Sect Year 4 · third month · day 3 · Azure Stream Sect, the Inner Court hall, then the record room
The tea on the Elders’ table had gone cold before anyone thought to drink it. It sat in pale bowls along the polished wood, untouched. Meanwhile, the Council of the Azure Stream Sect argued over whether a man could be sent across the sea.
Lin stood where petitioners stood, on the bare boards below the dais, with his hands at his sides. The cold of the floor came up through the soles of his boots. Su sat at the side table with the record open and her pen laid along the line. She didn’t look at him, which was how he knew she was listening to every word.
The clerk read the writ a second time, from the top, in a voice that did not care for it. When he reached the witness line he stopped and looked up, and Lin understood that the clerk was waiting for the room to finish breathing before he went on.
“A witness who has never sat on this sect’s books,” said one of the grey-robed Elders at the left of the dais, “is a risk the sect should not take.”
