Sect Year 1 · eighth month · day 6 · Azure Stream Sect, the spring-house steps
The afternoon sun came low over the spring-house roof and laid a bar of light across the steps. Su sat in the middle of it with the journal open on her knee. She had carried it out from the record room because, she said, the room made everything sound like a sentence. Out here the spring made its own noise, a thin unbroken running over pale gravel, and nothing in the noise was a word.
Lin sat one step below her with his back against the doorpost. Past her shoulder the water ran clear, and in the shallows the grey stone stood upright in its column of notches. He didn’t look at it. He had looked at it enough for one week.
He had come down from the north ridge after the midday bell, by the long way round, past the terraces where the herb beds ran in rows and the gardeners were cutting back the dead stalks. His left arm had been cold since before he left the cave. It was always cold now, and he had stopped expecting it to warm. He hadn’t lain down asking for a life for weeks, and he had slept better for it, which he hadn’t expected and did not entirely trust.
