Barnaby Holt slid the black ironwood lockbox under the hearthstones, fitting the loose slate back into place.
Mina swept a layer of gray ash over the seams until the floor looked undisturbed.
“If the Baron sees those receipts, he will hang someone,” Barnaby whispered, wiping sweat from his forehead. “Probably me.”
“No one is hanging anyone, Old Barnaby,” Kaelen said without looking up from his reading. “The hearth is cold, the floor is swept, and the tea is hot. Go polish some jars.”
Carrying his clay cup and Book 3: The Crimson Maiden’s Despair, Kaelen stepped out of the kitchen and climbed back into the hemp hammock on the porch.
He propped his heels against the timber railing, where his bamboo fishing pole leaned over the dry ditch with its hookless string dangling above the weeds.
First Brother burns his own blood just to look diligent, Kaelen thought, inhaling the fresh river-paper scent of his novel. He probably treats his blisters like a badge of honor, when they are really just a waste of clean bandages.
The pre-dawn darkness slowly gave way to morning mist.
Kaelen turned another page, adjusted his straw hat, and dozed through the quiet hours without circulating a single strand of Qi.
By late morning, eight more hours had ticked onto his tally as pale sunlight washed over the northern hills.
Inside his dantian, the bronze numbers shifted with a silent click.
[The Fallow Slate] [Current Abstinence: 96 Hours, 00 Minutes] [Current State: True Fallow State] [Current Multiplier: 97x (Stage 1: Mortal Tally)] [Next Milestone: 97 Hours (98x Ready)]
Ninety-six hours of total rest. Ninety-seven times cultivation output waiting in reserve.
Ninety-six hours of pure peace, Kaelen thought, stretching his arms. If I can reach noon without someone screaming about martial duty, today will be a complete success.
A loud crash shattered the quiet morning.
The wooden gate flew backward on its leather hinges, striking the fence with a splintering crack.
Eldest Brother Cassian Vance stormed into the yard like an enraged bull. His broad shoulders cut through the mist, chest heaving with ragged breaths.
A six-foot iron broadsword rested across his right shoulder. Both of Cassian’s hands were wrapped in bloody linen bandages.
Cassian drove the broadsword two inches into the dirt. His eyes were bloodshot and sunken. Faint black veins pulsed beneath the skin at his temples.
That is what one hundred and forty Crack-Grade Blood-Boil Pills do to a man, Kaelen observed silently. His liver must look like charred leather.
Cassian glared at the hammock, his jaw clenched tight.
“You worthless parasite,” Cassian spat, his voice raspy. “The sun is up, and you are lying in a rope net like a sick hog.”
Kaelen slowly lowered Book 3 to his chest.
He kept his dantian completely dormant. He allowed no Qi into his meridians, appearing as a frail mortal.
Cassian’s heavy Rank 8 aura rolled across the yard, rattling the loose shingles on the porch roof. Kaelen showed no reaction.
“Good morning, Eldest Brother,” Kaelen said pleasantly. “You are up early. Did the practice dummies insult your ancestors again?”
“I have been on the training field since the third watch,” Cassian snarled, stepping closer. “Eighteen hours of iron drills every day. That is what it takes to forge a true Vance warrior.”
He held up his bloody bandages, a twisted grin pulling at his lips.
“Pain is the whetstone of strength,” Cassian barked. “I bleed so this house stands proud. And what do you do? You waste clan grain reading gutter romance.”
Kaelen took a sip from his clay cup.
“Swinging heavy iron before lunch upsets the spleen meridian,” Kaelen replied smoothly. “The sudden vibration ruins stomach Qi and makes tea leaves taste sour. I prefer to let my spleen rest.”
Cassian’s face flushed a deep purple.
“Your spleen?” Cassian roared. “You dare speak of tea leaves to me? Father should have locked you in the cellar years ago!”
Cassian ripped his broadsword from the earth with a spray of gravel. He raised the heavy steel blade above his shoulder, aiming straight for the hammock ropes.
“I will cut down this pigpen and drag you to the sparring field myself,” Cassian shouted. “Let us see if your spleen can take an iron blade!”
Before the sword could sweep down, the shed door clicked open.
Sera Thorne stepped onto the porch timbers.
She wore her patched scout leathers, her gray cloak pinned neatly at her throat.
In her right hand, she held the splintered shaft of her Storm-Pike. She rested the iron ferrule against the deck boards, sending a sharp thud through the yard.
Her Mortal Pulse Rank 6 aura flared outward in a crisp ring, holding the line between Cassian and the hammock.
In her left hand, Sera held up a broad sheet of stiff yellow parchment. A huge red seal dominated the center, surrounded by jagged official marks.
“Halt, First Young Master,” Sera said, her voice completely deadpan. “Take one more step, and you will violate the clan health ordinance.”
Cassian lowered his blade an inch, his brow furrowing. “What nonsense is this? Stand aside, indentured dog, or I will break your other arm!”
“This shed is under emergency quarantine,” Sera stated, thrusting the parchment toward his face. “By order of the Grand Apothecary’s subordinate office.”
Across the top of the parchment, large bold letters declared:
OFFICIAL NOTICE: CONTAGIOUS RED-SWAMP RASH. CONTAINMENT ZONE THREE: THIRD HERB SHED. SYMPTOMS: OOZING PUSTULES, ROTTED SKIN, AND IRREVERSIBLE MERIDIAN ROT.
Cassian’s bloodshot eyes scanned the words. His jaw dropped.
“Contagious swamp-rash?” Cassian gasped, taking half a step backward. “Here?”
“Old Barnaby has been weeping yellow fluid from his elbows since midnight,” Sera lied without blinking. “Young Master Kaelen was exposed four hours ago. His spleen is already swollen to the size of a melon.”
Behind the kitchen window, Barnaby dropped to his knees. He stuck his face against the sill and let out wet, hacking coughs.
“The pustules are spreading to my ribs!” Barnaby wailed from the shadows. “Ancestors protect us! Do not breathe the air, First Young Master! It smells of rotten turnips!”
Mina chimed in from the pantry, banging two iron ladles together with frantic clatter. “Get the sulfur pots! He is melting!”
Cassian froze in his tracks.
His chest rose and fell in shallow gasps. He clamped his bandages over his mouth and nose, eyes bulging with panic.
The Barony Tournament was two weeks away. If he contracted a meridian plague now, his blood would turn to sludge.
Even worse, the Crack-Grade Blood-Boil Pills had already strained his channels. An infection of red-swamp rash would cause his chest to collapse.
“Filthy vermin!” Cassian screamed through his bandaged fingers, his voice muffled and shrill. “You live like swine in a sewer!”
He stumbled backward, swinging his broadsword around frantically as if warding off plague flies.
“Stay back! Do not exhale toward me!” Cassian shrieked.
Kaelen took another slow sip of tea and turned to the fifth page of Book 3.
“We are staying right here, brother,” Kaelen said mildly. “Though if you keep shouting, the air currents might carry the spores toward your broadsword. Iron is very porous, you know.”
Cassian turned pale as chalk. He jerked the broadsword against his hip, nearly dropping the weapon into the dirt.
“You will rot in this dirt pile, Kaelen!” Cassian snarled, backing toward the broken gate. “Do not think your disease will save you for long!”
Kaelen reached into his pocket, pulled out a small piece of chalk, and made a single white mark on the wooden railing.
“Sera,” Kaelen said smoothly.
“Yes, Young Master?” Sera replied, keeping the parchment raised high.
“First Brother’s voice is excessively loud before noon,” Kaelen remarked. “It interrupted my contemplation of section four. Add a five Low-Grade Spirit Stone noise fine to his account in your Grudge Ledger.”
Sera reached into her scout pouch with her free hand. She pulled out her worn notebook and a stubby charcoal pencil.
She licked the pencil tip and scribbled a line with clinical neatness.
“Five Low-Grade Spirit Stones recorded under noise violation and mental disturbance,” Sera recited evenly, underlining First Young Master Cassian’s name with a neat stroke.
Cassian stopped near the shattered gate, trembling with rage and disbelief.
“A debt?” Cassian roared, taking another step backward to keep his distance. “You dare write my name in an indenture ledger? You are a crippled joke! A stain on the Vance crest!”
Cassian thrust a bandaged finger at the shed, his voice dripping with venom.
“Enjoy your hammock while you can, little brother!” Cassian sneered, leaning over the fence rail. “Father has officially scheduled the Clan Courtyard Assessment in four days!”
Barnaby’s coughing instantly ceased inside the kitchen. The old alchemist froze where he crouched, his eye wide with terror.
Even Mina stopped clattering her ladles.
Cassian saw the silence and smiled a cruel, triumphant smile.
“Every branch courtyard must present their monthly contribution to the clan,” Cassian shouted across the yard. “The Third Herb Shed is required to produce ten bottles of Ringed-Grade Blood-Staunching Pills! If you fail to present them to the Grand Elder, this courtyard will be condemned and seized by the main house!”
Cassian let out a harsh bark of laughter that ended in a sharp wheeze.
“Madam Evelyn has already selected the new occupants,” Cassian added, his eyes burning with malice. “You will be tossed into the mountain slave barracks by sundown on the fourth day! Let us see your red-swamp rash save you from that!”
Without waiting for a reply, Cassian turned on his heel. He sprinted down the mountain trail, holding his bandaged hands over his nose until his silhouette vanished into the pines.
The yard fell into total silence.
A cool breeze rustled the dried herbs hanging beneath the porch eaves.
Inside the kitchen, the door swung wide. Barnaby Holt stumbled out onto the porch, his wooden ladle dangling limply in his hand.
“Ringed-Grade Blood-Staunching Pills...” Barnaby stammered, his knees wobbling until he leaned against the porch post. “Ten bottles! In four days! It is an execution order!”
Mina stepped out behind him, her small hands clutching the hem of her apron.
“Brother,” Mina whispered softly. “Is the courtyard really going to be taken away? Where will we go if father sends us to the slave barracks?”
Sera tucked her charcoal pencil and Grudge Ledger back into her scout pouch.
“Ringed-Grade pills require an experienced Tier 1 alchemist working at peak efficiency,” Sera said quietly. “The main house knows Barnaby has only one arm and a cracked furnace. This assessment was designed to strip you of your legal shelter before the tournament.”
Barnaby dropped onto an upturned crate, clutching his gray hair.
“Blood-Staunching Pills require dragon-tooth grass and silver-leaf root,” Barnaby groaned. “The heat control must be razor-sharp to form a spirit ring! With my missing arm, I produce Crack-Grade seventy percent of the time! If I rush ten bottles, the cauldron will explode!”
Barnaby looked up with tears shining in his eye.
“Young Master, we are finished,” Barnaby choked out. “Madam Evelyn has won.”
Kaelen turned another page of The Crimson Maiden’s Despair.
“Old Barnaby,” Kaelen said calmly.
“Yes, Young Master?” Barnaby sniveled.
“Did I ask you to bake ten bottles of pills today?”
“No, Young Master...”
“Did the sky fall down while Cassian was screaming?”
“No, Young Master...”
“Then go boil some fresh water,” Kaelen said, waving his hand toward the kitchen. “This clover tea is cold, and cold tea clogs the liver meridian. We have four days. That is ninety-six whole hours.”
Barnaby stared at him in disbelief. “Ninety-six hours is not enough time to forge ten bottles of Ringed-Grade pills! It takes two days just to wash the herbs!”
“You will not be washing any herbs today,” Kaelen replied smoothly. “Today, you will sit on the back bench and rest your stump. The sun is pleasant, and the birds are singing.”
Mina stepped closer to the hammock, looking down at Kaelen’s relaxed face. A tiny smile broke through her worry.
“You have a plan, don’t you, brother?” Mina asked in a whisper.
“My plan is to finish section six before noon,” Kaelen said, pulling his straw hat slightly lower to block the glare of the sun. “And then perhaps eat a roasted turnip.”
Sera stood at the edge of the porch, looking down the path where Cassian had fled. Her lips curved into a faint smirk.
“He truly ran like a frightened dog,” Sera noted quietly. “The yellow parchment worked better than a broadsword.”
“Fools are always terrified of dirt,” Kaelen murmured. “It is their greatest martial weakness.”
The three of them returned to their tasks. Barnaby shuffled back inside to put the kettle over the hearth, muttering prayers to his ancestors. Mina began chopping dried roots at the kitchen table.
Sera took up her post by the garden fence, resting her hand on her spear shaft while keeping watch over the trail.
Kaelen closed his eyes and leaned back against the hemp netting.
The mountain sun warmed his chest. A gentle breeze carried the sweet scent of wild mountain thyme across the yard.
Deep inside his lower abdomen, the dormant pool of Qi remained calm, still, and untroubled.
The invisible hours piled up like gold coins in an iron vault.
By late afternoon, the shadows of the pine trees stretched long across the yard. The sky turned a brilliant amber, and the evening birds began to call from the high ridges.
Inside his mind, the slate flared with pristine white characters.
[The Fallow Slate] [Current Abstinence: 100 Hours, 00 Minutes] [Current State: True Fallow State] [Current Multiplier: 101x (Stage 1: Mortal Tally)] [Next Milestone: 101 Hours (102x Ready)]
One hundred hours of unbroken rest.
A triple-digit milestone reached without shedding a single drop of sweat.
One hundred and one times cultivation output resting in his dantian, primed and ready to unleash whenever he chose to lift a single finger.
One hundred hours, Kaelen thought, feeling the warm reserve humming beneath his ribs. Cassian spent eighteen hours bleeding through his bandages for a handful of bruises. I spent a hundred hours reading trashy romance and drinking tea.
Down at the broken gate, a main-house runner drove an iron spike into the timber post, nailing up a crimson parchment sealed with Baron Derrick’s crest.
“Hear the Patriarch’s decree!” the runner shouted up the slope before hurrying back down the trail. “Four days until the Clan Courtyard Assessment! Any branch courtyard failing to present ten bottles of Ringed-Grade Blood-Staunching Pills shall be stripped of its charter and marched to the western slave barracks at sundown!”