Cobalt dawn climbs the tiled ridges of Ironshadow like a silent tide, washing grey light over the drill yard. Jang stands alone in the centre-square, legs sunk to the ankles in frost powder, arms curled before his chest in the final ebb of Lotus-Root Guard. Breath ribbons from his lips, each plume snagging on the chill the way torn silk catches a nail; the exhale counts as the thirtieth—it was thirty only yesterday, but the ache behind his sternum argues that the margin is razor-thin.
He lets the stance unwind. Bones complain in brittle pops. When he lowers his hands the sleeve of his work-robe drags against torn knuckles; red freckles bloom on bleached wool, a night's worth of dried charcoal and blood smudged together into the colour of rustwater. The Gate beneath his ribs—the first hidden hinge he has coaxed open these past weeks—beats once, twice, an iron fist against an iron door, then subsides to a sullen throb. He sucks in air that tastes of coal smoke and mountain salt, straightens, and presses fingers to his wrist. Pulse still quick, but not the wild hammer it had been after his very first Root cycle. Progress, Ma Gok would have grunted. Or perhaps rot ripening—same lesson.
Across the yard dorm lanterns spit out and servants shamble toward stations, their whispers flaking in the cold. No one notices the boy whose shadow cuts two paces longer than the others'. Good. Secrecy is armour. He wipes the sleeve against rough boards of a post, smearing the stain into anonymity, and steps back into the line that forms automatically whenever the world expects pain.
The triple clang of the Edict Bell knifes the hush. Not the thin bronze hand-bell rung for work shifts, nor the mid-tone brass for disciplinary summons—this is the cathedral-deep iron forged, legend says, from fallen armour plates of the Iron-Gale sect. Its boom travels the courtyard, slamming against walls, shaking frost free from eaves. Every back stiffens. Even the magpies perched on the flogging beam launch into the colourless sky.
Ma Gok emerges beneath the gallery, crimson scroll cradled in his left palm, cane tucked beneath the opposite elbow so his free fingers can tease open the wax. Frost steams from the parchment as though the words burn before they are spoken. Behind him stand two drummers; they strike once, a heart's echo, and silence claims the yard harder than any shout.
"By decree of Grandmaster Baek of Ironshadow," Ma Gok intones, voice unhurried, syllables enamelled by years of ritual, "an Exploratory March shall depart this fortress before the third sliver of dawn tonight."
A murmur twitches through the servants but fear pins it down. Ma Gok continues, scroll edges fluttering like white wings:
"Objective: assessment and reclamation of the outer ruins of fallen Iron-Gale. Command of martial security shall be shared by Core Disciple Han Jeong-il, of Twin-Ridge Blade Court, and Core Disciple Yun Mi-rhe, of Scholastic Meridian Hall."
Jang's nape prickles at Han's name; memory offers the glint of a hidden chain and the way it had nestled against brocade as if fabric were sheath.
Ma Gok reads on, cadence as cutting as the frost that keeps climbing his breath. "Escort shall include two select Outer Disciples and their detachments, together with an auxiliary complement of fifteen servants, who will provide forage, maintenance, and menial support."
Fifteen. The number lands heavier than the bell. One in twenty of those standing must follow tonight, must walk roads mottled by old dead sects and the ghosts they bred. The cane raps once on flagstone—Ma Gok's gesture for obedience—and he lowers the scroll. "Rosters will be posted at mid-sun," he says, voice returning to stone. "Preparations are the province of every name listed. Failure to present at the southern gate by the second bell of owl-hour will forfeit life, property, and oath."
He steps back; the drummers hammer a single punctuation. Then nothing but wind.
The yard exhales. Conversations spark like flint in dry grass—too soft to draw censure, too urgent to smother. Everyone is suddenly aware of how loudly a heartbeat can clout ribcage. Jang keeps expression folded inward, but his gaze traces the lines of the scroll still trembling in the Head Servant's hand: edges crimson, letters black like gouged coal seams. Journey. Ruins. Medallion. Each word unfurls a separate coil of fear and resolve inside him, twisting until they braid.
A cluster of stable boys shuffle by, caps tugged low. He catches fragments—bandits along Nine Sorrows, astral storms, Han's temper—then loses them to the surf of new rumours. Won-Il steps up, eyes too wide, mouth working on a joke he cannot quite lodge into the world; Jang lays a calming palm on his shoulder but offers no reassurance, because there is none. Tonight the road opens its jaw. Either they move or they are swallowed in place by other hungers.
A flicker of movement to his right: Seo Yun-tae threading through bodies the way a needle passes cloth, arrogant tilt to chin, robe cuffs pristine as temple banners. He does not slow, only shoulders Jang aside hard enough that cracked ribs sing; his whisper is a serrated thread. "Rat's leaving the walls—hawks hunt in open sky." Then he is gone, grin trailing behind like stench.
Static hums in Jang's ears. A blink clears the white haze and reveals Core Disciple Han Jeong-il himself striding down veranda steps to confer with Yun Mi-rhe. Han's cloak shifts; a thin silver chain slips into view, drags along silk, and for the heartbeat it hangs free a coin-sized disc turns—dark metal edged in lotus petals. Light skims it, and the disc is gone beneath cloth, but pulse and memory knot together: fragment glyphs, charcoal ink, and the promise that keys open or destroy.
The yard begins to disperse, snow quietly collapsing back into routine. Jang stands rooted until the wind cools the sweat under his collar. Two dozen new tasks will sprout from an order like this. Every minute between now and moonrise must count—packing, copying, hiding. And before any of that, he still owes the barracks a full morning's labour. The world does not pause so a boy can decide who he wishes to become.
He turns toward the laundry sheds, flexing blood-slick fingertips, and feels the first true tremor of the road waiting beyond the gate.