Sect Year 9 · third month · day 4, dawn · Azure Stream Sect, the terraced path, then the spring
The terraced path was slick at first light. Each step was walled in dry stone, older than the one below it, and the cold had gathered in the cut of every tread like water left standing in a bowl. Lin climbed with his right hand on the wall. His left hung at his side and carried its cold up to the collarbone, as it had since the Cold Ash palm. He let it hang. He had stopped trying to lift it before he reached the first bend.
Su climbed a step ahead with the record held against her ribs under one arm, and her breath showed in the grey air. Behind them Pei came last, a lamp in her left hand, its flame small and yellow. She hadn’t spoken since the gate. Lin’s right hand still smelled faintly of wax and thyme. He had washed it twice in the wash bowl at the lodging, and the smell had stayed in the creases of the knuckles like a thread of smoke that would not come out of cloth.
Gao Wen was already on the path. He had come up before the bell and swept the first terraces with the short strokes his leg allowed, and the wet leaves lay heaped in the gutter at the foot of the wall. He didn’t stop when they came level with him. He drew the…
