Incident report: Healer Yin. The patient, though described as a genius of his generation, made the brilliant decision to stick his hand inside the machine. After reattaching the limb, he swore not to do so again, but the look in his eye suggested he was already cooking up his next invention. I expect to see him again in three weeks at the most.

  -Yin Sanmei, healer in chief for the Gold Sun Academy for Brilliant Minds.

  A brief pain shocked my body, and I withdrew my hand from the array to let the stars fade from my vision. This was exactly why I should never be allowed to work with talismans, array circles, or any ritual more complex than a simple door seal. After the second time accidentally touching a live section of the circle, you’d think I would learn not to do that, but then my hand slipped. Brutal, Ascendant-grade moon qi and blessedly weaker void qi coursed through my system, causing my muscles to tense, my eyes to fill with flashes of light, and leaving my entire body tingling for several minutes.

  “Stupid defense system,” I groaned once the pain passed. The silver lining was that I was already laying on my back when the qi coursed through my body, else I’d probably have fallen. The only reason I still lived at all was because it was technically my qi running the central control array that controlled the armillaries for the entire city. Anyone else would be dead and their ashes scattered in the cold depths of space.

  “You alright under there, Highness?” Hua Zhen’s voice was mildly amused.

  I rolled my eyes, not that he could see it. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t smell if your hair is burning or not,” he said, clearly biting back laughter.

  Sighing, I shook my head and went back to work. The sooner I could get out from the cramped space beneath the main control array, the happier I’d be. Gingerly, I reached back up to the small carving I was creating just next to the live array line.

  One more adjustment and five years of hard work and study would finally bear fruit. It had been a long, and arduous journey, but if I could just fix the master systems in Half-Moon Manor, then the rest of the armillaries would fall into place…or so the theory went.

  Though my efforts with the Fourteenth District Armillary had done wonders to stabilize the void presence around our home, there were twenty-eight other districts that were in varying states of disrepair. Some were damaged beyond simple repair, such as the one in the Twenty-First District, but others were just lacking in qi like the Fourteenth was. Individually, the solution was the same: use the ambient Void within the Black City as additional power. However, the armillaries didn’t work just as individuals. Each one was a node in the greater array that covered the entire city. Turning on too many armillaries without accounting for the additional Void qi in the system could fry the master defense system, which, thanks to my brilliant ideas in my youth, also controlled the gateways and anchor points keeping the Black City attached to the rest of reality. Without the master array, the whole city risked becoming isolated in the cold of the Void.

  Thus, I found myself cramped beneath the floorboards, altering the array to better control Voidflow through the city. It was grueling work, but I was the only one who could do it. With one last flick of my chisel, I connected my addition to the live section and watched it fill with silver qi.

  “Color changed, Highness,” Hua Zhen reported. “The orb turned green.”

  “Green? Why on earth would it be green?”

  I could practically hear the shade shrug. “Unbalanced wind qi?”

  There wasn’t that much wind qi in this array to begin with, certainly not enough to turn the whole system green. I grumbled to myself as I twisted and shuffled in the tight space to try and find the problem. When I found it, I bit my lip and raised my chisel. Dusty residue from the unstable elements within the array had blocked one of the major lines, which prevented moon qi from flowing altogether through the area. I chipped it away.

  “How’s that?”

  “Silver.”

  I sighed and shifted again. Too much moon qi, not enough void. Returning to the addition I’d just finished, I added a small loop in the array that hopefully would open the channels for more Void qi.

  “Uncle! Are you in here?”

  The distraction made my hand slip, and, once again, qi shocked through my system. The chisel dropped on my forehead, adding insult to the injury as I groaned my pain and frustration.

  “Good Morning, Princess Xinya,” Hua Zhen greeted. “His Highness is working on the array.”

  “I thought it was supposed to be blue?”

  That was it. The last straw of my patience. With a sigh, I dissolved my body into void mist and let myself slip between the dais stairs and reform in the room above. Xinya waited patiently, but the expression of pure innocence that lit up her face was more than enough to set my nerves further on edge.

  “What did you do this time?”

  “Uncle, I’m hurt,” she said, pouting dramatically. “I’ll have you know that I have done nothing, save for having a lovely morning filled with tea and sweets with Big Sister Kirana and Miss Ishida.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Okay, so what did you ask Shion to do, this time?” For Xinya to have a nice morning with our neighbor and one of the local sect leaders, she must have had her right-hand oni working in the shadows.

  A mischievous glimmer surfaced in her eye. “Oh, nothing special. Just a bit of negotiation with the Shadow Hound Guild for services we already paid for. They were trying to charge double on delivery, so I asked Shion to hire some mercenaries to retrieve the item they were withholding.”

  That was entirely too tame for my niece’s usual antics. I stared at her questioningly, but she didn’t offer more. It was a little game Xinya liked to play. She was immensely proud of the mischief she got into, and between her uncles, I was the one she most liked to share her stories with. However, being a coy young lady and an outright monster of a teenager, she had to draw out the interaction as much as possible for some reason.

  “What did these mercenaries do?”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Did you know that Shadow Hounds have quite the sense of smell, being dog yokai?” she paused for a long moment before continuing. “Kappa eggs can be quite rancid if left for too long.”

  “Tell me you didn’t.”

  “I did nothing, Uncle. I told you I was with Sister Iza and Miss Ishida all morning. Any egg that ended up on the Guildmaster’s head couldn’t possibly be traced back to me and the rest of the Chikara,” Xinya said sweetly. “Shion was very discrete, after all.”

  “Did they at least get the item?”

  Xinya hummed a response before pulling a small box from behind her back. “Of course! Here! Happy New Year!”

  “You’re early,” I answered, taking the box.

  “Well, I hoped you could use it at the festival. Hei Shenshou was hoping you might actually participate this year.”

  Hua Zhen made a sound that was suspiciously like a snort of amusement, and I glared at him. Innocence met my gaze as he twisted a strand of his soft brown hair around his finger.

  “You know my stance on that, Xinya,” I answered without breaking eye contact with my captain.

  “I’m also hoping you’ll change it once you see what’s in the box.”

  I seriously doubted that, but she was so earnest that I had to humor her, at least a little. Lifting the lid, I peered inside to see a silver and white jade moon seal.

  “It’s the Lunar Prince Seal. By the old laws of Lanyue, he who holds it speaks with the authority of the prince,” she explained. “The Shattered Moon Sect has tons of your artifacts at their headquarters in the Fourth District. You said that you wouldn’t participate until the city was yours again, but with that, you have the right to rule again.”

  “If the Shattered Moon Sect had it, then why didn’t they use it?” I asked.

  The seal sat on a bed of navy silk. With a gentle finger, I stroked the surface of the jade. Curiously, I didn’t feel the tell-tale tingle of qi from the treasure, and I briefly wondered if my body was numb to it after being shocked four times in one day by the damned defense array.

  “They’re a bunch of idiots. They probably didn’t know what they had,” Xinya waved a dismissive hand. “Besides, they’ve been infighting so much lately, maybe they used to use it, but haven’t had the chance since we came to the City.”

  “Or, the seal is just a replica.” I pulled the object from the box and dropped it. A small shower of silver sparks burst from the object as it hit the stones, surprising me. Maybe I really had been numbed by the defense array…

  But, even with the small display of power, the silver was bent from the impact. The real seal would never have been damaged so easily.

  Xinya frowned. “But, but I-” Lightning qi glowed in her eyes as she triggered Truth Sight. “It didn’t show as…oh.” Her shoulders sagged, and I felt her disappointment echo through her qi. The lightning faded from her eyes. “I guess I still need more practice. Truth Sight either marks too many things as false, or not enough. It shows you lighting up like a New Years festival, but this didn’t trigger it almost at all, like the calibration is all off.” She tensed as a cough shook her shoulders. When it passed, she looked positively miserable.

  “I’m sure you’ll get it soon, meimei.” I put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her into a hug. She buried her face in my shoulder.

  I sympathized with her frustration. There was nothing I could do to help her, since this technique was founded mostly on lightning. She’d been working on it for months now, and this most recent failure was more than just disheartening.

  The only cure for her hostile bloodline was cultivation. However, we’d hit a block. She’d never admit it, but I believed that she didn’t understand her own path well enough to take the next step to reach Gold. We’d procured many treasures, but none of them had felt right to her. Rather than push her to the point where she could damage her cultivation, I advised her to seek other options, to investigate her path and learn as much as she could. It was hard for her. My little lightning artist was hardly used to patience.

  “Which does remind me, uncle,” Xinya said, curling up just slightly to look up at me. “When again are you going to stop lying to yourself about Uncle Lin?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” I protested even as heat crept into my cheeks.

  The teenager smirked. “Yeah. Sure you don’t. And that’s why you look at him when you think no one is watching. Why don’t you just tell him how you feel already?”

  I bit my lip to avoid answering. If I did, then Xinya would only ask more questions in that annoying way that only a teenage girl could do. That would lead down a dangerous path, one in which she might find out about what I’d done at the Shadow Bolt Festival five years ago, an event which was named for the two most prominent events: the return of the Darkened Moon, and the rise of the Raijin Princess.

  I considered myself lucky that no one had seen me corner Lin at the gazebo and kiss him. He’d never brought it up again, which I could only assume meant that he wasn’t interested. After thinking long and hard about that night, I realized that I shouldn’t have been so surprised that he didn’t want to talk about it. After all, he was married to Hanako. A guy like me could never compare.

  “Princess Xinya, his highness hasn’t eaten since this morning. Perhaps the two of you would like to retire for the afternoon?” Hua Zhen suggested. “You could discuss the problem with the defense array, since it seems to still be missing something.”

  Even thirty thousand years after his death, Hua Zhen was still the most insightful man I knew. I flashed him a thankful smile, which he just returned with a knowing look in his eye before he gently pulled on Xinya’s arm. The two exited first, giving me a breath to recompose myself before following.

  We walked through the grounds of Half-Moon Manor, passing by Hua Zhen’s own garden grave. For the last five years, Lin had made it his project to tame back the gardens my sister once tended. It was a slow process, even with his wood qi to speed plant growth. Some plants just didn’t survive as well in the void-dense environment of the palace. Some, though, flourished. Heaven’s lilies sparkled in small beds here and there around the garden, but they weren’t Lin’s pride and joy. That honor went to the front palace walkway.

  He had every right to be proud. The throne room had been mostly cleaned up, and as you stepped from the grand double doors, brilliant color filled the night. Moon Moths danced between blue rose bushes, rows of Heaven’s Lilies, and beds of lunafall flowers, all of which were illuminated by a bioluminescent vine of Lin’s own creation.

  I remembered when he showed me the walkway for the first time. He hadn’t allowed anyone to approach for a month, so as to not spoil the surprise. His smile after revealing the beautiful garden could have lit the entire city, not to mention his excitement to share why he’d never been able to grow lunafalls in Saikan. Apparently the flower couldn’t self-pollinate like other plants and would only reach their full potential when paired with another of its kind. He’d given me a very knowing look when sharing that, and I figured there was some profound wood artist wisdom within that went over my head.

  “So, Princess, how is Young Master Chikara?” Hua Zhen asked.

  “He’s fine,” she answered. “Shion’s very good at his job, and his sister has been wonderful for helping me navigate the politics with the other oni clans.”

  “And how is Di Xiaolong?”

  Xinya furrowed her brow. “I haven’t seen him in a few days, actually. He said he was feeling a bit under the weather, but Miss Ishida didn’t seem worried about him when we met up this morning.” She reached up to bite a knuckle before realizing and putting her hand back down. “I’m sure he’s fine, but I think I’ll stop by the shop later to see him.”

  “Of course, of course,” Hua Zhen murmured. He turned back to me, and winked mischievously, and I raised an eyebrow, unsure of what he was getting at.

  When we reached the grand staircase leading down from the palace, I drew Eclipse and mounted the blade. Xinya stepped on next to me while Hua Zhen simply shimmered out of existence with the promise of meeting us below. Though, whether he’d meet us in a few minutes or a few hours was anyone’s guess. In the thousands of years he’d been a shade, his sense of time had become somewhat skewed. Sometimes he lost track of how much time had passed for the living.

  We shot towards the river below, admiring the view of the city before skimming the water’s surface. Once we were back in the Fourteenth District, we dismounted and walked the rest of the way to Half-Moon Harbor.

  However, before we even could step through the threshold, Lin himself appeared and pushed his glasses up his nose. “Welcome back. I wonder if you both would be interested in a bit of troublemaking?”

  Xinya’s eyes lit up with excitement. Lin rarely offered mischief, but when he did, it always promised to be worth the wait.

  “Always! I’ll get the tea!” she exclaimed before running inside. “Meet me at Uncle Satoro’s table!”