Sen and Falling Leaf descended the stairs into the common area. While it wasn’t quite as empty as it had been when the prince had been there and the employees weren’t kowtowing, the common area was silent. The people who were there were hurriedly finishing meals or drinks and exiting. The cause for that reaction stood in the center of the room, projecting arrogance in every direction. The woman was tall and, like so many cultivators, unnaturally attractive, with sleek black hair and catlike eyes. But there was also a cruelty about her that bled through and marred the image of beauty. Sen made note of the Steel Gryphon sect patch on her fine silk robes. When Sen and the glowering Falling Leaf entered the common area, the last of the holdouts simply fled the space. The woman turned an imperious gaze on the two of them.

“I am Elder Tang Ehuang of the Steel Gryphon sect,” said the woman, giving the pair an expectant look.

When the only reaction she got was Sen placing a restraining hand on Falling Leaf’s arm, Elder Tang glared at the two of them. When all that got was a look of cool disdain from Sen and one of barely controlled rage from Falling Leaf, the woman lost whatever patience she had.

“It seems that the two of you don’t know your place. Did no one teach you to show due deference to your betters?”

Sen rolled his eyes and turned to Falling Leaf. “Let’s go. We’re wasting our time here.”

As the two of them turned to leave, the sect cultivator abandoned any pretense of civility. “Don’t you turn your backs on me you pathetic wandering cultivators.”

Sen felt the woman cycling qi and sighed. First, he slammed the full weight of his killing intent down on her. Then, he turned back to look at her. She was near the peak of core cultivation, so she wasn’t screaming and convulsing the way he’d seen some cultivators do under a similar attack. She had dropped her cycling. To Sen’s eyes, it looked like she was bending everything into staying on her feet. He saw a trickle of blood leak from her nose. Then, he applied the technique that the dragon had taught him. Sen still wasn’t certain exactly what it was. The way he applied it shared some resemblances to dropping his killing intent on someone, but its source was fundamentally different. The dragon had called it an auric imposition and seemed ecstatic that Sen had an intuitive grasp of the process that let them bypass, as the dragon put it, all those tedious details.

Unlike killing intent, which Sen had come to understand was derived from a very specific set of experiences and conditions, the auric imposition was more like a combination of cultivation strength and personality. The stronger the cultivation, the personality, and the will of the person, the stronger the auric imposition. Sen was still trying to piece together the details, but he could make the technique work, which was all that mattered to him in that moment. When his auric imposition crashed down on Tang Ehuang, she dropped to the floor. Sen walked toward her, mentally squeezing the woman with his killing intent and auric imposition. The blood started running freely from her nose and the corners of her eyes.

“You should choose your words with more care, elder,” said Sen, drawing his jian.

The Steel Gryphon sect elder made feeble attempts to push herself away from Sen and the almost physical terror he was inflicting on her. She held up a hand, as though she could ward away the suppressive force bearing down on her with it.

“Wait,” she gasped.

“Otherwise, some pathetic wandering cultivator might take offense and remove your tongue. Well, I suppose that warning came a little too late. Perhaps you’ll be more polite in your future written correspondences,” continued Sen, turning his eyes to Falling Leaf. “Would you care to do the honors?”

“I would,” said Falling Leaf with a malevolent glee in her eyes.

Falling Leaf had only managed to take two steps before a weight of power and presence the likes of which Sen had only felt from his teachers bore down on the room. The effect was immediate. Falling Leaf staggered and Tang Ehuang let out a pained cry as the pressure on her increased from the second presence. Sen understood what was happening and reshaped his auric imposition into a kind of makeshift shield for him and Falling Leaf. It wasn’t perfect. He didn’t even think it was meant to be used that way, but it did shunt aside enough of the pressure that Falling Leaf wasn’t driven to the floor. Sen, who had far more experience dealing with those kinds of pressures, plunged his jian into Tang Ehuang’s chest. That drew another cry of pain from the woman. He hadn’t driven it deep enough to kill her, but it was deep enough that he could kill her before even a nascent soul cultivator would be able to stop him.

“That will be enough, young man,” said a deep, rich voice from the doorway.

The pressure on him increased enough that Sen grunted and felt his auric imposition trembling on the edge of collapse. In response, he pressed his jian a quarter inch deeper. That was deep enough to damage Tang Ehuang’s heart every time it beat. Given that he was still doing everything in his power to drive his killing intent into every inch of the woman’s body and soul, the damage was racking up fast.

Sen growled from between firmly clenched teeth. “We aren’t doing it that way.”

The stalemate continued like that until Tang Ehuang spasmed beneath the combined pressures on her. That very nearly ended her life then and there, as her own motion pushed the jian deeper into her heart. The nascent soul cultivator seemed to recognize that because he sighed and lifted the pressure he was exerting. Sen straightened up from the crouch he’d assumed over Tang Ehuang and turned to look at the newest addition to the little drama they were all playing out. What Sen didn’t do was ease up on the killing intent or the jian he’d driven into her chest. The man staring at Sen from across the room looked to be in his middle years, although that could well be an affectation. Having seen Uncle Kho transform from an old man into a young man had taught Sen exactly how unreliable the appearances of nascent soul cultivators were in judging their ages.

The man frowned at Sen. “You will release her to me.”

“No,” said Sen.

His tone wasn’t rude or obnoxious, just committed.

“You don’t really have a choice,” said a man Sen assumed was one of the top members of the Steel Gryphon sect.

“There’s always a choice,” said Sen. “You just have to be willing to accept the consequences. This woman interfered with my business. Her actions saw my companion injured. She insulted us. Then, she meant to attack us for not being as impressed with her as she is with herself. There will be a price for that.”

“She will be punished,” said the man. “You have my word.”

“Not good enough.”

“My word isn’t good enough for you?” demanded the man, his face going stony.

Sen gave the man an incredulous look, then pointedly looked down at Tang Ehuang. “Why would it be? Especially given that your interest is almost certainly in making sure that a sect asset remains useful, not in actually punishing her.”

The nascent soul cultivator gave Sen an appraising look. “You say that there is always a choice if you’re willing to accept the consequences. Are you?”

Sen didn’t even need to think about the answer. “Yes.”

“You really are Feng Ming’s student, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“It shows. There’s no compromise in that man’s soul either. Frankly, it’s a trait that most people could do without. We both know you can kill her before I can get to you, even if it means your death immediately after. So, what do you suggest?”

“You want her alive and whole, I assume.”

“I do,” said the nascent soul cultivator.

“I want her crippled or dead. I’m not sure that there is a middle ground to be found here.”

The nascent soul cultivator considered first Sen, then Falling Leaf, who had regained her feet and was glaring at him, and finally Tang Ehuang. The sect elder on the floor was barely conscious.

“All of her assets will be forfeited to you, including any sect treasures that have been given to her. We will also imprison her.”

“For how long?” Sen asked, letting nothing show on his face.

The nascent soul cultivator, who Sen was starting to suspect might actually be the sect patriarch, gave him another long, assessing look. Sen was sure that the man was trying to gauge the shortest period of time that Sen would find acceptable. The man opened his mouth, closed it after another look at Sen, and finally spoke.

“A century. She’ll be kept in a qi-suppressed cell for one hundred years.”

Sen gave the woman whose life he held in his hands a long look. Then, he pulled the jian free and withdrew his killing intent. “Done.”

The removal of the blade from her chest and sudden withdrawal of Sen’s killing intent seemed to be the final blows that Tang Ehuang could take, and her eyes rolled up into the back of her head. The nascent soul cultivator walked over and gave the woman a frustrated look. Sen had the impression that this wasn’t the first time that this man had dug the woman out of one kind of trouble or another. The nascent soul cultivator reached down, grabbed Tang Ehuang, and unceremoniously threw her over his shoulder. He started to walk away before he stopped and lifted an eyebrow at Sen.

“Would you have really killed her if we didn’t come to terms?”

“Without hesitation.”

The man nodded. “I thought as much.”

“If I can ask,” said Sen, “who are you?”

The man gave Sen a surprised look. “You don’t know?”

Sen frowned and gave the man a hard look, wondering if they’d encountered each other somewhere along the way. He didn’t look familiar to Sen.

“I’m sorry. No. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“He didn’t even mention me. Typical. My name is Feng Bai. I’m your master’s brother.”

Sen stared at the man for a long moment, trying to process this new information, before he offered the man a respectful bow. “I am honored to meet you.”

“I don’t suppose that information would have changed the negotiations?” asked Feng Bai.

Sen gave that a moment of very serious consideration before he shook his head. “No. It wouldn’t have changed anything that she did.”

“No, I guess it wouldn’t have. Is he well?” asked Feng Bai.

“He spent most of the last year hunting demonic cultivators. He seemed to be in good spirits afterward.”

“Yes, I expect he would be after that. The next time you see my brother, tell him I said,” Feng Bai sighed and shook his head. “Just tell him I said hello.”

Sen could almost visualize the mountain of unsaid words in the air around them, but he just nodded. “I will tell him.”

“Thank you,” said Feng Bai, and then he was gone in a burst of qi and displaced air.

“Do you think they will do as he said?” asked Falling Leaf.

Sen shrugged. “Probably. At the very least, I expect he’ll make sure that absolutely no one else from that sect bothers us. I sincerely doubt he wants Master Feng showing up with a mind for vengeance. If anyone knows what that means, I bet it’s his brother.”