Sect Year 1 · ninth month · day 22 · Azure Stream Sect, Inner Court, north ridge
Lin had been up before the bell. The water tank at the foot of the ridge had a skin of cold on it in the grey before light. He broke the skin with the dipper and carried two buckets up the path, one in each hand, the way the Outer Court had taught him to carry them in his first month, when his legs were still an argument. The water slopped at the turns. By the time he reached the cave his shins were wet to the knee, and he set the buckets down by the door and did not look at them again.
The cave residence had one table, two stools, a bed cut into the rock, and a shelf that held a cracked lamp and nothing else. Su set her hand copy of the charge on the table and smoothed it flat with the side of her right hand. Her left arm lay in her lap in its linen. She had changed the dressing before dawn without asking for help, and she hadn’t mentioned it since.
She read the charge aloud. She read everything back to him this way, slowly, each line set down as if it might break if she went faster. By the third line Lin had stopped listening to the words. He was listening to her voice instead. It was steady and dry, and it didn’t hurry for…
