why are you following me?”

She licked her lips. “Take me with you.”

I started. “What?”

“Please, let me come with you.” Elia took a step closer, apparently uncaring that it brought her into easy reach of my weapon. “I know you’re strong. I know they’re looking for you, you’re on the run. But I’d rather come with you than stay in this craphole. You’re better than pretty much anyone I could get here. And I can be useful to you.” She lowered her gaze. “You know I can.”

I put the weapon away and sighed.

This is a complication. One I really don’t need. But she’s probably right. I frowned thoughtfully. There was definitely something about her. Whether I was right and she was just another spirit-child, or something else, I had a feeling I shouldn’t ignore it.

Or, if I was honest with myself, maybe it was just that I didn’t want to. She’d pricked my curiosity, and I wasn’t the kind of person who could ignore that.

“Fine,” I decided. “Don’t complain if you get yourself killed.”