Three cane-taps rang out—sharp, measured—a secret triple knock that echoed against the wet stone. Jang's pulse jerked in time with the rhythm, but when he whirled, the lantern-lit mist sighed empty air. Ma Gok was gone, vanished into the steam as if never there. Only the faint curl of pipe smoke drifted toward the moon.
The balcony yawed before him, rails slick with condensation, the city's lanterns twinkling low like distant embers. In his hand, the oilcloth bundle hummed with the weight of proof: duplicate strips of crimson-stroked ledger and a map of ash-vent arteries hidden beneath the Sect's marble belly. He pressed it to his chest, feeling their heat—secrets that could ignite revolt or discretion's finer fuse.
Jang drew a slow breath, tasting wormwood and ink on his tongue, the ledger's scent mingling with the night-lotus perfume that lingered in his mind. Below, the laundry vats hissed like a waking beast, clouds of steam spilling through grated windows and carving pale ghosts against the roof's eaves.
He let Lotus-Mist shimmer at his core, a tremulous ripple of jade-silver energy that flickered like a fallen petal before vanishing. His wounded ribs throbbed a dull drumbeat, each pulse a reminder that power demanded a price measured in marrow. The wind tugged at his ash-grey headband, its knot warm as ember beneath snow, and for a fleeting moment he felt the weight of leadership settle on his brow.
Jang unfolded the ledger strips, reading the cinnabar tallies by moonlight. Each red mark was a lash beyond decree—a testament to cruelty sanctioned by parchment and ink. He traced a finger over the strokes, imagining them as embers smoldering under cold ash. A single slip of finger could scatter the embers into flame.
His vow crystallized in the hush: Gather fire, bend iron. No more silent suffering, no more chains left unquestioned. The ledger would be his tinder; the ash-vent map, his bellows. When dawn broke, he would choose whether to expose hypocrisy in daylight or to let the hidden forge burn beneath the rafters of power.
Above, the moon drifted behind thin clouds, and the headband's ash-grey cloth gleamed like frost on coal. Lantern embers from the pond flickered in his vision, forming constellations no elder had named—signposts for the path he now claimed.
Jang tucked the bundle inside his cloak, closed his hand over the grey petal Ma Gok had sewn into its folds, and raised his chin to the silent sky. A single lotus-mist mote drifted free, vanishing into the air.
Forge.