The Monks of the Xiaofeng Peak have a curious tradition: the Endless Stones. Billions of miniscule jade chips of various colors which are painstakingly assembled into an artistic depiction of their choice over lifetimes. It is said that it started with a single rainbow jade and that each time they complete their work, they simply shatter each piece in two and begin anew. -Administrator Zong of the Yanu Region

* * *

“Yoru!” Lin’s voice echoed behind me, but I barely heard it. My mind was focused on a singular goal: rescuing my disciple.

Eclipse and I streaked over the treetops, with Chiho keeping pace and flitting around my head every so often. Lagging behind us by a considerable distance was Kansi, Lian, and Lin.

“Yoru! You need to rest!” Lin shouted.

“No, I need to save Xinya!” I answered. “That monster will do terrible things to her! It’s my responsibility as her master to save her!”

“You won’t be saving anyone if you’re too exhausted to fight when you get there!”

I shook my head, rolled my eyes, and kept flying. What did he know? He didn’t know my limits. I’d pushed harder than this before. When Chouko was in danger, I’d traversed the entire continent in a night to keep her safe from harm. When Aya was kidnapped, I studied tirelessly for years to get strong enough to rescue her. This would be no different. I was well used to moving heaven and earth for my family.

“Yoru!”

“Give it up, Lin! I’m not stopping until we get there!”

“Tsuyuki, you’re losing altitude!” Kansi interrupted.

My eyes flicked downward just before Eclipse clipped the top branch of a tree. I yelped in alarm as we careened to the side, only to hit another branch. I crashed through the trees, slamming into the ground.

I groaned in pain. My shoulder ached, and the trees over my head were spinning in my vision. I tried to roll back to sitting, but the aches in my body protested, so I remained on my back, staring at the starry sky above.

“How’s your ego?” Lin quipped as his face solidified in my vision.

“I dislocate my shoulder, and your first thought is for my ego. I’m touched.”

“Normally, I’d say ‘I told you so,’ but I think it might too much,” he continued. He offered a hand, and I took it. Lin pulled me gently to my feet before examining my shoulder.

“I’ll be fine. Just put it back and we can keep moving.”

Lin sighed. “Yoru, you will be no good to Xinya if you’re too exhausted to fight Shen Tori.”

“I’m not too exhausted.”

“Right. Fighting the Tide Serpent was easy for you and you didn’t nearly drown.” Lin put a hand on my good shoulder. “Yoru, you need to rest.”

“But…what if he does something to her?” He was determined to unravel her core, after all. That kind of treatment was difficult to do on the best of days with the best of cultivators. It involved unmaking pieces of yourself that were linked to your very mind, body, and soul. If he tried to force her, as I was quite certain he would, her cultivation could be irrevocably damaged, forever limiting the potential she had within her. As her master, I could not stand by and let that happen, even if it meant killing her own blood.

“She’s a tough kid,” Lin answered. “She has held out for nearly a week already. She will hold on a little longer. It’s a long journey to the Lodge, and you need to be rested so we can end Shen Tori’s reign, once and for all. Don’t forget that I want him dead as much as you do.” Lian and Kansi descended and touched down in the clearing nearby. Lin turned to them and smiled. “He’s fine. In fact, he found quite the nice spot for a camp.”

* * *

I reluctantly sat next to the fire, staring into its crackling depths as the chill of the night crept ever closer around us. We didn’t have much in the way of supplies, given the haste with which we’d left Saikan after the Tide Serpent’s defeat, but Lian had hunted a trio of rabbits, which Lin was roasting over the fire.

My body still ached. The others refused to set my arm after the fall, thinking that I would be more likely to rest while mildly injured. I didn’t have the will to set it myself, and with every moment I sat with my knees drawn to my chest, weariness began to cling to my body like the chains that dragged from my other form. The fight with the Tide Serpent really had been difficult, but my mind was fixated only on one part of it.

I flicked my eyes up to look at Lin from across the fire. His eyes were on his task as he evenly spun each spit, and I silently studied him, trying to picture in my mind the moment we’d shared underwater. The way his dark brown hair must have been floating around him like an ethereal shade in the depths, the way his green eyes would have sparkled with his own qi, providing the only light below, the way his hand wrapped behind my neck to draw me in before the life-giving air in my lungs gave out. What a scene it must have been, and I’d missed it entirely, being unable to open my eyes underwater.

“What are you looking at?” Lin asked. “I’m not going to set your arm just because you’re pouting at me.”

Alarm flushed my face with red, and my ears burned. I looked away immediately, burying my head in my good arm. Chiho slipped from my hair to comfort me, tucking my hair back into place for the sixth time since my graceless landing. I focused on the feeling of it preening through my hair, and slowly my heart calmed.

“Um, Master Tsuyuki?” I raised my head only enough to peer over my knees. It was Kansi.

“What is it?” I muttered.

“Forgive this disciple her foolishness,” she began formally. “I should have recognized you sooner, but…perhaps…I mean…I just…” She huffed in frustration. Then she scrambled to her feet and bowed. “Venerable Master, please grant this disciple an audience.”

I raised an eyebrow in surprise before scrambling to my feet and putting a hand on her shoulder. Gently, I pushed her back to full standing.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Please, I’m only an Iron. It would be unbecoming to let a Silver bow to me like that.” Her sudden shift in attitude gave me a very uneasy feeling. Kansi was normally so carefree. She clearly wasn’t used to this level of formality.

“With all due respect, Master Tsuyuki, this one isn’t fooled,” she snapped before controlling her tone. Once she was calmer, she continued. “No mere Iron would be familiar enough with my master to have command over his prized swords, yet Razor Wind answers your command without question.” I tried to interrupt, but Kansi wasn’t finished. “Not to mention that no mere Iron could command Chiho’s respect as you do. Hells, that silly pin doesn’t even listen to me! It disappeared after Master died, and I never saw it again.” Kansi seemed to notice her rising tone and quickly schooled her expression, lowering her eyes before me as if I were her own master. “Forgive me. It was an uncontrolled outburst and will not happen again.”

“It’s quite alright,” I answered. “I’ve never known Chiho to listen to anyone but me and Jinshi.”

Kansi’s eyes went wide. “So, it’s true! You know his actual name!”

“I…suppose? I didn’t realize it was a secret.” This conversation was nothing like the one I’d pictured. There was a lot less violence and a lot more misplaced adoration.

The disciple pulled a small envelope from her bag and offered it to me, her head bowed in respect. “My master’s final instruction was that this wayward disciple deliver this letter when the moon shone brighter than the day. He said I would know the recipient when I saw him, for there is none other like him in all the world.”

“What a sentimental notion,” I murmured. “How very like him.” My heart was pounding. Of all the things I expected Kansi’s mission to be, delivering a letter was not it.

I took the worn paper into shaky hands. It was an old letter, one that was clearly hundreds of years old. The paper smelled like the grassy plains of the Pearlescent Valley, with just a hint of jasmine…just like Jinshi always did.

He must have kept it close for centuries before he died…

Turning the envelope over, I fingered the wax seal. It was imprinted with Jinshi’s old crest: a sword surrounded by swirling wind. As my fingers passed over the wax, it shimmered, and a bit of my qi seeped into the seal. It cracked immediately, recognizing my unique essence.

With trembling hands, I pulled the letter out and unfolded it. Only a few short characters were inked onto the ancient paper, but the calligraphy was unmistakable.

“To my Prince, the only light in my skies.

May we meet again, in our next lives.”

“May we meet again,” I read aloud, scarcely believing my own eyes and ears.

After everything we’d been through, after everything I’d done, Jinshi still wished to meet me again. Leaving my authority over Razor Wind hadn’t been an accident, after all. Repairing Eclipse after it had shattered was not an act of vindictive triumph.

He loved me, even after all these years. I folded the letter, returning it to the envelope. Qi sparked, and the letter sealed itself once more. I slipped it into my lapel, right next to my heart.

“Kansi,” I began, wiping tears from my eyes. “If I may ask, how did he die?”

She lowered her head, sadness clouding her eyes. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “One day, he gave me his swords and two letters and said he had some business to take care of and needed to be discreet. He told me where to meet him, and that I was to only open one of the letters when I knew the time was right.

“I waited for two months before one of the Five Elemental Sages of the Phoenix Empire, the Metal Sage, came to find me. The sage risked everything to enter the Valley Lord’s territory. It was him who told me my master died during an encounter with Lady Saraia.” Kansi’s voice trembled as she recounted the story, but she continued onward anyway. “I opened the letter Master said to read, and it gave me my final mission, to deliver that missive to you.”

Silence reigned over the camp, leaving only the crackling of the fire. My mind raced. This…Sage of Metal…was unknown to me, but if he sought my martial niece after Jinshi’s death, then I had no reason to suspect him of foul play, especially with the lengths he would have had to go through to survive in the Pearlescent Valley as an Ascendent. He had my respect.

Saraia, however…this was the second time that Kansi had all but spat the Ascendent’s name. Supposedly, Lian’s Chained-Demon Sect was one of hers, but I knew next to nothing about her. She had supposedly worked with Jinshi to purge the Moon-Soaked Shore of lunar artists, something that must have been absolutely necessary for Jinshi to be involved, but otherwise, I knew nothing about her. Had she been responsible for my beloved’s death? Or just a wayward ally who’d been left as a scapegoat?

“Master Tsuyuki, if I may ask you something now,” Kansi continued. “I know so little of my master, not even his name. Could you tell me more of him? Who you were to him?”

I smiled sheepishly, sitting down on the hard earth. Kansi followed my example. Where would I even begin? How could I possibly convey thousands of years of my best friend’s life into so few words?

“Jinshi…General Iru’e Jinshi, that is,” I began. “He started as my sect sibling, when we were both just mortals. We trained under the same master.”

“Did you know the Flower Maiden, then?” she interrupted. “She also said she knew my master.”

“Did I know Tsuyuki Chouko?” I countered, sourly spitting my own surname. “You know, I’m not sure.”

“Oh…I…uh…”

“If you want to know my sister so badly, maybe go ask her about Jinshi,” I grumbled. “But I guarantee, she’ll just send you right back to me.”

“Yes, sir.” She bowed her head. “Please accept this disciple’s humble apologies.”

I huffed dramatically. Sometimes, disciples got ahead of themselves. But in the end, I couldn’t hold it against her too much. There were only two people she knew of who knew anything about Jinshi, me and my sister. And, if I had just met someone who knew more about Jinshi than me, I would also be excited to learn everything I could.

“It’s alright,” I answered. “You asked who I was to him…I’m not sure how to answer that. There aren’t words for how much he meant to me. He was my everything, the Saint of my Heart. I followed him to hell and back, and he helped me build a nation.”

Kansi frowned. “With respect, why were you not around? If he was so important…shouldn’t you have stayed with him to the modern day?” Out of the corner of my eye, Lin and Lian both busied themselves with everything but the conversation at hand, even as they listened intently for my answer.

Regret twinged my heart, but I steeled my expression. “It’s my fault. I tried to be a hero, tried to save everyone and everything, and in doing so, killed everyone. I lost control, went mad, and said…things I can never take back. I forced his hand, and Jinshi locked me away.”

“Locked you…” Realization seemed to dawn on Kansi like the sun over the eastern seas. “You’re a moon artist…”

“That’s why I’m at Iron,” I said. “It was the only way to escape my prison. I bound myself to Lin and his advancement in order to slip the Labyrinth’s watch.”

Kansi was silent for a long moment as she stared into the fire. “I had no idea he had someone so special to him. He was so aloof…but he hated the Legend of the Darkened Moon. Anytime it was performed, he’d get upset, then leave.”

Memory flooded my mind. The surprise attack on the moon’s surface that stunned me, the blur that followed, Razor Wind protruding from my own chest. Then…the walk.

That day, I woke wrapped in chains, being carried in strong, gentle arms down stone passages. It was Jinshi who carried me. I remember asking him what happened, that I’d had a terrible nightmare. His face was stone, and as he laid me into the seven-layered coffin that would bind me, I begged him to stop. Begging turned to cursing as desperation drove me.

I said such terrible things…

Then came the nail, thirteen inches of lightning-scorched sandalwood. Thirteen times he pounded that nail, driving it straight through my heart. By the last one, the pain was too much, and I couldn’t take it. Before I passed out, the last thing I saw was Jinshi’s stone expression as he pulled the first lid over my prison.

“For so long, I thought he hated me, and that I deserved it,” I whispered.

“I don’t think he ever stopped regretting what he did to you,” Kansi answered. “And, even at the end of it all, his last thoughts were of you.”

I put my hand over my heart, feeling the letter through my robes. “I hope we meet again…in our next lives. Then, I can tell him just how sorry I am.” I turned my face up to the scarred moon.

Kansi’s face turned up as well. “Wherever he is, I’m sure he knows.”