I held my head. “This is very chaotic my thoughts are going all over the place.”

  Then the screen appeared again, bright light cutting through the chaos in my head.

  [Processing…]

  [Writer’s View fortifying Master’s memories]

  My thoughts, ragged and scattered, began to settle. Like someone had taken my storm and forced it into order.

  My mind became clearer. “I can remember now... he met his second wife after that.”

  Saeryun.

  She was kind, gentle, strong and untrained in deception or politics. She wasn’t from a noble family. She wasn’t ambitious. She simply loved him.

  And for a little while he learned what peace felt like.

  The twins came first, Raion and Soryn. He gave them names filled with hope, because with Saeryun beside him he thought, maybe, finally the cycle could end.

  When Areum was born, though it cost Saeryun her life, he held the infant girl and whispered to her.

  “I will not raise you for war.”

  He meant it.

  He didn’t force the twins into training halls. He didn’t weigh Areum down with legacy.

  He let them laugh. He let them play. He let them be children.

  He thought he kept them safe. Away from the fire.

  But the fire always finds its way.

  The elders whispered as they always had.

  Not openly. Not directly.

  Just enough to guide and to shape.

  They told Giron he was born to lead, that softness was a disease.

  They told Jarin that everyone around him had something to gain from his downfall even his own blood.

  They said nothing to Raion which hurt more than words because he was seen as unworthy.

  They kept Areum close pretending to protect her while watching.

  And they went to Soryn, too.

  “You’re wasting yourself,” they said.

  “All that talent for what? To protect a weak brother who will never stand beside you, only behind?”

  “You were born for more than this.”

  They offered her secret training. Access to forbidden scrolls. A future.

  She refused.

  Not politely. Not with patience.

  She looked them in the eye and said:

  “If strength means abandoning my brother, I don’t want it.”

  “You can keep your future.”

  After that, they stopped approaching her directly but they kept watching.

  Waiting.

  She never wavered. She stayed by Raion’s side, blade in hand, never asking him to be more than he was.

  A smile got curved on my face. “She really was a strong character and a devoted sister she really reminds me of my sister I really want to see her again”

  And still, in the middle of it all, there was Areum.

  The youngest. The one with the smallest hands and the biggest heart.

  She had no ambition, no weapon and no grand plan.

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  She just wanted her family to stay whole. She brought gifts awkward little things she made by hand.

  She told stories of the dreams she had silly ones and warm ones.

  She held Soryn’s hand when she trained until her fingers bled.

  She brought Raion books and food when he locked himself away, trying to hide the way his body trembled under the weight of expectations from the elders that he couldn’t bear.

  She sat with Jarin the brother no one approached and told him stories, asking nothing in return.

  At first, he thought it was a trick.

  Some game. Some manipulation.

  But there was no angle. No leverage. No ask.

  Just a child that is too clumsy smiling handing him candy she’d saved from a festival he didn’t attend.

  He didn’t know what to do with that.

  He didn’t push her away not exactly.

  But he kept his distance. Always a wall between them, invisible but solid.

  She would talk, and he would listen never looking at her directly.

  Sometimes he replied with a nod. A single word answer. A comment he would regret as soon as he said it.

  And yet he never told her to stop.

  He felt something something he didn’t have a name for when she was near.

  It wasn’t comfort. It wasn’t love.

  It was a quiet kind of warmth that scared him more than knives ever had.

  He tried in the only ways he knew.

  Leaving her small protective charms folded under her pillow.

  Standing in silence a little longer when she spoke.

  But he couldn’t cross the wall.

  Couldn’t let himself feel too much.

  Because if he did he didn’t know what he’d become.

  And even Giron, for all his coldness, could not ignore her.

  At first, he brushed her off.

  Grunted when she called his name. Ignored her gifts.

  But she kept coming. Day after day. Week after week.

  A drawing. A flower. A broken trinket she thought looked like him.

  No one had ever given him something that wasn’t a weapon.

  And then, one day, he kept it.

  Just a folded scrap of paper with their names on it.

  All five siblings. Drawn by a child's hand, smiling.

  He didn’t smile back. But he didn’t throw it away.

  And when Areum was near, something in Giron settled even if just for a moment.

  He never said it aloud.

  But he started watching over her quietly harshly but consistently.

  She didn’t know it, but she was the only thread still holding them all together.

  And Raion saw it.

  He saw everything.

  The cracks forming between his siblings. The glances. The silences.

  He wasn’t blind. He was quiet, not stupid.

  He knew something was coming.

  The sect was preparing for succession though no one had said it outright.

  The air was heavier every day.

  And Raion powerless to train, powerless to compete at that time tried to do the only thing he could do,

  Talk.

  He went to Giron.

  He went to Jarin.

  He tried to bring them to the same table.

  He begged them to see that there was another way.

  But the cracks were already too deep.

  And none of them knew they were being watched.

  The elders had already made their decision.

  They made a deal not with clans, or disciples or rival families but with something older, darker and more dangerous.

  The shadowy figures came not for power but for blood.

  One night no ceremony no declaration the fire came.

  Dark figures descended upon the sect like ghosts. They moved through the halls without sound, without mercy. No warning. No explanation.

  They killed Soryn first mid-swing, her sword still raised.

  They killed Jarin quietly not in a battle but in the middle of trying to write something down for his youngest sister.

  And then they came for Areum.

  Giron found her first.

  For the first time in his life, he didn’t think he just moved.

  He fought harder than he ever had. Not for power. Not for pride.

  But to protect the only person who had ever looked at him like he was more than a blade.

  And he almost did.

  His body was torn, bleeding, surrounded. But he didn’t fall until she was out of sight.

  But Areum ran toward the sounds of fighting not away.

  She found Jarin on the ground.

  He looked up at her, barely breathing, and for a moment he reached just an inch toward her hand.

  But the blade came down behind her.

  She gasped.

  And Raion saw it.

  He arrived just in time to see her fall.

  Her eyes were wide. She had run toward the fight still trying even in her last breath to bring them back together.

  And Raion couldn’t save her.

  He couldn’t save any of them.

  And then he started running.

  He ran through burning halls. Past the bodies of servants, disciples and the broken banners of his family. Through smoke and blood and silence.

  He ran to his father.

  Daeryon stood alone in the throne room his face a mask of fury. His hands trembled. His breath was heavy.

  And Raion knew before a word was spoken that something was wrong he said. “Father...”

  “I trusted them,” Daeryon growled.

  His chi was gone. Poisoned.

  Not by an enemy. Not by an outsider.

  By the elders the very people he had left in charge of the sect. The ones who helped raise his children. He couldn't believe that they betrayed the sect.

  And now they stood outside the chamber with the shadowy figures behind them.

  Daeryon turned to his son.

  “No one’s coming to save us.”

  The door exploded inward.

  And Daeryon his body weakening, his chi useless broke the stone wall with his bare hand.

  “Run.”

  Raion didn’t move. Tears filled his eyes.

  Raion broke. He cried loud shaking sobs. His father hadn’t been kind. He hadn’t been warm. But he was still his father.

  Daeryon grabbed him by the collar, pulled him close hugging him for one last time than pushed him away with everything he had left.

  So Raion ran.

  He ran crying, trembling, heart shattered.

  Behind him, Daeryon Kang the man who had killed his own father in anger stood one final time for the children he failed to save after all he is the strongest warrior in this world.

  He fought the elders.

  He broke their bodies and killed every one of them.

  He killed most of the shadows.

  But it wasn’t enough.

  Without chi, his body gave out.

  He died there bloodied alone standing.

  Mouth barely moving.

  Whispering the names of his children.

  And regretting not the wars he fought, but the love he failed to give.

  My heart ached. “Remembering this, made me realized, why I loved him the most, he truly was the strongest character I had ever written.”