Prologue

Cinder was used to a certain level of both discomfort and comfort, yes yes yes. She was, currently, the young mistress of her sect, and that had afforded her some luxuries that the average citizen of the Flaming Steppes could only dream of.

It also meant that she had ruined herself in the name of progress and in the endless pursuit of power. She was raised to expect pain and suffering and torment in order to become just a little bit stronger.

She wasn’t sure where her current predicament fit.

She was sitting on a plush seat. Fluffed cushions squeezed beneath her derriere and her feet rested comfortably upon a little stool that was adjusted to just the right height for her. There was a small tray just at hand’s length with little snacks (at the moment these were crackers with a selection of cheeses and meats and a few decadent sauces) and there was a large fluted glass with some sort of bubbly water to her side. It oozed with magical strength and she suspected that some cultivators would murder for a sip of it.

This was, without any doubt, the most comfortable she had ever been in her entire life.

She was also sitting across from the person that some people would call the God of Death (or the death of gods, depending on how liberal one wanted to be with ancient translations). He was sitting, one bony plaid-clad femur across the other, with his skull resting against a closed fist while a book hovered before him.

The book’s spine was clearly made from the spine of some small creature. There was a skull on the cover that routinely cried black tears, and whenever a page was turned, the book sobbed. She had read the title when Harold pulled the large book from the small pockets of his tweed jacket, Courting Death: Married Life for the Recently Deceased.

The book’s pitiful cries were the only sound in the carriage. She wasn’t even sure if the world outside existed anymore, it was so quiet. She hadn’t touched her drink or the snacks, just in case it made any noise which might distract the undead sitting across from her.

This made the situation altogether rather uncomfortable.

Harold didn’t have eyes, but Cinder could feel his sudden attention on her. She sat up straighter and resisted the urge to adjust her robes.

“Are you not hungry?” Harold asked.

“I’m fine fine fine,” Cinder said. She tightened the muscles of her chest, stopping her stomach from growling. The food smells delicious. She really wanted to eat it, but she also wanted to keep her head attached to her shoulders. That latter desire was currently winning out.

She’d suffered plenty in her cultivation. Skipping a meal was nothing.

There was a snort from next to her as the third person in the carriage finally moved. Mem’s head came up, and she idly rubbed at one of her eyes with the elbow of one of her scythe arms. “What’s happening?” she asked.

“I was wondering why Cinder hasn’t eaten,” Harold said. “Are you hungry?”

“There’s food?” Mem asked.

“You were given some as well,” Cinder said. That was a few hours ago, of course. The carriage had come to a stop and the strange cat-eared and cat-tailed Alex had opened the door to see how everyone was doing.

Mem looked around and discovered the plate next to her seat. “Oh, Mem doesn’t remember eating this. Mem must have been asleep.”

“You can eat while sleeping?” Cinder asked.

Mem make a gesture with her arms, raising and then lowering them. Cinder supposed it was as closest a mantic could get to shrugging. “Sometimes Mem’s food isn’t there when Mem wakes up. But Mem has never eaten anything nice while sleeping. You don’t have to worry.”

Cinder wasn’t worrying about that before, but now she was.

The mantis people were a scourge. Mem... or perhaps her siblings, had been terrorizing the Ashen Forest since long before Cinder was born. Her great-great grandfather, the originator of the ashen Forest sect, had written extensively about the founding of the sect.

It came to exist where it was explicitly because of the predations of Mem’s goddess mother.

The Mantis Queen had a taste for cultivators. Young, powerful men in particular. The Ashen Forest, as one of the least hospitable places on the continent that was still within the Flaming Steppes, was the perfect place for their sect to settle.

Her entire family history was filled with members dying to the poisonous plants in the region, to the impossibly cruel weather, and to the wild, untamed magics that made the forest a supernatural threat, but those deaths were probably fewer than those who would have died eaten by the Mantis Queen.

Or so they hoped.

Now... she suspected that even if the queen was removed, the Ashen Forest sect would remain where it was. They had made the forest their home, tied it into their culture and cultivation.

She loved her sect, dearly, but she would be the first to admit that they were perhaps a little set in their ways.

Cinder picked up the tray with the little snacks. It seemed as if Harold didn’t mind there being noise in his carriage while he read. She still wasn’t sure what to think of him, but he seemed overall rather nice. It was terrifying. “Did you want to share?” she asked Mem.

The mantis perked up. “Yes, please.”

Very, very carefully, Mem reached over with just the tips of her scythes and pinched a cracker before removing it from the plate. It swiftly found its way into her mandibles and its crumbs joined a dusting across her chest.

Cinder took one for herself and brought it close to the bottom of her mask. She tugged the bottom up and out. The cool air across her lower face stung, but just for a moment before she was nibbling away at her snack and the mask was back in place.

It was, as she suspected, delicious. Surprisingly however, there was a distinct lack of magical potency. It was merely a well made, entirely mundane meal.

“Would you mind if I enquire about Alex?” she asked.

Harold turned his head towards her. There were no eyes to see in his skull, though the faint magical orbs within swirled her way. “I don’t mind. Though I imagine Alex knows more about Alex than I do.”

“Of course, of course, of course,” Cinder said. “I wouldn’t ask anything to you that I think is unkind. I am merely curious.”

“I am not the sort to leave curiosity unsatisfied,” Harold said. “Ask away.”

Cinder cleared her throat. “This food is quite good,” she said with a gesture to the plate. Mem was muttering something which summoned a small, ethereal hand. It glided over and plucked a canape away. “But I can’t help but notice that it’s not filled with any more ki than a mundane meal.”

Harold tilted his head, as though considering. “Do your meals usually have ki in them? Also, is it ki, or chi? I never quite understood the distinction.”

Cinder sniffed. “Those to the south call it chi, but they’re obviously just wrong,” she said. “In any case, yes, rare ingredients will be potent with life-giving energies. These can help you heal, grow stronger, or just help you refine your cultivation.”

“I see,” Harold said. “I’m no stranger to the alchemical arts. I made a study of them for a century or so, though alchemy and the more mundane science of chemistry were never my favourite subjects. I wonder if sects like your own practice something similar to that art?”

“I think so,” Cinder said. “I have studied the art of making poisons, as have many in the Ashen Forest. The same techniques that can improve the potency of a poison can also be used to increase the potency of foods and tinctures and pills.”

“How very interesting. I often feel like the world has regressed significantly when it comes to magic and in some ways culture. It would be nice to see at least one field where significant improvements have been made.”

Cinder bobbed her head in a slow bow. She would make note of that. The sect had a vested interest in impressing this undead man.

Or they would, once she explained things to them, which she was very much not looking forward to.

“I’ll be certain to show you around, once we arrive,” Cinder said.

“Tomorrow will be a busy day, then,” Harold said.

“Tomorrow?” she asked. Yu Xiang, the city they’d departed from and which was still under the control of the rather terrifying (at least according to her reputation) General Limpet, was weeks away from the Ashen Forest. A cultivator going all out could certainly traverse that distance in a shorter span, but... but Harold seemed certain that they would be there by tomorrow, and she wasn’t ready to doubt him yet.

At least she wouldn’t have to stew in her worried for long.

***