The first disciple to reach the pavilion door was a boy no older than sixteen, his outer disciple robes threadbare at the sleeves. He stood there shaking, not from the cold, but from the sheer act of defiance. Lin Tian opened the door himself.
The boy flinched, then bowed so low his forehead nearly touched the stone step. "This one is called Wen," he mumbled to Lin Tian's boots. "I have no talent. I have no backing. I am nothing. But I… I wish to be something else."
Lin Tian reached down, gripped the boy's shoulder, and pulled him upright. "Look at me." The boy's eyes were wide, full of a fear Lin Tian knew intimately—the fear of being forever unseen.
"You are not nothing. You are the first. That takes a courage most of the elders upstairs have never known." He nodded past him, to where a handful of others were now climbing the steps, their movements hesitant but determined. "Go inside. Find a place to sit. We will speak soon."
