Redeeming the Broken Stars.

CHAPTER 20: MOTHS DON'T FLY.

"I want you to carry a message," Old Moth continued. "To Regent Voss, to the Mortal Coil Authority, to whoever in the formation cartel currently has an interest in this end of the district.”

“The boy in my room is my student. He is under my protection.”

“Whatever debt he carried as Zain is discharged.”

“Whatever interest the Celestial Inquisitors have in forbidden cultivation will need to wait until he has left this city, and by the time he leaves, he will be beyond their comfortable reach." 

She paused. "And if anyone else comes to this door, I will not be nearly this considerate." Old Moth immediately said as she stared at Dax with powerful precision, even though he was blind.

Dax immediately looked at his fourteen incapacitated men. Looked at Old Moth. 

Looked at the door of the hovel, where Kaelen had appeared in the frame, leaning on the doorjamb, watching.

"You're going to regret this," Dax said, and it lacked the conviction it would have had fourteen men ago.

"I very rarely regret things," Old Moth said. "It's one of the advantages of perspective."

Dax turned and walked into the dark street, stepping carefully over and around his men. He did not run. He would not give her the satisfaction of running.

Old Moth watched him go until his footsteps faded, then turned and walked back inside, tapping past Kaelen in the doorway and lowering herself into her chair.

Kaelen stood in the doorway a moment longer, looking at the street full of groaning, incapacitated men. Then he stepped back inside and closed the door.

Silence.

Then, "How did you do that?"

Old Moth reached for her cup. "Dark powers," she said, simply. 

"Outlawed power. Forbidden techniques, older than the Celestial Order's classifications and not bound by them." 

She immediately glanced at him with those white eyes, and in them, just briefly, was something like satisfaction. 

"One such technique is called Essence Devouring."

Kaelen stared at her.

"I used a variation of it on the man Dax, though he survived it. I took three seconds of his cultivation capacity, just enough to ensure he can't use his formation arrays for a week." She set down the cup. 

"The version you saw against the others? Different techniques entirely. Older ones. But the principle of taking rather than receiving from the environment? The same root." Old Moth immediately clarified him.

"Essence Devouring," Kaelen said slowly. 

"That's my path. You used it just now."

"I used it because it was the most efficient available response to fifteen armed men at my door." 

She met his gaze steadily. "And because I wanted you to see it. Not as a theory. Not as text on a scroll."

She gestured at the door, beyond which the sounds of recovery were beginning to drift in from the street.

"That is what the technique looks like when it is mastered. That is where the path leads."

Kaelen was quiet for a long moment.

"And since I can't cultivate through Zain's broken meridians," he said slowly, "it's also my only chance of survival."

Old Moth smiled. Not the cryptic, watching smile she wore most often. Something more genuine. 

Something that, for just a moment, looked like what it was: an old teacher, satisfied that a student had arrived at the right conclusion.

"Since you can't cultivate because of Zain's broken meridians," she confirmed, 

"yes."

"Then teach me," Kaelen Ashwright said. 

"All of it. Whatever time we have, every hour of it. Teach me."

Outside, the Mortal Coil continued its grinding existence, unconcerned with the impossible thing sitting in a one-room hovel, learning dark powers by lamplight.

The tournament was seven days away.

The Nine Heavens believed Kaelen Ashwright was dead.

They were about to be corrected.

All of a sudden, Kaelen Ashwright in Zain's body immediately, decided to think things through at the moment.

“Wait a minute, Blind Moth, don't you think this forbidden technique will be an issue with the celestial realm?”

“The main reason why the elders actually banned this technique…do you really think I shoul

d learn the Essence devouring forbidden technique?” Kaelen Ashwright slowly asked.