Ashes of Quiet Valor, Chapter 1
A World Bent on Holding
The sun was still low, hazed gold on the braes, when Dùn Mac-Talla’s longhall woke to the clamor of a world bent on holding. Smoke from the kitchen drifted out the eaves, scented with oats and sharp peat, and through the turf-muddied door, the day’s first carts rumbled in from the scattered townlands, axles groaning under crates of barley and river trout, brass shell cases rattling in canvas slings. Inside, the stone-flagged floor was a parade of boots: clan elders and young ones in threadbare greatcoats, elfwifs with rolled sleeves and soot on their hands, children pressed into hauling bundles or running errands for the messenger’s perch above the door.
The longhall wasn’t large, but it held more than its size. Bundles of tinned cheese and hard biscuit lay piled by the hearth, a barrel of salted mackerel sat next to a row of wire-wrapped radio batteries, a table held lines of aluminum magazines and neat rows of steel-core rounds, their tips oiled and glinting dully in the firelight. Two men in faded tunics worked over a battered press, slapping open the breech on an old bolt rifle and dropping cartridges in rhythm like an old prayer.
Voices jostled in three languages: Trocmen, the Merchants’ Speech, and the High Aracian soldiers’ jargon that the Sons spoke. None rang louder than the rasp of the elder elfwif Elspeth, her braids streaked white, reading names from the roll as she checked the latest billets and watched the door for runners. Out beyond the peat wall, a line of horses stood under birch, steam rising from their flanks in the morning summer chill.
Dominic was already in the thick of it, sleeves rolled and a pencil behind his ear, counting crates and checking the manifest for the third time. His coat, patched and oiled for rain, hung from the nearest peg, and his pollaxe was propped beside a bench laden with a radio, field gear, and signal flags. He looked every inch the outlander, dark-haired, tall even among the Dalriada, a face more used to thought than sleep, but no one in the hall mistook him for the scholar he was these days.
A gust of wind rattled the shutters and brought in a lean and long-limbed figure, his hair sticking up as if every day started with a sprint and ended with a puzzle. He was barely out of his teens, sharp-jawed, already with the easy confidence of a man who had never been proven wrong, for now. His coat was two sizes too big, sleeves rolled to the elbow, a battered radio set hanging from his shoulder by a leather strap. As he ducked through the door, someone called out to him.
“Falk! Thought you’d been nabbed by the Company!” The young man grinned, breathless.
“Not yet. Bridge’s out by the old stone, so I had to double back past the burn.” He shook out his boots, splashing a little mud near the hearth, and swung the radio pack onto a bench, dropping beside it a tin marked SPARE FUSES and a scrap of blue cloth.
“Morning, Head Archivist,” he said, just a beat too loud for the mood of the room.
Dominic’s head snapped up, eyebrow raised. A warning look, but softer than it would one day become if the lanky youth kept at it. “Falk,” he said, the tone clipped. “Just Dominic, for now. Not in front of the whole parish.”
Falk caught himself, flush creeping into his cheeks. “Right, sorry, sire. I forgot.”
Elspeth, not missing a beat, added. “We’re all kin here till the shooting starts, lad.”
Falk managed a crooked smile. “Aye, madame.” He dug in his pack, then held up a sealed envelope, marked in the scrawl of Company clerks. “Message from the southern watchpost. And the… ah, the watchword: ‘Three knots for the southern road.’ Lords Paramount inbound—Rene, Rian, Theodore. We’re to clear the back path, and have someone mind the tower until dusk.”
A quiet fell across the hall—anticipation thick as the hearthsmoke. Men and women exchanged glances. It wasn’t fear, exactly, but a tightening of purpose, a sense that the tales and rumors which had flickered on winter lips were about to step, at last, into the flesh and smoke of spring.
Preparations redoubled. One of the elder elfs, Malcolm, grunted. His silver hair was cropped short as a docked horse, wrinkles patching his otherwise smooth skin. “We’ll need to double the pickets, then. And oil the outer gate.” He started barking orders, and in a blink the hall became a blur of movement: boxes heaved, ammunition sorted, a line of aluminum magazines checked and wrapped in waxed cloth for the road. Elfwifs carried out armfuls of straw for the horses, the blacksmith’s daughter fished out a battered box of signal flares and set about arranging them in the prescribed color order.
Dominic, notebook in hand, stepped through the bustle toward Falk, already bent over his radio, hands quick and sure, fiddling with the tuning coils.
Against the bench beside him leaned a battered pollaxe—Falk’s own, though Dominic had yet to return it or draw a proper replacement. Its haft was marked by old field tape and a scrap of blue ribbon, tied there after they had crossed the border into the Imperium straight from Caer Liwelydd. The same weapon that Dominic had grabbed in the chaos weeks before, when mortars had burst and all order had vanished. Falk shot a glance at it, then at Dominic, a mix of exasperation and amusement in his eyes. He gave a little wave. Before Dominic’s eyes flashed mud and smoke, his waking from the daze of gunfire. He closed them, breathed in, drew focus to his navel, let the warmth flow through his nerves. The resonance made the tent’s insides warm up, spring’s end having long past them.
“You made good time,” the tall man said.
Falk shrugged, proud and a little shy. “Didn’t want to be the one who missed the show. And one of these days, I’d like my pollaxe back before I need a walking stick.”
Dominic gave a dry half-smile, tapping his pencil against his notebook. “You’ll get it back when I’m sure you’ll keep it sharper than your tongue. Or when I find something that balances better. Whichever comes first.”
Falk rolled his eyes. His hands were steadier now, the radio’s static forgotten for a moment. “Aye. As long as you don’t wear it down to a club.”
Dominic just tapped his notebook, a faint smirk showing. “If I break it, I’ll make you a new one. Until then, mind the radio.”
Falk grinned, sharp as ever. “As you wish, Head Archivist.”
Dominic gave him the smallest nod. A soldier’s recognition, an archivist’s thanks. “Get the watchword out. The Lords Paramount will want the town ready.”
Falk’s eyes brightened at the assignment. “That I’ll do,” he said, with just a hint of ceremony. He straightened, and for a moment, the youth in him shone through, unguarded.
Dominic watched him go, the hall’s bustle moving forward. He checked the edge of the pollaxe—Falk’s pollaxe—one more time, then moved deeper into the hall, ready for the next solution, and for all the questions he still didn’t dare ask.
As the morning wore on, the work grew orderly, tuned like a battle hymn in repetition of checked gear, loaded crates, and oiling of rifle stocks. Idwal, still too young for a proper beard, watched with wide eyes, hands busy but his mind somewhere else. He caught Dominic’s gaze more than once, like a question waiting for a chance.
The hall began to empty as teams were dispatched to the outer fields and the old signal tower. In the lull, Elspeth approached Dominic, her gaze shrewd. “We’ll have the hall set in two hours. Folk are nervous, but you’ve seen worse.”
Dominic nodded. “Aye. Worse and stranger.”
She eyed him a moment longer, then turned to direct a young girl with a ledger and a pouch of keys. Idwal, seeing his moment, stepped forward, almost tripping over the threshold.
“Sire—Dominic—might you need a hand?” he asked, voice pitched low but hopeful.
Dominic paused, considering. The energy in the hall was thinning now, the frenzy of purpose leaving only the quiet pulse of waiting.
“Idwal,” he said, gesturing to the bench by the central hearth. “I do, in fact. Sit here.” He reached for a sealed envelope, marked with the crest of a distant Company office, and set it on the table.
The lesson was ready to begin. Outside, the wind had shifted, and the smoke of the morning fires mingled with the promise of summer rain. Somewhere beyond the mist, the Lords Paramount were already on the move.
They both sat hunched over the end of the long table, a thick envelope resting untouched before them.
“Ready?” Dominic asked, voice pitched just above the rustle of packing, the click of brass shells, the far-off clang of a blacksmith’s work.
Idwal nodded, eyes wary, hands folded on the rough wood. He looked like every eager apprentice before his first test—half curious, half convinced the world was a trick. “Is it true, what they say? That you can copy anything, as long as you can see it in your mind?”
Dominic smiled, more gently than he meant. “That’s not eidokrasy. That’s just wishful thinking. Real work begins by looking straight at what’s in front of you—even if you don’t like it.”
He tapped the envelope. “Inside this is a letter. You’re going to try and make a perfect copy. But you can’t open it. Not yet. You’ll do it the hard way: with your mind, not your eyes.”
Idwal straightened, breathing slow. “You want me to… guess?”
Dominic shook his head. “No. I want you to see what’s happening in yourself as you try. Close your eyes. Feel your breath, the ache in your hands, the thrum in your chest. Find the place inside where you notice these things—not the feelings, but the noticing. That’s awareness. That’s where all real eidokrasy starts.”
Idwal shut his eyes, frowning in concentration. His hands curled and uncurled on the table. The lantern light flickered, the room settling into the hush of expectation.
Dominic let him sit with it, counting heartbeats. Then, softly: “Now. Make the letter. Not what you want it to be, not what you hope. Just what you see inside, even if it’s only a blur.”
A scrap of paper, a borrowed pen. Idwal wrote, brow furrowed, strokes hesitant but earnest. When he finished, Dominic waited.
“Let’s see it.”
Idwal slid his copy across. Dominic broke the real envelope and laid both letters side by side.
The difference was comical—one all formal lines and Company phrasing, the other a rambling scrawl about ration shipments and kind weather. The only thing they shared was the signature: the looping initials of a clerk Idwal had admired as a boy.
He stared, baffled. “But I looked within. I tried to be clear.”
Dominic’s voice was kind, but unyielding. “You looked inside, but only saw yourself. Your hopes, your guesses. The mind is a clever mimic, but it’s lazy. It fills the gaps with memory and desire. Eidokrasy begins in self-awareness, but it ends in honest witness.”
He gestured to the real letter. “You must affirm the world as it is, not as you wish it to be. Only then can you change it. If you lie to yourself—even kindly—you’ll always be off by a hair’s breadth, and in this work, that’s disaster.”
Idwal flushed, a mix of shame and dawning comprehension.
Dominic softened. “You’re not your thoughts, nor your feelings. You’re the awareness watching them pass. But awareness alone isn’t enough. You must let the world in, whole and true, even if it wounds your pride.”
Around them, the hall’s routine pressed on: clan messengers packing tins of biscuits, Falk muttering into the radio, women rolling bandages and stacking grenades in crates marked for the outer watch. The hall was a place of whimsy and war both, where tradition mixed with the urgent business of the coming struggle.
The elder elfwif from the night before approached, staff thudding gently on the stone. She watched Idwal’s face, then turned to Dominic, one brow arched.
“You teach well, Lord Archivist. How is it you learned these things so young?”
Dominic gave a crooked, half-sad smile, glancing back at Idwal. “I was a very young man, once. No older than him. But the world didn’t wait for me to grow up before asking what I’d risk for the truth.”
He turned the letter over in his hands, eyes far away for a heartbeat.
“And sometimes, the truth asks you to pick up a burden that’s not yours. Not at first.”
The day outside was bright, the fields alive with the clangor of industry and the distant laughter of children in the sheep meadows.
芝坞村 Zhiwu Village
晋幽省 Jinyou Province
三海皇国 Empire of the Three Seas
立秋之四天后, 4E 435
It was in those days when the girl he loved was still a child learning her sums by the sandalwood wharves of Fragrant Harbor, when the loess dust of Jinyou still blew west into yellow rivers by ancient halls, and when autumn’s first breath only meant cool evenings and long afternoons, not reckonings or farewells.
The world was wide, and his hands were clean of history. Zhi Weiji was sixteen, shoulders filling out beneath the homespun jacket he’d already outgrown, his head full of his uncle’s proverbs and the half-remembered maxims of generals long dead. He ran the tiled courtyards with the other village boys, wrestling beneath the pepper trees, breathless and unafraid. Bandit-hunting on the outskirts, sparring at dawn, study by lamp in the long, slow afternoons—these were the delights of a life yet untouched by loss.
Most days, the wrestling lessons came first, before the sun burned off the morning mist. The air up here was dry and wild, clean enough that a boy could taste every change in the wind. Zhi Weiji stood with feet planted on the packed earth ring, watching Way-Seer Yán Shuyin [颜疏寅] draw a line in the dust with his heel. The master was not old, but something in his bearing made even elders stand straight. His face was shadowed by a wide-brimmed hat, and his eyes glinted with a patient humor that forgave most mistakes, but forgot none.
“Again,” said the Way-Seer, his voice mild as always.
Weiji bowed, stepped forward, and tried to let muscle memory guide him. The stance—steady, low, hands open and relaxed. He heard the master’s sandals shift, felt a change in the air, and reached for Yán’s sleeve as he’d been taught. But his balance faltered—a stone turned beneath his heel, and his foot slid. He went down, hard, with a burst of dust and a sharp sting in his pride.
Embarrassment flashed through him, hot and sour. Never again, he thought fiercely, scrambling up.
“Stop,” said Way-Seer Yán, raising a hand. “Don’t chase it. The fall’s just a lesson.” He stepped close, voice low enough to be just for the two of them. “You’re not your thoughts, Weiji. Nor your embarrassment. Not even the pain in your shoulder. You’re the one who sees those things happen.” His eyes held Weiji’s, steady and gentle. “In a real fight, an accident is just the start. If you get lost in it, you lose the next moment too.”
Zhi Weiji let the words settle. He drew a long breath, closed his eyes, and let the ache and the sting and the frustration all pass by, as if they belonged to someone else. Then he opened his eyes, nodded once, and dropped into the stance again.
This time, the sparring went sharp and fluid. Way-Seer Yán pressed him: wrist grips, shoulder checks, sweeps. Weiji adjusted, grounding himself, keeping his focus not in his own head but in the shifting center of the ring. A feint, a hook behind the knee, a burst of effort and Weiji caught his master’s balance just for a moment before Yán twisted away, grinning, and spun him almost gently onto the sand.
“Better,” the master said, offering a hand. “Much better. There’s nothing here to prove, only something to notice. Now: clean your hands, and let’s see how the others manage.”
They moved toward the stone railing above the practice ring, where sunlight dappled the hillside in long, golden streaks. Before they could speak, a young girl came running across the grass. A bundle of energy in red silk, black hair flying behind her.
“Big Brother Weiji!” she called, skidding to a halt before them. It was Lin Cailian, not yet ten, sharp eyes bright with mischief and pride.
“Visiting from Polu?” Zhi Weiji asked, brushing dust from his sleeves.
“Yes!” She pointed back toward the main path, where her parents, faces flushed with excitement, hurried to catch up. Her mother waved a sheaf of tickets.
Lin Cailian’s father, beaming, bowed to Yán Shuyin and Zhi Weiji both. “Good news! We’ve arranged it. You have a place on the Company steamship for Arvepia. You’ll go, just after Mid-Autumn, with the trade delegates.”
Weiji’s heart lurched with excitement, dread, and pride, all tangled together. He bowed politely, then gestured to the estate house behind the training yard. “Please, see my parents inside. My father will want to thank you himself. I have a lesson now with the Way-Seer.”
The Lin parents nodded and bustled off, Lin Cailian lingering behind, lip trembling just a little. “Will big brother Weiji go away?” she asked, looking up.
Weiji crouched, meeting her eye. “Only for a while. I’ll be back soon. There’s no place I’d rather be.”
Way-Seer Yán ruffled the girl’s hair, a rare smile breaking through his severity as Lin Cailian looked up, winded, her cheeks flushed from the run.
“Don’t let him fool you, Cailian,” he said, voice dry but warm. “This student of mine already finished today’s lesson before I could pour the tea. He’ll outrun my syllabus by the first frost if he keeps this up.”
Lin Cailian’s eyes widened. “Really? All the hard Company maths?”
Zhi Weiji’s pride was tinged with embarrassment. He shrugged. “It’s just a few problems, nothing special. Master says I need more patience, anyway.”
Way-Seer Yán grunted in mock severity. “More patience, more poetry, and perhaps a little less wrestling with the universe.” He gave a rare chuckle. “But he’s stubborn, like all good students are.”
Lin Cailian fidgeted, then looked down, drawing circles in the dust with her toe. “Mama says you’ll be leaving for a big place. On steamships. Will you come back, big brother Weiji?”
Weiji’s throat tightened. He crouched, meeting her at eye level, his hands braced on his knees, grounding himself in the earth as much as in the moment. “Of course I’ll come back, Cailian. It’s just for a while. I’ll write letters. Maybe I’ll bring back sweets from Arvepia. I promise.”
Lin Cailian tried to smile, then darted forward, hugging him tightly around the waist. She was small, her grip fierce. For a moment, Weiji forgot the sea, the Company, the looming city far away. There was only the sun on his shoulders and the shape of home in a child’s embrace.
“Good,” she mumbled. “Don’t let them make you forget how to laugh.”
He ruffled her hair, gentler than Yán ever managed. “I won’t. Now run along. Your parents will be wanting to talk to my father inside.”
Cailian’s parents called her from the steps of the estate house, their voices bright with pride, but their eyes lingered anxiously on Weiji and the master, as if the magnitude of the opportunity still frightened them. Lin Cailian ran to them, then turned back once, waving, her braid trailing in the wind. Weiji waved back, his hand staying raised long after she had vanished indoors.
The yard was quiet, the ring of children’s laughter echoing faintly from the far lane. Way-Seer Yán and Weiji stood side by side, facing the rising sun, the master’s arms crossed, his gaze resting on the ridges that rimmed Zhiwu’s millet fields.
“She’ll remember you left,” Yán said quietly. “Children always do. But they also remember when you come back.”
Weiji looked down, his hands suddenly awkward. “I want to learn. But I don’t want to leave all this behind.”
Yán glanced at him sidelong, and the older man’s face softened. “You’ll carry more of it with you than you think. Home’s not something the Company can teach you to forget.” He paused, his voice lowering into the register he reserved for real counsel. “But you’ll have to watch them, Weiji. They’ll want to fill your head with all manner of cleverness and sophistry. They’ll teach you to cut the world into parts, give each part a name and a measure, and pretend the sum is the same as the whole.”
He gestured with one broad, callused hand to the sweep of farmland, the lines of millet and persimmon trees at the edge of the estate. “Remember the lessons here. Your mind is a tool, not your master. Your thoughts are not you. Nor are the fears or the hopes or even the clever tricks you’ll learn with Company folk. You are the watcher behind those things. Hold onto that, especially when you feel lost.”
Weiji nodded slowly, the words weighing more than he could say. The ache of leaving rang a hollow drumbeat in his chest, and he suddenly longed for the simplicity of the wrestling ring, the clear logic of a calculus proof, the unfailing sun rising every day over Zhiwu.
Way-Seer Yán placed a hand on his shoulder, firm, steadying. “You’re a Way-seer, Weiji. Not because I say so, or because you’ve solved a hundred riddles. Remember to look, even when you’re afraid of what you’ll find.” He managed another rare, faint smile. “Now, before your mother comes looking for you, and before your head fills with equations, let’s have a proper cup of tea. For luck.”
As they walked together toward the house, Weiji glanced once more at the path where Lin Cailian had gone, and then up at the Way-Seer. “What do you think I’ll learn in Arvepia, laoshi?”
Yán snorted, not unkindly. “If you’re wise, more about yourself than the world. If you’re clever, the difference between the two. And if you’re lucky…” He trailed off, a shadow crossing his face. “If you’re lucky, you’ll learn how to come home again.”
They entered the cool shade of the house, passing through the scent of stone and persimmon, the laughter of parents, the quick, delighted greetings of the Lin family, and into the small, bright study where a pot of tea already steamed between stacks of inked notes and dog-eared textbooks.
Outside, the loess dusted wind caught the sound of the gate closing, scattering it out across the sunlit hills. Inside, Zhi Weiji poured tea for his master and tried, with all stubborn hope at sixteen, to memorize the taste of home.
Ten years would pass before he’d taste it again.