Inquisitor Pak Yoonji sighed with relief as she finally prepared to drop her prisoner off at the high-security wing of the Inquisitor's jail. With the wards he wore at neck, hands, and wrists, he ought not be any sort of flight risk, but she warned the supervisors anyway.

"Keep an eye on this one. He's trouble."

The head of the dungeon, a bureaucrat at the lux Embodiment stage, one she'd encountered before and noted for his ambition, raised an eyebrow. "I think we can handle one backwoods cultivator," he said, eyeing Noren, who smiled somewhat vacantly and presented his license to be inspected.

The jailer looked it over, nodding. "Seems in order. Never heard of this sect... Morning Mist? But I suppose it's another of those provincial groups. What've you got him in for?"

He reached down to pull out paperwork.

Yoonji smiled. "Grand Treason."

The jailer stared at her. "I'm sorry? You must mean —"

"Grand Treason. Or rather," she clarified, "he has admitted to assisting someone else who has committed Grand Treason and is here to speak as a witness."

The jailer groaned. He turned to the shelf behind him, which had dozens of different cubbyholes, all stuffed with papers, and began running a hand along it.

"That's going to be a 345E. And a 718F, just to start." He turned back, glancing over his shoulder at Noren. "Are you the senior grandmaster of your sect?"

"I am the sole grandmaster of Morning Mist. The only member currently to rank higher than the Peak of Spiritual Refinement."

"So, this underling who has committed Grand Treason is your direct disciple, as well as a member of your sect?" The jailer sighed and bent down to a lower shelf. "That's going to be a 415A... and probably B as well."

"Not to mention," Noren piped up, "that the Morning Mist is a sect which has previously been proscribed by the Emperor."

Yoonji froze. She whipped her head around. "Noren, what are you talking about?"

"Fortunately for me," he said cheerfully, "the Inquisitor who was on the spot inspecting my sect has sworn an oath to permit my underlings to continue their training in my presence. I will need to request an adjustment of status based on the Inquisitor's pronouncement."

"We'll have to have a member of the Office of Cultivation visit and take care of that," the jailer said. "I'm just in charge of the filings related to your crimes."

Yoonji shook her head. "I made no such—"

"But you did," Noren said smoothly.

The jailer put the forms down on the counter and glared. "Look, if he's a member of a prohibited sect, that's another eight different forms I have to fill out. But if he's a member of a recently reinstated sect, those are two separate forms. I need to know which before I fill all of this out. I refuse to take him into custody until the matter of his sect's standing is resolved."

"I'll get a member of the Office of Cultivation down here to regularize it, once he's safely under lock and key."

The jailer crossed his arms. "Forgive me, Inquisitor, but I cannot take custody of your prisoner with his status in question like this. You'll have to come back once it's been regularized."

"You would contradict an Imperial Inquisitor?"

The man quailed but held his ground. "My superior, Senior Inquisitor Ahj Romar, can be called upon if you have any complaints," he said.

Yoonji knew she'd been outfoxed. Senior Inquisitor Ahj had held his post for longer than anyone in the capital could remember, surviving at least one Prism war and multiple smaller incidents that had roiled the kingdom over past centuries. He was a lux Dominion cultivator like Eri, and as far as she knew had never made an application to become Prism, but that did not mean she underestimated him. In the hierarchy of inquisitors, his word was law, contradicted only by the Emperor, and she could never remember that having happened.

Yoonji subsided. "Very well. Come," she ordered Noren.

Her prisoner obediently followed her, from the Inquisitor's dungeon through the great Courtyard of Inquisition, past all of the various departments where their juniors trained and the laws were constantly scrutinized, out back into the inner city and across to the Office of Cultivation, which was a larger, though less grand, complex than the Palace of Inquisition. After all, there were thirteen Grand Inquisitors and hundreds of lessers, but there were thousands of cultivation officials.

Pak Yoonji snagged a junior underling in passing. The woman bowed low. "Inquisitor, how may I help?"

"I need to determine the status of a sect. There is some question about it."

The woman bit her lip. "Do you seek the Office of Records, to learn its past history? Or are you regularizing a contradiction in current records?"

"History first," Yoonji snapped.

The official, who wore a ring marking her as a member of the Order of Licensed Scribes, bowed very low indeed. Without raising her head, she pointed first to the grand building which dominated the complex, a red stone edifice rising eight stories tall, with frowning windows.

"The records are in the basement of the Grand Archive. To update the status of an existing sect, you'll visit the Hall of Sects and Cultivators," she said, pointing at a building off to the right, this only six stories tall, made of black marble shot through with white and yellow veins.

The Office of Cultivation did have a flair for their architecture, Yoonji admitted. She marched off without a word of thanks, Noren trailing in her wake of course, and they entered the Hall of Records. A whisper spoke in her ear as she entered: "How may we assist you, Inquisitor?"

An impressive, if useless, display of a lux construct. She spoke aloud. "I am seeking records of a possibly proscribed sect."

"From which era, Mistress?"

Noren spoke without prodding. "From the Falling Plum Blossoms period."

"Records are located in the sub-basement and are limited in access to those at the rank of High Scribe or Magistrate Supreme. However, your status as Inquisitor overrides this. You are permitted entry, Inquisitor Yoonji, but your guest will have to remain here."

"As an Inquisitor, I take who I wish, where I wish," Yoonji declared as she struggled to hide her shock. The Falling Plum Blossoms period dated back, not to the previous Prism War, but to the first Prism War, almost 800 years ago. A legendary period. None still alive save the Emperor himself remembered those days. Records from that period were supposed to be non-existent, though, if anyone had them, she supposed it would be the Office of Cultivation here at the capital.

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A ball of light appeared, clearly a lux spirit creature, which had been adapted by the Office of Cultivation to serve here as a guide. It zipped in front of her, and she followed it past a pair of stark black doors that opened at her touch, then shut behind herself and Noren.

lux lamps flared to life as they descended a broad staircase into a cold, dark chamber where records stretched out everywhere. She recognized the feel of a preservation field around the whole place. Most lux libraries used a similar effect for their archives, but this was something else. It seemed to deaden sound. A soft feeling crept over her, like a warm blanket on a winter's morn. She felt a faint tingling in her fingers.

"Ah," Noren said, inside. "The smell of old parchment brings back memories, doesn't it?"

The little lux creature bobbed in front of her, then intensified in hue and brightness as lux streamed into it from elsewhere. In a more robust tone, it said, "How may I assist you in locating the records you seek, Mistress?"

She stared at the creature. This lux working was truly impressive, and she was tempted to take it apart. She had never used a lux creature of her own as an adjutant, but many of the other Inquisitors did, and she was starting to see the appeal.

"I need records of the Sect of Morning Mists," she announced clearly.

The little creature bobbed. "One moment, Mistress."

It zipped off, lighting away into the darkness, revealing far more rows of shelves than Yoonji had expected. This place must run under the entire Office of Cultivation complex. Yoonji wondered what other secrets the capital was hosting, hidden not by a declaration of secrecy but merely by obscurity.

Her Inquisitor's badge could open nearly any door in the Empire, and yet she had never been in this place. Perhaps never would again.

Noren hummed a little tune. He had a ball of light in his hand and was tossing it back and forth. It was the same hue as the lux creature had been, though a little smaller. Yoonji stared at it, wondering if she was supposed to be impressed or intimidated, and then wondering if he had succeeded.

The lux creature whizzed back. "Follow me, Mistress."

Yoonji strode off after. Noren let go of his little ball of lux. It raced out ahead. The lux creature guiding them snapped it up like a treat and for a moment glowed even brighter before returning to its previous state.

They strolled past aisles labeled with an arcane numbering system that would make sense only to the constrained mind of a scribe. As they went, the records became less regular. Instead of scrolls in neat cases or tightly bound volumes all the same size, there were books bound between pieces of wood, nearly two feet tall, stuffed next to scrolls half the length of any Yoonji had ever written. In one place, she saw a stone tablet. In another, what looked like a piece of cloth folded up with a little flag at one side of it.

Then, abruptly, they were at the end of the room. Ahead was a dark wall lit by the infrequent lux lamps, and one last shelf running down its length. The shelf was half the height of the others, made of wormy oak with a handful of volumes on its shelves.

The light led her down the shelves, past scrolls sealed in black with red skulls on them, and books bound in disturbingly pale leather. It bobbed up and down in front of a couple of thin volumes, one, a record bound in conventional black leather, which she snatched up gratefully. The second, a scroll in a black case with the Emperor's seal on it.

She knew what that meant. It was an order of judgment from the Emperor himself.

Yoonji opened the scroll case, and a thin scroll fell out. She held it up and read the simple words printed there:

The sect of Morning Mist was declared outlaw and destroyed on this, the 184th year of the reign of His Divine Majesty, Emperor of the Central Kingdom, the Unrivaled One.

All members of the sect at the Peak of Spiritual Refinement or higher have been executed or died by their own hands.

Their scribes are reassigned and scattered. Their disciples cast down. Licenses confiscated, lest their crimes be spread. This judgement to stand for a hundred years before petition for redress may be made.

That was fairly straightforward. She glanced down at the book. It was a register of names. On the cover page, it read:

A complete listing of the senior members of the sect of Morning Mist, as compiled by surviving Senior Scribe Wulan after the Emperor's wise and justified destruction of the sect.

There was a whole list of names that followed. The last one, Kang Dai Rel, had a mark beside it.

Young Master Kang was cast out of the sect by his father for insubordination prior to the Emperor's destruction of the sect. No sign of him has been seen, but he has been declared an outlaw, and will not be permitted to join another sect.

Followed by a listing of living junior members of the sect, now proscribed from cultivating, but Yoonji wasn't interested. She looked at Noren.

"Not the first sect, not the last sect the Emperor has destroyed."

Noren smiled pleasantly. "No, indeed. However, there is a process for rehabilitating an extinct sect, which the Sect of Morning Mist undoubtedly was. It involves quite a bit of paperwork, which you'll find is all in order, thanks to my young disciple Chang-li. He filled out everything, filed it at Varden City, and received multiple signed and sealed copies from the cultivation officials there, of which I happen to have a copy with me, along with a current roster of our members."

"I have not got the power to revoke the Emperor's decree."

"Ah." Noren smiled broadly. "Yes. However, you will find at the end of the Clash of Titans period, the Second Prism War," he added, just in case she didn't know what he was referring to, "the Emperor issued a general amnesty. A sect which had been declared illegal prior to the war but had not taken up the banner of one of the rebel Prisms was permitted to petition for reformation.

"As you recall, one of the contributing factors leading to the Clash of Titans affair was that Inquisitors and Prisms had been taking bribes to ban sects. Some of the banned cultivators had backed the Prisms, and in an attempt to prevent more defectors, the Emperor issued this amnesty."

"But your sect was not involved in that. It had been banned several hundred years prior," Yoonji said. Though she was interested in the precedent here, and would have to go and look up the contributing factors for the Clash of Titans when she had a moment to spare.

"Nevertheless, we qualify. One of the conditions for reinstatement was that the sect needed to be inspected by an Inquisitor, and for the Inquisitor to allow that they were, in fact, a sect with duly instituted Grandmasters, teachers, etc., which, thanks to you, has been accomplished." Noren smiled broadly.

Yoonji blinked. "You think me making a soul oath with you counts as approving of your sect?"

"Well, you did imply that the sect exists, that I am their Grandmaster, that I have the authority to make binding agreements concerning their future," Noren shrugged. "I'd say yes. And am willing to bet some adjudicators would agree."

Yoonji started to protest when she felt her own will tugging against her soul like a band around her heart, tightening. A stab of icy dread pierced her. The binding oath she had made with Noren was coming back to haunt her. She scowled at him and grabbed the records, stuck them under her arm. "Very well. Let's go and see the clerk."

Her status as Inquisitor cleared away the line of gawking petitioners waiting for the help of a clerk, and brought the senior-ranking scribe on duty fluttering to her side. He showed her into a private room, along with Noren, bowed low, presented her with tea, and asked how he could help.

As soon as he heard, the man gabbled an excuse, disappeared, and came back moments later with a dour, black-robed woman. A Dowager Pearl. Not high-ranking if she was in charge of the Office of Cultivation but not the one that Yoonji knew from her own dealings. This woman must be a second-level functionary.

She introduced herself, sat down, and began ordering scribes about. "Reinstatement of a proscribed sect," the woman said in a low, deep voice. "Yes, well, we can see to that. You have the order of dissolution there? That is excellent. It will save several pieces of paperwork. And what about the current records?"

Noren produced them from his soul space, ignoring, yet again, the restrictions Yoonji had laid on him.

"Very excellent. This will save a great deal of time," the woman said.

Yoonji sighed in relief.

"It should take no more than three or four hours to fill out the remaining forms."

Yoonji blinked in dismay. Three or four hours? More than anything, she wanted to be done with Noren, to deposit him in prison so that she could finally, at last, return to her own offices and lay the complaint against him. The trial couldn't even begin until he was properly booked in, and then it was going to take who knew how long.

And all the while, Prism Eri was out there with some sort of scheme against the Empire, one which, if Yoonji laid bare, was the key to her own ascension to Prism. Hours and days were burning.

The information she had learned from Eri's accomplice she had interrogated suggested Eri would be making her move within a month. She was wasting time here, dealing with a unimportant sect and its posturing.

On the other hand, somehow, Yoonji felt that this man, Noren, might be a bigger threat to the Empire than Eri ever had been.

She sighed and sat back in her chair as scribes appeared, piling their paperwork higher and higher.

This was going to take all evening, and she didn't even have anyone to take her resentment out on.

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