Jon
The road to Tianlei was familiar now—Jon had traveled it twice before, once fleeing toward the mountain and once returning from it. But this time, everything looked different.
Not because the landscape had changed. The terraced fields still cascaded down the hillsides in patterns that had been ancient when the first Starks ruled Winterfell. The distant mountains still rose in blue-grey waves against the horizon. The fortress still dominated the plains ahead, grey stone walls and curved roofs catching the afternoon light.
The difference was in Jon.
He saw more clearly. Feng's training had sharpened not just his techniques but also his awareness—the way he read terrain, noted details, and processed the world around him. The farmers in the distant fields, bent over their work: he could count them, assess their health by their posture, and estimate the crop yield by the color of the plants they tended. The merchants on the road ahead, their carts laden with goods: he registered the weight distribution, the quality of their horses, and the subtle tension that said they'd passed through dangerous territory recently.
The guards on the distant walls—he could see them now, small figures against the grey stone. Three on the eastern tower. Two walking the northern wall. One stationary near the main gate, probably the watch commander.
I used to stumble through the world half-blind. Now I see.
His body moved differently too. The walking meditation Feng had taught him had become second nature—each step rooted, each breath drawing something from the earth beneath him. He didn't tire the way he used to. The journey that had exhausted him a year ago now felt almost restful, his legs carrying him forward with the steady rhythm of a river finding its path.
The meditation stone pulsed gently in his pack, a warm presence against his spine. Feng's gift. A reminder of the mountain behind him and the training still to come.
Ten months. Bone Washing and Marrow Refinement. Two stages complete, and with them, a transformation that went deeper than flesh and bone.
I'm not the boy who left. I'm not sure what I am now. But I'm going to find out.
The guards at the gate recognized him immediately this time. No hesitation, no second looks, no whispered consultations about whether to admit the strange foreign boy with the white hair.
"Jon Snow! You've returned!"
The words carried, and Jon could see the information spreading—guards signaling to each other with quick hand gestures, a runner disappearing into the fortress's depths. By the time he reached the main gate, a small crowd had gathered in the courtyard beyond. Servants and soldiers, officials and household members, all finding reasons to be present when the Stone Tiger's student arrived.
The whispers reached his enhanced hearing before he passed through the gate.
"The Stone Tiger's student..."
"...completed two stages, they say..."
"...look how he walks, like he's made of mountain stone..."
"...still looks like a ghost, that hair..."
Different whispers than before. A year ago, they'd called him "cursed" and "white devil." The fear hadn't entirely vanished—he could hear it threading through some of the voices, the wariness that came from strangeness. But it was mixed with something else now. Respect, perhaps. Or at least curiosity.
Let them whisper. I've earned whatever they say.
Jon scanned the crowd as he entered the courtyard, his eyes moving automatically, cataloging faces. Servants he recognized, guards he'd sparred with during his first stay, and household officials who'd watched his collapse in the training yard.
Mei Ling wasn't there.
A flicker of disappointment moved through him—he'd imagined her waiting at the gate, the way she'd waited after the Bone Washing. Running toward him, crashing into his arms, her fierce voice telling him he'd taken too long.
But no. The crowd was servants and soldiers and curious onlookers. No dark hair. No fierce eyes.
Master Zhi emerged from the gathered people, moving more slowly than Jon remembered. His robes hung looser on his frame—he'd lost weight. And his breathing was wrong, a subtle wheeze beneath each inhale that spoke of lungs that weren't working as they should.
He's worse. The decline Mei Ling mentioned in her letters—it's worse than she said.
"You've changed." Zhi's voice was the same, at least—sharp and assessing, the scholar's mind still keen even as the body failed.
"The training—"
"Not just the training. Something else." The old man studied Jon with the clinical attention he brought to ancient texts and strategic analyses. "You're not the boy who left. You're something else now. Someone else."
"Is that good?"
"That depends entirely on what you do with it."
Jon accepted the non-answer. Zhi had never been one for simple judgments.
"Where's Mei Ling?"
Something complicated moved behind Zhi's eyes—concern, perhaps, or calculation.
"The garden. She's been there since dawn. Waiting."
"Then why didn't she come to the gate?"
"She wanted to see you alone first. Before the crowds and the questions and the politics."
"Politics?"
"Much has changed while you were gone, Jon Snow. The general has plans. The tournament approaches. There are things you need to know."
He gestured toward the garden path, the movement slow and careful, conserving energy.
"But that can wait an hour. Go to her. She's been counting the days."
Jon
The path to their garden was worn smooth by familiar feet—his own, Mei Ling's, and the countless journeys they'd made together during his first months at Tianlei. Jon walked it now with a different awareness, noting how the stones had settled, which plants had grown, and the small changes that accumulated over seasons.
The cherry trees had lost their leaves. It's autumn now, not summer—the branches are bare against the grey sky, waiting for winter. The bench sat in dappled shadow, and on it—
Mei Ling.
She'd changed too. The difference struck Jon like a physical blow, stopping him at the garden's edge. Taller—she must have grown three inches while he was gone. Her face had lost more of its childhood softness, the lines of her jaw and cheekbones sharper and more defined. The girl who'd pulled him from the beach was becoming someone else. A young woman, almost. Someone who would command attention when she entered rooms.
She was holding something in her lap. A bundle wrapped in blue silk, embroidered with silver wolves running in an endless circle.
The swords. She brought the swords.
Jon's heart clenched. He hadn't asked her to bring them. He hadn't known what he'd feel when he saw them again—the twin practice blades he'd carved himself, the physical manifestation of his Arthur Dayne dream, the weapons that had been in his hands when everything fell apart.
She looked up. Her eyes found his across the garden.
Neither of them moved.
Eight months of letters. Eight months of distance and longing and growing up separately. Eight months compressed into a single moment of recognition, of seeing and being seen.
"You're taller."
Her voice was steady, but Jon could see her hands trembling on the silk-wrapped bundle. The small movement that betrayed the calm façade.
"So are you."
"And you walk differently. Like you're made of stone and lightning."
"Is that good?"
"I don't know yet." A ghost of her old smile crossed her face. "Come here and let me decide."
Jon crossed the garden. Each step felt significant—the closing of distance that had stretched between them for nearly a year. He was aware of everything: the crunch of gravel beneath his feet, the cool autumn air against his skin, and the way her eyes tracked his movement, assessing, cataloguing, and hungry for details.
He stopped in front of the bench. Looking down at her. She is looking up at him.
"Hello, Mei Ling."
"Hello, Jon."
She stood. Set the silk bundle carefully on the bench.
This time, she didn't crash into him. Didn't run. She stepped forward deliberately, closed the distance between them with intention rather than impulse, and slid her arms around him.
Jon held her back.
It was different from the desperate embrace of his first return. Quieter. Deeper. The arms that wrapped around him were stronger than they'd been—she'd been training; he could feel it in the muscle beneath her sleeves. And the way she held him wasn't the clinging grip of a child afraid of loss. It was the embrace of someone who had learned, as he had, that holding too tightly made things slip away.
"Eight months."
"I know."
"I read your letters so many times the paper started to wear through."
"I read yours until I had them memorized."
She laughed against his chest—a small sound, surprised out of her.
"Then you know all my embarrassing complaints. The broken vases. The arguments with Father."
"I know you beat Sun Cao in a spar, and he still claims he let you win."
"He's gotten worse about admitting defeat. I think it's because I'm actually challenging him now."
She stepped back, hands still on his arms, studying him with the intensity she brought to everything she cared about.
"You're really different. Not just standing different—different inside. I can see it."
"The training changes things."
"Not just the training." Her eyes were knowing, seeing more than he was comfortable with. "You wrote about holding loosely. About letting go. I could feel you changing through the letters—each one a little different from the last."
"I could feel you changing too."
She turned, picked up the silk bundle, and held it out to him.
"I brought these. I thought... I thought maybe you'd want to see them."
Jon took the bundle. The weight was familiar—two wooden practice swords, carved by his own hands more than a year ago in pre-dawn darkness behind the stable. The silk wrapping was new, Mei Ling's addition—the wolves her design, running forever in their embroidered circle.
"Do you want them back?"
The question hung in the air. The twin swords. Arthur Dayne's shadow. The dream that had consumed him, that had broken him, that had driven him up the mountain to Feng's monastery.
"I don't know yet."
He sat on the bench. She sat beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched.
"I can use the breathing techniques now. Safely. My body holds." He turned the bundle over in his hands, feeling the shapes within the silk. "But Feng said I'm not ready for combat—not real combat. Supporting the techniques is different from fighting with them."
"So... not yet?"
"Not yet. But closer than I was."
He unwrapped the silk carefully, revealing the wooden blades. They looked the same as he remembered—rough-carved, uneven, the work of a child's hands trying to capture something too large for them to grasp. But they felt different in his grip. Lighter, somehow. Or maybe his hands were simply stronger.
He didn't swing them. Didn't practice any forms. Just held them, one in each hand, feeling their weight, remembering the boy who had made them.
That boy is gone. The dream remains. But it's my dream now, not Arthur Dayne's shadow.
He wrapped them again, carefully, the silver wolves gleaming in the autumn light.
"Keep them. For now. Until I know I won't break again."
Mei Ling nodded. Took the bundle back, held it against her chest the way she had a year ago, when he'd first entrusted it to her keeping.
"I'll keep them safe. Like always."
"I know you will."
They talked. Hours of letters compressed into spoken words—the things that hadn't fit in writing, the nuances that couldn't be captured in ink.
Mei Ling's father had returned from the front—briefly, between campaigns. He'd noticed her for the first time in months. Asked about her training. It wasn't much, but it was something. A crack in the wall between them, wide enough to let light through.
Sun Cao had become a genuine training partner, not just a reluctant instructor. Something had shifted in him while Jon was gone—Mei Ling didn't know what, but she'd seen it. He treated her differently now. Treated the household differently. As if some old wound had finally started to heal.
The political situation was worse. Houses falling, alliances shifting, the great families of Yi Ti circling each other like wolves waiting for weakness. The tournament—the Festival of Crossed Swords—had become more important than ever, a way of demonstrating strength without open warfare, of sending messages that couldn't be conveyed through diplomacy.
And Zhi's health was failing faster than anyone would admit. The cough that had been occasional was now constant. The steps that had been slow were now labored. Mei Ling didn't say it directly, but Jon could read it in her voice: she was afraid of losing him.
Jon shared his own news. The setback and recovery—the terrible weeks when he'd lost the golden light, the lesson of holding loosely that had finally let him find it again. The integration of breathing techniques—the first time he'd used them without breaking—and the careful escalation as Feng tested each technique in turn. The gift of the meditation stone. The knowledge that Jade Transformation still waited, years away, but the path was clearer now than it had ever been.
What they didn't say, but both felt: the relationship had deepened beyond friendship. Not romance, exactly—they were still too young for that, still too uncertain of what they were becoming. But something more than it had been. Something that would grow as they did.
"We're bound together," Jon thought, watching her face as she spoke. However this ends, that won't change.
Jon
The great hall was different at night.
Jon had eaten here before, during his first stay—meals at the lower tables, watching the household's rhythms from the edges. He'd never sat at the high table. Never been acknowledged as anything more than a curiosity, a guest whose presence was tolerated rather than celebrated.
Tonight, General Kai sat in the central seat. Watching. Waiting.
The general was smaller than Jon remembered—or perhaps Jon had grown. But there was nothing small about his presence. Kai commanded the room without speaking and drew attention without demanding it. The way he held himself, the way his eyes moved, the subtle weight of authority that surrounded him like armor.
This is what power looks like, Jon thought as he entered the hall. Not size or strength. Certainty. The absolute knowledge that you belong exactly where you are.
Conversations paused as Jon walked through the hall. Eyes tracked him, whispers following in his wake. He ignored them. The stillness training had given him that, at least—the ability to be watched without feeling hunted, to move through attention without drowning in it.
A servant appeared at his elbow.
"The general requests your presence at the high table."
Jon looked up. Kai was watching him directly now, expression unreadable but attention absolute.
"Of course."
The high table was a place of honor—generals, advisors, and the inner circle of House Kai. Jon climbed the dais, bowed appropriately, and took the seat indicated. The chair was harder than the benches below, the wood carved with symbols he didn't recognize.
Mei Ling was already there, seated at her father's right hand. Her eyes found Jon's as he sat, a flicker of warning in them.
Be careful, that look said. Something is coming.
"Master Feng sends regular reports." Kai's voice was calm and measured—the voice of a man who commanded armies and played political games with lives as stakes. "He says you've exceeded expectations."
"Master Feng is generous."
"Master Feng is never generous. If he says you've exceeded expectations, you've done something remarkable."
Kai lifted his cup, sipped, and set it down with precise care.
"Tell me what you've learned."
What could Jon say? How did he summarize a year of transformation—the fire in the basins, the endless meditation, the setback and recovery, the slow accumulation of strength that had remade him from the inside out?
"I've learned that strength without foundation destroys itself. That power held too tightly escapes. That stillness isn't weakness—it's the ground everything else is built on."
"Philosophy." Kai's tone wasn't dismissive, exactly, but it demanded more. "What about combat?"
"I can use my techniques safely now. Not at full power—Feng says that requires more training. But I won't break myself trying."
"Demonstrate tomorrow. I want to see what Feng's training has produced."
It wasn't a request.
"Yes, General."
Kai's eyes held Jon's for a long moment—assessing, calculating, weighing.
"The Festival of Crossed Swords approaches. Six weeks away. Representatives from every major house will compete."
"Master Zhi mentioned it."
"Did he mention that I intend to send someone unexpected?"
Jon's stomach tightened. He knew where this was going—had known since Zhi first mentioned the tournament, since he'd seen the look in Kai's eyes when he entered the hall.
"I'm not ready for tournament combat. Feng was clear—"
"Not this tournament." Kai raised a hand, forestalling Jon's objection. "But the next one. Six months from now. That gives you time to continue your training, to integrate what you've learned, and to practice against real opponents instead of air and imagination."
"And if I'm still not ready in six months?"
"Then we wait for the one after. I'm patient, Jon Snow. I can afford to be patient with an investment this valuable."
Investment. That's what Jon was to Kai—an investment. A resource. A weapon being forged for purposes Jon didn't fully understand. The word sat uncomfortably in his chest, too close to how the slavers had looked at him, how Grazdan had looked at him.
But also: an opportunity. A chance to prove himself in ways that mattered. A path toward the strength he'd been building toward all along.
"I'll be ready."
"Good. We'll discuss the details after tomorrow's demonstration."
Jon
The garden at night was silver and shadow, the bare branches of the cherry trees reaching toward stars that burned cold and distant above.
Jon found himself on the familiar path without quite remembering the decision to walk it. The meal had ended. The hall had emptied. But his mind was still churning with everything Kai had said, everything that had been implied.
Mei Ling was already on their bench. Of course she was.
"You're worried."
He sat beside her. The stone was cold through his clothes, but he barely noticed.
"Your father wants me to demonstrate tomorrow."
"I know. I saw your face when he said it."
"The last time I demonstrated for an audience, I collapsed. Had a flashback. Proved everyone right who called me cursed."
The memory was still sharp—the three seconds of glory, the cramping in his hand, the world dissolving into Winterfell, and Theon's sword shattering and Catelyn's face twisted with horror. The humiliation of lying in the sand, shaking, broken.
"What if it happens again? What if the training wasn't enough? What if I'm still broken underneath?"
"You're not broken."
"You don't know that."
"I do know that." Her voice was fierce, the way it had been when she'd defended him against the servants' whispers, when she'd refused to let him quit. "I've read your letters. Everyone. I've heard how you write about the training—the setbacks, the recovery, and the things you learned. Broken people don't learn like that. Broken people don't grow."
"Mei Ling—"
"Tomorrow, when you're in the training yard with everyone watching—don't think about them. Don't think about the last time." She turned to face him, her eyes catching starlight. "Think about why you're doing this."
"Why am I doing this?"
"You tell me."
Jon was quiet for a moment. The meditation stone pulsed gently in his pocket—Feng's gift, a connection to the mountain and everything he'd learned there.
Why was he doing this? For Kai's approval? For the tournament? For the chance to prove himself to people who'd called him cursed?
No. Those weren't the reasons. Those had never been the reasons.
"For the people I couldn't protect. For the people I might still save."
Alya on the cross. Robb in Winterfell. Everyone I've lost and everyone I might still lose.
"Hold onto that." Mei Ling's voice was soft but certain. "Not tightly—loosely. Let it anchor you without trapping you."
She took his hand. Her fingers were warm, calloused from sword practice, and strong.
"I'll be watching. Not judging. Just watching. And whatever happens, I'll still be here afterward."
They sat together until the stars wheeled overhead, not speaking much, just present. Two young people on the edge of something neither fully understood—not just the demonstration, but everything that would come after. The tournament. The training. The future unfolded before them like a road through unknown territory.
"You should sleep. Tomorrow is important."
"I know."
"Jon?"
"Yes?"
"I'm proud of you. Whatever happens tomorrow. I'm proud of who you're becoming."
Jon walked to his room alone, but not lonely. Mei Ling's words echoed in his mind, mixing with Feng's lessons, with the steady pulse of the meditation stone against his hip.
Tomorrow, I prove something. Not to Kai. Not to the fortress.
To myself.
Jon
The training yard was more crowded than Jon had ever seen it.
Morning light slanted across the sand, painting everything in shades of gold and shadow. General Kai sat on a raised platform at the yard's edge, surrounded by advisors and officers—men whose names Jon didn't know, whose faces he'd never seen, but whose presence spoke of importance. Master Zhi stood nearby with scrolls and brush, ready to record observations. Sun Cao waited at the yard's southern edge, arms crossed, expression unreadable.
And Mei Ling, seated beside her father, watching with eyes that saw everything.
The servants who'd called him "cursed" were there too, keeping to the edges of the crowd. Watching to see if the white devil would break again.
Jon walked to the center of the yard.
The sand shifted under his feet—familiar, weighted with memory. This was where he'd fallen. Where he'd shattered in front of everyone who'd ever doubted him. Where the three seconds of glory had collapsed into humiliation and pain.
That was then. This is now.
I'm not the same person.
He found his center. Felt the golden light pulsing gently in his bones—the framework the Golden Marrow Art had built, solid and strong, ready to support what his techniques demanded. The meditation stone hummed against his hip, a reminder of the mountain, of Feng's teachings, of everything he'd survived to reach this moment.
"Begin when you're ready."
Kai's voice, calm and commanding.
Jon breathed. Not the explosive breath of his techniques—just air. Just presence. Just now.
Then he moved.
Water Breathing first. The calm foundation, the flowing current that enhanced without overwhelming.
Jon moved through basic forms, his body responding with fluid grace. The difference from a year ago was immediately visible—the stability underneath the motion, the roots beneath the river. His feet planted into the sand with each step, not just touching but connecting, drawing strength from the earth itself.
The enhancement spread through him: senses sharpening, awareness expanding, and the world becoming clearer and more detailed. He could hear heartbeats in the crowd. Could smell the fear-sweat of servants who remembered his collapse. Could feel the subtle shifts in air pressure as people leaned forward to watch.
His body held. No cramping. No strain. Just power, contained and channeled.
Thunder Breathing next. Speed and force, the lightning that had always been hardest to control.
Jon accelerated through striking forms, his hands blurring as he cut patterns in the air. The power surged through him—dangerous, vast, the same force that had shattered him a year ago. But now it flowed through channels that could hold it. His rebuilt skeleton absorbed the stress, distributed it, and transformed destructive force into directed movement.
He moved faster. Faster still. His feet left craters in the sand with each step. His hands displaced air with enough force to stir the robes of watchers ten feet away.
And still he held. Still the foundation supported. Still the golden frame glowed in his inner vision, containing what would have destroyed him before.
Beast Breathing last. The enhancement of senses, the expansion of awareness beyond normal human limits.
Jon demonstrated this not with movement but with stillness—standing in the center of the yard, eyes closed, reaching out with perception that went beyond sight and sound.
"Three guards on the eastern wall. One is limping—old injury, left leg; he favors it when he stands too long." His voice carried across the silent yard. "The merchant outside the gate is selling fish—I can smell the brine from here. General Kai's heart rate is elevated—excitement or concern, I can't tell which."
Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Jon ignored them.
Finally, full integration. All three techniques together—the layered enhancement that had broken him in this very yard, on this very sand.
Jon reached for everything at once.
The power flooded through him. Water and Thunder and Beast, flowing together like rivers joining into a single current. More power than any normal body could contain. More force than flesh and bone should be able to channel.
His bones held.
His rebuilt skeleton sang with contained strength. The golden frame blazed in his inner vision, bright as the noon sun, solid as mountain stone. The techniques that had shattered him now worked for him, supported by architecture that hadn't existed a year ago.
He moved through a complex form—fast enough to blur, strong enough to crater sand with each strike, and aware enough to track every heartbeat in the yard. The twin-sword patterns he'd dreamed of since Winterfell, executed with empty hands but perfect form.
Thirty seconds. A minute. Two minutes.
He could keep going. He could feel it—the sustainability that hadn't been there before. The foundation is supporting instead of fighting. The power flowing through him like water through channels, not like fire consuming fuel.
But he stopped. Deliberately. Controlled.
The techniques faded. Jon stood in the center of the yard, breathing normally, unbroken.
I did it. It worked. I'm not broken anymore.
The yard was absolutely still. No whispers. No movement. The crowd were processing what they'd just witnessed.
General Kai rose from his seat. Walked to the edge of the platform, looking down at Jon with eyes that revealed nothing but saw everything.
"Impressive."
One word. But from Kai, it meant everything.
"You've clearly made progress. The integration of your external techniques with Feng's internal training is... remarkable. I've seen martial artists train their entire lives without achieving what you just demonstrated."
"Thank you, General."
"We'll discuss the tournament this afternoon. I believe we have much to plan."
Kai withdrew, his advisors following. The crowd began to disperse, whispers finally breaking the silence—but different whispers than before. Wondering whispers. Impressed whispers.
Sun Cao approached as the platform emptied. His expression had shifted—the skepticism Jon remembered replaced by something more complicated. Respect, perhaps. Or recognition.
"That was real. Not a trick or an illusion. You've actually changed."
"The training—"
"I know what training can do. This is more than training." Sun Cao's eyes were sharp, assessing. "We should spar. When you're ready. I want to see how it holds up against a real opponent, not just forms in the air."
"Soon."
"I'll hold you to that."
Sun Cao walked away, but Jon could see it in his posture—the older boy was already planning, already thinking about how to test what he'd witnessed.
Mei Ling didn't approach. Didn't need to. Their eyes met across the yard, and her smile said everything.
You did it. I knew you would.
Jon smiled back.
The training yard sand was still warm beneath his feet. The same sand where he'd collapsed, where he'd broken, where he'd proven everyone right who'd called him cursed.
Now it was just sand. Just a place. The past couldn't hurt him anymore.
He'd finally outgrown it.