Sect Year 8 · second month · night of day 1 · Azure Stream Sect, record room
Su had the record open at the silent weeks when he came in. She must have been sitting there since the bell, because the lamp had been trimmed twice and the oil in its well was low. She didn’t stand. She moved the lamp a finger’s width to the left so that its light fell across both their hands on the wood, and she pushed the chair opposite her out from the desk with her foot.
He sat down. He put his hands flat on the table, the right one steady and the left one stopping short of a fist, and he looked at the page she had turned to.
The lines were ruled in her square hand, one under the other. Each was a silence. Beside each silence, at the margin, stood a single word, and the word was always the same: rest. She had written it on every line. He had watched her write some of them, on the mornings after the Azure gate had been shut and the sect had gone about its business without him. He had never once asked her to put anything else there.
