Kai-Se gritted his teeth as he braced his arm for another incoming impact. What was left of his strength in his legs surged out, propelling him forward. He slammed against the wooden door. It didn't budge. Pain shot to his already sore arm as he stumbled away, cradling the throbbing area with a hand.

Sweat poured from the side of his face and down his back. His hair hung in clumped strands against his forehead. His chest heaved in mouthful breaths, trying to get his system up to speed.

He glared at the wooden door separating him from An-Ri. His memory of coming into this room was hazy, with the last thing he remembered was sending An-Ri to get Nao-Zai out of Dansarun. The gods must have taken advantage of the ancestral spirit being away and knocked Kai-Se unconscious because when he woke up, he couldn't sense his connection to An-Ri. Not anymore.

Panic settled in his veins for reasons Kai-Se didn't know. The door. He has to get out of this room but this stupid door wouldn't budge. It was supposed to cave under his repeated assaults at the hinges but it seemed to be made of steel rather than wood. Kai-Se clicked his tongue, stepping backwards to gear for another assault.

Already, his limbs felt like they were about to fall off, his energy seeming to be sapped by the floor. It wasn't that hot, with the room he was hundreds of feet from the ground, but he was sweating like a laborer under the glare of the Dangrao heat. Could it be that he was exerting himself yet again?

Then again, what choice did he have? Curl up in the corner and die or kill himself trying to ram the door until it broke? Both were possible and, unfortunately, both resulted in him dying.

Life was surely fun.

Kai-Se clenched his jaw. One last charge and if the door didn't budge, perhaps he'd try again tomorrow. That was...if there was still tomorrow for him. Or the Xuijae Empire. For all Kai-Se knew, Dansarun had already marched to Dangrao and the empire had already fallen. Not the kind of freedom from the royal duties Kai-Se had hoped for. It was only him that he wanted out of the Imperial Court and not the whole Court in itself.

Yeah. Life was surely fun for Najizaki Kai-Se.

So, he lowered himself to a stance and charged.

Only for the door to slide away and a god to stride inside.

Kai-Se hurtled to a stop, pausing inches from a woman with cropped orange hair and a dark brown fenhai just whirling from closing the door behind her. He inched backwards, wiping his sleeves against his forehead. Nope. Not trying to escape. Nothing to see here.

Kai-Se was still panting when the woman turned to the tray of food that came in with her when she entered the room. She bent down, picked it up from the bulging handles, and approached him from where he stood. He eyed her with waning interest. Out of all the flashy and noisy gods he had come to meet in Dansarun, this woman somehow slipped his memory. Who was she and was she ever in the council at all? If so, why hasn't Kai-Se remembered her?

He settled on the idea of this woman not talking much during the meeting or the zhunxi just as she strode to the middle of the spacious room and tucked her legs atop a velvety cushion. Then, silence reigned in the space between them, choking more and more of the air Kai-Se desperately needed to catch.

Finally, Kai-Se exhaled through his mouth and trudged towards the low table where the woman sat behind. He sank to the other cushion on the opposite side, letting his eyes drift towards the endless pillars jutting from the room's floor and punching through the wooden planks making up the ceiling.

Decors much like the ones he had grown accustomed with in the Butterfly Palace, such as porcelain vases, plates, and bowls, jade figurines of animals and ancestral spirits, and folded woven mats from black bamboo stalks, populated this room in a different arrangement and combination altogether.

The scent of the forest and morning dew washed over the windows when a stray breeze blew inside. Kai-Se knitted his eyebrows, the splendid view of dappled red and orange canopies taunting him, daring him to hope An-Ri was there, zipping through the clouds, looking for a way to bust him from the outside.

"In case you're wondering whether your guardian spirit would rescue you or not," the woman spoke, jarring his attention back to her presence. Her eyes looked empty and sad but her voice carried enough authority to make his spine straight. "We have placed a magical lock around Urkaze so that all who enter may not get out. Your guardian spirit will not be able to penetrate our defenses, especially the other layer we placed around this room."

Kai-Se frowned. "Why are you telling me this?" he asked. "Wouldn't that give me an idea how to break out of here?"

The woman leveled her gaze at him. It was a look saying she had already won. "I'm not going to beat around the canopy," she said. "But the only way to get out of here is to break the lock from the outside. Unless you develop an ability to pass through walls, then no. You're not getting out of here."

Despair nipped at the edge of Kai-Se's consciousness. Yes, he just threw the only chance he had at getting out by sending Nao-Zai back to Shencai. But he also had to do it considering Nao-Zai was the only one without magic and that fact could get him killed in a place such as Dansarun. He was only acting in Nao-Zai's best interest, even if the soldier was reluctant to.

Look at him thinking of others first before himself. What a nice development.

"Why did you open your walls and summon a delegation from Xuijae?" Kai-Se blurted before he could stop to think twice about it. The woman's eyes snapped up from the tray of covered bowls that could either be Kai-Se's meal or his designated poison for execution. "Don't give me that crap about wanting to strengthen the two empire economy."

The woman snorted and placed her hands underneath the table, no doubt to rest them on her lap. "It was never about trade," she answered. No shame laced with her tone as she basically admitted to committing false summons just to achieve the end they wanted. "We had to get Xuijae's attention and perhaps gain some control over them too. We're powerful enough for that."

A sickening feeling arose in Kai-Se's gut. "So me telling stories in the streets has nothing to do with it?" he said. Anger curled around his tone, daring him to go further than hiss at a god who could probably tear him to pieces with just a glance. "I didn't inspire any rebellion at all? You just needed a reason to keep me here and use me as a bargaining piece?"

"You are not without fault, Your Highness," the woman said, addressing him by his title. Hearing it from the people who imprisoned him sounded more like an insult than a sign of respect. "It is proper protocol for an emissary visiting a foreign country to keep his hands to himself and never interact with the locals. Most often than not, you'd hear your name spoken in the dark alleys, lighting up an ember thought to be a long-dead flame."

"It's not my fault the people you conquered don't like you," Kai-Se snapped. If An-Ri was here, she'd reason that the food was getting cold and she didn't want the noodles to get soggy. As if she could taste the food in the mortal realm. Being reminded of her absence just sent another painful stab in Kai-Se's heart. "Stop putting all the blame on me. And for the record, I have no intention of letting you gods use me to force Xuijae's hand. I'd rather you kill me."

The woman's features remained in her passive stare. "You know that wouldn't happen," she said. "At least not any time soon. Nishi has grand plans for you, Your Highness, and it is my humblest request for you to stop trying to kill yourself before we could make use of you."

The gears in Kai-Se's head turned. So they didn't want to kill him. Maybe he should just do them a favor and do just that. If it meant giving Xuijae an upper hand against Dansarun, he would do it. But then again...if he died here, it would spark a war between the two strong empires and that would just be a waste of time, resources, and lives. War was never the answer in settling dispute and Kai-Se has to avoid triggering it at all costs.

Which was why he was stuck in a meaningless cycle of staying put and trying to free himself from the mess he unwittingly dove head-first into.

"Why did you want to conquer Xuijae?" Kai-Se narrowed his eyes, watching the woman's face shift from confusion to surprise before finally settling into a mixture of both. "Why did you conquer Shencai in the first place? Was having Dansarun under your control not enough? From what I've seen since visiting Urkaze, you can survive very well without using Shencai's resources. So...why?"

The woman's stare didn't change but when her reply came, it was with more conviction and resolution. "Protection," she said. "We did it for protection and for ensuring no one will have enough power to hurt us again. We have to do everything we can to not let anything catch up to us. Unfortunately, Xuijae being under the protection of Shaoryeong doesn't bode well with us. It's either the pact gets severed or Xuijae gets razed to the ground. This realm shouldn't have traces of the place we wished to forget."

Kai-Se chewed on his lip. What the god had said contained a lot of substance he wished he had the time to process fully. But he got the gist. Somehow, for some reason, these gods didn't want to be in Shaoryeong, the spirit realm, and they're finding it a problem that Xuijae and Shencai were thriving under the spirits' magic and influence.

"This realm is not yours to control," Kai-Se said. "And it will never be. There will always be someone who will stand against you, especially if you're threatening their survival."

The woman jerked her chin at the bowls between them. "Please eat your meals and try not to die before Nishi and the others come here," she said. "I must be off."

Before Kai-Se could respond, before he blurted out that he wished to continue this conversation further, the woman pushed herself away from the table and stood up. Within seconds, she slid the door open and shut it behind her as soon as she ducked out of the space. Kai-Se watched her hulking shadow disappear to the left, no doubt to get back to her duties or things only gods did.

Kai-Se turned his attention back to his food. Smoke no longer curled from the gaps between the cover and the bowls' rims like it did when the woman first brought it in. He lifted one lid and glimpsed at the bunch of thin egg noodles swirling at the bottom of clear broth. His stomach rumbled from the sight and the smell of garlic and freshly cut dokpio leaves but he couldn't bear to eat. Not now. Not when his empire was bound to collapse under Dansarun's oppression that he might or might not have brought about.

Still, he understood running away and getting rid of everything that might bring one back to the place where it all started. The gods might not have had a good experience in Shaoryeong. Otherwise, they wouldn't have to run far away and obsess about erasing their traces and of being followed. If he had to run from Xuijae, he would have done the same and worried about the same things.

But that didn't mean Kai-Se would just stand around and wait for them to destroy everything he loved. Not Xuijae. Not Dangrao. And certainly not the dynasty the Najizaki family fought hard to protect.

He had come this far and he should see this through.

So, he replaced the lid of the bowl of noodles and slid away from the table. The cushion the god had occupied had already poofed back to its original size, erasing any indication that someone was in the room with him.

He trudged towards the door, his socks scratching against the polished wooden floor surrounding him in all directions. His fingers curled around the door's handle and tugged. And tugged again. It didn't budge. Why has the woman made it look so easy? Was this lock brought about by magic as well?

He had no choice then. If he wanted to get out of here, he might as well die trying.

Kai-Se lowered himself into a stance, keeping his eyes on the wooden frame that was beginning to splinter. His shoulder throbbed prematurely, in response to what he was planning to do for the nth time.

Then, with the last of his strength and will, he burst forward and slammed himself against the door.