Chapter 12: The Family Shrine

The lantern belonged to a young disciple with a soaked collar.

He bowed to Yuxi at the foot of the steps and spoke without lifting his eyes.

"The sect leader asks the heir and Miss Su to attend dawn prayers at the family shrine."

"He will join you after the sun is up."

"Thank you," Yuxi said. "We'll go now."

He bowed again and left, and she noticed that he had not once looked at the pavilion above them.

Nor had he looked at Wanning's wet hair, or the red sash in Yuxi's fist.

"Everyone on this mountain is very discreet," Wanning said.

"They have to be. It's a sect."

The family shrine stood in the old part of the compound, at the end of a path of black stones.

It was a small hall with a single room, one tall window facing east, and a long table of dark wood lined with tablets.

Incense ash lay white in a bronze bowl.

Yuxi stopped at the third tablet from the left.

It was carved from peach wood, and it bore her mother's name.

Wanning touched the edge of the table beside it. "How old were you?"

"Eleven."

"What was she like?"

"She hummed when she cooked. She hated the sword. She said it made the whole house loud."

Yuxi's voice was steady.

"My father said grief was a weakness, and I stopped crying that week."

Wanning said nothing.

She took Yuxi's hand, knelt on the cushion before the tablet, and pulled her down beside her.

They knelt side by side in the grey pre-dawn light with their shoulders touching.

The lantern guttered.

"Say hello to her," Wanning said.

"Wanning..."

"Go on."

Yuxi looked at the tablet.

"Mother," she said, and her throat closed. "This is Su Wanning. She's... she's my..."

She couldn't finish the word.

Wanning's hand slid under the edge of her robe, warm and slow, over her knee.

"I'm hers," Wanning said to the tablet, quite calmly.

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