He shouldered the boar-stone and began. The pace he set was faster than the disciples around him could sustain at half his weight.

One disciple bolted for the corner of the yard and vomited against the practice post. Another went down to his knees and stayed there, head between his arms, breathing through his open mouth. A third was crying in the front rank — not from sadness but from pure muscular exhaustion, the tears running with the sweat in a flat sheet down his jaw.

But every disciple in the yard who lifted his head saw the same thing.

Their new master, in the centre of the yard, under the weight of a stone none of them could have moved from the ground, counting out the repetitions in a voice that had not raised a single grade above where it had begun the morning.

Halfway through the session, Lin Xuan called a two-minute breathing pause. The disciples collapsed where they were standing. He let them rest.

He walked over to the cluster of new applicants at the right edge of the formation.

They were ruined. Sweat-soaked. Hair plastered down. Robes ringed dark at the armpits and the small of the back. They were also watching him with something other than fear.

He lowered his voice for them.

"I hope you have not been disappointed by the rumours that have been circulating about our sect. With this morning, you can see a little of how we work."

The one at the front of the cluster bowed half an inch.

"Yes, Young Master."

The others echoed it with the same small bow, each one slightly out of cadence with the others, none of them daring more words. Lin Xuan inclined his head a grade in return and walked back to the centre of the yard.

Behind him, the new cluster exchanged a glance.

The decision to have come to Skyedge instead of any of the other six sects who had sent recruitment letters this past month had just confirmed itself in every one of their heads.

On the upper railing of the inner court walkway — three flights above the yard, half-hidden by the curve of the pine eaves — Elder Ren had been leaning on the wood for the better part of an hour.

His right hand rested on the railing. The truncated edge of his left sleeve was folded against his side without ceremony.

He had watched the lift of the first stone. The lift of the second. The walk to the back of the yard. The line about distraction.

His face — the controlled face of an old elder who had not let a muscle move freely in twenty years — did not adjust by much. The corner of his mouth moved up one degree.

’Oh, poor things,’ he thought. ’It looks like someone is finally going to whip them into good men.’

The thought arrived with the contentment of a man who had spent half a decade watching this yard decay and had never had the political ground to address it. Tao had not dared. Min had not bothered. Master Jin had not been the man to walk the back of the yard.

But the boy was.

Elder Ren pushed off the railing with his right palm and turned back into the inner court without a word to anyone. He had work to attend to.

The sun reached the high point of the morning. Lin Xuan called the session to a halt.

The yard had become a field of breathing bodies. Disciples flat on their backs facing the sky. Disciples face-down with their foreheads against the compacted dirt. Disciples folded into themselves with their arms around their knees. The air over the yard carried the heavy smell of sweat and dust and something close to vomit at the practice post by the wall.

Lin Xuan, on the platform, the two oversized stones at his feet, breathed at a rate only a grade above where he had begun the morning.

"Tomorrow," he said. "Before the sun rises. I expect every one of you here. The bell will not ring for you. Your bodies will."

Pause.

"If you are not here tomorrow morning, I will assume you have requested release. Your name will leave the roster by midday."

The disciples began to peel themselves off the dirt in waves. The youngest moved first. The veterans came last, joints audibly protesting, knees popping like dry sticks in a fire.

Out in the corridors, the reactions came in fragments.

Three veterans walked together toward the dormitory baths. The one in the middle was muttering with the cadence of someone who had stopped being able to control his own mouth.

"He is a demon. He is a literal demon. I am going to die tomorrow morning. I am going to die."

A girl no older than fifteen leaned against the wall halfway down the corridor, weeping without sound, her shoulders shaking with exhaustion. Her friend held her elbow and did not speak — neither of them had air for it.

Two older veterans passed each other on the path to the steam halls.

"Master Jin never made us do anything close to that."

"Master Jin did not have the lungs to make us do anything close to that."

In the cluster of new applicants, one boy walked with a small smile he was not bothering to hide. His companion bumped his elbow and said nothing. The smile was its own answer.

Some looked like crushed fruit. Others muttered demon under their breath. None said the word release.

The sun lowered. Lin Xuan bathed, changed into a fresh robe, took the light meal Lian brought to his chamber without asking a question. Her mouth did not move. Her face said the morning’s report had already passed through the kitchens.

He walked the corridor of the inner court toward his father’s chamber. The lanterns along the path threw a warm amber across the polished wood of the walls.

[ Good first day, Xuan. ]

’Whether they show up tomorrow is the real test.’

[ They will. ]

’Confident?’

[ The new ones will show up because they are inspired. The veterans will show up because they are afraid. Either emotion gets the body to the yard before sunrise. We can refine the motivation later. ]

A half-smile cracked the corner of Lin Xuan’s mouth — the first of his day.

He reached the door of his father’s chamber.

He raised his hand to knock.