Despite being a prisoner, Hiroko found her surroundings comfortingly familiar: walls to protect her from the outside world, quiet-voiced people all around serving her needs, a handful of confidants. And most of all, the beautiful gardens in which to walk. She had missed the imperial grounds so much, even as she had come to enjoy her brief hints of freedom.

It felt a little like being a child again, surrounded by greenery, blossoming plants, the cool, quiet sound of water trickling everywhere, and above all, walls to keep out the terrifying outer world. Here, if Hiroko closed her eyes, she could forget that prisms were going to war against the divine emperor himself. She could forget she had duties of her own to perform.

And sometimes she could even forget how Joshi roiled all her thinking. At least during the day. At night, she lay awake, wondering where he was, if he had reached the Peak of Spiritual Refinement. If he would think to send word to her. And when he got no response, because she had been kidnapped, would he think she had given him up?

That worried Hiroko, gnawing away at her sleep in the dark and silent hours before dawn. She did her best not to show it, spending her days wearing a pleasant expression.

She quickly fell into a rhythm: morning walks in the garden alone, breakfast with Dowager Pearl Akiya, and after lunch, two hours closeted with Cultivator Parvah. Hiroko had conveniently found that Akiya spent her afternoons in various meetings and consultations, helping oversee the business of Westgate province and serving as Governor Jah's liaison to the Imperial Court. The time she spent closeted with Parvah was as private as they could make it.

More than that, Parvah began each session by weaving a subtle pattern of blue and indigo lux around the room. Hiroko watched her carefully. After the fourth or fifth session, she thought she knew how it was done.

"May I?" she asked politely.

Parvah gave her a quick nod.

"Let's see what you've learned, girl."

Hiroko began the weave.

"No, no," Parvah said at once. "No green."

Hiroko had not even realized she was exuding green. Now, in surprise, she frowned, trying to hold the green lux back in her core, but it wanted to mix itself in.

"Green's a slippery little bastard," Parvah said, "always coming along for the ride. Cultivators who are trying to merge physical and spiritual luxes need it. It serves as a kind of coagulant; physical and spiritual luxes don't want to have anything to do with each other, not once they've been split out from the unity of Lumos. Green, on the other hand, mmm, green, is like you, my lady, always seeking to help tie the physical and the spiritual together."

Hiroko blinked, trying to understand both Parvah's analogy and her deeper meaning.

"I don't think I understand."

"I think you do, girl. That's what all of you Gem Court are about. Keeping cultivators tied down and following the strictures of empire. I mean no insult to you all. I was fond of my late husband."

Hiroko blinked in surprise. "I hadn't realized you had been married."

"I was wed to a gem noble. Green rank, as it happened," she added with a bit of a smile."We have three fine children, who I hope reside to this day with my former sect. But that's neither here nor there."

"It sounds like a fascinating story," Hiroko said, trying to imagine how a talented cultivator like this could have been cast out of her sect.

"Fascinating for you to hear, perhaps. Not for me to tell. Now, let's try again. You must learn blue intimately. Then you'll be able to wield it without green coming along."

"I do know blue," Hiroko said, stung in her pride. Everyone had always said she had a prodigy's talent for blue lux. Even Joshi had noted it.

"That's because you've spent your time with clods of cultivators who are so busy using physical lux to bash their way through problems, they don't stop to properly understand spiritual lux," Parvah said. "And those of us who do, are seduced away by the seemingly more powerful Indigo and Violet Luxes. Do you know what those luxes affect, girl?"

"Indigo Lux controls space," Hiroko said promptly. "Most indigo techniques involve moving between two locations instantaneously, or for very advanced cultivators, appearing in more than one at a time. Violet Lux is forbidden."

"But you've had enough time cultivating by now to have some idea what it does," Parvah suggested.

"Violet Lux affects time," Hiroko said after a moment.

"Precisely," Parvah nodded her head. "And that's all I'll say or teach about it. I have no need of such lux, nor do you. But it is important to know what they do before you turn your attention to true overlooked champion of luxes. Most cultivators are thinking about how they can use every technique as a weapon in their fights against tower beasts or each other. It is a weakness of our system that anyone who begins to gain strength sees everyone else around them as a potential enemy. And thus begins a cycle that will end only in blood. The powerful seek to become more powerful. Those with weapons are afraid someone else will have a stronger weapon; every tool becomes assessed with the notion of how it can be used to kill an enemy. And to many of them, blue lux seems like a toy. Oh, they'll have a few techniques in their bag: a weave to confuse an enemy's senses, perhaps."

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Hiroko nodded. She'd used such techniques and seen them in use.

"Those are only the beginning," Parvah told her. "But I think, Princess, you are well-suited to understand what I'm going to try to teach you here." She sat down. "Can you separate out all your other luxes, vent them from your body, and retain only the blue?"

Hiroko hesitated. "I might," she said, "but I'm not scheduled for another trip to the lux repository until next week. I don't like having only blue lux."

"Governor Jah has the entire Clouds of Heaven sect at his command, and you are an untrained girl," Parvah said bluntly. "What do you think the other luxes are going to do should he decide to move against you? Your best defense, Princess, is your rank and the techniques I am trying to teach you."

There was sense in that. Hiroko still didn't like it. Nevertheless, she had accepted Parvah as her teacher. She carefully cycled lux, frowning as she did in concentration. Try as she might, some of the blue tried to escape alongside the other colors.

"You need a different technique," Parvah said at once. "You have to be able to distinguish blue lux and hold it separate from everything else. Some cultivators do that by cultivating a second set of lux channels just to allow them to separate out one or two colors from the others. It's not advised at this stage in your progression."

Hiroko was oddly thrilled that Parvah had never once mentioned her status as a noble as a barrier to true progression. She seemed to assume Hiroko was a real cultivator on her own path, not just a spouse looking to learn a few tricks as she accompanied her husband to be. "Since you don't have a second set of channels, you must learn to keep your blue lux in your core as you vent the rest. Focus on it. Really listen. You say that you know blue. Show it now. Hold tight to the blue and rid yourself of everything else."

Hiroko closed her eyes, feeling her core spinning as she cycled. It was so hard and dense now that she had reached the Peak of Bodily Refinement. What was next along the path to Mental Refinement? Something about veils that needed to be pierced?

"Focus, girl," Parvah said sharply, and Hiroko returned to her meditation.

Slowly, very slowly, she leached lux from her core, leaving the blue behind. When at last, all the other colors were vented, she opened her eyes. Parvah gave her a single nod. No smile crossed her face, but Hiroko felt proud nonetheless.

"Good. Now we can begin. Remember, blue is your everything. It is your shield. It is your weapon. It is your cloak. It is your armor. It will hide you, defend you, and help you do everything you wish to do. I do not want you to practice with weapons the way some cultivators do, but continuing to refine your body is important. Dowager Pearl Akiya exercises every evening before dinner; you should join her."

Hiroko didn't bother to ask how Parvah knew, merely nodded. "I shall do that starting from today."

"It'll be another chance for you to win the poor girl's affection. Oh yes, I've been keeping an eye on you," Parvah said. She gave Hiroko a half-smile.

Hiroko shifted uncomfortably. Parvah had already demonstrated her ability to disguise herself and to walk unseen. Was she, even now, spying from inside the garden walls, seeing what Hiroko was doing?

"Blue sees all," Parvah said quietly. "I don't need to be in a place to see what's going on, and so I'm going to give you a warning. I have no loyalty to the Emperor or the system, but you, I like. You have spirit despite everything, and certainly you have better taste than that crass Governor." The corners of her lips curled up. "He has schemes within schemes. I'm certain you're already aware of that."

"He's brought me here to use me against my father," Hiroko said. "I know this. I just haven't had any word of where my father is, and I can't guess at Governor Jah's plans."

"Keep your ears open and you'll learn," Parvah told her. "And your work with Akiya is bearing fruit. That one advocates for you now in their councils. It won't be enough to stop whatever Jah is planning, but it could well save your life, so keep on with it."

She looked Hiroko up and down. "I admit, I have trouble seeing you as a proper schemer. That's a powerful tool in your arsenal as well. You look too innocent to be devious. Keep up what you are doing, and Akiya will be willing to sacrifice her own future for yours without even knowing what she's doing. You have a strong natural technique, and it's one we can enhance with blue, but you must understand how you were accomplishing your ends first. Blue lux is the color of treachery, deceit, illusion. But to wield blue lux, you yourself must face truth. Only then can you keep your own techniques from turning on you. Imagine your techniques as a blade, sharp and dangerous. Understanding the truth of what you are doing and why is the handle that protects you from cutting yourself on your own blade. Whoever you lie to, never lie to yourself."

Hiroko met the woman's gaze straight on. "I understand."

"You will, eventually. For now, let us begin with the simplest and often overlooked technique. Yet, I have seen this allow a cultivator to withstand a truth strike from a prism." Parvah demonstrated a weave, then repeated it much more slowly, as Hiroko clumsily tried to follow. It was made of only blue lux, which should have made it simple, but it was anything but.

Parvah had lux flowing through both hands. She split the flows into four strands on each side, then wove them together, doubled them over into a knot, wove it again, until she had a dense ball of shining blue lux, which hovered in front of her, shimmering in Hiroko's lux vision. Each strand was still there, distinct, and yet it was one solid piece.

Abruptly, she brought the ball to her own chest, and it faded in. Then, staring into Hiroko's eyes, she leaned forward across the table.

"My hair is red," she said.

The force of her words jolted against Hiroko. A strange thing to say, indeed. Hiroko blinked.

"What was that?"

"What color is my hair, Hiroko?"

Hiroko didn't pause to think.

"Red, of course."

Parvah laughed.

"Look at me. No, look at me." The force of her words compelled Hiroko. She stared at the woman, blinking. Something was wrong. Hiroko felt dizzy, as though the walls were spinning. She tried to tear her gaze away.

"I said, look at me," Parvah spat, and grabbed Hiroko's head between both of her hands. She forced Hiroko to look at her.

"What color is my hair?"

Hiroko struggled with her words. They wanted to choke her. She couldn't breathe. At last, she felt something inside her burst like the flare of an ember in a Firepot.

"Your hair is brown," she blurted.

Parvah sat back, an inscrutable look on her face. "Enough for one day. Practice cycling blue, and we will repeat this again."

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