TODAY, FENG JIN

I paid the cold no mind. Howling wind screamed through the open window bars at the top of the isolation chamber, blowing over my shoulders and soaking me with a cold mist of water and sleet. The room was carved directly into the side of a mountain ravine. Across from me the floor ended abruptly, giving way to the endless dark of night below.

I remained still, eyes closed.

I had to; the weight of an empire rested solely on my shoulders. Only if I was judged worthy could I exert control over Feng. Over this half of the continent.

Only by being strong enough.

The qi racing through my meridians kept me warm.

I drank the power of the mountain like the ocean drank rivers. It poured over me, through me, like a storm. I hadn’t slept in three days. When I had last fallen asleep, I woke fighting hypothermia, and hadn’t stopped cultivating since.

When the sun rose, the snow was blinding. My skin flaked from sunburn.

Once a day, frozen food was dropped through the cell’s windows.

And I was closer than ever to achieving power. Real power. Meaningful power.

My core was formed and attuned. Each and every one of my meridians swelled with elemental power, overflowing with Dark and Wind attuned qi, so compressed that my meridian’s strained to contain it at all.

I stood and drew my sword in the same motion. And I began to practice the forms. One by one, I pulled my power into the patterns of the form.

Across from me, nearly invisible in the darkness, was the ward-stone that would shatter the formation sealing this isolation room. More than a hundred feet away, placed on the mountain across the gap. Too far to jump without dying. The only way for me to leave by my own will was to advance and cut the ward-stone in half.

“Advance or die.” I spoke to myself, alone in the night, as the progression of my forms culminated in a single stroke.

The power roaring through my body was pulled upwards, collapsing into a new mental-core within my mind. My entire body strained with the pressure as it collapsed in on itself, an unstable, rampaging point of energy contained within my mind. I grit my teeth.

My the water in my hair had frozen, sticking to my skin. It cracked and broke away as I swung.

The point of energy in my head solidified. An arc of black wind, invisible in the dark, crossed the gap between the mountains.

The sound of grinding stone echoed out over the silent mountain range, dampened by the snow. The sword was impossibly heavy in my hands, cutting into the soft stone floor. My hands shook as I sheathed it, turning around to find the door open, leading into an endless expanse of snow.

Cold snow crunched under my feet. I refilled my empty cores with every step; every last drop of power had been dumped into building the infrastructure of the core within my mind. But I could already see its effects.

The snow was falling as if in slow motion.

I laughed. Alone in the night, I laughed. I had done it. Fulfilled each and every request of my father. And now, finally, he would be proud. Now, finally, I could stop racing to cultivate. I wouldn’t have to spend every minute struggling for the next realm.

The weight of an empire lifted from my shoulders.

I walked through the endless dark until the sun rose. Then I walked through an expanse of endless white, the sun dancing on the fields of snow all around me.

Feng Bai met me half way back. Necklaces of heavy beads hung from his neck and wrists. His shaved head was regrowing hair. He stared at me with huge, gray eyes, as his spiritual senses jabbed into me like a finger being jammed into a bruise. Then, in silence, he turned and walked with me back to town. He offered me cubes of frozen soup. I chewed on them as we returned.

He had been bringing me food every day and checking on me. He had been my personal body guard for as long as I had lived. My eyes kept lingering on the sword he carried.

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The Patriarch did not wield a sword. His guards did not wield swords. Nor did they walk our cultivation path. Yet they maintained this mountain of isolation chambers for cultivators in their early realms. The wealth of city’s had been spent here.

We descended the mountain range, trees popping up as we got lower, and lower. The snow thinned until I could see the wood of the trees.

We reached Stormhaven without a word passing between us. The fortress was carved from the permafrost and ice of the mountain long ago, when the snow had covered more of the world. Its wall were a deep, ice blue, the light of the sun passing through them and staining the snow around them blue. Towering structures hovered within, all covered in the snow and dug into the mountain.

The gates opened without a word.

The men and women in the street bowed or ran as I passed. I did not look their way.

Men rushed to clear the snow before me as I walked to the city’s keep. Guards parted at the sight of me until I reached the audience chamber.

The Patriarch sat on a metal chair half sunken into the bubbling spring waters of Stormhaven. Steam filled the room, staining the great glass windows of the towering ceiling.

Dad stared at me the same way he stared at a meal ready to eat.

I knelt on the floor, pressing my face to the stone. It was warm here.

His spirituality prodded me no more gently than Feng Bai’s had, examining me like a piece of meat. I heard him stand.

“Feng Jin. You’ve done well. Unlike your lout of a brother. Rise.”

“Thank you, father.” I looked up at him. My eyes lingered on his saber. I didn’t dare stand from where I knelt. He had never been as kind to me as he had been to Feng Sai. Time and time again, I fulfilled all that asked of me.

“You have reached the Third Realm successfully before your coming of age. That means you may no longer call me father.”

I flinched. Father descended the steps, plucking free a ring carved of green jade. There was a purple stone embedded within it. Father plucked it out. The action looked simple as he tore one stone apart. Then he held the ring out to me.

I took it hesitantly, staring up into his eyes.

“I must pass a final order to you as the Feng Patriarch.”

He looked tired. So tired, and so old. He was over two-hundred now; ancient by mortal standards. Though he appeared little older than fifty due to his advanced cultivation. His beard still hung low. He ran his fingers through it.

“I… cannot call you father?” I asked.

“Do you not know by now, boy?” There was disapproval in his eyes. “I am not your father. Nor am I your brother’s. A final order and a final questin, then. Tell me; who are you?”

“I am Feng Jin.” I said, staring up at him in disbelief. I slipped the ring on. “I am your son!”

The Patriach slapped me. I sat in shock, staring at the ground. I had done everything he asked. Everything.

“Again, boy.”

“I am… I am Feng Jin… I do not wish to be Jin of the Grim Tempest.” I said. I didn’t look up. “What… is your last order?”

“The successful Scions of the Darkwind path — those who reach the Third Realm within or before their eighteenth year — are called alongside their brothers to the Storm Pavillion. There, the heirs of the Grim Tempest compete for their chance to be acknowledged as disciples of the clan.”

“I don’t want to…” I stared up at the Patriarch. He looked down at me without remorse. With nothing but apathy. His hand was raised to slap me again. “Yes, Feng Patriarch.”

“Good.”

That night, I soaked in the hotsprings and drank. The core within my mind fought against the effects of alcohol. So I drank more.

The cart to take me away was loaded in the dead of night. The only inner retainer who joined me was Feng Bai.

I stared at him across the wagon. He wasn’t really a Feng, was he?

All these years, and I didn’t really know anything about him.

All these years, and I didn’t have anyone to say goodbye to.

GRIM TEMPEST PAVILLION - TODAY

The lantern-man walked through the sprawling hallways. Thousands of soul lanterns decorated the walls, one every foot from floor to ceiling. Each one was like an hourglass containing a flickering flame, embedded with a bead of purple jade. Almost all of the flames were a mix of black and gray and purple, looking for all the world like burning storm clouds.

The gray-stone walls were illuminated by the lanterns alone. This lanternman carried his own light with him, a flickering golden-orange that left shadows dancing in the cold stone hall.

He collected those that had burned out and were left broken and empty, each marked with the name of a scattered son of the Grim Tempest.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted one lantern more dim than the rest. The flame in it was tiny, a small spark compared to the raging flames of the others. Even the youngest Scions of the grim-tempest represented a full flame in their lanterns.

Unsure of the fate of the son it was tied to, the lanternman plucked it from the wall.

After his daily patrol of the hall, he returned to his supervisor.

“How many today?” His supervisor, a tall woman leaning over her desk, didn’t look up to him as she asked. She wrote with an inked quill, recording the names of other lanternmen’s deposits.

“Thirteen.” The lanternman said. Then hesitated. “Or fourteen?”

“You’re not sure?” The supervisor looked up.

The lanternman presented the dimming flame.

“Hmmm.” She said. “Well, he’s not dead. If he was, the lantern would’ve shattered. Go put it back.”

“But… what does it mean?” The man asked.

“The lanterns have a limited range.” She said, looking back to the scroll she was writing in. She was writing the same message over and over, preparing the scrolls to be sent out. “Whoever is linked to that lantern is very, very far away.”

The lanternman hesitated.

“I heard that these lanterns have enough range to cover the entire world.” He said, though it was really a question.

“They do.” She said. “There’s some things you’re better off not knowing. Go put the lantern back.”

When the lanternman put the lantern back, he noticed the lantern nearest it — marked Jin.

The bead on that lantern was glowing. The lanternman left his cart behind, pulling the lantern free and running back to his supervisor.

He forgot about the dim lantern entirely.