Prince Jing was usually a reserved man. He had taken to heart the admonition from both of his parents that you could learn more by listening than by speaking. Yet, on the way back to his home, the prince was all but silent. He kept thinking over his odd meeting with the cultivator Lu Sen. His visit had multiple purposes. On one level, he had simply been curious about the man who had so firmly declined his invitation. It was such an infrequent event in his life that he’d taken for granted that the man would come to him. When Tiu Li-Mei had informed him that the cultivator had declined in very firm terms, it had come as a legitimate shock. On further questioning, the woman who had served him for nearly ten years in increasingly important positions had become reticent. Beyond saying that the man was unorthodox but ultimately polite, she hadn’t wanted to speculate. When he pressed for her opinion, what she had to say had also surprised him.

“My prince, I don’t have an opinion about him that I trust.”

“Really? I don’t believe I’ve ever heard you say something like that before.”

“He’s strange. One minute, he comes across like a young man. The next, he’s like one of those old generals who seem like they can tell everything about you with a glance. And, there is something else there, something almost unnatural.”

“He is a cultivator. They can be that way sometimes.”

“I thought that, at first, but I don’t think that was it. At least, not entirely. I can’t think of a better way to explain it.”

That uncertainty on the usually unflappable Tiu Li-Mei’s part had intrigued him. Of course, there had also been the Diviner’s predictions that Lu Sen could be the making of him. That had been a powerful motivation all on its own. The revelation that the cultivator had arrived at the city in the company of his younger sister had been a surprise. He’d been aware that his parents had agreed to an ill-conceived marriage between her and Choi Zhi Peng, and that signaled her imminent and likely unhappy return to the city. To have her arrive in the company of the man the Diviner had singled out felt like a sign to him. In the end, he’d decided that, if Lu Sen wouldn’t come to him, he would go to Lu Sen.

Yet, for all that he’d tried to imagine what their first meeting might be like, none of it had gone to Zing’s expectations. The young cultivator was deeply wary of him, as was to be expected, but Zing had underestimated just how deeply the young man loathed the nobility. The prince had expected dislike and been prepared to counter it. Despite the cultivator’s impressive self-control, he hadn’t been able to hide that loathing. It was so intense that it bordered on hatred. That the man had been willing to speak to Zing at all had been shocking in the wake of that discovery. Yet, for all of that, Lu Sen had been willing to speak to him. It made Zing wonder if he’d been advised by someone that not speaking to the prince was a potentially disastrous move. Zing wouldn’t have done anything if Lu Sen had refused him a second time, but he knew that some of his brothers would have taken foolish actions in the wake of the perceived slight.

He had wondered, briefly, if Yu Ming had advised the cultivator, but he’d rejected that thought almost immediately. Whatever that relationship was, and it was a tangled mess from what he’d seen, it wasn’t the kind of relationship that involved Lu Sen taking advice from Yu Ming. That was probably for the best, in Zing’s opinion. Yu Ming had many admirable qualities, but she was also prone to the errors in judgment common to all young people. Decisions driven more by passion than reason. Not that Zing himself was immune to such decisions. After all, he’d begun a very serious exploration of the options available to ensure that Choi Zhi Peng missed his wedding day courtesy of a hideously painful death. If the Choi family thought they were going to saddle his sister with that travesty of a person, they were both deeply and sadly mistaken. Not that Yu Ming would be in any real danger from the man, but Zing saw no reason that she should have to spend decades of her life dealing with him. Still, it was evidence that young people with strong feelings made poor choices.

No, Zing suspected that there had been an invisible hand at work in the background with Lu Sen, guiding the young cultivator toward the path of least trouble. Tiu Li-Mei had said another messenger had been waiting for the cultivator, which suggested that Lu Sen either had a contact in the city or someone had traveled in advance to make some kind of preparation. An older cultivator, perhaps, offering guidance to an inexperienced young cultivation genius? And Zing was confident that Lu Sen was exactly that, a cultivation genius. Yu Ming’s teachers had thrown that term around often enough when she was growing up and training. A sword genius, they had called her, and this Lu Sen had beaten her. Although, it was her description of how the man had ended that battle that cemented that impression in his mind.

He knew that cultivators aged differently from other people, but he was convinced that Lu Sen was likely the age he looked, or something very close to it. While Zing himself wasn’t a cultivator, every kingdom had to deal with the presence of cultivators. He had a good working knowledge of the stages of cultivation and what kind of power those stages conferred. If this Lu Sen had done what Yu Ming said he did, and Zing had no reason to doubt her description, that was a kind of power usually reserved for much, much older cultivators at very levels of cultivation advancement. That would normally have been enough to give him pause. Massive power in the hands of someone that young was almost always a recipe for disaster.

Yet, almost in spite of himself, he liked the young man. Lu Sen lacked polish, certainly, but he also possessed a kind of straightforward indifference to rank that appealed to Zing. Lu Sen had spoken to him like a person, not a position. When he’d asked the young man what he thought of the painting, Lu Sen had simply answered him, rather than wasting time trying to decipher what the prince thought of it. In fact, the cultivator had been surprisingly honest about just about everything as near as Zing could tell, which wasn’t to say that the young man didn’t have secrets. It was very clear that Lu Sen was stuffed full of secrets, just not the kind of secrets that nobles were interested in.

Of course, as always, Tiu Li-Mei had been right. There was something unnatural about that man that went beyond the usual strangeness that surrounded cultivators. Zing had found himself equally unable to identify what it was. It was that lack of insight that kept Zing almost entirely silent on the way home. Yet, unnatural or not, he would help the man because Lu Sen represented a legitimate chance to extract Yu Ming from what would be a disastrous marriage. He found himself sitting in his private study, drinking tea he didn’t remember asking for, when his wife found him. She closed the door behind her and took a seat opposite of him.

“You met the cultivator?” Jao Chan-Juan asked.

“I did.”

“And what do you think?”

Zing paused and gathered his thoughts. “I like him.”

“But?” she asked.

“I think that he might well be the single most dangerous person I’ve ever personally encountered.”

“Aren’t all cultivators dangerous?” asked Jao Chan-Juan.

“They are,” he agreed. “Still, this Judgment’s Gale is something new. I just can’t put my finger on how or why. Perhaps it was simply his training.”

“Was there something special about it?”

“Yu Ming says that he trained with three nascent soul cultivators, and one name Feng Ming in particular.”

“Fate’s Razor?”

“I assume so. One might infer that he was selected specifically because there was something different about him.”

“Will he be of use to you?”

“No. At least, not in any traditional sense. I got the distinct impression that he isn’t terribly interested in the mortal world or its problems. He’s actively disinterested in mortal politics.”

“Really? Don’t most cultivators take at least a passing interest in the mortal political situation?”

“The ones who live here do, but he’s a wandering cultivator. They tend to spend less time in cities and pay less attention to mortal politics, but it goes beyond that with him. He told me that cultivators are just visitors. As such, they shouldn’t interfere with mortal politics. He seemed very sincere about it. Yet, despite that, he’s going to interfere anyway.”

“In what way?”

“Somehow, Yu Ming convinced him to play the part of a suitor.”

“She’s going to use him as a wedge to break herself free of the Choi engagement.”

“Yes.”

“And he agreed to do that? Why?”

“He gave me a reason. He said that he’s looking for a particular cultivation resource. A manual held by one of the sects here.”

“Do you think he was lying?”

“No. I think he was deadly serious about getting that manual. He seems to be hoping that Yu Ming and, presumably, the family will be able to help him secure it.”

“You think there’s something else to it, though.”

Zing nodded. “I saw him and Yu Ming together. There’s clearly something there, although Yu Ming seems to have done something to muddy the waters.”

“You always assume she causes the problems.”

“She usually does.”

“She is headstrong sometimes,” said Jao Chan-Juan. “Still, you must be happy.”

“I’m happy there’s another option on the table, but I’m not altering my plans until I see how things play out.”

“Any insights into how the cultivator will affect your future?”

“No,” said Zing, “which worries me. I fear that I’m going to be a spectator to whatever happens.”

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps he’s going to draw attention away from you and your own plans. There are worse things than a good distraction.”

“Will I be meeting this cultivator?”

“If you wish to. He’ll be visiting tomorrow. Yu Ming asked me to talk him through what he’ll need to know.”

“You don’t really have that kind of time.”

“True, but I can at least point out where the traps are. He is a cultivator after all. That’s going to insulate him in many ways. He can ignore a great deal of etiquette that other people can’t and get away with it. After all, it’s not like someone can simply have him killed.”

“That’s not true. Cultivators can die.”

“They can, but not without making a great deal of noise. I think that’s particularly true of this one. No, I expect that any would-be assassins are going to find that they’ve taken the wrong job if they go hunting for him.”

“Let’s hope that the Choi family wastes a fortune discovering that.”

“That would be nice.”