Sect Year 7 · ninth month · day 27 · Azure Stream Sect, Council hall
The Council hall had been built for men who wanted to be heard over a fire. Its roof was high and dark with the smoke of forty winters, and its long table of pale wood ran down the middle of the floor from the dais to the doors. Sect Master Gao Tingjun sat at the head with his hands folded on the wood. Elder Xu Bairen sat at his right, close enough that their sleeves nearly touched. The conservative Elders had taken the left side of the table, as they always did, and had arranged themselves with their backs to the wall. That way, every face they wished to see was lit by the window.
Su sat below the dais at a small desk with the record open and her pen ready. Lin stood at the foot of the hall beside a pillar. No one had offered him a seat, and he hadn’t asked for one. From there he could see the whole length of the table, and the faces down both sides of it, and the grey light from the high windows lying across the boards in long bars. Once, when the Sect Master’s voice dropped and the hall went quiet to hear it, Su lifted her head and found him across the length of the room. She held his eyes for the space of one breath. Then she looked back down at the…
