Chapter 7: Ash

The cottage in the Gray Reed Valley was a black square of ash with the stove standing in the middle.

Wanqing got down from the cart before it stopped.

She stood at the edge of the burned ground and did not move.

Her herb garden was gone.

The drying racks were gone, and so was the roof where she had slept for seventeen years.

The little bench by the door was gone too, where Master Chi used to sit and tell her to stop reading in the dark.

Yuhang rolled up beside her.

Bao had packed two long boards in the cart.

He laid them over the mud without a word, making a path for the wheels.

"It was set," Yuhang said quietly. "The ground is scorched in lines."

"I can see."

"Wanqing."

"I'm all right." Her voice sounded flat and far away. "There's someone in the ruins."

Three men in plain brown were digging through the ash by the stove with iron rakes.

They had a cart of their own, and a sack, and the careless look of men who thought nobody would come.

One of them saw her and straightened.

"The Executor's orders," he said. "We're only clearing the site."

Wanqing walked straight across the burned floor toward him.

She did not run.

She took a long thin needle from her belt.

The nearest man's rake clattered to the ground before he understood why his arm had gone numb.

The second man swung his rake at her head.

A white paper charm slapped against his chest from behind.

It flared once, and a net of light burst out and snapped around him, pinning his arms to his sides.

Wanqing glanced back.

Yuhang sat on the boards with another charm in his raised hand and a spirit stone glowing in his palm.

"Bao filled them," he said calmly. "Spirit stone, not qi. I can still throw."

"Show-off."

"I haven't had a chance in three years."

The third man dropped his rake and ran.

Yuhang threw the last charm without looking.

It struck the man between the shoulder blades, and the net snapped him into the ash face first.

Wanqing walked over to the first man, who was holding his numb arm, and put a needle to the soft place under his jaw.

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