The dawn that morning had a different temper. It was not the plain bright optimism that had lifted the courtyard a week before; it carried instead a cautious hush, like a bowl being set down on a cloth so it will not rattle. Moonshard Ridge woke in the same small, orderly ways — roosters, smoke, a thin blue of Aether mist pooling low between the silver pines — but the orphanage felt as if some secret had been drawn taut across its roof. The air tasted of mango sap and the last of the night's cool; a bell from the branch sanctuary answered the sun's first rise with three soft notes that seemed, to anyone listening, to mean both blessing and farewell.
Bai Yinfeng had finished packing. He had not made a show of it. He had folded the coarse grey robe Madam Lin had patched and ironed until it lay neat, slipped the Echo Crystal shard into the inside pocket where it would not fall or be seen, and tucked his small allotment of things into a single sack. He did not wake Gao or Mei; he had not wanted the scene to be noisy, did not want their faces to be raw with an immediate, fresh sorrow as he stepped out. He preferred that things keep their natural order — that breakfast come and the cart go and the world continue on its patient round — so that the leaving would be measured and not a spectacle.
When he slid out the side door, Madam Lin was already there. She stood at the main gate in the soft morning air, hands tucked into the sleeves of her patched robe. The garden behind her smelled of medicinal herbs and the faint sweetness of dried plums. She had not been able to sleep much that night; Bai could see the soft hollows beneath her eyes, the line of worry mapped like small rivers. But the smile she gave him was as steady and necessary as the step of someone carrying a heavy basket.
"You look all right," she said, voice the same practical warmth she had used for everything. "You've packed enough?"
Bai pushed his shoulders out in a mock show of burden. "All set. My bones are in order. The Echo Crystal is in its nest. I brought extra string in case the skeleton needs belts."
Madam Lin rolled her eyes but the corners of her mouth were soft. She had been the reckoning force of this house for as long as Bai could remember — a woman who could make porridge for twenty with a worn iron spoon and still mend a robe with a needle that never seemed to break. "You will write," she said again, as if the constant repetition would secure the promise.
"I will send news by pigeon, by shout, by the moon itself if necessary," Bai answered, making the vow into something ridiculous so that it would not bruise.
He stood with her at the gate for a long breath. The gate's wooden posts had been smoothed by decades of hands; bees hummed lazily in a patch of wildflowers. He tried to memorize the way shadows fell across the courtyard, the crack in the flagstone where he had once hidden a tin soldier, the crooked notch on the mango tree where he always placed his palm. Memory, he felt, was a kind of small magic — the cheapest and most valuable kind.
They waited together. Madam Lin kept her eyes on the road as if watching for the cart with more hunger than the sun itself. When at last the wheels sounded — two spokes slow then a steady roll of wooden rhythm — Madam Lin straightened as if someone had given her courage.
The carriage came not in a flourish but with the measured steadiness of a long-used thing. It was a single, broad-wheeled cart drawn by a pair of steady-hoofed horses; the woodwork had been oiled and cared for, lacquered in a sober dark sheen. Behind the reins sat a man in a tunic that had seen many roads: middle-aged, sun-scarred, his hair threaded with grey at the temples. His hands were steady on the lines; his eyes were quick and kind. When the cart drew close he halted and gave a small, respectful bow.
"Madam Lin," he greeted, voice low and accustomed. "You have kept well."
"Hung Po," Madam Lin replied, stepping forward with the easy warmth of two people who had shared years. Her tone filled with the old, casual intimacy of neighbors who had once shared an umbrella in storms. "You came early."
Hung Po laughed a small, dry laugh and set down his lines. The horses stamped in the dust; one of them shook a heavy mane. "The city roads are clearer now morning, but I left at dawn. I could not arrive later — the Academy expects punctual children." His eyes slid toward Bai, polite and appraising. "And this must be the young one."
Bai bowed with exaggerated gravity, the way one bows for a ceremony and a joke at once. "Bai Yinfeng. Pleasure to meet you, sir. I hope the horses like biscuits — if not, I will invent a better bribe."
Hung Po's mouth lifted; there was a faint echo of amusement, the kind of small laughed memory a man keeps for hard days. "You have spirit," he said. "Good. The Moon Goddess likes that. Climb in; we have a long road to the capital and the sun travels a sensible pace."
Madam Lin's hands had trouble letting go. She came forward and hugged Bai, not a quick motion but a steady, full pressure that said everything she could in a single clasp. Bai returned it with the kind of force a small boy gives, half for show and half because the clasp warmed him like a blanket.
"Keep your head down when the road gets rough," she murmured into his ear. "Eat when they give food. Do not take any wild dares from bigger boys."
"And do not steal the Academy master's hat." Bai slid in one last jape, and Madam Lin's laugh broke like a small relief.
Hung Po helped him up onto the carriage with a careful hand. The interior was lined with a simple cushion; there was a wicker compartment for parcels and beside it, in a cloth wrap, a pie Madam Lin had packed — too big, poured with generous care and the kind of extra salt that tasted of home. Bai tucked the pie away as if stowing a secret.
"Good luck," Madam Lin said, voice catching at the corner like a moth against the lamp. "Return."
"I will." Bai's promise was as soft as it had been each time Madam Lin had asked, but it held weight now as if the word itself had gathered small stones.
The wheels turned. The cart rolled out of the lane with the gentle jerk of old wood. Bai looked back through the small window slats of the carriage and saw Madam Lin standing at the gate: a small figure framed by the mango tree, then the gate, then the small cluster of the orphanage. The ridge took up the sky behind her, silver pines like the teeth of an old comb. He waved until she was a small figure and then until she vanished behind a bend.
The road to the capital was longer than Bai had imagined. The countryside slid by in a procession of small scenes: farmers tending terraces, children racing down a road with a scrap of sailcloth pinned to a stick as a flag, a temple bell that had a tone deeper than Moonshard's but somehow kinder. The cart jostled gently; the horses' breath steamed in the cool morning. Bai watched the world as if reading a new book: the way hills learned the ridges of seasons, the way the road's dust clung to the cart's underbelly in thin, stubborn scales.
He slept a little; he woke to the smell of stew and the rattle of other carts and the distant call of towns announcing inns and traders. Hung Po told him small things by the way: which inns had the warmest porridge, which merchants were honest, which roads avoided bad weather. He spoke of the capital as if it were a long and well-provisioned story, full of characters Bai might like and dangers Bai might not even recognize as such. "The Academy sits at the heart," Hung Po said at one point, voice softened. "It is not just a school; it is a place that holds many things. The Moon Goddess watches from the center there — a temple set on a floating planetoid if rumor can be believed. You must keep your wits and keep your temper."
"I will keep my temper," Bai promised, though there was always the small, secret hope he might tangle that resolve into a prank. Hung Po only nodded, eyes clear.
A great sweep of landscape later they reached the capital: a city that did not so much sit upon the earth as it hung in parts, like a mosaic of terraces and palaces clinging along a river which itself seemed to flow with the light of the sky. In the very center, above a basin of polished stones and a ring of waterways, there rose the moon temple proper — not on the ground but upon a floating plateau of stone and cultivated jade, a thing that hung some measure of the sky like a crown. Small bridges arced up like silver ribs to meet it; lanterns strung along the way held tiny, patient sparks. The palace and the academy around it had been built with the sort of careful aesthetics that made every roofline a poem.
Bai's mouth went dry in front of it. The Moonlit Temple Academy — the Lunar Moonbright Academy in some tongues — was more splendid than any of his daydreams had managed. The walls were carved with the Moon Goddess' sigils, and the steps that led up to the registration courts were broad and swept clean as if always expecting important feet. From below, the plateau seemed to sing a faint, high note — Aether behaving like a bright thread.
Hung Po guided the carriage to a wide curb in front of an imposing hall where banners fluttered with a disciplined breeze. He hopped down, steady as ever. "I will stable the horses and return," he said, giving Bai a look that suggested responsibility and a quiet indulgence. "Wait here. Do not wander off like a wayward Echo."
"I am not a wayward Echo," Bai said with mock indignation, though the thought of wandering made his chest clench with excitement. He hopped down and set his feet upon the cobbled stone. The city air was thicker here: more people, more smells — incense, frying oil, the odd whiff of horse and leather. Voices pulsed like a living market.
Hung Po put a hand on his shoulder. "When I was your age," he said, almost to himself, "I came to the Academy with a hole in my pocket and the arrogance of youth. It is a good place. Hold that arrogance carefully." Then with a quick bow he was off, slipping between the columns and toward the stables where his cart would be housed.
Bai was left on the steps like a small, proud statue. He had the sense of being very small in a very big house. He drew in a breath that tasted of boiled tea and new stone.
He did not have long to stand alone. From the crowd near the registration hall a boy emerged, shoulders narrow and eyes bright. He likely had been watching, as boys do, to see how newcomers looked. He approached with the forwardness of someone at once curious and determined to claim an acquaintance.
"You there," the boy called without malice, "are you signing up at the Academy too?"
Bai regarded him. The stranger looked about as old as he, no older than a year or two, and carried himself with the confident bob of someone used to being noticed. His garments were cleaner than Bai's, though not ornate; he wore a small pendant carved in the shape of an ice bear upon his throat. "Yes," Bai answered. "I am. Bai Yinfeng."
The boy grinned, the kind of smile that immediately made the world a little less large. "Xuan Lin. I'm from the northern terraces — the winter clan folk. My Echo is an Ice Bear. Not a friendly sort, either. It likes to break things more than say hello." He said "Ice Bear" with an odd little pride, as if the animal itself lent him weight.
Bai blinked. "An Ice Bear? That sounds cold and dangerous. Does he like biscuits?"
Xuan Lin laughed in a sharp, pleased puff. "He prefers fish and whatever armor he can sharpen. But he tolerates biscuits if bribed. What is yours?"
"A skeleton," Bai said light as a thrown feather. "A fragile one. He makes friends with dust and old jokes."
Xuan Lin's eyebrows lifted in a way that could have been mockery but was more curiosity than disdain. "A skeleton? I have heard of summons, but skeleton summons are rare. Do you plan on letting it frighten the masters?"
"I intend to let it frighten no one who cannot be offered pie as a bribe." Bai said solemnly. "Pie settles most affairs." He offered a hand in the polite, half-mocking way children of their age practiced.
Xuan Lin accepted and gave Bai a firm shake. "Friend, then?" he said. "First friend in the city."
Bai nodded. The word felt warm and immediate: friend. In a new place, new friends were the first currency of survival. "Friend," he agreed. "If your bear tries to eat my skeleton, I will offer pie as diplomacy."
They talked in easy, halting sentences as children do — names of local snack stalls, the oddities of traveling merchants, which river inn had the loudest frogs. Xuan Lin described his home: a cluster of houses on a frosted plain where their people trained with cold-forged spears. He spoke of his father's small smithery and how the ice-bear had chosen him in a Resonance that had crackled like thunder across a frozen lake. Bai told stories of nights under the mango tree and of the way the skeleton's bones clicked when it laughed. The sound of their talk knitted an immediate ease between them.
They were not left alone for long. Hung Po reappeared, wiping his hands on a cloth, and set a firm hand on Bai's shoulder. His eyes flicked to Xuan Lin and then to the registration banner where scribes in pale sleeves took names. "Good to see friends made," Hung Po said. "Are you prepared?"
Bai swallowed a small gulp but kept his grin. "Prepared enough. Hungry for knowledge and pie."
Xuan Lin laughed again and bowed to Hung Po with the shameless politeness of a child meeting an elder. "Sir," he said, "if there's any trouble with the registration, ask me. I have a family friend in the north who knows a clerk."
Hung Po's lips twitched. He glanced at Bai. "I will register him, then. Wait here a moment. I have to sort some papers. You two, stand by the courtyard and watch the banners. And no fights." His tone was flat but not unkind.
Xuan Lin saluted with an exaggerated motion. Bai gave a playful salute back. They had a short, companionable silence as Hung Po departed again into the building's shaded colonnade.
They paid little mind to the crowd until they reached the registration court. Even from the edge, the lines were not long — several groups of families stood with bundles and glossed shoes, some solemn, some beaming. A chalkboard sign had been propped up: *Lunar Moonbright Academy — Freshman Registration.* Beneath it, officials in pale robes moved with orderly purpose, stamping scrolls, recording names, offering small tokens of welcome: a pin with the Academy's sigil etched into it, a slip of paper noting the preliminary identification. Hung Po's efficiency and the prearranged papers made the process smooth. Bai's turn came sooner than he thought.
The official who checked his name and glanced at Bai with the practiced gaze of someone who had seen many children wear hope in their pockets was neither stern nor overly kind. He asked for Bai's name, his age, his place of provenance, and the shard of Echo Crystal as proof of Resonance. Bai handed the shard with the small, practiced care he used with all his magic talismans. The official accepted the shard into a small tray and tapped it to a measuring stone — a crude but honest test of the Echo's current.
"That will do," the official said and stamped the parchment. "You will be called for the placement trial. Wait at the northern field when your name is announced."
The stamp felt like a small promise. Hung Po folded the papers and tucked them into Bai's hand. "You will be tested in the field," he said. "Do not lose your head."
"Don't worry," Bai said, though his tongue was a little thick with nerves. He kept his grin on as if it were an armor.
Time, as it turned out, slid faster than Bai expected. The registration queue dwindled under the brisk hands of the clerks. Hung Po completed the last formalities and, with a nod, excused himself, promising to return at the end of the day. Bai watched him move away, a figure of solid, worldly care.
Soon the appointed time came. Bai and a mass of other novices — three hundred at least, judging by the crush — were guided along a sweeping avenue between two colonnades into the open field by the academy gate. The ground there was a wide courtyard of worn flagstones; banners snapped in the breeze; the sun had climbed to a height that warmed faces and drew from garments their day's first dust. The air pinged faintly with Aether, like the close hum of an echo stone.
They were arranged in rough ranks, boys and girls of many provinces, some with the look of polished training, others with the air of rawness that made Bai feel both comfort and envy. Some wore small sigils of family or clan on their robes; others — like Bai — only a patched coat. The mood was a curious one: a mix of trembling anticipation and the cocky swagger of the newly bold. Whispers flecked through the ranks: murmurs of who might have awakened a dragon-echo, speculation about which master would preside, quiet bets about what it took to be a "special"—a term tossed about like a talisman none could yet define.
At the field's head stood a man in an austere robe, one foot tucked upon a low step. His expression was clipped, his posture a careful balance of authority. A small knot of masters stood behind him — older faces with the quieted softness of long years practicing the Dao of teaching. The man on the step cleared his throat and then, with a voice that carried without strain, raised his hand for silence.
"Newcomers," he said. "Welcome to Lunar Moonbright Academy. I am Wang Pin, the steward of placements. Today, your trial will determine the class into which you will enter. There are three principal placements: the Special Class, those of remarkable manifestation and potential; Normal One for those with substantial promise; and Normal Two for those who must first learn foundations before seeking more complex arts."
A murmur rolled through the students like a low wind. "The trial is not meant to terrify, but to assess strengths. It will test your resonance, your control, and your intellectual comprehension as it pertains to basic Aether regulation. Those who show unique lineage or forceful control will be considered for Special placement. Understand?" He looked across the crowd, his eyes slow and even.
"We understand," the chorus replied, but the sound was a mixed thing — earnest, terrified, resolute.
Wang Pin raised his hand again. "Form your names in line at the lists provided. You will be called in groups. Do not try to leap ahead. The academy does not favor those who leap. It favors those who show consistent temperance and true grasp."
As names were called and groups shuffled, Bai felt a tremor under his ribs that had nothing to do with fear alone. It was the sensation of beginning — the moment when the page is opened and the pen meets paper. The skeletons at his belt, which he had left unassuming in the shade near his feet, clicked softly as if to remind him of their small presence. He had no illusions of being placed in some exalted class; his Echo was humble, his lineage empty of heraldic marks. Yet there was in him the stubbornness of a child who would not be measured only by bones and banners.
Wang Pin's voice rose once more, bracing as the cold wind from the harbour that sometimes rolled into the city: "Let the trials begin."
It was the sort of announcement that belonged to stories: small and solemn and the immediate predecessor to many kinds of change. The sun took a careful tilt as if to watch. The rank and file of three hundred shifted and arranged. Bai Yinfeng tightened his hold on his shard, slid his fingers along the rough edge, and breathed in the Academy's first true air. The adventure — with its boredom and its brilliance, its loneliness and its laughter — had begun.