Grey scraped the edge of night as the bell in the servants' yard tolled its flat, iron note.Dung-smoke still drifted from yesterday's braziers, layering the air with a sour tang that stung throats already raw from sleep-snatched coughing. One by one the drudges crept from their dorms, bare feet whispering over hoarfrosted flagstones, and fell into crooked ranks beneath the watchtower.
Jang Hwan took his usual place in the back row. Frost crackled under his sandals; every exhale puffed pale in the half-light. Above, the inner curtain-wall arched like a ribcage of black granite, its spikes catching the first ashy glow of dawn. Somewhere behind that wall disciples would soon be stretching beside hot braziers, but here in the outer quarter the cold bit deep and without apology.
He flexed the hand Seo Yun-tae had burned days earlier—pink skin puckered across the palm, still angry despite herbal salve. Each flex pulled at the new scar, a small reminder that pain could be carried like a coin in the pocket: always there, always payable.
A hush rippled through the lines. Ma Gok was coming.
The gate opened on a single creak, and the new Head-Servant limped into view. He wore the plain charcoal robe of a drudge, nothing more, yet the iron-lotus badge pinned to his breast turned every head. Polished black iron, two open petals: discipline and duty. In Yun's day that sigil had gleamed like a threat; on Ma Gok it looked heavier, as though memory itself had soldered it to his chest.
Keys clinked at his belt; his cane tapped once, twice on stone. When he stopped, the courtyard fell to such silence Jang heard the whip-post's metal ring ticking in the wind.
"Roll-call," Ma Gok said. His voice held no bark—just a cold, clipped finality that pruned speech before it sprouted. A junior scribe beside him began reciting names. Each servant answered with head bowed; any who stumbled over "present, Head-Servant" received a slow stare that churned the air thicker.
The list ended. Nobody was missing, yet the space Yun had once filled pressed like a bruise on the crowd. Yun would have barked curses, cuffed ears, maybe sneered at the sluggish. Ma Gok simply looked—and people stood straighter than they ever had for the old tyrant.
"The quotas were lenient under my predecessor," he announced. "That laxity ends today."
Two servants in the front—both older men with shoulders rounded from grain-sack labour—shifted nervously. Ma Gok's gaze landed on them the way frost lands on grass: quiet, inevitable, fatal.
"You," he said to the first. "You yawned during roll-call.""N-no, Head-Ser—""Six lashes will correct the weakness."
Before the man finished shaking his head, an enforcer uncoiled a chain-whip from his hip. The links hissed across the frost, dragging little sparks where iron kissed stone. The second man wilted.
"And you," Ma Gok continued, turning slightly, "were late to the fire-pits yesterday."
The second drudge tried to kneel out of turn—prostration as shield—but Ma Gok's cane thumped his shoulder, forcing him upright. "Six lashes, matching your comrade."
A moan threaded down the line. Jang's stomach nodded itself tight. He found himself counting heartbeats; the rhythm of fear echoed the rhythm of chains soon to fall.
Ma Gok stepped aside. "Make the lesson swift."
Krisshh !The whip sang and bit. Frost burst where links struck flesh; a grey mist of breath and pain rose on the air. Jang inhaled through his nose—vinegar and salt coated the links to keep wounds raw, a stench sharp as bad wine. Six strokes: deliberate, evenly spaced. The two men made no sound after the first cry; only their knees sagged deeper each time the chain landed.
When it was done, Ma Gok lifted a hand. An apprentice medic scurried forward with herbs that slowed bleeding but did not dull agony. The punished were left kneeling, blood dark against ice. Their shivers rattled like grains in a jar—discipline made visible, Jang thought with a shudder.
Ma Gok faced the lines once more. "There will be no more warnings. You will meet your quotas or feed the ground with your weakness. Dismissed."
Orders obeyed, breath released. Lines fractured into scurrying knots.
Jang followed the tide toward the wooden board nailed to the eastern cloister. Wet pine-sap ink gleamed where new rosters had been slapped up overnight. Won-Il elbowed beside him, wiping his red-rimmed eyes.
"He's colder than a snake's belly," Won-Il muttered under breath. "I'll take Yun's spit over that stare."
"Quiet," Jang whispered. He scanned the list. Names scratched in columns: work post, shift bell, overseer initials. He found Hwan, Jang — Lantern-Oil Refill / Sixth. Nothing unusual.
Then his gaze snagged lower—Kwan, Jang — Weapon-Polish (Cloud-Wing Lodge) / First-Night. Core-disciple quarters. A sudden swell of pride fought with dread in Jang's chest.
Won-Il saw the line too. "Your brother polishing sabres for peacocks now? That's promotion by proximity." He forced a grin but his tone edged envy.
Someone snorted behind them. Jisoo, hair bound tight under kerchief, read over their shoulders. "Polish one wrong notch and they'll pin the blame to his lungs." She flicked the paper with two fingers and slipped away toward the scullery line.
Won-Il exhaled. "She's half right." He nudged Jang lightly. "Tell your brother to keep his eyes down. Core disciples think a servant's gaze tarnishes steel."
"I will." Jang's voice felt distant. Weapon-polish duty meant Kwan would work inside the Cloud-Wing mezzanine, where blades rested in Silver-Qi foam racks said to hum like trapped thunder. Some servants claimed the foam stole warmth from your skin; others said it whispered the names of every sword it had cradled. Either way, Kwan would stand only heartbeats from killing tools that could carve stone.
Keep your head low, hyung.He made the promise in silence.
The crowd thinned. Work-gang leaders shouted assignments. Jang stepped back, letting the roster board loom over him like a verdict. Behind it the sky had brightened to slate, though the sun still hid. From far off a disciple's gong called fighters to morning drills—a note of bronze sliding over stone.
Somehow the yard felt tighter than ever, as if invisible chains had cinched while the lash flew. But deeper still Jang felt a small tug inside—the same itch that scratched when Seo's ember scorched his palm:
Gap.He had seen it etched today in blood and bruises, heard it in the hiss of the chain. Between servant and disciple, between his fist and a broom-stave, between Kwan's pride and the world's heel—gap.
Bridging it would take more than hope. It would take keys he didn't yet own.
Supper was turnip gruel so thin lantern-light passed through it. Jang ate quickly, tongue numb to taste, then retreated to the dorm to patch a loose sandal strap. Outside, dusk bled into corridors. Kwan ducked in only long enough to snatch his new polishing kit—a cedar box smelling of camellia oil—and to tighten the belt of a slightly cleaner tunic.
"You sure you don't want me to walk you, hyung?" Jang asked.
Kwan forced a crooked smile that widened his split lip from days before. "Earn sleep while you can, little brother. Those swords won't bite."
"The men who hold them might," Jang said under breath.
But Kwan was already halfway out the door, offering only a two-finger salute. "Brooms today, sabres tomorrow—same swing." Then the hall swallowed him, footfalls soft on waxed boards.
Jang stood alone, listening until even echoes died. The dorm smelled of tallow smoke and damp bedding. He tightened his sandal thong and squared his shoulders. Night shifts for him would start before moon-rise—oil-jar to deliver, lanterns to trim. Plenty of shadows in which bruises could bloom unseen.
He reached for the wool cloak hanging on his peg, but his gaze lingered on the iron water-bucket beneath it. Last winter someone had dented its rim; water reflected warped moons each evening. Tonight the dent coughed back a crooked crescent of premature moonlight, half pure, half scarred.
Jang studied the reflection until the clang of the shift bell yanked him toward duty. He slung the cloak, hefted the oil-jar, and stepped into corridors where torch-light guttered like thin hope.
Unseen chains clinked, somewhere deep in the halls of Ironshadow.
And somewhere deeper still, a seed of resolve pushed against hard-packed soil.