Moonrise leaves a thin silver cauterisation across the courtyard flagstones, as though some old surgeon closed the sky with a single careful suture. Jang sits cross-legged in that seam of light, palms braced on knees, spine a pine trunk in winter stillness. Each breath is timed to the hollow gust that slides between open eaves—grey-pine cadence, downbeat for grief, upbeat for marrow. The tinnitus that has stalked him since the cellar softens into a faint ocean hush; in its wake he hears crickets, the shuffle of distant patrol sandals, the ragged flutter of his cloak where it pools around ankles like a burnt banner.
A familiar sandal scrape approaches. He does not open his eyes; the tread is three parts weariness, one part unspoken worry—Kwan's. The warehouse-master kneels without ceremony, joints popping like corks. Between them the lantern he carries paints a trembling oval—warm ochre amid iced stone.
"I am supposed to be asleep," Kwan whispers, though no one lingers near enough to hear. From his sleeve he draws a length of frayed hemp, no thicker than a straw's hollow, knotted thrice along its span. "Family cord," he explains, curling it into Jang's palm. "My mother wove it when my brother left for levy duty. He died, but the cord lived. Perhaps it simply hasn't chosen the right wrist yet."
Jang's throat tightens. The coarse fibre still smells faintly of smoke and dried kelp—port scents, childhood fragments rising like shy minnows. "I'll return it," he murmurs.
Kwan shakes his head. "Return its story instead. That's lighter to carry." Lantern-light shows worry lines cut deeper than daylight ever reveals. "Remember—strength is choice, not gift. Choose how much you spend tomorrow."
A quiet hug, brief, shoulders touching like beams meeting at a roof apex. Kwan departs, leaving the lantern. Jang loops the cord twice around his wrist, ties the final knot with a breath that tastes of sea salt over charcoal.
* Steel sharpens once; memory every breath after.*
He drifts into shallow meditation until the lantern gutters. When it finally winks out, the night feels thick enough to braid. Somewhere above, bells mark the final quarter before dawn. He rises, dusts knees, and moves toward the dormitory wing to fetch the tribunal garb laid out for condemned servants—plain ash tunic, cord for belt, no shoes. Bare soles will better feel bamboo flex anyway, he reasons, though the thought carries a shard of gallows humour.
Behind the laundry shutters a minute sound clicks: wood tongue striking latch plate. He keeps walking. A sliver of lamplight leaks, then seals. Jisoo, he realises, stealing back from her errand. He does not turn—trust has become a commodity too costly to trade tonight—but the coal-cellar superstition mutters in his memory: ash returns every strike thrice.
The courtyard widens into the tribunal promenade just as torch columns bloom alive. Iron-shod guards file in with drilled precision, helms catching fire-glints like stoked eyes. The lead officer produces manacles already sized to servant wrists. Metal teeth gnaw skin when snapped shut, but Jang makes no outward notice; he lets Lotus-Mist stir only enough to keep numb fingers capable of closing later around opportunity. A second chain links ankles, its length calibrated so a prisoner may walk but never lunge.
The officer's gaze flickers to the hemp bracelet. "Remove it."
"It's devotional," Jang answers, tone respectful but flat. "Sect codes allow one token of faith."
A pause, then an irritable grunt; perhaps the man does not wish to debate scripture at first light. The cord stays. Jang's pulse thuds against the knots like hammer on softened iron, shaping resolve.
They march. Torches bite each corner, casting crab-leg shadows across walls. Every turn catches pockets of servants pressed behind rope, whispering myths already: Grey-Pine revenant, lotus butcher, traitor with demon art. He keeps eyes forward, focusing on the bamboo bridge ahead, stretched over the koi pond that mirrors dawn's first embers.
Spectator tiers rise around the pond in three ragged rings: inner disciples at the front, outers behind, servants above them like ghosts haunting their betters. At a raised pavilion the tribunal bench waits—Instructor Lee on the centre dais, two elders flanking, crimson ledger atop a lacquer stand beside the ceremonial bell. Seo Yun-tae stands at the opposite end of the bridge, already stripped to duel whites, sling discarded, face tight with brine ointment and ambition. A scroll tube rests in his hands: the forged condemnation, though its seal is not yet broken.
Jang notices ink smudge on Seo's index knuckle—fresh, unwashed. Betrayal leaves traces even on those who believe they wear gloves.
The guards guide him to the bridge's nearer edge but keep chains until charges are read. Bamboo creaks, water plip-plips where koi mouths kiss surface pollen. Wind stirs pavilion drapes; lotus-scent incense cages the air so thickly it nearly hides the faint iron tang rising from pond mud, as though the arena itself can smell tomorrow's offering.
Instructor Lee lifts a sheet of parchment. Voice clear, judicial: "Jang, bonded servant of the Ironshadow Sect, stands accused of cowardice leading to the deaths of brethren and of practising forbidden hybrid scripture without sanction." Murmurs ripple like minnows. "Current plaintiff, Outer Disciple Seo Yun-tae, invokes Blood-Duel Right under Rule Forty-Seven-b. Tribunal concurs. Fight will conclude upon concession, incapacitation, or first water-blood mark."
Seo unseals the tube with theatrical snap, displays the scroll to tribunal. Elders lean, eyes narrowing at bold calligraphy. Jang's skin prickles—not guilt, for guilt requires surprise; rather the cold arithmetic of new odds tallying against him. Forgery wields the grain of truth—he does practise the art—making refute near impossible. So be it. Truth is a blade; he will wield the hidden edge.
Chains fall. The wrist-cord warms as if absorbing every spectator breath. Bamboo sighs under his weight; fibres remember storms older than sect halls. Across fifteen paces, Seo steps forward, drawing short saber with flourish. Sun spears horizon, flooding pond with molten copper that splashes shadows up their legs.
Tinnitus surges, subsides—white surf rehearsing the line it will cross later. Jang sets Branch-Step stance, heel cocked over a knot where two planks join: the weakness his cord will court. Lotus-Mist answers like mist inhaling, a colourless exhale that hugs muscles, muting tremor. Grey-pine breath counts down—three, two—
The Judgment Gong swings.
Sound roars through marrow, thunder over coal embers, hammer upon sword begun but not yet quenched. In that single heavy note every bruise, every furnace memory, every ash-drawn petal inside him flares white, then locks hard as forged steel.
Bamboo throat awaits. Silence—his blade—slides free.