A discreet knock echoed against the rear alley wicket gate as morning fog curled through the bamboo grove.
Kaelen shuffled across the wet flagstones in a loose hemp bathrobe, his cloth slippers dragging softly against the moss. He held a steaming ceramic bowl of red bean porridge in one hand and a wooden spoon in the other.
The knock came again, three measured, polite raps.
Kaelen lifted the wooden latch and opened the door two inches, squinting through the gap into the gray dawn.
Standing in the narrow alley were ten elderly men dressed in embroidered silk and velvet brocade.
Each one wore the distinctive jade belt and silver hair clasp of a high-tier sect patriarch. Their spiritual signatures hummed with dense, heavy Jade Meridian pressure, though they were desperately trying to compress their auras so as not to crack the alley cobblestones.
At the front of the line stood Patriarch Song, head of the Iron-Sword Pavilion, holding a lacquered sandalwood chest between two trembling hands.
“Good morning, young brother,” Patriarch Song whispered, bowing with stiff, agonizing humility. “We seek an audience with the honored errand boy of Master Ash.”
