Dawn found the Preceptor's mansion awake before its guests. Kiaria and Orman rose quietly, thinking they would slip out without troubling the household, but servants already stood in two precise lines, and the Preceptor's third wife was directing breakfast with a soft authority that made even footmen move like wind. On the verandah, a spiritual bird still smoldered faintly from its distance-flight, pinions rimmed with ash-light. The black-silk summons it had carried lay opened on a lacquered tray.
The Preceptor was already in court robes. He did not speak of the message; weight lived in the lines around his eyes. He only repeated what he had told Kiaria the night before, as if setting a seal on the boy's heart:
"Do not let fear replace respect. A cultivator's strength is not what he takes from the world, but what he bears for it."
He stepped into his official cart, the wheels grinding over stone. As he passed, the spiritual bird launched, circled once, and vanished into the pale sky. The Preceptor's wife pressed a travel bundle into Orman's hands, then smoothed Kiaria's hair with a touch that remembered him as a child.
"Eat on the road. And you–" she leaned closer to Kiaria's ear, voice barely a breath, "–do not let other people's fear take root inside you."
They bowed. Breakfast was simple and quick; there was no lingering. By the time the sun lifted a finger's breadth, the boys were winding through the city's arteries, past carved eaves and stone bridges, toward the mountain that housed the Enlightenment Sect.
They reached the sect before the bell for latecomers could shame them. On the open terrace above the cloud line, disciples gathered by rank. Didhian stood before a low table set with two neat bundles: talismans sealed in thin jade, a day's ration of herbs and cakes, a tiny gourd of cleansing water, flint and thread, a simple knife, and a folded map brushed in the Founder's hand. No gilded excess–only what a wise traveler would trust.
"You arrive on time," Didhian said. His voice carried without force, like water that knew the path downhill. "Discipline is the first weapon of a cultivator. Without it, no technique will save you. Take your essentials."
They stepped forward together. Kiaria's focus was a taut string; not a word fell without landing. Orman bowed as deeply, yet from where he stood, the Martial Exchange platform drew his eye–the circle of stone where the afternoon before, a thousand star-feather moves had hung shining in the air. His mind replayed the movement he could not track, the breath he could not catch.
"Listen well," Didhian continued, gaze passing through them both. "These will sustain you for today only. From tomorrow onward, you will supply yourselves by comprehension and effort. Food, shelter, warmth, safety–nature offers them freely to those who can read her, and withholds them from the proud and the dull. To descend among mortals is not to seek comfort, but to learn. Think with your hands. See with your breath. Return with understanding, not stories."
Both boys bowed again.
"And one more rule," Dhidian added, eyes turning to Orman with a glint that made several elders cough into their sleeves. "No horse. Enlightenment is learned by the soles of the feet."
A ripple of laughter, quickly smothered. Orman managed a rueful grin. "As Master commands."
They strapped the bundles across their backs and stepped from the terrace into the mountain path. Wind combed the high grasses; cloud shredded itself on sharp ridgelines. Below, the world widened–rivers cutting silver scars through forest, hamlets like handfuls of seed scattered on the dark earth.
For a time they walked in silence. The slope demanded attention; stones shifted underfoot, and roots reached across the trail like the sutures of an old wound. It was Kiaria who finally spoke.
"Seventh Brother, your mind is elsewhere."
"What? Did you say something?" Orman blinked, caught between the path beneath him and a stage carved in memory.
"Truly, Brother, you are not here. What weighs on you?"
Orman shook himself and forced a smile. "Nothing that a good run won't fix." He threw Kiaria a sideways glance, eyes brightening with mischief. "Little brother… shall we see who reaches the valley first? For pride only–no wagers. Are you willing?"
Kiaria's mouth pulled toward a smile he tried to hide. "I accept. But Brother, do not regret the outcome."
"Regret? When have I–"
Kiaria vanished.
He did not blur as much as stop being where he had been. A breath later he was a streak of motion further down the trail, weight so light the grass barely bent to him. The Star-Feather Technique did not look like speed; it looked like omission, as if he had been edited out of one place and written into another.
Orman's laugh startled a herd of mountain goats into scattering. In panting, "you are bullying me, aren't you?" Took a deep breath, then– "One day you'll teach that to the disciples so they can torment me in pack." He cupped his hands around his mouth. "Or better–lead the sect and make the torment official!"
Kiaria slowed until he matched Orman's stride. "I don't desire to lead," he said, breath unbroken. "My path lies in keeping morals, not in claiming titles."
Orman huffed, but his smile gained something tender. "Little brother, you are a blessed child. Yet I… I am the blessed one, for I walk with you."
"Nothing lasts forever," Kiaria said, looking up through the canopy at a sliver of sky. "So let us move while we can."
They crossed from pine shadow into the lower forest's broader leaves. Birdsong replaced the thin whistle of wind. The path spat them onto a road that hugged the mountain's flank, led for a mile through switchbacks, and then sank toward the valley's edge.
By the time they met the first travelers–women with baskets of root and salt, a mule laden with charcoal–the sun had tipped past noon. A tavern crouched at a bend in the road, half hidden by a leaning plane tree. Its sign creaked on its rope, paint flaked but clean; from inside came the low tide of talk, the clack of bowls, the gossiping snores of a dog under a table.
They pushed aside the beaded curtain. Heat, steam, and spice carried the homely weight of oil and ash. Farmers, carters, a priest or two, even a minor tax-scribe with ink on his sleeve–they looked up at the boys' robes with reflexive caution, then the room remembered itself and talk resumed.
"Welcome," the tavern-keeper said, bowing just enough to acknowledge without servility. "Two travelers from the peak. What will it be?"
"News," Orman said cheerfully, slapping the bar as if it were a back. "And whatever is hot and honest."
"Hot we have," the keeper said. "Honest–" he tilted his head, "–depends on who's telling it." He slid two bowls of broth thick with millet and greens, two plates of pickled roots, a jug of river beer. "Rooms are ready in the back if you're staying. The eighth batch, yes? Master Didhian sends them on the same wind every year."
Orman leaned toward Kiaria, whispering, "It seems there is little for us to do."
Kiaria's eyes moved slowly, reading the room the way he read leaves above water: the right hands hardened by rope and hoe, the left wrists marked by old cords, a priest with eyes that counted more than prayed. "Master's words already marked our training," he murmured. "Even this tavern is part of it. Did you not see?"
"From your words," Orman sighed, "I sound the child and you the elder."
Kiaria's lips tilted. "Brother, you must grow up."
"You–!" Orman's ears flushed. He lifted the jug, then thought better of it and set it down. "Never mind."
He turned to the keeper. "How far to the nearest town?"
"Twelve kilometers if your legs are honest," the keeper said. "Fifteen if they brag. But you should rest here. The road at night is more story than path. If you want news, sit, and let the bowls do their work."
They did. Kiaria ate with neat attention, as if respect for food were practice for larger respect. Orman ate like a man who feared the kitchen might change its mind. Talk eddied around them, sometimes brushing close enough to leave a film of rumor.
"…grain tax doubled in the north…"
"…the east gate's captain changed without ceremony…"
"…a caravan saw three wolves stand on hind legs and bow to a man…"
"…a boy at the mountain took a sword that no one could lift…"
The last made a small hush fall in a corner, and the tax-scribe's brush paused over nothing. But the moment passed as moments do, and the tavern's sea resumed.
When the bowls were empty and the jug's weight lessened, the keeper led them through a short corridor to two small rooms. Each was carved with the simplest of inked arrays–nothing that would resist a cultivator, everything that would request the world be kind. Inside, a pallet, a low table, a basin, a window onto an armful of stars.
"Sleep," the keeper said. "Morning makes men braver."
They did not sleep at once. They sat cross-legged on opposite sides of the thin wall, breath dropping like stones into a deep pool. Kiaria gathered the day's images and let them settle: the Preceptor's unreadable gaze; the spiritual bird's ash glow; Didhian's bundles and law; Orman's laughter with a seam of worry beneath it; the way the tavern turned and did not turn when two boys in mountain robes appeared at its door.
In his sea of consciousness, he watched those images stand where they liked–some on high stones, some in shadow–and did not force them to move. He listened for what did not speak yet.
Sleep came clean. It woke them like a friend.
Kiaria and Orman emerged from their small rooms after a sleep deeper than either had expected. The weariness of travel washed away, their steps were light, their faces fresh. They returned to the same corner where they had first sat, the rough-hewn table still waiting as if it remembered them.
The tavern had changed with the day. Outside, dusk draped itself over the valley, and inside lanterns flared to life, each one shaped differently: one painted with cranes, another with mountains, a third cut so that stars pierced its skin. Together they shed a kaleidoscope of light, turning the wooden hall into a place half dream, half festival.
The air was heavier now, rich with scent. Strips of meat hissed over iron pans, fish simmered in broth fragrant with peppers and ginger, and pungent spice smoke curled above each table, prickling nose and tongue alike. Appetite sharpened with every breath. Yet the tavern was not crowded; only a few farmers lingered, a pair of traders in muted talk, a bard half-dozing by the door.
The boys sat quietly, taking in the quiet splendor of such ordinary life. Orman leaned back, stretching with a groan. "Sometimes, little brother, the world doesn't need grand halls or glowing swords. Sometimes, this is enough."
Kiaria said nothing, but his gaze lingered on the lantern painted with stars, its light swaying gently as if in rhythm with his own thoughts.
Far away, in the capital.
The Preceptor's cart had rolled through the palace gates before noon. By then the court was already swelling; ministers in brocade whispered in huddles, generals leaned close in grim talk, priests fingered prayer beads that clicked like restless teeth. The air vibrated with rumor. Still more officials poured in, voices rising and falling like waves.
Then, from the high walls, the long siren blared–the call that bent every spine, which carried across marble and mosaic alike.
The Emperor was coming.
The hall stilled at once. Murmurs died like sparks in rain. Every head bowed as the figure of the Emperor entered, robes dragging silence in his wake.
And thus the day moved on: in one place, lanterns and broth and the laughter of a Seventh Brother. In another, silence sharpened to a blade as the throne claimed its court.