The messenger was ushered into the room, and the immediate look of fear on the man’s face told Sen that Shen Mingxia was right. The room was too stark and foreboding to be somewhere that good things happened. Those realizations simply furthered his intention to let her think that this whole thing was her fault. He knew, in his heart of hearts, that wasn’t the case. In fact, he’d been expecting something like this for a while. Not that he planned to tell her any of that. Why waste a golden opportunity to mess with the woman in a way that didn’t involve her fearing for her life? The look on her face had been downright hilarious. It had been so hilarious that it took a monumental effort not to laugh. Sen had risen to the occasion and kept a straight face. Laughing would have given the game away.

Still, Sen couldn’t tell himself that he was surprised that someone had shown up looking for him. He’d been in and out of the capital a few times in the last year and had not stopped in to see anyone but Lo Meifeng. He hadn’t even gone to pick up the formation flags he’d commissioned. Plus, by now, rumors had to have gotten back to the city about where he was in general, and that some blue-robed lunatic was starting some kind of organization out in the wilds. Maybe a sect, maybe something else, but probably something that should be paying taxes. There was going to be a line of people in the capital wanting to ask him questions, with the king after the very front of the line, followed closely by some sect patriarchs and at least one sect matriarch. To Sen’s way of thinking, if he had to go deal with that nonsense, he might as well share that experience with other people, and Shen Mingxia had been in the room.

Sen and the messenger sort of looked at each other expectantly for a while before Sen realized that the other man wasn’t going to break the silence first. Sen just wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say. He studied the messenger, who was wearing robes of dark red and black, but Sen didn’t see anything that looked like a crest or sect emblem.

“I’m Lu Sen,” he finally told the messenger. “You have a message for me?”

“I do,” said the man.

The messenger reached into a pouch and withdrew an extremely ornate scroll case that Sen recognized. He’d gotten one like it before from the, then, Prince Jing. I guess that solves that mystery, thought Sen. He took the scroll case and nodded to the messenger.

“Thank you.”

The messenger got a very uncomfortable look that told Sen he’d forgotten something.

“I’m sorry,” said Sen. “Am I supposed to pay you?”

“No. I am well-paid by my employer. It’s just—” the man hesitated.

“It’s not going to get easier to say if you wait another ten seconds,” Sen told him. “Out with it.”

The man winced a little and said, “I’m to wait for your response and return with it immediately.”

“Of course, you are,” said Sen.

Then, just to make sure she knew that he hadn’t forgotten about her supposed role in this social disaster, Sen gave Shen Mingxia a narrow-eyed look. She flushed a little and averted her eyes. Sen broke the seal on the scroll case, opened it, and removed the scroll inside. Unrolling it, he swiftly scanned the contents. It was filled with a mountain of formal language that Sen boiled down to a handful of quick sentences.

I’m having a thing for important people. Don’t be an ass. Show up.

Jing

Sen considered the scroll for a while before he suppressed a groan. No wonder he told the messenger to get an answer, thought Sen. He must have known that I would make a thousand excuses to not even open the scroll. There was no getting around it. He would have to give the man an answer. As much as Sen wanted to say no thanks, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Jing was, at the end of the day, his friend. The man could have done a lot to make Sen’s life hard. That he hadn’t done any of them was something that Sen couldn’t just dismiss. He looked at the messenger.Stolen story; please report.

“Please inform the king that I will be in attendance. As will Honorable Shen Mingxia.”

Shen Mingxia’s head snapped up at that. He could see all the questions in her eyes, which he intended to ignore for the moment. Instead, he returned the ornate scroll case to the messenger, who tucked it back into the pouch.

“I will convey your message to his royal majesty,” said the messenger as he offered a deep bow.

Sen nodded in acknowledgment and the man swiftly departed. Sen turned his gaze to Shen Mingxia.

“You’re off the hook for the moment. We have a few weeks until we need to leave. We can push it to a month if necessary.”

While that news seemed to provide a tiny bit of relief to the woman, she still looked unhappy.

“Honorable Shen Mingxia?” she asked. “What was that about?”

“People keep giving me stupid titles. I should get to do it once in a while. At least yours is accurate.”

“I don’t know about that,” objected Shen Mingxia.

“Well, I do,” said Sen, waving away her denial. “Bring your nice robes.”

“How nice?” demanded Shen Mingxia with a look of panic on her face.

Sen offered her a blank look. “Very nice? Nice enough for an event at court.”

Shen Mingxia pointed at the scroll that Sen still held in his hand.

“Can I see that?”

Sen handed it over. Shen Mingxia grew paler and paler the longer she looked at the scroll. Sen wasn’t sure why she was so worked up about it. Compared to his last visit to the palace, this should be a bloodless affair. Apparently, that didn’t matter, because she looked up from the scroll to glare at him.

“You can’t take me to this,” she insisted.

“Yes, I can. Besides, I already said you were coming.”

“This is a formal event. Representatives from foreign kingdoms will be there.”

Sen frowned at her for several seconds. “No, I’m still not seeing the problem.”

“This is the kind of thing that, I don’t know, sect patriarchs go to. Not a foundation formation cultivator from a middling sect in a middling city. I don’t belong there.”

That was enough to send Sen into fits of laughter.

“You don’t belong there, but I somehow do?”

“You’re, well, you. You’re famous.”

“Yeah,” said Sen, “and isn’t that just a gift that keeps on giving. Let me put this another way. You’re talking to someone who spent his childhood eating garbage, actual garbage, from behind restaurants in a nowhere town. I trained on a mountain with people old enough to remember all the names of the kingdoms this kingdom used to be. My only real friend for that entire time was a spirit beast. Exactly how do you think that I’m better equipped for this than you are?”

“Garbage? Really?” asked Shen Mingxia.

“I’m glad to see that you’re staying focused.”

“I’m just trying to imagine you doing that. It’s not an easy thing to picture.”

“My point is that you’re as competent to be there as I am. And you don’t have a choice.”

“What? Why?”

“You know why.”

“You can’t still be blaming me for this,” complained Shen Mingxia. “Do you think the universe just conjured that messenger out of nowhere solely to mess with you?”

“I’d give it even odds,” said Sen. “Plus, you’re my shield. If someone is already coming with me, then no one will try to arrange for me to take them.”

That drew a particularly bland look from Shen Mingxia.

“Thank you, oh mighty Judgment’s Gale. Nothing adds a bit of romance like telling someone they’re a utility object.”

That caught Sen a little off guard. He weighed the unintentional insult he’d delivered.

“I’ll buy you some nice robes to wear. Will that help to make up for my charmless comment?”

“They better be very nice. You know how shields are. We just don’t perform as well when you don’t treat us properly.”

“This is going to haunt me for a while, isn’t it?” asked Sen.

“That depends on how often you swing this poor foundation formation shield into the path of danger to spare yourself.”

“You could have just said, yes.”

Shen Mingxia giggled. “I could have, but then I wouldn’t have gotten to see that look of pain on your face. Don’t worry. I’m sure it won’t take me more than ten or fifteen years to forgive you.”

“Fifteen years!”

“It’s expensive to get to core formation. I can’t let a resource like you off the hook when you just give me that kind of leverage.”

Sen snorted. “If I thought you meant that, I’d be checking to see if you’re actually a nine tail fox.”

“You could have at least pretended to be worried. And, if I were a nine tail fox, I’d make myself way prettier than this.”

Sen caught himself before he said anything and directed an unamused look at Shen Mingxia.

“Looking to see if I’d give you more leverage?”

“You can’t blame a shield for trying.”