"You have not taken my advice," Gu Yanmei said evenly seated on the divan beside her. Despite her perfectly composed tone, the words still managed to sound accusing.
Gu Xiulan hunched her shoulders slightly, her lips pressed together in a thin line. Her hair hung in loose ringlets around her shoulders, unstyled and wild. She kept her eyes fixed on the wall ahead. Her sister's house was richly appointed, it's steel walls covered by tapestry and decoration. She could not say that she was appreciating the decor much at the moment though. Xiulan did not flinch as her sister peeled away a portion of burnt and ruined flesh from her arm with a surgical instrument, a pair of silver graspers etched with characters of cleanliness and purity.
Even now, her arm was a ruin, with the bandages off, it was revealed as a burned husk. If she looked, Xiulan knew she would see places where bone was visible and burned with pale blue flames. Snapping currents of lightning ran where veins should have been and sparks popped and snapped through gaps in her blackened skin. It was good that she had grown inured to the scent of burning flesh and fat. The piece her sister had removed joined the rest of the irrecoverable pieces of skin and muscle in the bowl. Only as her elder sister set her tool down and began to unroll a new set of aromatic silk bandages did Xiulan finally answer. "I made the attempt, it does not fit my Way."
"Your Way will lead to an early grave sister," Yanmei said, not looking up at her as she began the laborious process of re-wrapping Xiulan's arm.
The world was shaking apart, the sky had split open, the brewing storm torn asunder, and the rain had turned into a hail of stone from a broken mountain. Above her, Elder Sister hung on burning wings, like a phoenix from the families tales, wrapping them in heat. Ling Qi had collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, and she had dived to catch her friend before she struck the ground, ignoring the shriek of agony that the sudden motion sent through her tattered nerves.
Power washed over her, and Xiulan shivered, even through Elder Sister's aura, she could feel the crushing weight of it. The earth shook again and before her eyes another mountain crumbled. Icebreaker peak tumbled down like a childs tower of blocks, thousands of tons of stone collapsing as the full breadth of thing within was revealed. A sea of grey and black flesh, a million hungry maws and agonized eyes, rolling in madness, mindless tendrils the size of towers thrashing wildly against everything in reach. She felt her stomach churn merely from looking at it.
Her Sister's aura flared like a second sun and she was gone, a boom of thunder passing in her wake, but the warmth of her aura remained, cradling her, cradling them, protection from the madness of the world outside. She saw men and women, the soldiers who had fought with her their faces twisted in desperation and fear. She heard them praying to the great spirits and their ancestors.
For once, she felt no disdain for their fear. Beneath a sundered sky and on the rolling earth, she held her friend close and prayed as well.
"Better that than the alternative," Xiulan said bitterly.
For the first time Yanmei paused, a flicker of some emotion surfacing in her cool gaze, gone too fast to be recognized. "Foolish little sister, you are not some hero from a child's tale, fighting the world alone," Gu Yanmei said softly. "Consider the effect of your words. I know Mother gave you the same lessons that I endured."
Xiulan's lips twisted into a wry smile. "The only reason I am truly valuable to the family is the risks I have taken. Will you gainsay that, Elder Sister?"
Silence answered her question, and Xiulan lowered her eyes, only to jerk to the side as her Elder Sister's metallic fingernails impacted her temple in a perfectly executed flick. " I am not talking of politics, you insufferable girl, Father is young and hale, his position secure. Your actions affect your family. Do you imagine that Mother was not distressed enough to set the servants scurrying? That Father did not pace the throne room and make the great fires dance? That they did not consider withdrawing you immediately, face be damned? That they would not rather have a live daughter than a dead hero?"
Xiulan hunched her shoulders further and further as her sister laid into her without once so much as raising her voice or altering her tone. Her points were driven by cold logic and unshakeable certainty. "You are my sister, Xiulan. Do not so so trivialize the value of your life."
"I can't afford to fall behind," Xiulan replied in a small voice, drawing her knees up to her chest. Her elder sister's words broke what remained of her reserve. "I can't… I will not just be some irrelevant wife of a mediocre man."
"You still imagine yourself to be trailing behind… Do you truly despise that boy so much," Yanmei said. Xiulan sucked in a breath as she cinched the bandages tight around her ruined arm, letting the medicine infused cloth begin doing its work. All that remained was her hand. "Is Fan Yu really so despicable."
"He has no ambition," Xiulan hissed darkly. "He tags along on others coattails and wallows in his own mediocrity, pitying himself for his own failures. How could I not?"
Yanmei was silent as she went about the delicate task of wrapping Xiulan's hand and fingers. It would probably feel strange, if she could feel anything beyond faint sensations of pressure and pain from that hand, Xiulan thought bitterly.
"I will speak with Father, the current arrangements are swiftly growing untenable regardless," Yanemi finally said.
Xiulan started, looking up with wide eyes. "Sister, what…?"
"Do not be obtuse Xiulan," Gu Yanmei chided. "You have already set yourself upon the path to surpass most of our siblings. Do you imagine that we can afford to have you marry into another clan now?"
"Sister Lian is at the framing stage, and Xiuying nearly at completion," Xiulan replied incredulously.
"Xiuying has been at completion since before your birth, and is nearing her ninetieth year, Lian is fifty seven, and more interested in raising her new son than further cultivation, neither achieved the third realm at the age of fifteen," Yanmei replied steadily.
Xiulan opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again, why was she protesting, was this not what she had hoped for, what she had strived for, suffering pain and disfigurement for?
"Do not take this as approval of your methods little sister," Gu Yanmei's voice cut through her swelling feeling of accomplishment like a scalpel. "And given the current situation at the Sect…"
Xiulan's elation cooled, thoughts of the battle coming back to the fore of her mind. Elder Zhou dead, unknown assassins creeping about the battlefields, whatever that awful thing that had emerged from the husk of the mountain had been, Ling Qi nearly dead because she had been too slow and weak, too unreliable…"
"You will have to begin preparing for the journey home soon," Yanmei said quietly, standing up from her seat on the divan. The bowl containing the ruined flesh from her arm vanished in a flash of heat.
"Wait, why must I?" Xiulan began, only for the answer to come to her before she could even finish her words.
"The Sect is at war, little sister. The Gu are no cowards, but the family cannot afford to risk the both us," her Elder Sister said, not turning back to look at her as she swept out of the room. "Rest now, Xiulan, your energies are still unbalanced."
Xiulan stared after her for a moment in silence, and then began to laugh. ...Getting what she wanted indeed.
