Chapter Two: The Pavilion Has No Mercy
The room had no corners that felt safe.
Lin Yuexin discovered this within the first hour.
The stone walls curved slightly inward, trapping sound and breath alike. A single oil lamp hung from a hook, its flame trembling like it was afraid of the dark too. The door through which she had been thrown was seamless now—no handle, no crack, no mercy.
She sat on the floor, knees scraped, hands blackened with soot that wouldn't wash away. Her dress was stiff with ash and blood that wasn't hers.
Don't cry, she told herself.
She counted her breaths instead.
One.
Two.
Three.
On the twentieth breath, her stomach growled. On the fiftieth, her hands started to shake.
"You're alive," she whispered to herself. "That's inconvenient, but manageable."
Her voice echoed too loudly. She didn't speak again.
---
When the door finally opened, the sound was so sudden she flinched despite herself.
Light spilled in.
A woman entered.
She moved like a blade—clean, efficient, sharp lines and sharper eyes. Her black robe was cinched at the waist with silver cord, and her hair was pulled into a severe knot at the nape of her neck.
She looked Yuexin up and down.
"So," the woman said. "This is the Lin child."
Yuexin lifted her chin. "I have a name."
The woman smiled faintly. "Names are earned here."
She crouched in front of Yuexin and held out a hand. In it lay a dagger.
Short. Double-edged. Immaculate.
"Do you know what this is?" the woman asked.
"A knife."
"Incorrect." The woman placed it on the floor between them. "It's a decision."
Yuexin stared at it. "What happens if I don't choose?"
The woman's smile disappeared.
"Then the Pavilion chooses for you."
Yuexin picked up the dagger.
The woman nodded. "Good. I am Madam Qiao. Remember it."
"I won't," Yuexin said.
Madam Qiao laughed once. "You will."
---
Madam Qiao tested her every day.
She asked questions with no right answers.
"Why didn't you die with your parents?"
"Do you miss them?"
"If you had to kill one of them to save the other, which would you choose?"
Yuexin learned quickly that silence was safer than honesty.
On the fourth day, they fed her rice and water.
On the fifth, they taught her how to hold a blade properly.
"No," Madam Qiao snapped, smacking her wrist. "You're gripping like a child."
"I am a child," Yuexin replied.
Madam Qiao's eyes hardened. "Not anymore."
---
On the seventh night, Yuexin ran.
She waited until the bells marking patrol changes chimed. She counted steps, memorized shadows, slipped barefoot through corridors colder than grave soil.
She almost made it.
A man stepped out of the darkness like he'd been waiting for her.
"You're early," he said cheerfully.
Yuexin stumbled back, dagger raised.
He was young—maybe twenty—with lazy posture and smiling eyes that didn't match the blade in his hand.
"Who are you?" Yuexin demanded.
"Shen Wei," he said. "One of the wardens. You're the ash child."
She bristled. "I have a name."
He grinned. "So you keep saying."
She lunged.
He disarmed her in two movements and pressed her against the wall, blade at her throat.
"Bad form," Shen Wei said mildly. "But admirable enthusiasm."
"Let me go," she hissed.
"Can't do that."
He tilted his head, studying her face.
"You don't look scared."
"I am," Yuexin said. "I just don't see the point in showing it."
Shen Wei laughed softly. "You'll do well here. Unfortunately."
---
Punishment came in the form of silence.
Three days in the Echo Chamber.
No light. No sound. No human contact.
By the second day, Yuexin started narrating her thoughts out loud.
"Well," she muttered, tapping the floor, "this is dramatic."
Her voice sounded strange, like it belonged to someone else.
On the third day, she started telling jokes.
"If this is how you kill people," she said to the darkness, "it's very boring."
When the door finally opened, she was lying flat on her back, staring into nothing.
A man in grey robes stood over her.
His face was calm. Too calm.
"You tried to escape," he said.
"Yes," Yuexin replied. "I rated it a seven out of ten."
He raised an eyebrow. "Why not higher?"
"Poor lighting."
The man studied her for a long moment.
"I am Elder Han," he said at last. "I oversee the Pavilion."
Yuexin sat up slowly. "Do you kill children?"
"We refine them," Elder Han replied. "Some break."
"And me?"
He looked at her like a chess piece.
"You're sharp," he said. "We'll see if you hold an edge."
As they led her away, Yuexin thought of her parents—not with longing, but with distance.
She had learned something important.
The Pavilion could hurt her.
But it could not empty her.
And that, she decided, was already a kind of victory.