Sect Year 3 · ninth month · night of day 2 · the thirty-first life, its last years and its end · dawn of day 3, Azure Stream Sect, north ridge
Mattin planted the seedling at the edge of the dead rows in the spring after the lower rows went grey. He did it on his knees, with the trowel his father had left him and a bucket of spring water he had been keeping back for two weeks. The ground at the edge was as dry as the dust on an unopened letter. He worked the trowel into it slowly until the hole was deep enough to take the roots without bending them.
Hobb came along the terrace wall before he had finished. He was older now. His back had taken the shape of a yoke. He stopped at the top of the dead rows with one hand on his hip and looked down at the seedling with the face of a man who has found an error in a column.
“You’ve put a tree where a tree already died,” Hobb said.
“The soil’s still here.”
“The soil’s dead, Mattin. Look at the colour of it. It’s the road.”
