The iron swords woke Adam before the sun did.
Hundreds of broken blades along the stairway to his hall were humming in the same low, wary note. It was the sound they made for strangers, and today it was louder than Adam had ever heard it.
He set down his tea, walked to the courtyard, and looked down the stairs.
Four figures were climbing toward Ghost-Sword Peak. The Sect Master led them in his flowing purple robes. Behind him came Elder Lie, scarlet hair blazing like a torch, Elder Mu in her emerald robes with a jade sword at her hip, and the Golden-Armored Elder, whose steps rang against the stone like a hammer on an anvil. Three Golden Core Grand Elders and the master of the sect, all walking up a haunted peak at dawn without an escort.
Adam sent a thought into the iron blades. The humming settled into silence.
"Elder Hale," the Sect Master said, stopping at the top of the steps. "I sent four invitations to the Zenith Sanctuary. You declined each of them."
"I was busy," Adam said, and gestured toward the stone table in the courtyard.
"You were breaking through," Elder Lie said bluntly, dropping onto a bench without waiting to be asked. "Every Golden Core in the sect felt it. Mine nearly cracked my teacup." He squinted at Adam. "Heaven, boy. A Golden Core in under two months. Tell me you didn’t steal it."
"Lie," Elder Mu said, in the tone of a woman who had said it many times before.
The Golden-Armored Elder said nothing. His eyes rested on Adam, and Adam felt a heavy pressure slide across his skin, probing for the shape of his realm. It found nothing. The Hidden Fortune Aura turned it aside like a stone turning a stream, and the old man’s eyes narrowed by a hair.
"Which layer?" the Sect Master asked mildly, taking his seat.
"Does it matter?"
The Sect Master laughed softly and let it go. "Perhaps not. Let me say plainly why we’ve come. The matter of Senior Brother Ye is closed. The duel scroll was binding, and no elder will bring it before the Law Enforcement Hall. But the sect is restless, and I would like it to settle."
"Then settle it."
"I would like you to stay," the Sect Master said. "Not as a disciple on a lonely peak, but as a pillar of this sect. A title, a seat on the Council, anything you name."
"I don’t want a title," Adam said. "Titles are what people give you instead of things."
Elder Mu’s mouth twitched. Elder Lie barked a laugh.
"Then name the things," the Sect Master said.
Adam had been waiting for that.
"Sun-Fire Peak," he said. "The deed is mine, but I have neither the people nor the time to run three medicinal gardens and a mine. Elder Mu, your disciples know herbs better than anyone in the sect. They’ll manage the gardens. Thirty percent of the yield comes to you, and Azure-Wood Peak gets first pick of whatever I don’t use."
Elder Mu’s eyes sharpened. "Fifty."
"Thirty-five. And your disciples sign a contract."
"Done," she said, a little too quickly, and Adam suspected he could have gotten thirty.
"Elder Lie. The southern copper vein."
Lie leaned forward. "The copper vein is a good one. Solar-attuned. My forge-halls have wanted it for a century."
"You’ll have the mining rights." Adam tapped the table once. "In exchange, I want three days in the Heavenfall Pool."
The courtyard went very still.
Elder Lie’s grin vanished. "That pool is a secret of Flame-Dragon Peak. Where did you hear of it?"
"From Sun-Fire Peak’s ledgers." Adam’s voice stayed calm. "They list a yearly payment to your forge-halls for ’special tempering access.’ Ye’s family bought your pool. The contract came with the deed, which means it’s mine now."
The Golden-Armored Elder made a sound that might have been a laugh. Lie glared at him, then at Adam, and finally exhaled through his nose like a bull.
"Three days," he growled. "Not an hour more, and you bring your own pills."
"Agreed."
The Sect Master watched the whole exchange with the expression of a man watching a chess game he had expected to win. When it ended, he set down his cup.
"One more matter. The Alchemist Peak is losing students to the Void-Star Pavilion, and they are not the only ones. I would prefer the Pavilion’s trade to flow through the sect, not around it."
"Ask me again when I’ve decided what I’m building," Adam said.
"I will," the Sect Master said, and rose.
The Golden-Armored Elder had been silent for a full quarter hour. He spoke now, in a voice like grinding stone.
"Elder Ye Zhen has not shown himself in three weeks. He sealed Inner-Zenith Peak after the duel. But in nine days, my disciples saw him at the western gate twice. Both times at night. Both times alone, in plain robes."
The courtyard was quiet.
"A man who has lost his only grandson and does not demand justice," the old man said, "is not a man who has accepted it."
Adam’s gaze moved to the western horizon, where the clouds were turning gold.
"Thank you," he said. "I was wondering when someone would tell me."
The four elders went down the stairs the way they had come. The iron swords did not hum.
Adam stood alone in the courtyard and let the sunlight touch his face. Three days in a star-iron pool, and a man he had never met walking in the dark beyond the western gate with a purse full of someone else’s secrets.
’The first move will be his,’ he thought. ’The second will be mine.’