Reborn as the Henchman Who Protects the Villain novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: The Moon Over the Valley

They climbed out of the Court into a street full of people looking up.

Every window in the Moonless Valley stood open.

Disciples stood on the roofs, and elders stood in the lanes.

The cooks of the Black Cloaks' kitchen stood on their own steps with ladles in their hands.

Nobody was speaking.

Above the valley, for the first time in a thousand years, hung a full white moon.

It was larger than anyone had imagined.

It lit the gables and the stone and the wet cobbles with a clear cold silver, and the red lanterns looked dim.

Shi Wen stopped at the bottom of the steps and put his head back.

Next to him, the Sect Lord stood with his arms at his sides and his face turned to it.

The silver lines under his skin were gone.

His breath came out white in the cold air, clean, with no cough in it.

A disciple near them began to kneel.

Then the whole street was kneeling, row by row, in black and grey, with their foreheads to the stone.

"Get up," said Duan Linxiao, rather helplessly. "Get up. I am not the moon."

Nobody got up.

"Linxiao," said Shi Wen, very quietly. "Let them. Just for one minute."

The Lord looked down at him.

Then he put out his hand, and Shi Wen took it, and they stood together under the light while the valley wept.

The Accord's verdicts were read at dawn, in the Hall of Unlit Lamps, by the arbiter of Heron Lake.

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