The clouds were thick and cold and wet, and for a few seconds Jin couldn't see anything at all.
Then he came out the top of them and hit stone hard.
He rolled and came up on one knee. Jisoo landed beside him a second later, skidding across the rock on her heels. Around them, the others were already on their feet, spread out in a loose ring with their backs to each other, the way Jin had drilled them a hundred times in the yard.
They were standing on a terrace.
It was wide and flat and paved with old grey stone, cracked and uneven, with moss growing thick in every seam. A few ancient pine trees grew out of it, bent almost sideways by a wind that wasn't blowing right now. Stone lanterns stood along its edges, most of them broken, their tops lying in pieces at their feet. At the back of the terrace, the mountain rose up again, bare rock climbing toward the summit and the great tree, much closer now, its branches spread across the gold sky like a roof over the world.
