A distant drip echoed through the silent corridors as Jang slipped away from the granary's warmth, the faint glow of lanterns receding behind him. His boots moved almost soundlessly over worn stone as he followed the curve of the compound hallways, each step measured against the steady beat of his own pulse. A single lantern flickered at the end of the corridor, its light dancing on polished obsidian walls. Beyond the carved double doors lay the Inner Sanctum.
The heavy doors moaned on ancient hinges when Jang pressed them open. Inside, a lone lantern hung from a wrought-iron hook, its flame steady against the chamber's chill. Grandmaster Baek knelt before a low table of black stone, the fractured arena tile laid out like a broken mandala. Its grooves still bore flecks of sealing salve—the residue of Qi and blood. At Baek's side, a masked elder stood motionless, the fractured-talon mask catching the lantern's glow in shards of silver.
Baek's fingers, pale and slender, traced a hairline fissure in the tile, following its jagged map as though reading a prophecy. The silence pressed against Jang's ears like heavy silk, broken only by the quiet rasp of Baek's breath and the soft whistle of the elder's mask. Finally, Baek spoke, voice low and deliberate: "Lotus petals crack stone, then seep into its veins." He tapped the tile's edge with the ivory tip of his cane—once, twice, three times—each knock resonating in the still air. "If three Jin Seals were laid here, they would shatter the mountain itself."
The masked elder inclined its head, mask-breath swirling in the narrow beam of light. Jang felt the weight of that silence, the unspoken calculus of power and threat. Stepping forward, he set his own hand on the table's cool surface, palm flat against the tile's sharp edge. A faint hum of residual Qi tingled at his fingertips, as though the stone remembered the tremor of the duel it bore.
Baek stood, the lantern's light flickering across the lines of age etched into his face. He placed a steady hand on Jang's shoulder—too light for a reprimand, too firm for comfort. "Forge your branch well," he murmured, eyes narrowing beneath heavy lids. "Roots may break in darkness, but storms temper the lotus." Then without another word, he turned and exited, the masked elder's silent step following as the doors swung shut behind them.
In the sudden hush, Jang remained motionless, the shard of fractured tile pressed against his palm like a living thing. The lantern above sputtered once, guttered, and then burned steady again, casting long shadows that pooled in the corners of the chamber. A final drip tapped against the floor ahead, and Jang slipped the tile into his cloak before departing into the silent hall.
He retraced his path under an obsidian sky, slippered feet sliding over the damp stones back to the granary loft. The wind chime above the entrance jingled with a soft lament as he climbed through the hatch and into the familiar gloom. Inside, the Iron-Lotus Branch lay woven across the straw—blanketed bodies breathing in unison, lantern light ghosting on bowed heads.
Jang paused at the threshold, lantern in hand, and watched them. Seul's chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm; Ara's dark hair fanned across her folded arms; the twins lay side by side, their blades cast aside, faces serene in sleep. The practice swords gleamed faintly in the shadows, reminders of the promise they'd made under the oath of lotus and iron.
He knelt and placed the fractured tile beside their circle, its rough edge catching the lantern glow. Then, with careful fingers, he lifted the ash-grey headband from his own brow, its coarse weave still warm from his pulse. Wrapping it around his wrist, he tied it twice, knotting it into a small guard against future strikes. The act felt ceremonial, an inversion of the vow that once bound him to the sect's hierarchy—now repurposed as a symbol of solidarity with those who had chosen to follow him.
Beneath the faint scent of rice husks and petal-soft incense, Jang closed his eyes. A single flicker of lotus mist curled around his wrist-guard, invisible to sleeping eyes but a promise etched in Qi. He whispered the words that had become his truth: "Gather fire, bend iron." The phrase echoed in the hush, a vow to forge power in darkness and shape destiny through pain and purpose.
Above, the wind chime sighed—a final benediction for the night's work. The granary fell back into silence, save for the soft chorus of servants' breaths. Jang rose, extinguished the lantern with a steady hand, and slipped into the shadows beyond the dangling rice bins. The second dawn would find them ready. And somewhere, beneath the mountain's unyielding face, the spark of rebellion flickered to life.