The next day carried a tension that refused to settle.
It clung to everything - voices too sharp, silences too long, movements slightly misjudged. Nothing was openly wrong, and yet every moment grated. Fengyu found himself snapping at small inconveniences, then forcing his temper back down, the irritation lingering like a low fever.
It was only when he stepped down from the veranda that he noticed them.
They occupied the small space in front of Ashen's abode as if they had always been there. Lao Zhan stood near the wall, resting his weight on one foot. Tie Dun lingered by the steps, arms loose at his sides. Huo Yan waited a little apart, gaze unfocused, posture relaxed.
They were doing nothing. And watching everything.
For a heartbeat, Fengyu simply stared. He had almost forgotten about them. He had not seen any of them for days.
As he moved, they fell in behind him with practiced ease, spacing precise, eyes scanning the space. Something clearly had shifted overnight.
Fengyu felt the irritation sharpen into something colder.
They shadowed him relentlessly, in quiet acknowledgement of something unsaid - some sudden danger he had not been told about, or worse, something he had already brushed against without realizing.
He did not ask. The waiting was already unbearable.
By midmorning, he sought out Mokai.
Mokai stood in the middle of a particularly dense herb field. With the thick tome of the herbal dictionary tucked under one arm, he studied the plants with a critical eye, fingers brushing aside leaves as he examined the growth beneath.
"What's the problem?" Fengyu asked, stopping a few steps away. "I thought everything had already been catalogued."
Mokai did not look up at once.
"Something is wrong," Mokai answered. "But I can't put a finger on it. They look like silverleaf khenna… but also not."
He knelt, parting the dense growth with careful fingers, studying the veins of the leaves as if they might confess something under enough scrutiny.
"The structure is right. The growth pattern too. But the resonance is off."
Fengyu paused. "The resonance? What do you mean?"
Mokai opened the book and held it out to him, already turned to a marked page. At the top lay the hidden booklet.
"Here… and here." He tapped first the printed page, then the thinner insert. "Try using the focus and feel it."
After a brief hesitation, he added, "Just don't grab it. You might not withstand it."
A faint, crooked smile followed. "I don't."
Fengyu looked down.
The page described silverleaf khenna, its properties and known uses, followed by the Guild's standard table of yields and layers. The booklet lay open beside it, aligned to the same layer.
He took out the focus and clasped it in his hand.
Silverleaf khenna was a potent but simple herb, valued for its blood-coagulating properties. Normally, it bound energy from one higher dimension - layer five.
According to the booklet, the energy thread should pulse clearly, a steady violet, with inner shifts of pink and yellow as it flowed through the plant's veins.
But as Fengyu stared, something felt… off. The thread did not hum as expected. The colours wavered too quickly, flickering and blending in ways that made his chest tighten. The resonance was wrong.
"Maybe here the layer is just different? In other farms it's layer five, maybe just not here. Or it has shifted? Isn't meant to change?" he said casually flipping through the booklet and scanning the descriptions of other layers.
"Is your vine twister as good as focus in this stuff and all?" he added, trying to sound nonchalant.
Mokai looked at him for a long moment, something unreadable passing over his face. Not quite annoyance, but some sort of calculation. He hesitated before answering.
"The vine twister is not nearly as good as the focus," he said at last. "It can only identify and grasp energy up to layer eight. Those layers correspond to what plants usually bind."
He reached out and flipped through the pages of the booklet in Fengyu's hands, until it stopped at the ninth layer. He tapped the page once, then again.
The entry stated plainly that energy bound from the ninth layer and higher dimensions was denser - too dense for most flora to channel safely - and was usually bound by… beasts.
Not plants.
Beasts!
Fengyu felt his jaw tighten.
He glanced back at the field, at the quiet silverleaf leaves trembling almost imperceptibly.
"Beyond layer eight, I can't see or touch the energy threads." Mokai continued undisturbed. "But for plants' bound energy, it's said to be easier than using a focus. Effortless, even - once you learn how to use it."
He withdrew his hand slowly.
"I never tried a focus," he added.
Then he looked at Fengyu - really looked at him - longer than was comfortable. The air between them seemed to tighten, the herb field suddenly too quiet.
Fengyu's eyes returned to the booklet's entry. He took it in fully this time, turning the page slightly so the light caught the ink. "Beasts bind higher layers because their bodies can circulate it. Muscle, marrow, instinct. They don't filter resonance the way plants do - they endure it. Plants aren't meant to endure," he continued reading. "They regulate, soften and they bleed excess away."
Mokai returned his gaze to the plants and continued. "I checked all the layers' descriptions for plants' bound energy one by one according to the manual. It does not fit, but I still can feel the resonance through the vine twister. So it should still be plant bound layer. But if silverleaf khenna is even partially pulling energy from layer higher than eight…"
"…then it's pretending to be something it's not," Fengyu finished.
Mokai's gaze snapped to him.
"Or," Fengyu added quickly, "a beast passed through here recently and peed on the plants."
For a breath, nothing happened.
Then Mokai let out a short, incredulous huff. Some of the tightness bled out of the air.
"Let me study this a little," Fengyu said, already looking down, flipping the booklet with renewed urgency. He skimmed past the plant layers again, then to the beast section heading-
-and stopped.
There was nothing. Beast-bound layers were not catalogued.
"That's it?" Fengyu frowned. "There's nothing here. How are you even supposed to tell if something is pulling from higher than eight? Maybe they just combine two lower layers? Is there anything about combining two layers and how it looks like?"
Mokai nodded once.
He reached out again to find the corresponding place in the booklet. "If a plant combines layers, it harmonizes them. You'd see braiding - two clean threads running parallel, sometimes twisting, but never fighting."
"Besides," he continued, "I have never felt overwhelmed by any plant. The vine twister does not operate this way. I feel overwhelmed by this…" he pointed to the plants again. "Which means either the plant learned a trick it shouldn't know…"
"Well, everything in Firme is different, isn't it?" Fengyu concluded, closing the booklet with a soft thud. "By the way - how long can you do that?" He tilted his head, half-teasing. "I mean… magic."
"It is not so much magical when you know how it works," Mokai retorted at once. "Or rather - when you finally understand what you are doing."
He glanced down at his wrist. The vine twister lay quiet now, coiled as if asleep.
"But yes," he admitted after a pause, "this is probably the first time I have used it like this."
Fengyu blinked. "You're serious?"
"I had training," Mokai went on, unbothered. "The vine twister is Pantax's hidden weapon. I was taught how to use it."
He shook his head slightly, as if at his former self. "I never understood how it really worked. Maybe that is why learning was so difficult. I kept forcing it - treating it like a tool instead of a conduit."
Then he lifted a finger and tapped the booklet still tucked under Fengyu's arm.
"Only with this," he said, more quietly, "did it finally make sense."
"Well," Fengyu said, tilting his head again, a note of easy confidence slipping into his voice, "that only means you're going to get much better." He offered a faint, crooked smile. "If you understand it, the proficiency usually follows."
Mokai looked at him sidelong. "So if I improve quickly, it will not be because I am talented," he said dryly. "I was merely ignorant before."
For that, Fengyu had only one answer.
He stuck his tongue out at Mokai and turned on his heel, already walking away.
Mokai's laugh rang out behind him.
"Study well, Fengyu," he called after him. "You will need it."
The rest of the morning Fengyu spent studying the plants and the layer descriptions, moving from plot to plot, comparing page to reality, theory to sensation. He traced the threads with his focus again and again, watching how different plants held their energy.
Most were potent, bound to the rarer layers of six through eight. He lingered there longest, learning the subtle differences: the steadiness of six, the elasticity of seven, the faint inward pull that marked eight. But he did not neglect the lower layers, nor the plants with the unlayered energy whose absence of resonance felt just as distinct once he paid attention.
By the time the bell for midday rang, the field no longer felt like a blur of colour and pressure.
Fengyu straightened, rolling his shoulders, satisfied that identifying the layer of a thread now came to him almost without thought.
On the way back to the abode, Fengyu spotted Mokai standing off the path, utterly still, his attention fixed on something low to the ground. From a distance, Fengyu couldn't make it out - the herb wasn't tall enough to catch the eye, easily lost among the taller and denser growth around it.
As he came closer, the reason for Mokai's stillness became clear.
Short bushes clustered near the path, barely reaching Fengyu's ankles. Their leaves were small and round, thickly packed, unremarkable in shape - until the focus revealed what the eye alone could not.
Threads of energy shimmered around them in a tangled brilliance. Not one, not two, but at least three distinct layers were bound at once, woven together in a way that should have been chaotic, yet wasn't. The colours interlaced and parted again, never collapsing, never compressing - braiding cleanly, rhythmically, as if the plant had always known how to hold them.
It was a genuine combination.
Mokai seemed to sense him then. He didn't look up, but his voice carried, low and almost reverent.
"Layer four, six, and seven," he said. "Perfectly stable."
The bushes stirred faintly, leaves trembling as the threads continued their careful dance.
The soft sound of a throat being cleared snapped them both out of their reverie.
Lao Zhan stood a short distance away, hands folded neatly behind his back, expression politely expectant. Fengyu winced inwardly - he had managed, somehow, to forget his bodyguards' constant yet discreet presence.
Lao Zhan lifted one hand and pointed up the path that descended from higher in the valley.
There stood Joy, clearly waiting for someone.
Moments later, the forest line stirred. Figures began to emerge onto the herbal meadow, their footsteps measured, their formation deliberate. At the head of the procession walked a figure who seemed almost to catch and bend the sunlight itself.
Robes woven with silver and gold thread shimmered with every step, reflecting the stark midday light until the air around him seemed brighter for it.
"An archimage," Lao Zhan said quietly.
Fengyu squinted. "I've never seen one in Solirae. And now one comes all the way to Firme." A faint scoff edged his voice. "Double standards, if you ask me."
"Oh?" Mokai murmured. "I thought archimages weren't welcome in Solirae. It's not that they don't come," he continued, eyes still fixed on the distant figure. "They're simply not allowed in."
Fengyu turned then, studying Mokai with new interest. "Allowed?" he asked, carefully.
Mokai finally looked back at him, one brow lifting in challenge. "Yes," he said. "Allowed."
As the procession drew closer, Fengyu and Mokai turned from the field and headed toward the abode. They met the newcomers as they emerged from between the herbs and approached the veranda.
Up close, the Archimage's presence was quieter than expected - contained, deliberate, like a blade kept carefully sheathed.
His gaze passed over them in sequence, assessing, before settling on Joy with a questioning lift of his brow.
Joy inclined his head and gestured back toward them. "These are the Temple guardians - Mokai of Pantax and Fengyu of Solirae. The others are Fengyu's people."
The Archimage studied them again.
Then, to Fengyu's surprise, he bowed slightly directly to him.
"Commander Fengyu," he said, voice smooth but measured. "It is a pleasure to finally meet you."
He shifted his attention to Mokai next, offering only a brief, formal nod. "Guardian Mokai."
The distinction landed cleanly.
Fengyu felt a flicker of disorientation. He had completely forgotten his own status. But yes - here, in Firme, he stood as Solirae's representative. Mokai, for all his skill, was only a guardian, without title or delegation beyond that.
The Archimage's politeness caught him off guard. He had expected condescension, not courtesy.
The man straightened and placed a hand lightly over his chest. "I am Archimage Paronel Vaithar," he said. "You may call me Paronel."
Silver and gold threads glinted as he moved, sunlight catching in patterns that suddenly felt intentionally restrained.
The courtesy - no, the openness of his behaviour - was unsettling.
A mage of the Guild behaving this way was rare enough. An archimage? It bordered on the unheard-of.
Fengyu studied Paronel Vaithar more closely now, letting his earlier surprise settle into suspicion. There was no arrogance in the man's posture, no performative dominance in the way he held himself. Even the bow had been measured - deep enough to acknowledge rank, shallow enough not to concede it.
Precise.
"What are you plotting?" Fengyu wondered.
Archimages did not travel to other worlds without reason. They did not address commanders by name unless they had done their homework. And they certainly did not offer courtesy unless it served a purpose.
Beside him, Mokai had gone still. Not stiff - focused. The vine twister lay dormant, but Fengyu could feel the subtle alertness in him, like a bowstring drawn just short of release.
Paronel's gaze flicked briefly toward the herb fields, lingering there a fraction too long.
Then the Archimage smiled, soft and disarming.
"I hope my arrival has not caused discomfort," Paronel said.
The sun flashed once more across the gold-threaded robes as the Archimage shifted his stance, perfectly at ease among guardians, soldiers, and soil-bound mysteries.
Fengyu's eyes flicked past Paronel Vaithar to the rest of the entourage. A couple of master mages walked behind him, some attendants followed. But it was the soldiers that caught Fengyu's attention.
They carried chests. Dozens of them. Solid, square, and heavy-looking, clearly meant to survive drops and shocks. Even so, the soldiers were moving them with visible effort, shifting their weight carefully and taking slow, deliberate steps.
"Empty or full?" Fengyu wondered. "And what on earth would an Archimage be bringing here - so many, and with such care?"
Archimages were rumoured to travel lightly and return quickly. Their magic allowed them that convenience. And yet here they were: chests enough to make a small caravan blush, guarded with the meticulous attention of soldiers who clearly understood the value of their cargo.
Whatever Paronel Vaithar had come to Firme for, it was a move - a new move in the game.