Jian Lei's POVMei Lin'er stared down at the token in her palm like it might burn her the same way it had burned her grandmother's fingers weeks before."Grandmother," she said, "what is this.""Something I should have given you long before now," the old woman said, her voice steady despite the way her hands trembled at her sides. "I'll explain everything I can once we're somewhere the whole village isn't listening. For now, keep it close. Don't let anyone see it who doesn't already know what it is.""You knew this would happen," Mei Lin'er said. "You knew, and you let me stand here arguing about whether to leave, without telling me you already meant for me to go.""I hoped I was wrong," her grandmother said. "I've been hoping I was wrong about a great many things since those riders were first spotted near the pass. Hope isn't the same as certainty, child. I didn't want to burden you with something I prayed would never matter."Elder Fang, watching this exchange with visible confusion

Jian Lei's POVWe left the crossroads shrine within the hour, Duan Feng leading his horse on foot beside us rather than riding ahead, which I noticed and appreciated more than I said out loud. It made the whole arrangement feel less like being escorted and more like traveling with someone who'd simply decided to walk the same direction."How far is the sect," I asked, mostly to fill the silence that had settled over the group since the shrine."Six days on foot at a reasonable pace," Duan Feng said. "Less if we push hard, but I'd rather not arrive with three exhausted travelers who collapse in front of the outer gate. Makes a poor first impression.""You say that like impressions matter more than survival," I said."In a sect," he said, with the wry tone of someone who'd learned this the hard way, "impressions often are survival. Especially for outer disciples with no established name behind them."Mei Lin'er walked close enough to my side that our shoulders brushed with every few ste

Jian Lei's POV"He wasn't alone," Duan Feng said, already turning in a slow circle, sword still raised. "Scouts like that never move solo. There's a second one somewhere close, watching the first one's retreat."He was right. The attack came from the opposite side of the clearing, silent until it wasn't, a shape dropping from the rocks above the overhang directly toward me, no warning shout, no gesture of peace this time.I felt the flame try to answer and falter, some part of me still raw from holding it back in the village yard, still uncertain whether letting it loose again would end with me in control or with me watching from somewhere distant while it decided things for itself. That hesitation cost me the half second I needed to properly defend myself, and the attacker's blade came down toward my shoulder in a strike I wasn't fast enough to dodge.Mei Lin'er moved before I could.She'd had the small dagger her grandmother gave her back at the crossroads shrine hidden in her sleev

Jian Lei's POVThe first attacker to reach me swung low, aiming for my knee the way the man in the forest had aimed for my legs, clearly briefed on what little they knew about how the fire answered threats. I didn't try to dodge. I let the flame meet the blade instead, and the steel came apart in his hand with a sound like ice cracking on a frozen river, molten at the edge where my power had touched it.He stared at his own ruined weapon for exactly as long as it took Mei Lin'er to close the gap and put her dagger through the gap in his armor at the hip, dropping him with a cry that cut off fast when his head struck the ground."Behind you," she shouted, already turning toward the second man closing on us.I spun in time to catch a strike aimed at my ribs on my forearm, flame flaring bright enough that the attacker recoiled from the heat alone before the blade even connected. It wasn't grace. It wasn't skill. It was raw instinct and a power I still barely understood, but it was enough

Jian Lei's POVWe got Duan Feng back on his feet with Mei Lin'er's grandmother's arm braced under his good shoulder, and we made it another quarter mile down the road before he finally insisted on stopping to properly bind the wound rather than let it bleed through the hasty field dressing any further."Sit," Mei Lin'er's grandmother told him, no room for argument in her tone, and he sat, gritting his teeth as she cleaned the arrow wound with water from her flask and packed it with a paste from a small jar she produced from somewhere inside her robe."You carry medicine like a woman who's done this before," Duan Feng said, hissing at the sting."I've done a great many things before," she said, tying off the bandage with practiced efficiency. "None of which are your business to ask after."He laughed at that, short and pained, and looked over at me where I sat a few feet away, still catching my breath from the fight on the ridge, my own forearm freshly rebound where the arrow had graze