The Conclave was over.
Not in the way people spoke about storms—it passed, the air cleared, life returned—but in the way a market closes: the stalls fold, the banners come down, and what's left behind is trampled straw, sour breath, and ledgers that suddenly want to be balanced.
For the servants, "over" meant the same courtyards, the same walls, and a new layer of rules that had been written in a hurry and would not be erased in a hurry.
Li Shen crossed the eastern service lane with a bundle of cleaned cloth under one arm and a split of firewood under the other. The cloth was for the dormitory. The wood was for the bath-house stove. Neither mattered to the men who'd walked through the pavilion in silk. Both mattered to the people who actually lived here.
The lane smelled like wet ash and old oil. It always did, but there was something sharper layered over it now—ink, fresh lacquer, and that faint metallic tang that came from too many cultivators passing through one place, leaving the air fractionally denser even after they'd gone.
At the corner by the registry wall, the crowd started before he could see it.
A line. Tight. Quiet. Not the casual knot of servants waiting for a task board to update, but a line with posture—backs straighter, hands tucked, faces trying to look like they belonged in it.
On the wall above them, a sheet of pale paper had been nailed to a plank with two iron tacks.
A red wax seal sat at the top like a small wound.
Beneath it: black ink, clean strokes, big characters even a half-literate servant could recognize because the key terms were always written the same way.
NOTICE — DANGEROUS POST.
RESERVED FOR CULTIVANTS.
PRIME POINTS.
RESPONSIBILITY SIGNED.
Li Shen slowed without meaning to.
He felt the crowd before he heard it: the low mutter of ambition that tried to pretend it was practicality.
A boy with burn scars across his forearms whispered to his friend, "If you get in, you get a brassard."
His friend whispered back, "If you get in, you get access."
Access. Not money. Not food. Not rest. The real currency inside the Pavilion Gris wasn't silver—silver was for mortals outside the wall. Inside, it was doors that opened when they were supposed to stay closed.
Li Shen shifted the bundle under his arm and kept moving, aiming for the dormitory gate.
He would have passed it.
He would have done what he always did—keep his head down, move the load, take the points, go back to the mat.
But his eyes caught one phrase in the notice, written larger than the rest:
CULTIVANT REQUIRED.
Not "disciple." Not "outer disciple." Not "recommended by a hall."
Just: cultivant.
Low. Common. A bar that could be met by anyone who'd stepped onto the first rung and didn't fall off.
A bar Li Shen could meet.
The worst part was how ordinary it looked. A job posting. A bureaucratic hook. The kind of thing that would be gone tomorrow if the wrong person complained.
He felt the old reflex—don't be visible, don't be counted, don't be profitable—and then the newer one that had been growing inside him since the Conclave weeks: if you don't move, you will be moved.
He joined the edge of the line anyway, without stepping into it yet. Close enough to hear. Far enough that no one could call it volunteering.
A narrow-faced man in a plain grey robe stood at a folding table beneath an awning. His hair was tied back with a strip of black cloth. His sleeves were clean. His hands were not.
Ink-stained fingers. A stamp on a short chain. A stack of forms.
Registry.
Li Shen recognized him before he heard his name. This wasn't a servant. This was the kind of low-level functionary the Pavilion Gris produced in bulk—men who could ruin you without ever raising their voice.
Someone behind him murmured, "Shen Qiu."
The man at the table looked up at the sound of his own name like a dog hearing a bowl scraped.
He didn't smile.
His eyes moved down the line as if counting bodies, and when they reached Li Shen's face—just briefly—Li Shen felt the sensation of being weighed.
Not like a cultivator's pressure.
Like a clerk deciding if you were a mistake worth correcting.
Li Shen looked away first, as if he hadn't noticed.
He moved again, pushed through the service flow, delivered the cloth and wood like he'd meant to all along. He did it quickly, efficiently, and without drama.
Then he came back.
The line hadn't shortened.
If anything it had tightened, as rumors always tightened crowds.
A tall servant with a shaved head stepped out from the middle of it and barked, "If you're not a cultivant, stop wasting space. The notice says it twice."
A few people peeled away with forced laughter. Others stayed, staring forward with stubborn stupidity.
Li Shen stepped closer, just enough to read the fine print under the bold lines.
Minimum: Qi Condensation Stage 1.
Assignment: Forge Yard, Circle One.
Prime: 120 points, paid in two tranches.
Danger: heat exposure, metal-active fumes, seal-burn risk.
Liability: injury accepted; refusal of duty after acceptance results in penalty.
Term: one quarter. Renewal conditional.
Mark: brassard/jeton issued upon signing.
Forge.
He had heard the word like a threat and like a promise.
Servants didn't talk about it in detail. They didn't have to. Everyone knew what heat did to bodies. Everyone knew the Pavilion Gris guarded its internal production lines like a throat guards its breath.
Forge posts meant higher points and lower safety.
They also meant proximity.
Proximity to things that mattered.
His fingers curled against the wood grain of the bundle strap. He exhaled slowly, letting his breath leave without letting his face change.
He stepped into the line.
No one moved to block him. The shaved-head servant glanced at him once, saw the set of his shoulders, the steadiness in his eyes, and looked away again.
A recognition, grudging. Not respect. Acknowledgment that Li Shen wasn't here to pretend.
The line crept forward in small, bureaucratic increments.
One person at a time. One signature at a time. One life made slightly more expensive at a time.
A boy ahead of him—maybe seventeen, cheeks raw from cold wind—kept wiping his palms on his trousers. He leaned toward Li Shen and whispered, "Do you… have it? The Qi?"
Li Shen gave him a neutral look.
"Stage 1," he said quietly. "Official."
The boy's eyes widened with the wrong kind of light—hope and envy tangled together.
"You're lucky," the boy breathed.
Li Shen's mouth tightened slightly.
Luck was what people called it when they didn't want to name the cost.
He kept his voice flat, practiced.
"Lucky, yes," he said. "Probably blocked Stage 1 to 3."
The paratonnerre. The social lightning rod.
The boy nodded quickly, reassured. Ah. Not dangerous. Not profitable. A low cultivant, a harmless aspirant. Someone the Pavilion would use and discard without worrying they'd become a variable.
Good.
The table got closer.
Shen Qiu worked without hurry. That was the point. Hurry created mistakes. Mistakes created grievances. Grievances created complications. Shen Qiu's entire existence was built around crushing complications before they could form.
A man stepped up, announced his name too loudly, and tried to sound like he belonged to a hall.
Shen Qiu didn't look impressed. He slid the form forward, tapped the signature line, and said, "Write clearly."
The man signed.
Shen Qiu stamped the form with a dull thud, then held out a thin brass disc on a cord. A jeton. It caught the light once, revealing an etched emblem—three interlocking arcs like a stylized furnace mouth.
"Forge Yard access," Shen Qiu said. "Circle One. Don't try to enter anything else. The gate will mark you."
"Mark?" the man asked, frowning.
Shen Qiu finally looked up, just a fraction.
"Burn," he corrected. "Next."
The man swallowed and backed away, clutching the jeton like it might bite.
Li Shen watched him go.
This was what "reserved for cultivants" meant at the Pavilion Gris: you were allowed to stand closer to danger because your body was more durable.
You were also allowed to be punished more efficiently.
The boy ahead of Li Shen signed next. His hand shook so badly his name looked like it had been dragged through mud.
Shen Qiu stared at it, expression unchanged.
"You'll write it again," he said, and slid a new form forward.
The boy swallowed. "It's the same name—"
"You'll write it again," Shen Qiu repeated, voice still quiet, and that quiet carried more force than shouting.
The boy wrote it again. Slower. Better.
Shen Qiu stamped. Issued a jeton. Issued a cloth brassard—grey with a dark border and the same furnace emblem stitched into it.
"Wear it on the left arm," Shen Qiu said. "Visible. Forge guards will ask for it. If you lose it, you pay the replacement fee."
"What's the fee?" the boy whispered.
Shen Qiu's eyes flicked to him like a blade.
"High enough," he said. "Next."
Li Shen stepped forward.
The table was closer than he liked. Close enough to smell the ink. Close enough to see the tiny cuts on Shen Qiu's knuckles from paper edges and stamp handles.
Close enough to be a name in a ledger.
Shen Qiu didn't ask for Li Shen's story. He didn't care. He cared about two things: whether the form matched the system, and whether Li Shen would create irregularity later.
"Name," Shen Qiu said.
"Li Shen," Li Shen replied.
Shen Qiu's fingers moved over a separate ledger—thicker, older, edges darkened from use. He flipped pages with the same economy a butcher used to move through meat.
He stopped, tapped once.
"Servant registry," he said. "Service lanes. Errand classification. Point history consistent." His eyes lifted. "Cultivation status."
Li Shen kept his expression boring.
"Qi Condensation," he said. "Stage 1."
Shen Qiu's gaze sharpened. "Proof."
Li Shen reached inside his shirt and pulled out a small wooden token—plain, cheap, stamped with the Pavilion's mortal-side mark. It was the kind of thing that said you'd been processed. That you belonged somewhere in the lower machinery.
He placed it on the table.
Shen Qiu looked at it like it was dirt, then reached into a tray beneath the table and pulled out a thin strip of paper covered in faint grid lines.
"Hand," he said.
Li Shen placed his palm down.
The strip went over it, cool and slightly sticky. Shen Qiu pressed two fingers against Li Shen's wrist.
For a breath, nothing happened.
Then Li Shen let a thread of Qi rise—controlled, minimal, like lifting a candle flame behind a screen. Not enough to impress. Not enough to alarm. Just enough to register.
The strip warmed. A faint mark appeared along one grid line—barely visible unless you knew where to look.
Shen Qiu lifted it, inspected it, and nodded once.
"Stage 1," he said. No surprise. No praise. "You understand the terms?"
"Yes," Li Shen said.
Shen Qiu slid the form forward.
The signature line sat at the bottom like a trap. Liability accepted. Penalty defined. Term fixed.
Li Shen took the brush. The ink was slightly too thick. Someone had done that on purpose—thick ink forced slow writing, and slow writing reduced deniability.
He wrote his name clearly.
He didn't rush. He didn't hesitate.
He signed like someone who'd already decided.
Shen Qiu stamped it. The seal hit the paper with a blunt finality.
Then Shen Qiu took the stamp again and hit a second mark on a smaller slip—the one that mattered for points.
Li Shen's eyes flicked to it automatically.
Prime: 120 points. Tranche 1: 60 upon first attendance. Tranche 2: 60 upon completion of term.
Paid later. Split. Designed to keep you obedient.
Shen Qiu handed him the brassard and the jeton.
The cloth band felt rough against Li Shen's fingers, woven cheap but stitched tight. The emblem wasn't decorative; it was a permission token, a target, and a leash all at once.
The brass disc was heavier than it looked. Not because it was valuable metal—because it was meant to be felt. To remind you it existed. To remind you the door existed.
"First attendance," Shen Qiu said, already looking past Li Shen to the next body. "Tomorrow at bell one. Forge Yard gate. Don't arrive late."
Li Shen slid the brassard onto his left arm.
The cloth bit into his skin slightly.
Good.
If it was uncomfortable, he wouldn't forget it.
He looped the jeton cord around his neck, under his shirt, where it sat against his collarbone like a quiet weight.
He stepped away from the table.
A few people in line watched him with new attention—subtle, hungry. The moment you put on a mark, you stopped being anonymous.
Li Shen kept his face neutral and walked straight out of the crowd as if this was just another assignment.
Behind him, Shen Qiu's voice continued at the same pace, the same tone, stamping lives into forms.
"Name. Proof. Signature. Next."
---
The Forge Yard wasn't far.
That was the first lie the Pavilion told with its layout: the places that mattered were always "not far."
Not far meant close enough to serve, far enough to be controlled.
Li Shen followed the service lane that curved behind the bath-house and the grain storehouse. The air changed as he walked—less damp, more dry heat even in winter, a faint taste of metal on the tongue.
He rounded a corner.
And saw the Forge Yard wall.
It wasn't taller than the other walls. It didn't need to be. It had a different kind of presence, the way a closed oven door had presence even before you touched it.
Two guards stood at the gate.
Not servants. Not outer disciples.
Cultivants in grey, their posture too relaxed to be mortal. Their eyes too sharp. A low pressure sat around them—Stage 2, maybe Stage 3—enough to make the lane feel narrower.
They weren't watching the yard.
They were watching the people who wanted the yard.
A handful of marked volunteers stood near the gate already, adjusting brassards, checking their jetons, talking too quietly.
Li Shen didn't approach the gate.
Not yet.
He stopped at the edge of the lane where a stack of charcoal sacks cast a shadow and watched.
The gate itself had a slot—like a mouth—where you could present a jeton. Above it, etched into the stone frame, were faint lines of a formation. Not elaborate. Not grand. Practical.
A lock that didn't require keys.
A lock that required permission and Qi.
A man at the gate presented his jeton. The guard took it, pressed it into the slot, and a thin flash of light ran along the etched lines. The stone mouth clicked. The gate opened just enough for one person to pass.
The guard handed the jeton back and said, "Circle One only."
The man nodded quickly and slipped through.
The gate closed behind him.
No ceremony. No drama. Just a door doing its job.
Li Shen's throat felt dry.
Forge-first. He'd said it to himself like a strategy.
Here, it looked like a collar.
He looked down at his own arm. The furnace emblem sat there, visible. A claim made on his body.
He thought of the service lanes. The courier errands. The way he'd learned to move like water through a system that wanted him to be frictionless.
Forge work wouldn't be frictionless.
Forge work would change him.
That was the point.
From deeper inside the yard, a sound rolled out—low, rhythmic, heavy.
Not shouting.
Not conversation.
A hammer striking something that could take a hammer.
The sound made Li Shen's skin prickle, not with fear but with an old, simple recognition: work that leaves marks.
He took one step forward.
Then stopped.
A voice behind him said, soft and mean, "Look at that. Li Shen got himself a brassard."
He didn't turn right away.
He didn't need to. He recognized the tone. The kind of petty hunger that lived at the bottom of the Pavilion and sharpened itself on other people's progress.
Li Shen turned.
A servant stood there, a little older than him, shoulders slightly broader, eyes too quick. His lips held a half-smile that didn't reach his gaze.
Someone who had been watching him for weeks and calling it coincidence.
"Congratulations," the servant said. "Forge. Prime points. You must be… very lucky."
Li Shen kept his voice flat.
"Lucky," he agreed. "Probably blocked Stage 1 to 3."
The servant's smile twitched, annoyed at the lack of heat.
"Sure," he said. "Just don't burn your hands. Would be a shame if the Pavilion had to replace you."
Replace.
That was the real word under every notice.
Li Shen nodded once, as if this was casual conversation.
"Good advice," he said.
He turned back toward the yard.
The guard at the gate glanced his way, eyes sliding over the brassard, then away. Li Shen wasn't important yet.
That was fine.
Behind him, the servant—rival, future problem—stayed where he was, watching.
Li Shen didn't speed up. He didn't slow down.
He walked away from the service lane toward his dormitory, because the gate wouldn't open until tomorrow and there was no profit in standing in front of it like a worshipper.
But the sound of the hammer followed him.
Not loud. Not chasing.
Just present, like a drumbeat beneath the Pavilion's skin.
---
That night, Li Shen lay on his mat with the brass disc under his shirt and the brassard folded beside him.
He didn't wear it to sleep.
Not out of modesty.
Out of control.
He listened to the dormitory's usual noises—coughs, mutters, the rustle of someone turning—and found himself listening for a different rhythm.
The hammer.
Too far to hear clearly now, but his body remembered the idea of it.
He touched the jeton through the cloth, feeling its cold edge.
A door.
A job.
A leash with points attached.
He closed his eyes.
Tomorrow, he would step through a gate that wanted him to be useful and disposable.
He would not be disposable.
Not because the Pavilion cared.
Because he refused to let a notice decide the value of his bones.