Sect Year 2 · ninth month · day 7 · the first inn below Silent Terrace, the yard and the lime road
Ruwen had the axe before he could reach for it. She was a short, broad woman with grey in the knot of her hair and her sleeves pinned back over her elbows. She stood at the chopping block as though she had been standing there since before the inn was built.
“You’re holding it wrong,” she said.
“I’m holding it with one hand.” Lin set the split billet on the block with his right hand and held it there with the left. The fingers closed on the bark without any grip, the way a child’s fingers close on a rope. “The axe is in the right.”
“Then the left can hold the wood still and stop apologising to it.” She took the axe from the block, swung once, and split the billet clean down the grain. The two halves fell apart and lay on the frosted ground. “You’re a poor hand at kindling, Core man.”
“I’ve been told.”
“By who?”
“A woman who writes everything down.”
