Won-Il's breathing steadied as the worst of the sting ebbed. Jang knotted the soot-dark strip of cloth around the swelling welt, then sat back on his heels, letting the rake's handle cool in his palms. The pits still thundered, but without Seo Yun-tae's gaze the heat felt merely physical—an ache the skin could name, not the spirit.
Ash-Warden Dong clapped once, the sound flat against the quarry walls. "Work's not paused," he rasped. "Embers are tame only while fed." He pointed at two iron sleds stacked with cedar crates. "Grey cords—fill them."
Jang glanced at the frayed twine now cinched around his own waist: grey, not the kitchen white he'd worn yesterday. A single strand, sign of a laborer one tread from discipline cells. Won-Il gave the cord a rueful tug. "Demoted and branded," he muttered, lips quirking despite the pain. "At least the colour matches the scenery."
They hefted shovels with blistered fingers. The topmost layer of each pit had cooled to soft dunes; below, a pulse of crimson still beat like hidden heart-fire. Jang broke the crust, sending little avalanches of grey powder rolling to the base. They worked in synchrony—shovel, pour, tamp—until the crates were half full.
Ash-Warden Dong inspected the contents, sifting a handful through scarred fingers. "Fine grain," he approved. "Lotus-char binds better when it remembers heat." He tipped his palm; silver-grey dust spiralled away on the updraft. "Ink-masters will grind this with gall and spirit gum before the evening bell. Your sweat will be hanging on merit banners by dawn."
"Nice to be useful," Won-Il said, deadpan.
Dong's ruined mouth twitched, almost a smile. He waved two ox-handlers forward. Thick-necked animals snorted clouds of steam as the handlers slid iron rails beneath the sleds. With a grunt, the men levered the loads onto wheeled frames and lashed them in place.
Jang wiped a sleeve across his cheek, leaving a streak of soot like war-paint. Out of habit he held his breath while the first ox lurched ahead; superstition said the kiln's initial ash-drift carried "Black-Lotus rot," a cough that never healed. He couldn't afford more scars inside than out.
Won-Il noticed and mimicked the gesture. "Rot can't catch what's already half-dead," he whispered, but he kept the cloth over his nose until the dust settled.
They followed the sleds up a switchback path gouged into the quarry wall. Each turn offered a glimpse of the sect proper: training yards flashing steel, slate roofs shining like wet ink, the upper pagodas half-shrouded by morning haze. Jang counted heartbeats—one, two, three—steadying the smoke that still ballooned at the thought of Seo's satisfied smirk.
Near the ridge top, the path cut behind a wisteria-choked retaining wall and entered a stone corridor that tunneled straight beneath the Library of Echoing Scrolls. The air cooled abruptly, scented with cedar sap and the faint tang of old parchment. Carved above the lintel was the four-stroke maxim every novice could recite: Word Forged World.
The ox-handlers halted at a bronze-grated sluice, tipping each crate so grey powder avalanched into a funnel wide enough to swallow a man. Somewhere below, hidden augers would lift the ash to the pigment loft where calligrapher monks mixed their inks. Jang leaned over the railing—saw nothing but swirling grey in the darkness—and felt a tremor of awe. Trash to triumph, the warden had said. The notion echoed inside him: refuse reborn into something that left marks no elder could ignore.
One crate remained partially filled. The handler cursed, shaking it to dislodge the last clump, but the dust had clotted around something solid. He upended the box; a charred length of bamboo slip clattered free, scorched characters still faintly visible down one side.
"Sloppy sorters," the handler grunted, kicking it toward the pit. "Ink-rats'll sieve it."
Jang's eyes tracked the fragment as it rolled to a stop beside the funnel's lip. So small, so easily missed—a single shard of somebody's forgotten writing. Heat prickled his neck, the same prickle he'd felt when Seo's ember landed on his sleeve. How many scraps like that were ground to nothing every day?
Won-Il nudged him. "Back before Ma Gok thinks we've fallen into the grinder."
They headed down the corridor. A final wheel squealed behind them as the ox-team started back toward the kilns. Footsteps and low voices dissolved into library hush. Jang stole one more glance at the bronze grate; the bamboo slip was gone, sucked into the dark.
He touched the soot stripe on his cheek, then pressed blackened fingers to his knuckles and smeared the ash across each joint—an oath signed in shadow. Turn waste to power, he thought, the words solid as iron in his skull. And carve my name where even ember-lords must read it.
Outside, the sun was sliding toward the western ridges, sky bruising purple above iron rooftops. Day-lamps flickered awake along the covered walks. Their dull yellow halo caught the soot on Jang's skin, making it gleam like fresh lacquer. He closed his fist over the rake's splintered grip and followed Won-Il back toward the barracks, every step grinding cinder-dust deeper into his boots—carrying the pit's smouldering promise with him.