Chapter 10: A Fated Encounter

Jaemi’s eyes widen, both at the chance that they’d meet Kuiyang like this and that Kuiyang would be able to recognize him so easily. “Do you recognize me, Sir Kuiyang? I don’t recall meeting you before.”

Kuiyang laughs, but not unkindly. “Fate would have it that I had a meeting with a trusted distributor of mine earlier today and they heard news at the inn just northeast of the city of a merchant named Jaemi travelling with a group who was associated with the Mercators. Of course I would know the name Jaemi Mercator as a supplier of my size, sir. What have you stopped at the smith for?”

“Ah, I was simply in search of a bow and arrows. I plan on doing some hunting nearby since I have the chance to be near the forest,” Jaemi lies easily, waving his hand to make it seem like a trivial matter.

Kuiyang nods, accepting his explanation easily, and gestures to the smith. “Well you’ve come to the right place. This smith has a skilled bowyer in his service. Come, let us go inside the shop to browse what’s available.” Kuiyang turns and nods to the smith and he wraps up the ruined axe he was holding in a thick cloth before standing up from his anvil and walking through a backdoor in the open-air workshop into the enclosed shop next door.

Kuiyang leads them around to the front door of the shop. Noting how he hasn't seemed to recognize Hoen, though, the group don’t resist and follow behind Jaemi, resuming their cover as Jaemi’s helpers. However, Hoen keeps note of the way he and Asa met eyes earlier and stays with her at the back of the group, glancing at her to see her reaction. Asa peeks up at Hoen and gives a small nod, confirming that this is the Kuiyang that she is looking for and that he definitely recognized her, too. They both silently look forward once again and Asa thinks to herself: what could Kuiyang be thinking?

Kuiyang holds the door for everyone before going around them to the counter and gesturing to the wares behind the smith. “I hunt sometimes myself–I highly recommend this shop. Let me get you the bow and arrows, sir.”

Jaemi shakes his head. “Oh, no, there’s no need–”

Before he can finish his denial, Kuiyang insists again calmly, “Surely there is a need. I wish to have a long and fulfilling partnership with you, Sir Mercator. Please, let me show my goodwill to you.”

Jaemi hesitates, usually the one to be pushing and not receiving such insistence, but eventually accepts as graciously as he can. “I see. In that case, I must accept. Thank you very much, Sir Kuiyang.”

“Your words of gratitude aren't necessary, Sir Mercator. Though, if you’d like to thank me, would you grace me with a meeting tomorrow? I apologize for it being so soon but I am quite busy during my stay in Rita this time,” Kuiyang explains before selecting a bow and buying it with arrows, a quiver, and a sling for Jaemi.

“A meeting tomorrow?” Jaemi exclaims, “I’m afraid we plan on leaving tomorrow at daylight, sir.”

“Surely staying a little past noon won’t disrupt your schedule too heavily, will it? I am only asking for your morning, Sir Mercator. I believe we have a lot to offer one another, you won’t be disappointed,” Kuiyang insists, turning to face Jaemi with the wares he just purchased, offering them to him and locking gazes.

Jaemi hesitates once more, keeping his imploring gaze carefully before he bows slightly and accepts the wares. “Thank you once again, Sir Kuiyang…I suppose a meeting wouldn’t impose heavily on my itinerary.”

Kuiyang smiles and nods. “Thank you, Sir Mercator. Please, come to the temple after sunrise. I will meet you there and we will go to my office from there.”

“It’s settled then,” Jaemi confirms, “I will see you tomorrow, Sir Kuiyang.” The group then follows behind Jaemi as he leaves the shop. Kuiyang calls after him.

“Until tomorrow, Sir Mercator.”

The group have a relatively silent dinner at the inn, making idle talk so as not to seem conspicuous, but once they go upstairs to their rooms they gather in Jaemi and Toge’s room without hesitation.

Asa is the first to speak with a deep bow to the others. “I apologize. I’m certain that he recognized me.”

Hoen looks at her with wide eyes, his hands hovering in front of him supplicatingly. “Please rise, Asa. We knew he would if we met. It isn’t your fault we encountered him.”

Jaemi nods strongly, “Right! It gave me a fright when he said his name! Who would’ve thought the wealthy industrialist would go to the smith on his own? Let alone buy us the bow and supplies.”

Shou nods once and says, “Our cover may not be blown yet even if he does recognize you, Asa. He knows you and Jaemi, but he doesn’t necessarily know the rest of us. We can maintain the cover until we leave Rita–we just can’t let our destination slip.” The group nods in agreement with that.

“Right, but we gotta come up with a story for Asa and Jaemi now so they aren’t stuck when he inevitably asks,” Toge adds, “Why would Asa end up with a Sehchoh merchant after being in the palace?”

“Hm…” Wen thinks for a moment. “...we know from the inn server that Kuiyang travels back and forth between Naiténoza and Rita for business and that he was just in the palace town. Information may not have leaked like we thought, but he still most likely knows what happened. Until we can confirm exactly how much he knows, it’s best not to come up with too complicated an alibi.”

“Wait–you're right, Wen,” Hoen says suddenly, “It wouldn’t make sense for him not to know what happened in the palace if he went back to Naiténoza. So if he knows King Inei is dead, why did he return to Rita so quickly? Is it possible he knows who we are, after all? From Naiténoza’s perspective, a group from Sehchoh arrived, trouble started, and then the king was dead when Sehchoh left. He may be collecting information the same as us.”

Shou’s hand comes to stroke his chin lightly as he thinks, his other hand on his hip. “...then this meeting may be more difficult than we thought. If we think from their perspective, Asa just disappeared from the palace, too. And now she’s appeared with a group from Sehchoh snooping around Rita. The pieces all align too neatly to make up some excuse Kuiyang would probably believe…”

Hoen huffs with a hand to his forehead in exasperation with himself, shaking his head in a rare moment without his composure. “I’m sorry, you all. Had I thought of this earlier, I would’ve had us avoid Rita altogether. I was too opportunistic and incurred unnecessary risk for us.”

Asa looks at him and puts a hand on his shoulder in understanding mirroring Hoen’s support of her just before. “Don’t blame yourself, Hoen. You’ve had a lot of pressure on you, and we could’ve refused the plan but we decided to take the risk on ourselves.”

Jaemi copies Asa and places a supportive hand on Hoen’s other shoulder with a grin. “She’s right. If you got arrested by Kuiyang we would’ve found a way to get you out.”

“Uhm, and we got information like we wanted from this stop, so it wasn’t a waste, Hoen…” Wen adds hesitantly. Toge watches on silently from the side.

“...our cover may still work in Rita,” Shou suddenly says.

The group all look at Shou and Toge raises an eyebrow at that. “Huh? What do you mean by that? Aren’t we figured out?”

“We probably are, and Hoen’s right to say we’re taking a risk just being here, but Kuiyang wasn’t eager to expose us even when he could’ve had us arrested by nearby soldiers for his suspicions. Whatever his reason is for not exposing us in public, the risk will have paid off so long as Kuiyang remains cordial. He may not be looking for conflict, just like us.”

Hoen is silent for a moment before he takes a deep breath and nods. “...you’re right, Shou. We may be able to maintain our cover in Rita, but there’s no point in trying to maintain our cover in front of Kuiyang. We’ll be able to gain more information from this meeting if we’re honest.”

Toge frowns slightly. “Are you sure, Hoen. We’re really just gonna count on Kuiyang to keep being friendly?”

Hoen nods, his expression stern–mostly at himself. “Yes. I believe the risk here is worth it.” Then, he sighs, the exhaustion becoming clear on his face. “And we’re already this deep. I say the chances are high he’s really just looking for a meeting–if they were looking for a war, they would’ve done it by now. Besides, the worst case scenario is that I pay for my transgressions.”

Toge scowls at that, stepping forward. “Now wait just a second! You’re not risking your life here!”

The others look on with concern and confusion while Asa observes the confrontation carefully, eyes narrowed. Toge continues, “Let’s just skip the meeting. What if he’s planning to get information out of us and then arrest you?”

“If we skip the meeting and he really wants information from us then there’s no guarantee we won’t be tailed to the mountains,” Hoen says firmly, “I’d rather avoid conflict if I can, as well, and I think going to this meeting and being honest is the best way to do that.”

Toge huffs. “You’re being too optimistic again! You can’t assume that everyone wants peace the same as you! You tried it with Inei and look what happened–”

“Stop,” Asa interjects, “The fault lies with you, as well. If you’d stayed in the room the duel would’ve never happened. It isn’t your place to criticize his ideals when your own come at the cost of someone else’s life and safety.”

Toge turns to glare at Asa and she meets his gaze with a glare of her own.

“It isn’t my job to protect anyone but Hoen and that includes helping him protect himself by teaching him some common sense!” he argues, his voice rising along with the tension in the room as the two face off.

“And you’d protect him by leaving him alone in a potentially dangerous situation?” she rebuts, not backing down despite Toge’s rising irritation.

“I didn’t really think it’d be that dangerous! I just thought he’d learn that he can’t always get everyone on his side!” he says.

“And yet, you knew that a duel wasn’t an impossibility when you left him alone. Am I wrong?” she asks.

Toge freezes at that, shocked into silence at her sharpness. They scowl at one another for a charged moment before he huffs and turns away, dropping down onto the bed roughly and waving his hand. “Fine! I was wrong, I know! But I’m not letting him get arrested or killed or anything like that. Not on my watch.”

Wen puts his hands up placatingly between the two. “I don’t think any of us want those things, either. Asa included. But I agree with Hoen and Shou. We’re already this far, and the chances that the risk will pay off are rather in our favor, I'd say.” He looks between Asa and Toge, waiting for an answer from either of them.

Toge remains stubbornly silent, but Asa speaks up. “I say we go to the meeting. We need answers and Kuiyang has them. I know what he is like–the worst case scenario isn’t likely. But if it does happen, I was closer to Inei than he was and word should supersede his surrounding Inei’s death, especially considering that Kuiyang wasn’t there.”

Toge grumbles, “This is all way too risky…”

Hoen speaks up again, his tone final. “But the risk is worth it. We’ll go to the meeting tomorrow morning and be honest about our intentions if he asks.”

Toge just sighs, saying nothing else to try and change his mind. Jaemi notices his silence and speaks up in his place. “I’ll talk to the grump. Everyone, try to rest well tonight.”

The group disperses to their rooms; Jaemi talking to Toge about what happened in their room, Shou and Wen talking quietly as they go to their room, and Hoen and Asa returning to their room in silence. They each sit on their beds, facing one another in the quiet room. The silence stretches on for a long time, Asa watching Hoen carefully as his gaze stays trained on the floor in thought. Hoen is the first to speak up.

“...I still trust him,” he says.

“I know,” Asa replies.

The silence resumes, most of what they want to say left unsaid–yet, an understanding hums between them. Hoen voices it aloud.

“Thank you, Asa,” he sighs.

“...I don’t think your ideals nor your feelings are wrong. You should live by them both,” she replies.

Then, they let the silence continue, their unspoken trust lifting the tension carried from Toge and Jaemi’s room and creating a comfortable atmosphere. The rest of the night carries on quietly with a warmth the two seem to have created through mutual vulnerability and shared grief. The next day when everyone emerges from their rooms, Toge greets Asa with a silent nod that she returns. The group has a quiet breakfast downstairs before heading off back into the city.

Across the rooftops of Rita to the southwest, a temple looms behind the city. Hardly the sacred scene, the temple is fitted with metal and wooden beams to keep it from crumbling as if it were any other common mineshaft. As the group approaches the temple where Kuiyang is already waiting, they notice the signs of its decay–most notably the rifts around it in the earth telling of its history. The splits in the ground have been partially covered by wooden planks with metal slabs over them.

“That seems…unsafe, to say the least,” Wen comments aloud to himself.

Kuiyang turns to him with a calm smile and he leads them to his office. “I assure you, sir, the walkways are completely safe. I did not wish to completely obscure the natural phenomena–the temples and the chasms are deeply important parts of our history on this continent, after all.”

Wen flusters and nods quickly at being directly addressed. “I see, yes–th-thank you for explaining, Sir Kuiyang…”

When they get to the upstairs office space in the southwestern part of Rita, Jaemi asks, “Just how did you come to own a mine within an open temple, Sir Kuiyang?”

The group settles around the room and Kuiyang sits behind his desk, seeming completely at ease. “Well, Sir Mercator, I’ll give you the short version of the story. When the temple opened up around a century ago, my father was a humble logger for the Silvas who’d just moved to Rita, and yet he was the fated soul to find the relic inside the temple despite all the odds. He told the story much better than I can, but he used to describe how when he took the relic, the temple shook and the walls crumbled to reveal bountiful ore veins as he escaped. He went to get the relic authenticated by the king and the king announced that if the relic was his by fate then the ore in the temple was his by right as he was the one who discovered both. He established the mine with the authority of his newfound relic and the help of other nobles, including Sir Silva who he was working for before, and became a part of the king’s court. The mine prospered and was passed onto me when he passed a decade ago. I’ve even been able to acquire the quarry from Sir Silva since then.”

Wen leans forward in his seat as he takes in the account. “Wow. A commoner finding a relic has been unheard of since the beginning of the New Age.”

Kuiyang smiles proudly. “Indeed. Fate truly smiled upon my father, and I am able to enjoy the benefits of his blessing to this day. I am truly lucky.”

Then, Kuiyang’s gaze travels to Asa. He leans forward onto his desk on his elbows, his chin propped up by his laced hands as he says with a smile, “But that’s enough about me. I have no problem revealing information about myself, but now that we’re alone, I’m curious to know how you got to this point, as well, Miss Asa. And with Sehchoh folk no less.”

The air in the room suddenly feels heavier, and the group share glances before Jaemi speaks up. “Well, we–”

“With all due respect for you, Sir Mercator, I’d like to hear what she has to say for herself. Well?” Kuiyang gestures to Asa for her to speak.

She hesitates, unsure of just what to say first, and looks to Hoen. He smiles softly and nods at Asa, speaking to her quietly, “You can speak, Asa. Just be honest.”

She nods and takes a deep breath, training her gaze back on Kuiyang. “...what do you want to know first?”