Jon
Grey light seeped through the window, turning the familiar room into something strange and shadowless.
Jon had been awake for hours, watching the darkness slowly pale, counting the moments until he had to move. His packed bundle sat by the door—pitifully small. A change of clothes. A few coins Zhi had given him. Nothing else.
The jade wolf pendant hung against his chest, hidden under his shirt. He touched it once, feeling the cool stone warm against his fingers.
Mei Ling's gift. The twin swords she's keeping. Everything I'm leaving behind.
He'd slept poorly. Dreams of the training yard collapsing, of Feng's face—imagined, since he'd never seen it—turning away in disgust. Dreams of Arthur Dayne's ghost, watching him fail. Dreams of drowning, of chains, of all the ways his body had broken and might break again.
But beneath the anxiety, something harder. A core of determination that the nightmares couldn't touch.
The month of waiting had given him time to accept what was coming. He'd spent it preparing—meditation with Zhi, gentle exercises to maintain what strength he had, and long hours in the garden trying to find the calm that might keep him whole when the real test came.
He wasn't ready. He knew that. He'd never be ready.
But he was going anyway.
Jon looked around the small chamber that had been his home for nearly a year. The bed where he'd recovered from the shipwreck, where Mei Ling had sat reading while he drifted in and out of fever. The window overlooked the garden, where cherry blossoms had fallen like pink snow and summer leaves now rustled in the pre-dawn breeze. The desk, where Zhi had taught him calligraphy, history, and philosophy, was where Jon had learned to think in a language that wasn't his own.
I might not come back to this room. I might come back different. Either way, this part is ending.
He picked up his bundle. Didn't look back.
The courtyard was quiet in the grey morning, the fortress still sleeping around them.
Three horses stood saddled near the gate: one for Zhi, one for Jon, and one for supplies. Master Zhi was already mounted, his traveling robes slightly too fine for a mountain journey, his face composed in the patient expression of someone who had made this trip before.
The air was cool, carrying the salt smell of the distant sea. Jon breathed it in, trying to fix it in his memory. He might not smell the sea again for months. For years.
He scanned the courtyard, uncertain about what he was searching for. General Kai was not present.
War councils, Zhi had explained yesterday. The political situation worsens. The general cannot spare the time.
Jon understood. He wasn't relevant enough for a general's farewell. A former slave, a foreign curiosity—useful perhaps, but not essential. Just another investment in the fortress's future, one that might pay off or might not.
That's fine. I didn't expect—
Movement caught his eye. A high window in the keep, overlooking the courtyard.
General Kai stood there, silhouetted against lamplight. Watching.
Their eyes met across the distance. Jon couldn't read the general's expression—too far, too dim, the features lost in shadow. But Kai nodded once. He made a small gesture to express his gratitude. Acknowledgment.
Jon nodded back.
Maybe I matter more than I thought. Alternatively, he might simply be monitoring his investment.
Either way, he was watching. That was something.
Hoofbeats on stone. Jon turned.
Mei Ling emerged from the stable, leading Zephyr. The mare was fully saddled and packed for travel. Mei Ling wore riding clothes—practical and worn, not the fine silks she usually dressed in. Her dark hair was pulled back in a simple braid, and her expression held the particular stubbornness Jon had learned to recognize.
"What are you doing?"
"Coming with you. Obviously."
Jon stared at her. "Mei Ling, you can't—"
"I can. I am. It's already decided."
"This is highly irregular," Zhi said from his horse, his voice carrying the weariness of someone who had already lost this argument. "The journey is difficult. The monastery is austere. Your father—"
"My father is in his third consecutive war council." Something bitter flickered across Mei Ling's face, quickly hidden. "He won't notice I'm gone until we're back."
"The mountain trails are dangerous for inexperienced—"
"I've ridden harder trails than you, old man." She swung up into Zephyr's saddle with practiced ease. "Remember the hunt last autumn? "Did you fall off your horse at the river crossing?"
Zhi's mouth tightened. Jon suspected there was a story there, one with more embarrassing details than the old scholar wanted remembered.
"I'm not asking permission," Mei Ling continued. "I'm coming as far as the monastery. I want to see him off. Make sure he actually goes through with it."
She grinned at Jon—the familiar sharp smile that had greeted him on a beach nearly a year ago.
"Someone has to make sure you don't run away."
"I don't run away."
"You absolutely run away. It's one of your talents. You're excellent at it."
Zhi sighed—the sound of a man who had known Mei Ling since birth and recognized futility when he saw it.
"You can come as far as the monastery. But you cannot stay. Master Feng does not allow outsiders during training."
"I know. I just want to be there. For the beginning."
Her eyes found Jon's. Softer now, beneath the bravado. He saw what she wasn't saying—that she was scared for him, that she didn't want to say goodbye in a courtyard while servants watched, and that this journey was as much for her as it was for him.
"Thank you," he said quietly. "For coming."
"Where else would I be?"
The gates opened. The three riders passed through in the gray morning.
Behind them, the fortress—safety, comfort, everything Jon had built in Yi Ti. Ahead: the mountain road, winding upward into mist.
This is it. Whatever I am when I come back—if I come back—I won't be who I am now.
The boy who washed up on a beach is going to die on that mountain.
Something else will come down.
He touched the jade wolf through his shirt.
Let it be something worth keeping.
The sun rose behind clouds as they rode. The fortress shrank, became a toy, and a memory. The road climbed.
Jon didn't look back.
Jon
The landscape transformed as they ascended.
First came the cultivated lands—terraced rice fields stepping up the mountainside like a giant's staircase, emerald green and shimmering with water. Farmers were already at work despite the early hour, knee-deep in the paddies, their broad hats bobbing as they bent and straightened in the ancient rhythm of planting. None of them looked up as the travelers passed. They had their concerns, their lives, and three riders on the mountain road meant nothing to them.
Jon watched the irrigation channels carved into the slopes—engineering that must have taken generations, water flowing through stone passages older than the current dynasty. The smell of wet earth and growing things filled the air, the particular scent of human labor transforming wilderness into sustenance.
Then the forests swallowed them.
Pine and cedar, ancient trees with trunks wider than horses, their branches interlacing overhead to create a living ceiling. The road narrowed and became rougher, hoofbeats echoing differently against packed earth instead of stone. Birdsong filled the green silence—species Jon didn't recognize, melodies he'd never heard. A stream ran parallel to the road, appearing and disappearing through the undergrowth, its voice a constant companion.
Shadows deepened. The air cooled. Jon's damaged lungs noticed the thinning air first—a tightness when he breathed too deep, a reminder that his body had limits his spirit didn't want to acknowledge.
Finally, they emerged above the treeline.
Bare rock and scrub grass stretched before them, the world opening up like a held breath finally released. The view was staggering—Yi Ti spreading below them, a patchwork of green and gold, rivers threading through the landscape like silver embroidery. Clouds drifted at eye level, and sometimes below, transforming the riders into beings who had climbed above the mortal world into something else entirely.
Ancient shrines dotted the landscape—small stone structures no larger than a man, with offerings of incense and fruit placed before weathered statues. Some were clearly tended, the stone swept clean, with fresh flowers in simple vases. Others had been abandoned to moss and time, the statues worn faceless by centuries of wind and rain.
Jon had seen beauty before. Winterfell's stark majesty in winter made the entire world appear white and silent. The Jade Sea's endless blue stretched to horizons that promised nothing but more water. Braavos rises from the lagoon like a dream of towers and bridges.
But the atmosphere was different. This place felt sacred.
"It's like the godswood," he said, almost to himself. "But bigger. Older."
Mei Ling looked at him curiously from Zephyr's back. "Godswood?"
"A sacred place. In Winterfell. Where the old gods live." He struggled to explain something he'd never had to put into words before. "There was a heart tree—a weirwood, with a face carved into the bark. People said the gods watched through those eyes. When you sat beneath it, you could feel... something. Presence. Weight."
"We have places like that." Mei Ling's voice went soft in a way Jon rarely heard. "My mother used to take me to a temple in the mountains when I was small. She said the gods lived closer to the sky."
A pause. She rarely mentioned her mother.
"Do you still go? To the temple?"
"No. It burned during one of the wars. This happened before I was old enough to remember it clearly.
She spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, similar to how people discuss painful topics they find difficult to acknowledge. Jon understood. He'd learned to speak that way himself.
Everyone here has lost something. The wars have taken from everyone.
They made camp as the sun began its descent, finding a sheltered hollow where previous travelers had clearly stopped before—a fire ring of blackened stones, a cleared area for sleeping, and the ground worn smooth by countless bodies.
Zhi built a fire with practiced efficiency while Mei Ling tended the horses. Jon gathered additional wood, moving carefully on the unfamiliar terrain, his body protesting the day's exertion in ways it hadn't before the training yard collapse.
"You're damaged," Zhi had said. There's a difference between damaged and crippled.
Jon was learning to feel that difference in every muscle, every breath.
They ate simple travel food—dried meat, rice cakes, and a flask of tea Zhi heated over the fire. The silence was comfortable, the kind shared by people who'd spent enough time together that words weren't always necessary. Stars emerged overhead, scattered across a sky so vast and dark that Jon felt like he might fall upward into it.
"Tell me about Master Feng."
He asked it casually, but his heart beat faster. Tomorrow—or the day after—he'd face this man who held his future in his hands.
Zhi sipped his tea, considering the question.
"We studied together, Feng and I. Sixty years ago. Young men full of certainty and ambition."
"You were friends?"
"We were rivals. Then friends. Then something between." A ghost of a smile crossed the old scholar's face. "Sixty years is a long time to know someone."
"What happened?"
"We trained at the same academy—one of the finest martial schools that existed before the first civil war. Feng was brilliant. Everyone knew he'd be a master someday. His understanding of the internal arts was intuitive and instinctive, while the rest of us had to struggle for every insight." Zhi stared into the fire, his eyes seeing something far away. "I was... competent. Good enough, but not exceptional."
"So you became a scholar instead?"
"I became what I was suited for. Feng became what he was suited for. Different paths to the same mountain."
He gestured at the peaks above them, invisible now in darkness.
"He chose the martial path. The Stone Tiger is art. Sixty years of cultivation, refinement, and mastery. There are perhaps three living practitioners who equal him. Perhaps none who surpass him."
Jon absorbed this. He'd known Feng was skilled—you didn't earn names like "Stone Tiger" by being ordinary. But hearing it from Zhi, who never exaggerated, made the stakes feel more real.
"What's he like? As a teacher?"
"Difficult. Demanding. He sees weakness the way a hawk sees mice—from a great distance, with perfect clarity."
"Will he teach me?"
Zhi set down his teacup, turning to face Jon fully.
"That depends on you, not him."
"What do you mean?"
"Feng isn't concerned about talent. Talent is common—every generation produces a dozen talented young martial artists. Most amount to nothing."
"What does he care about?"
"Purpose."
The word hung in the air, weighted with meaning Jon didn't fully understand.
"He will test you," Zhi continued. "Not your strength or your skill—those are secondary. He will test your purpose. Why do you want power? What you'll do with it."
"What's the right answer?"
"If I told you, it wouldn't be genuine. He'll know. He always knows."
From across the fire, Mei Ling spoke. She'd been listening silently, unusual for her.
"What if he refuses to teach Jon?"
Zhi stared into the flames for a long moment.
"Then we return to the fortress. And find another path."
"Is there another path?"
"There's always another path. Whether it leads where you want to go... that's a different question."
Jon felt the stakes settling on his shoulders like a physical weight. The moment wasn't just a chance—it might be his only chance.
No pressure. My entire future depends on convincing an old man I've never met that I am worth his time.
Later, when Zhi's breathing had steadied into the rhythm of deep sleep, Jon sat with his back against a rock, looking up at stars he was still learning to name. Yi Ti's constellations were different from Westeros—different stories, different gods, and different patterns imposed on the same ancient light.
Mei Ling appeared beside him, wrapped in a blanket against the mountain cold.
"Can't sleep?"
"Can you?"
"No."
She settled next to him, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. The fire had burned down to embers, painting them both in shades of orange and shadow.
"Are you scared?"
Jon considered lying. Decided not to.
"Yes."
"Good. You should be. This is a big thing."
"Thanks. Very comforting."
"I'm not trying to comfort you. I'm trying to be honest."
She pulled the blanket tighter around herself.
"What if he says no? What if you came all this way and he just... sends you back?"
Jon's hands curled into fists in his lap, then slowly relaxed.
"Then I don't know what my next steps will be." Zhi says there are other paths, but this is the one. The one that might actually work. If it doesn't..."
He trailed off, the words too heavy to finish.
"If it doesn't, then maybe I'm just broken forever. Maybe the breathing techniques will keep destroying me until there's nothing left. Maybe I'll never be able to—"
He stopped. He'd said too much.
"Then you come back."
Mei Ling's voice was simple and certain.
"You come back to the fortress, and we figure out something else. That's what we do, right? Figure things out."
"You make it sound simple."
"It is simple. Not easy. Simple."
She reached out in the darkness and found his hand.
"Whatever happens tomorrow—or whenever you meet this Stone Tiger person—you're still Jon. Still my friend. That doesn't change because some old man on a mountain says yes or no."
He squeezed her hand. Didn't trust his voice.
"Thank you. For coming. You didn't have to."
"I know. That's what makes it matter."
They sat together, hands linked, watching stars wheel overhead. Neither spoke again for a long time.
Some things didn't need words.
Jon
The monastery seemed to come together rather than simply appear.
The final stretch of road was carved directly into the mountainside—stone steps worn smooth by countless feet, steep enough that the horses had to be led rather than ridden. Jon's lungs burned with each breath, the thin air scraping at the scar tissue that would never fully heal. Sweat dampened his shirt despite the cold.
First, he saw only mist. Then shapes formed within it—dark lines that became walls, pillars, and a gate.
It was as if the monastery had been waiting for them to prove themselves worthy of seeing it.
Ancient stone, grey and green with lichen and age. Walls that seemed to grow from the mountain itself—no clear line where natural rock ended and construction began. A gate of weathered wood, thick as Jon's arm, bound with iron gone rust-red with centuries of exposure.
No ornamentation. No banners. No signs of welcome.
Just stones, wood and silence.
This place is old, Jon thought. Not like the fortress—the fortress is old the way a grandfather is old, still living, still changing.
This is old, the way mountains are. Like it's always been here. Like it will always be here.
It doesn't care if I live or die.
Before they could announce themselves, the gate swung inward. A monk stood within—middle-aged, head shaved, wearing simple grey robes. He studied them with calm, incurious eyes.
"Master Zhi. You're expected."
The courtyard beyond was austere: swept stone, a few carefully maintained trees, and buildings arranged with geometric precision. Everything was clean, everything was ordered, and everything spoke of discipline so complete it had become invisible.
Monks went about their business. Two swept a walkway with synchronized movements, their brooms rising and falling in perfect unison. Three practiced forms in an open space, their motions slow and deliberate, each flowing into the next like water finding its level. An elderly monk carried water up a flight of stairs, the heavy buckets seemingly weightless in his hands.
Jon watched them move, and something nagged at him. He initially sensed something strange that he couldn't identify.
Then he realized: they were rooted.
Every step, every gesture had weight—not heaviness, but connection. It was as if they were connected to the earth itself. It was like the ground was holding them up as much as they were standing on it.
Even the old monk with the water buckets—each step planted him like a tree, immovable and certain.
That's the art, Jon thought. What they've cultivated. What I might learn.
If Feng accepts me.
Mei Ling leaned close, her voice low.
"They walk like they're made of stone."
"That's the Golden Marrow Art," Zhi said quietly, overhearing. "What they've built. What you may learn."
May. Not will. May.
They were led to a larger courtyard at the monastery's heart. Stone benches lined the edges. In the center stood a flat rock—worn smooth by time, ancient, and clearly significant.
"Wait here. Master Feng will see you when he's ready."
The monk left without further explanation.
They sat. The sun moved across the sky. Shadows shifted.
Jon's anxiety built with each passing moment. Was this a test? Were they being evaluated even now, watched by unseen eyes that would report their every fidget and sigh to the master?
His back straightened. His hands stilled in his lap. Should someone be observing him, he would provide them with no grounds for criticism.
Mei Ling fidgeted beside him, clearly uncomfortable with the silence. She stopped herself, started again, and stopped. Her leg bounced restlessly until she caught Jon's sidelong glance and forced it still.
Zhi sat in perfect stillness—the stillness of someone who had waited before and knew how to make peace with uncertainty.
The courtyard was immaculate. Not a leaf out of place. Not a pebble disturbed. The stone beneath Jon's feet was worn in patterns—footwork diagrams, he realized, carved into the rock by countless generations of students practicing the same forms.
How many people have sat where I'm sitting? How many waited for Feng's judgment?
How many failed?
An hour passed. Another. The sun crept across the sky, and the shadows lengthened, and still no one came.
Mei Ling leaned close. "How long do we wait?"
"As long as necessary," Zhi answered. "This is part of it."
"Part of what?"
"The test. Everything here is a test."
Jon's hands curled into fists, then relaxed. He forced himself to breathe evenly.
I can wait. I've waited in worse places than this.
I waited in a slave pit for death that never came.
I can wait for an old man on a mountain.
Jon
He appeared without warning.
One moment, the courtyard entrance was empty. Next, a man stood there.
Jon hadn't seen him approach. Hadn't heard footsteps. No door had opened, no curtain had moved. He was simply not there, and then he was.
How—
Jon's first impression was of size: small. Feng Huang was barely taller than Jon himself—a slight, compact figure in grey robes identical to every other monk's. If Jon had passed him in a crowd, he might not have looked twice.
His second impression was of density. Feng's size was deceiving. There was a weight to his presence, a gravity that had nothing to do with physical mass. Like he was made of something heavier than flesh. It felt as if the air around him was thicker and more substantial.
His third impression was of stillness. Utterly, completely still. Not the stillness of someone standing quietly—the stillness of stone, of mountains, of things that had never moved and never would.
The face was seventy years old, perhaps more. Time had compressed rather than withered him—skin like weathered leather, creased but not fragile. A thin beard, is gray and carefully maintained. Eyes that gave nothing away—black as deep water, seeing everything, revealing nothing.
Feng's gaze passed over Jon, dismissed Mei Ling, and landed on Zhi.
"Zhi. You've gotten fat."
"Feng. You've gotten ruder."
A moment of silence. Then something shifted in Feng's face—not quite a smile, but something close. He and Zhi embraced, briefly and formally, but Jon saw genuine warmth beneath the stiffness.
"Sixty years, and you still can't stay away."
"Sixty years, and you still can't descend the mountain like a normal person."
"The mountain doesn't bore me. The flatlands do."
Then Feng turned to Jon, and the warmth vanished like a candle blown out. What remained was clinical, detached—the gaze of someone examining a piece of equipment to determine if it was worth repairing.
"This is the one?"
"This is Jon."
"Western. Damaged. Young."
Not questions. Observations. Facts noted and filed.
Feng began to circle him slowly—predator examining prey, merchant examining goods. Jon forced himself to stand still, to meet the old man's gaze when it passed his face.
"Show me your hands."
Jon extended them. The cold weather still caused his right hand to tremble slightly, a reminder of the trauma he had endured in Yunkai. Today, in the mountain chill, it held steady only through force of will.
Feng took the right hand and examined the fingers. His grip was gentle but immovable—Jon couldn't have pulled away if he'd tried. The old man's fingers probed each joint, each bone, with the precision of someone who understood exactly what he was feeling.
"Broken. Reset. Still weak. The second and third fingers will never have full strength."
He released the hand.
"Remove your shirt."
Jon hesitated. The brand. The whip scars. The marks from the shipwreck. All of it would be visible—the complete history of his suffering written on his skin.
Feng waited. His expression didn't change.
Jon pulled his shirt over his head.
The examination was thorough. Feng's eyes tracked over Jon's torso with clinical precision, cataloguing each piece of damage. He traced the harpy brand on Jon's shoulder with one finger—the mark of Grazdan mo Yunkai, the mark of slavery. He counted the whip scarring across Jon's back, his lips moving silently. He noted the newer scars from the shipwreck, the still-visible lines where debris had torn his skin.
When he pressed on Jon's ribs, feeling the old breaks and the improperly healed fractures, Jon couldn't suppress a hiss of pain.
"Yunkai. Slave pits."
"Yes."
"You escaped."
"I survived."
"Not the same thing. Escaping requires agency. Surviving requires only luck."
"Then I was lucky. And then I made choices."
Something shifted in Feng's eyes—interest, perhaps. This was also a sign that Jon was not entirely passive in his own story.
"Show me what you can do."
Jon glanced at Zhi, uncertain.
"You want me to—"
"Your external arts. The breathing techniques. Show me."
Jon's heart rate spiked. His techniques had nearly destroyed him in the training yard. Using them at full power could trigger a collapse, a flashback, or humiliation in front of the one person he needed to impress.
But refusing wasn't an option.
Controlled. Limited. Enough to show him, not enough to break.
He settled into a stance. Reached for Water Breathing—the calmest, most controlled of his techniques. Let it fill him, like cool water filling a vessel.
He moved through a basic form. Enhanced speed, but restrained. Fluid motion, but careful.
His body cooperated. No cramps. No pain.
"Again," Feng said. "Faster."
Jon pushed harder. Thunderbreathing with minimal intensity.
His speed doubled. The movements blurred.
His ribs twinged—a warning. His right hand threatened to cramp.
He stopped before failure came.
Silence.
Then Feng spoke:
"Interesting. External power without internal foundation. Like a thunderstorm in a paper house."
"That's why I'm here. To build the foundation."
"To build a foundation, you must first clear the ground. The ground is not clear." Feng's gaze bored into him. "It is cluttered with damage, trauma, and... obsession."
The word landed like a slap.
"No."
Jon's chest tightened. Behind him, he heard Mei Ling's sharp intake of breath.
"Master Feng—" Zhi began.
"He is damaged. Body and spirit. Teaching him would be building on sand. Whatever I construct will fall."
Jon stepped forward, desperation breaking through his composure. "I can endure the training. Whatever pain—"
"Endurance is not enough."
Feng faced him fully. Those ancient eyes observe everything and forgive nothing.
"You want power. I see it in you. The hunger. The desperation."
He stepped closer—not threatening, but intense. Close enough that Jon could see the individual threads of grey in his beard.
"But power for what? To avenge yourself on those who hurt you? "Are you trying to prove that you are worthy of the legend of some dead Westerosi knight?"
Jon's shock must have shown on his face.
How does he know about Arthur Dayne?
"Zhi's letters are thorough," Feng said, reading the question before Jon could ask it. "I know about the two swords. About your... aspirations."
The judgment came down like a hammer.
"You chase a ghost. A dead man's shadow. That is not the purpose. That is obsession. I do not train the obsessed—they destroy themselves eventually and waste my time in the process."
"It's not—"
"You would disagree?"
Feng's voice was quiet, but it cut like steel.
"Then tell me. Why do you want strength? It's not about how you'll use it—what is your motivation for wanting it? What drives you? What keeps you moving when your body fails?"
The question hung in the air. Simple. Devastating.
Why do you want strength?
Jon opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
He knew what he wanted to say—to protect people, to be worthy, to become something more than a bastard and a slave—but the words felt hollow even before he spoke them. Rehearsed. False.
Why did he want strength?
To be like Arthur Dayne? But Feng had already dismissed that as obsession.
To protect himself? That was survival, not purpose.
To never be helpless again? That was fear dressed up as ambition.
Why?
The silence stretched. Jon's mind raced through answers and discarded each one. Nothing felt true enough. Nothing felt like the core of who he was.
"As I thought."
Feng turned away.
"Return to the flatlands, Zhi. The boy is not ready. Perhaps in a few years, if he survives his techniques, he may find purpose. Until then, I have nothing to teach him."
He walked toward the courtyard entrance—silent, unhurried, and final.
Jon stood frozen, watching his dreams collapse around him.
Mei Ling's face in his peripheral vision—pale, shocked, and furious on his behalf. She started to speak, to protest—
But what was there to say?
Feng had asked a question.
Jon had no answer.
This is it. This is where it ends. All the suffering, all the survival, all the hope—
And I failed because I couldn't answer one simple question.
Why do I want strength?
Why?
Feng's grey robes disappeared through the courtyard entrance, taking Jon's future with them. And in the silence left behind, a boy who had crossed the world felt something break inside him that had nothing to do with bones.