The Pavilion Mistress felt the spells Luding cast. She had lain down to rest, but it was happening sooner than she expected. She sat up, her mind reaching for the threads of power that bound her to her fortress and pavilion. She felt him in the darkness out there, planning the ruin of her home, and she narrowed her eyes, reaching down the link they would always share.
"Traitor!" she said, flinging the word with a woman's contempt.
"Xueyan!" he cried into the Aether.
She hurled her defiance at him and felt her venom strike home. In the moment of his startlement, she read his consciousness and saw that he had a trap prepared—that she had a traitor in her midst, as she had long suspected.
