Dawn's Point of View
---
They called my name.
I stepped forward. Bowed when expected. Took the scroll when it was handed to me.
I didn't look up at the crowd.
I didn't need to.
The platform was quiet—not because the sect demanded silence, but because no one quite knew how to fill it.
That suited me.
I didn't come here for sound.
---
The ceremony passed like a shadow. Formal words. Measured tones. Names arranged by outcome, effort, grace.
They said I ranked first.
That wasn't what mattered.
What mattered was how the mountain felt beneath my feet.
Not solid.
Not yet.
---
Yue Shanshan stood at my right—blade at her back, chin level. Composed.
Wei Feng stood at my left. His breathing was even. But he kept shifting his weight, like the floor beneath him was just slightly wrong.
No one spoke to me when it ended.
Not because they had nothing to say.
Because they weren't sure how to start.
---
I left before the rest did.
Didn't follow the other core disciples to the eastern wing. Didn't ask which room was mine.
I turned toward the ridge.
Not to hide.
To breathe.
---
The path curved down, narrow and half-forgotten. Wild roots crossed the stone. Moss spread between the cracks. I let my feet carry me until the noise faded behind the trees.
I found a place beneath a pine and sat.
Not to meditate. Not to prepare.
Just to listen.
---
The wind was colder here.
It moved differently. Slower. Like it remembered something.
I rested my hand against the dirt.
Closed my eyes.
Waited.
---
That silence after the duel—it had lingered.
Not in my ears. In my body.
The way the world held still just before Wei Feng dropped his blade.
The way the arena didn't cheer.
They were watching.
They just didn't know what they'd seen.
Not yet.
---
A memory rose—not asked for.
The cave. Her back as she walked away. The cold that followed.
I was too young to understand what abandonment was.
But I understood what it left behind.
Stillness.
Not strength. Not peace.
Just the shape of what remained.
---
Somewhere along the line, I stopped expecting to feel more than that.
And then I stopped missing it.
---
I didn't open my eyes when Mei Lin approached.
Her footsteps always hesitated on the last step. Not fear. Just uncertainty.
She didn't speak until she sat beside me.
"They gave you a room," she said. "Facing the cliff. Good view."
I nodded.
The pine above us creaked.
---
We didn't speak again.
She knew better than to ask why I'd left the platform. Or what I was thinking. Or how I'd won.
That's what I noticed about her, early on.
She didn't try to fill the silence.
She let it stand.
---
I stayed there long after the sun dipped behind the stone ridge.
The earth beneath me was breathing.
Faint. Deep.
There was something buried here.
Not a treasure.
Something older than the sect.
Older than the silence.
And it was waiting.
Just like I had.
---
End of Chapter Seventeen