Daphne’s new serving girl was a natural jade beauty—raw, rough, and unrefined, but brimming with potential.

Maybe with a nicer dress, Daphne thought. Cobalt or emerald would compliment her rich, dark skin and brown eyes nicely. A few hours each morning meditating on the dao of cultivating appearances would not go amiss either. Daphne nodded. Her serving girl could be a black swan, one that many arrogant young masters might not die for, but would certainly kill for.

Serving girl fidgeted as she noticed Daphne’s attentions on her, which now lingered far longer than was appropriate to pay servants. Really that meant anything more than a glance, and Daphne had been observing her for much longer than that. Her cup of tea nearly drained now.

“Tracey, how old are you?” Daphne asked.

“Um, my lady, that’s not my name,” Tracey said in lieu of an answer, her aquiline nose wrinkling.

“My serving girl is called Tracey,” Daphne said. “If I employ a Mary, I shall call her Tracey because she is my serving girl.”

Tracey blinked. “I turn seventeen this year,” she said. Listening closer to her now, there was a stumble in her voice as she spoke the words in the High Speech. She trilled her r’s and there was a breathy quality to her words.

“And where are you from?” Daphne asked. Her appearance was uncommon within the Everbloom itself, though there were many places in the Empire one could find the likes of her.

“I don’t know the name of my village,” she said. “It’s … near the Great Oasis?”

Dunelander blood then, Daphne thought. An odd way to refer to the Great Lake, but that was a peculiarity of the desert people to the west and their kin who lived around that immense body of water. She must have hailed from the eastern fringes of the Great Lake though, which were long under the dominion of the Everbloom.

Daphne nodded to herself. From what she understood, this would be Tracey’s last year at the school if she did not find herself a patron before the next summer. It was charity on the part of the hystors to educate the most promising among the poor peasant children, but such an opportunity was not an excuse to become complacent. A journey of a thousand li did not end after the first step, nor was immortality seized after qi condensation.

If expectations were not met, even a genius could be cast aside and crippled, for jade which could not be polished was not a jade beauty.

“Your speech is unrefined,” Daphne said. “Do you not speak in this tongue where you come from?”

“No, my lady, we don’t speak the Stone Tongue,” Tracey said.

“It is the High Speech,” Daphne corrected sharply. “Only peasants refer to it as the Stone Tongue.”

“I am a peasant.”

“Everyone is well aware of that fact,” Daphne said, “but there’s no need to remind them of your origins even more.”

Tracey nodded. “Yes, my lady.”

“That dress won’t do either,” Daphne mused loudly. “Too plain to catch anyone’s attention.”

“I don’t have another dress,” she said.

“Has a young master caused a ruckus in a restaurant over you yet?”

Tracey blinked. “What?”

“Exactly,” Daphne said. Could one really call herself a jade beauty without that prerequisite? Heroes best appreciated the likes of them when they had to fight for them. If they were never challenged, they took such things for granted. For a war to be fought for one’s attention, to be the ruin of many cities with a glance, that was true power.

Daphne drained the last drops from her cup, and set it down on the table. “Go make me another cup,” she said.

Tracey bit her lower lip, before letting out an, “At once, my lady.” She picked up the cup with both hands and brought it to the side table with the silver kettle. Qi poured out of her hands in an unsteady stream, coating the kettle unevenly.

Daphne suppressed a sigh. Would she have to teach this girl everything? Were you even a human being if you did not know how to properly brew tea?

It did seem strange to Daphne how the people of this world liked to channel their qi through objects instead of through their own bodies. Perhaps they sought to raise the cultivation of the things around them, either to create artifacts and sacred relics … or even to increase their realm’s overall cultivation level itself? Her old master had pondered over such things, but there had never been a way to prove that was even possible, or find enough people willing to try.

It was ambitious, but what cultivator did not bear that mark plainly on their soul? To reach the heavens and to rule as the gods did, was that not the pinnacle of ambition?

A knock on her door interrupted her thoughts. Will, her junior brother, popped his head into the room. He’d been one of three people assigned to her protection at her insistence, though her parents disapproved of the notion considering his past failure. It wasn’t that she was particularly fond of him, but she’d already gone to the trouble of remembering his name.

“My lady, your cousin Blaise has come to visit,” Will said.

“Let him in,” Daphne said. She’d been meaning to take his measure, and the sooner the better.

Her cousin was tall, even among aristocrats. The heels he wore were not particularly high but he still towered over Daphne. His hair was not golden like hers, but dark, and he had sharp cheekbones. That was all that could be said about his features in good light. It was his luck perhaps that bedding someone often occurred at night, and so his partner would not have to gaze upon his pimpled face and pig-like snout.

“I heard you wanted to see me, cousin?” Blaise said.

“Wanted is a strong word,” Daphne said. How was her cousin like this? Had his cultivation deviated or were the scriptures given to him faulty in some way? Was he merely destined to die, the unfortunate casualty in a duel between a hero and an old monster? Daphne pitied him. “How have you been?”

“I should be asking you that,” Blaise said, taking a seat across her. “Did I interrupt anything?”

“I was merely wondering why the magpies were singing this morning,” Daphne said perfunctorily. “Would you care for some tea as we reminisce about the past and debate scripture?”

Blaise’s thick eyebrows scrunched together. “You’ve been studying the Sayings of Syngian the Sage?”

She had heard that name uttered in passing before, when Broken Nose swore an oath of penal service to her. It was a strange custom of these people to invoke the name of an immortal, for while Daphne might give proper deference to them, she did not think such beings would pay any attention to promises made on the earth below. “No, have you?” Daphne asked. If he had, perhaps it was best for her to avoid it lest her own cultivation deviate.

“I’ve moved on to other things,” Blaise said, finding his lap interesting all of a sudden. “The accounts of Jaeson the Conqueror, Archystor Archibald’s Waging War … that sort of thing.”

Tracey chose then to return with the tea. With Daphne’s awakened eyes, she could already tell it was not made properly. For one, the water was only hot, but not boiling. How could that even be considered proper tea? Even if it were boiling, she was not letting it cool to the right temperature before pouring!

She suppressed another sigh. Tracey was going to be more work than she thought. She eyed her cousin as he drank the tea, preparing to lash out at Tracey for her poor work, but her cousin held his tongue. He clearly disapproved, but he held his tongue. Was he merely giving her face? A cultured man like him, being of noble birth, would surely know the tea was not made well.

Instead, all he said was, “I see you have a new servant.”

“Very new,” Daphne said. “Was the tea to your liking?”

“It’s … acceptable.”

She frowned. If Daphne had any lingering doubts before, she was sure now. His tone was too polite to be an arrogant young master, and that hinted at troubling deviations with his foundation. A young master ought to have stated his disapproval more harshly, and so long as he directed his criticisms at her servant, after she had asked, there would be no loss of face to herself. To be so polite about it … was he giving face to her servant? What need was there for that?

One was courteous to those who had earned it. To give it freely to everyone only meant one thought themselves weak compared to everyone.

After all, arrogance was the writ of the best, and courtesy the fate of the rest.

I will have to teach them that, Daphne thought, eyes moving from her cousin to her servant.