Jin fell.
There was no floor beneath him and no sky above him, only the long, dizzy drop he remembered from every other time he'd gone into the blade. He braced himself for the dark. For the cold grey fog he knew was waiting at the bottom, and the small, quiet space at the center of it where the old swordsman always sat.
The dark never came.
Light did.
It came rushing up at him all at once, warm and gold, and wind tore past his face, and suddenly there was a sky above him. A real sky, huge and blue and full of drifting white clouds. And below him, rushing closer, was land.
He hit the ground on his feet. The impact rang up through his legs, and he dropped into a crouch in tall green grass that came up past his knees.
He stayed there for a moment, breathing hard, and looked around.
He didn't recognize any of it.
