Frost washes the gate in bruised blue when the first bell of dog-watch tolls, but the colour that stops the guards is the darker smear crusting down Jang's tunic. He limps into the courtyard like a fragment chiselled from the night that murdered the expedition—pack hanging from one shoulder, cloak hem shredded, right boot toe burst so each step leaves a damp, red-brown print on the flagstones.
Rumor outruns him: Grey-Pine massacre, cart wheels burning, Core disciples dead. The larger of the two gate-watchers—a square-jawed senior Outer Jang half remembers scolding him over mop duty—reaches instinctively for his spear, then hesitates, as if a weapon might snap against whatever has crawled home. His partner simply stares, lips moving around a silent prayer. Behind them, dawn clouds catch the first ember of sun and the temple bells continue their slow clash, heedless.
Wind sneaks through the archway, carrying a last breath of pine smoke and decay; it flips Jang's cloak aside long enough for the nearest guard to see the half-healed star scar on his flank, the calcified white patch spider-webbing under torn cloth. The man recoils—whether from the wound or from the raw emptiness in Jang's eyes, even Jang cannot say. He is moving by counting steps, nothing more: Seven to the inner gate, five across the threshold, three to breathe. Petals burn under his ribs in time with the count; each throb promises either collapse or flight.
A shout echoes from the barracks porch. Instructor Lee appears in full patrol coat, iron badges rattling against one another like impatient teeth. His gaze photographs the courtyard in a single sweep—bloodied servant, stretcher jolting up the path behind (Seo Yun-tae lashed to bamboo poles, face a mask of bruises and rage), three more dirt-plastered servants stumbling after constables—and his jaw hardens. "Lock the gate," he orders without raising his voice. Metal bars slide home with the sound of finality.
Lee strides to Jang, boots drumming a martial cadence. "Name."
The syllable arrives a heartbeat late. "Yun Jang-ho."
"Rank."
"Servant grade-two." His throat is gravel; each word tastes like iron dust.
"Where is Core Disciple Han?"
Jang forces himself not to look at the empty road. "Fell in the gorge during the ambush, Instructor."
A muscle twitches beneath Lee's eye. He nods once to the constables. "Testimony wing, now. All surviving servants. The council wants every breath recorded before noon meal." He turns to the stretcher. "Outer Disciple Seo will be debriefed after medical stabilisation." Seo tries to sit up, manages only a hiss that curdles into coughs; dark saliva spatters the canvas under his cheek. His glare at Jang, however, is perfectly steady—and murderous.
The constables herd them across the courtyard. Ankles ache; the marble seems intent on tugging his soles into its cold depth. Somewhere overhead, pigeons explode from the eaves in a clap of panicked wings, and Jang's pulse jumps with them. He smells old pine pitch from the torch brackets, ink from freshly posted edicts, and beneath all of it the sterile tang of the sect's limestone walls—so clean they almost erase memory. Almost.
A flash of brown hair—Jisoo—catches his peripheral vision. She trudges beside another servant girl, tunic slashed near the collar, soot streak under one eye like war paint. When her gaze flicks sideways it lands not on his face but on the battered pack clutched against his ribs. Her expression does not soften. Instead, calculation sparks like a whetstone strike before she drops her eyes and stumbles theatrically, buying an instant to study how tightly he grips the straps. Constable sticks bark orders; the line lurches on.
They pass through an arcade where eight stone lanterns hang, two unlit. Rain left by the storm drips steadily from the roof into small copper bowls set to catch it; each ping is precise, judicial—like some unseen clerk recording their sins in water. At the arch's far side waits a table flanked by two junior record-keepers. One holds a basket; the other inks a numbered tag.
"Surrender all parcels, blades, scriptures." The basket keeper's monotone is so rote it almost misses the tremor in his own hands.
Jang unbuckles the stave shard sheathed across his back, laying it atop the heap of knives, canteens and torn satchels. When he moves to set his pack beside it, lotus mist stirs under the bandage at his palm—tiny, colourless ripples only he can feel. He keeps the motion slow, careful, pretending the extra resistance is exhaustion rather than hidden Qi. The clerk stamps a square of parchment with red wax and ties it to the strap; the chest lid slams shut, key hooking onto a peg an arm's reach above Jang's head. Jisoo watches the key the way a crow tracks anything that glints.
Hallways narrow, air cooling from morning crisp to archival chill as they descend. The floor changes—polished limestone replaced by darker, pocked stone whose flecks glimmer rust-red. Once, these passages echoed with pleas and iron chains; the ghosts have learned to hush, but their breath still fogs the torches at intervals. Jang tastes salt on his upper lip and realises blood has reopened along the suture under his ribs. He wills the leak quiet; it obeys, barely.
The circular room yawns open around a single lantern shaped like an eight-point star. Scribe desks ring the wall, each fronted by a slate tablet and pot of crimson ink so thick it shines even in the dim. The constables arrange them on a semicircle of wooden stools—servants to the right, Seo's stretcher propped upright to the left. Instructor Lee stands at the only exit, arms folded.
"Speak orderly," he announces. "Name, rank, sequence of events commencing first arrow." His glance slices across Jang like a whetted blade. "Any omission discovered later will be treated as treason by silence."
A quill scratches; the first servant begins to talk, voice quivering. Jang hears only the heartbeat in his ears, that oceanic roar he knows presages Gate pain if allowed to swell. Lotus spiral, eight petals… He breathes in the rhythm he stole from the gorge traps. Calm settles—not soft, but edged, a calm made from clenched steel.
When his turn comes the crimson ledger lies open like a hunger. Jang lifts his gaze to the lantern, pretending to gather memory while actually pressing the fused fragment roll harder against his ribs under the infirmary tunic. Words descend, each chosen with surgeon care: arrows, toxin smoke, Black-Vulture masks, the command to shield disciples, the slaughter. He describes Han falling, describes carts burning—never mentions a silver coin flashing at Han's neck, never speaks of scrolls whispering in violet ink. The omissions are clean incisions; no one sees the blood they leave behind.
He finishes. Ink still drips from the scribe's quill when a familiar voice rises—a warm baritone already cracking from fatigue.
"Warehouse-Master Kwan, step forward."
Boots shuffle. Kwan's eyes find Jang for half a breath—apology, warning, love—before he begins. His testimony mirrors Jang's, save for one deliberate seed: when asked the Medallion's fate he says, steady as warehouse ledgers, that he last saw it gleaming on Han's corpse seconds before the storm pitched the body into a ravine. A tiny deviation, impossible to disprove, offering Jang a cover he had not been bold enough to craft himself. The scribe nods, notes discrepancy for later inquiry, moves on.
Seo's turn ruptures the thin quiet. Strapped torso lifts; spite drips between clenched teeth. "That rat…" he croaks, pointing a shaking finger at Jang. "Ran. Left us. Let Han die." Blood flecks his lip, medicine-slur thickening consonants. Instructor Lee signals silence, but Seo's eyes carve the promise of feral dawn.
The last testimony signed, constables herd the servants back through the bowels of the fortress, this time toward the infirmary wing — thin corridors that smell of boiled bandages and stale ginger broth. Cots line the walls, most empty, a few groaning. Jang is deposited beneath a narrow window still barred by night-shadow. A healer swabs ointment over half-closed stitches, binds his ribs in star-vine gauze. The bandage softens pain but cannot mute the Gate-throb where new Qi channels fused hours ago.
Moonlight has just cleared the sill when Ma Gok's cane-tap echoes. He inspects wounds without comment, knotting fresh cloth with brutal efficiency. Only as he cinches the final tie does he lean close enough that beard bristles tickle Jang's ear. "Seo filed duel," he whispers. "Tribunal approved. Dawn bell." His hand does not linger. Cane taps three times—a secret cadence—and he is gone.
Jang's body aches for sleep, yet mind drags along edges of waking. Across the aisle Jisoo lies turned away, but lamplight reveals a single eye, half-lidded, glittering—fixed on the peg where the chest key still hangs. Her fingers trace a lotus curve on threadbare blanket with slow, thoughtful strokes.
Somewhere beyond the infirmary walls a drum thuds once, marking deepest night. Jang closes his eyes. In darkness the lotus pulse rises, not pain this time but promise, petals unfurling behind the sternum. If duel is my gate, he thinks as sleep finally pounces, I will break it.