Grey mist blanketed the inner courtyard, blurring the mountain's shadowed ridges above the sect walls. The bell had not yet rung, but the servants were already lining up beneath the weathered eaves, their breaths smoking faintly in the dawn chill. Ma Gok had begun calling rosters early since taking the badge—dragging the days forward by force of discipline alone.
Jang's tunic still bore a faint black smudge across the hem, where he'd torn it to bind Kwan's wounds. The cloth itched, a phantom reminder of last night's vow still warming somewhere beneath his ribs.
Ma Gok emerged from the refectory's side door with a folded list in one hand and his cane tapping steady rhythm against the flagstones. The iron-lotus badge on his chest caught the briefest angle of morning light, flaring once before the fog swallowed it again. He didn't raise his voice to speak—he never had to.
"Refuse duty: Jang Hwan. Won-Il."
A few glances flicked Jang's way, none of them kind. A demotion. Kitchen work had been tolerable, even clean at times. The refuse pits, though—ashes, dead wood, expired talismans, failed scrolls. Burned offerings and broken blades. Bottom-feeder labor, assigned to the punished or invisible.
Won-Il stifled a groan. "Oh good," he murmured as they broke from the line, "maybe we'll find something magical in the midden. Like a half-melted potato."
Jang offered a ghost of a smile. The truth was heavier than his breath could carry. But he matched his friend's step as they turned toward the lower slopes of the eastern wall, where old ore tunnels had been reworked into slag kilns.
They passed the drill grounds along the way. Even this early, the clang of sabers echoed off the courtyard walls. Outer disciples in storm-gray robes swung wide forms in coordinated bursts—steel arcs and bellowed kiais against a sun that hadn't yet shown its face. One disciple's saber sang a low harmonic as it cut air, the sound full of cold hunger.
Won-Il lingered. "Feel that?" he whispered. "The hum in your teeth?"
Jang paused, letting the vibration settle along his jaw. He did feel it, faint as a thread drawn tight.
"It's Qi," Won-Il said, still watching the sparring. "Or maybe it's just me being stupid. Either way, I'd give a toe to hold a blade like that. Just once."
"You don't need to give anything," Jang said. "You already bleed enough for the sect."
Won-Il barked a short laugh and they moved on.
The refuse field came into view: a hollowed trough between two old quarry ridges, rimmed by kilns and walled-in fire chutes. Slaves in heavier shackles pumped bellows at three massive stone pits where embers glowed beneath layers of ash like veins of dying coal. The air shimmered from their heat, despite the chill.
Their guide—Ash-Warden Dong—was already there, his back half-turned. His face was a melted page of scars, left cheek pulled taut like old parchment. He wore no badge, only a chain of prayer beads blackened by soot. When he turned, the smell of burned cedar rolled from his robes.
"You're here to feed the Ironshadow," he said, voice rasping like old leaves. "Rake the refuse in—wood first, then scrolls. Stir with the long hooks. When all is ash, box it in cedar sleds. The pigment-makers want it unspoiled."
Won-Il coughed, eyeing the nearest heap: broken arrow-shafts, twisted iron filings, talismans marked with blotched ink, and a pile of yellowed scrolls too frayed for reuse.
Ash-Warden Dong touched the edge of one scroll reverently. "Every oath leaves residue. We purify them with fire. Then the ash becomes lotus-char—blended into pigment, sealed into oaths again. Ash to ink. Ink to merit. Even the unworthy serve, once reduced."
He gave them a gnarled rake each and pointed toward the nearest pit.
The heat was immediate. Jang knelt, sleeves drawn tight, and began feeding the kiln. The rake's iron teeth hissed against half-burned pine. The smoke that rose was pungent, sharp with lacquer and old ink—too acrid to be holy.
Minutes passed. Then an hour. By the time the sky had lightened to bone-white, Jang's arms were streaked with soot and his knees blistered from the ground's heat.
It was Won-Il who noticed first.
"Up there," he muttered, lifting his chin.
A narrow bridge of lacquered wood crossed the pit's far side, linking the pigment shed to a grain tower beyond. Three figures walked it now—robes immaculate, embroidered with threads of gold.
Seo Yun-tae was at the center.
The Twin-Ridge sword emblem gleamed on his belt, twin peaks crossing like mirrored fangs. The polished heels of his boots clacked with deliberate cadence, echoing over the smoke-drowned hollow.
He did not look down at first. The bridge turned, slanting with his stride, and then his gaze dipped.
Saw them.
Slowed.
Jang's body tensed. His hands tightened on the rake without meaning to.
Seo stopped at the mid-point. A breeze lifted the smoke and framed him in silhouettes of ash and flame.
"You there," he called down, voice light, indulgent. "Why do mules kneel slower than sabers strike?"
Won-Il glanced at Jang, then moved to kneel—just one second too late.
A shimmer of motion: Seo kicked a half-filled ember-shovel from the lip of the bridge.
The tray spun.
A hiss, a shh-krssshh.
Cinders rained down like molten hail.
Jang lunged sideways. One arm flung his own rake aside. The other threw across Won-Il's back as the cinders struck—hot pebbles of fire pinpricking through cloth. One clung to his sleeve. The fabric flared. He slapped it out, the back of his hand blistering at once.
Won-Il gasped—a line of glowing flecks along his shoulder. One had caught the side of his neck, leaving an angry welt.
"Poor reflex," Seo mused above, as if commenting on a market juggler. "Trash shouldn't take its time learning humility. Not when ash burns so easily."
Jang's heart thundered behind his eyes.
Seo stood with his hands behind his back, chin lifted. He took one step forward, tapped his sword pommel against the bridge rail. Then, as if addressing a class:
"Ash becomes ink. Ink writes oaths. Servants who forget this chain," he said, "burn before they bind."
He drew the sword halfway—just a whisper of metal showing—then tapped the pommel down against Jang's bowed head.
A mock blessing. A silent dare.
Jang did not move. But inside him something opened. A balloon of hot smoke. It filled his chest, his throat, pressed up behind his eyes.
Breathe. Hold. Smoke, not flame. Not yet.
He said nothing. Let the burn settle.
Seo walked on, never looking back.
Jang's sleeve was ruined, scorched through. Won-Il's hand trembled slightly as he unfastened the clasp of his collar.
"I'm fine," he said. "Just… ash rot. Gets in the lungs."
Jang tore a strip from his own tunic and pressed it against his friend's skin. It wasn't fine. But it was familiar.
In the distance, the cedar crates were being wheeled toward the slope that led to the Archive. Porters in dust-hats loaded each one with care. Jang watched them pass, watched the pigment—ash turned ink—make its slow journey to the scroll-halls.
Trash writes power.
His hand still throbbed, palm a sprawl of red. He smeared a trace of soot across his knuckles.
He would not forget this heat.