When Jin Mu returned from the Archive, the courtyard had emptied. The overseer was gone, the girl with the bronze sword had been taken inside for treatment, and only the slow wind remained to stir the banners along the terrace. He stood alone for a long moment, letting the silence settle over him.
Then a voice called from the archway, rich with forced cheer.
"There you are! I was beginning to think you'd found some hidden tunnel to escape your duties."
Shen Yan stepped out into the light. His grin was the same as it had always been—easy, disarming, the expression of a man who believed nothing could touch him for long.
Once, Jin Mu had trusted that smile.
Now, he watched it with the caution of a man studying the edge of a concealed knife.
Shen Yan raised an eyebrow. "What's that look? Don't tell me you're still brooding about the overseer. He's always been a bastard. You'll make yourself sick worrying about everyone else."
"Perhaps," Jin said evenly. "But some things need worrying over."
Shen laughed. "You always did think too much. Come. You promised me a match."
Jin tilted his head. Did I? In this life, perhaps not—but some fragment of a prior cycle must have lingered in Shen's memory, a flicker of that inexorable connection that bound them.
"Very well," he said at last.
They chose the sparring ring nearest the cliff's edge—a broad circle of compacted sand, ringed by low wooden rails. From here, the valley fell away in endless green terraces, clouds drifting below the rim.
Shen Yan tossed him a practice blade, weighted steel with a dull edge. Jin caught it reflexively, testing the balance. A fine tool—he had killed men with worse.
Shen watched him, amusement flickering in his gaze. "You always test every little thing. You know it's just a spar."
"Do you?" Jin murmured.
Shen's grin sharpened.
Without another word, they took their positions.
The first clash was almost gentle—two old rhythms meeting again after too long apart. Shen advanced in a measured step, blade lifted in a classic high guard. Jin responded with a subtle shift of weight, lowering his point to the centerline.
Steel rang as their swords connected. A ripple of force passed through Jin's wrist, but he held the line. Shen pressed forward, testing his defenses with quick, precise cuts.
Once, Jin might have met speed with speed. Now, he simply waited, measuring each step, each exhale. Shen's technique was superb—clean, confident, honed by hundreds of hours at the training grounds.
But Jin had spent lifetimes refining the art of violence.
On the fifth exchange, he slid a fraction of an inch aside, pivoted, and caught Shen's blade in a cross-lock. Their eyes met.
"You're hesitating," Jin said softly.
Shen bared his teeth. "Then let's see if you can keep your calm when I stop holding back."
Shen shifted his stance. The air around him trembled—a subtle sign of cultivation stirring below the surface. A pale flicker of power limned his limbs: the earliest traces of the River Vein Technique, a method of channeling spirit force into explosive motion.
He lunged.
Jin moved without thought, letting muscle memory and ancient instinct take over. The blades hissed past each other, and for a moment, neither struck true. Sand scuffed under their feet. The ring was too small to waste space.
Again and again, Shen pressed him, each attack more fluid than the last—a storm of cuts and feints. Jin gave ground, step by deliberate step. To any onlooker, it might have looked like retreat.
In truth, he was studying Shen's every movement. Looking for the seed of that future betrayal.
When did the rot set in? he wondered. When did you decide I was an obstacle?
His heart clenched with an old sorrow. But he did not let it touch his blade.
On the twelfth exchange, he let Shen's strike slide past his guard, rotated inside the line, and drove the pommel into Shen's sternum with surgical precision.
Shen staggered back, eyes wide.
"That…wasn't in any form I know."
Jin lowered his blade. "There are many forms you don't know."
They stood in the center of the ring, the wind tugging at their robes. For a long moment, neither spoke.
Finally, Shen's expression softened. "You've changed," he said quietly.
"I have."
"It's not just skill. Something else is in you now." He searched Jin's face. "Did you find something in the Archive?"
Jin considered lying. But something—perhaps the last thread of their old bond—stayed his tongue.
"I found clarity," he said at last. "And a reason."
Shen looked down at the sand between them. "I don't know whether to envy you or be afraid."
"Perhaps you should do both."
When they left the sparring ring, Jin felt a curious lightness. Not victory—there had been no true contest of power. But an acknowledgement. A silent truce, for now.
At the threshold, Shen paused. "Someday you'll have to tell me what you really see in all this."
Jin turned to face the valley, eyes fixed on the horizon's haze.
"When that day comes," he said softly, "you will already have your answer."
Shen waited, but no more words followed. At last, he nodded and left.
Jin stood alone, the practice blade resting across his palms. A thousand memories churned behind his eyes, but he let them pass.
In the quiet, he spoke the words that would become his creed:
"Power is not the right to rule. Power is the burden of knowing when to spare and when to destroy. If I must burn this world to remake it, I will do so with open eyes—and I will carry the cost."