Chapter 12: The Wedding Rite

"Yes," Mu-hyeon said, without looking away from him. "She dances."

He held out his hand to Yeon-hwa in front of the whole hall.

She took it.

That was how they left, hand in hand, with two hundred elders watching them go and the Great Elder smiling at their backs.

On the night of the full moon, Ye-rin dressed Yeon-hwa in red.

The wedding robes had been Mu-hyeon's mother's.

Pyo brought them up in a cedar chest and stood in the doorway blowing his nose into his apron while Ye-rin shook them out.

"Uncle, go away," she said. "She's in her underthings."

"I've seen underthings."

"Not hers. Out."

He went, sniffing.

Ye-rin wound Yeon-hwa's hair up and pinned it with gold.

Her hands were quick and hard, the way they had been on the bandages.

"You're shaking," she said.

"I'm cold."

"You're a terrible liar. Hold still."

She put the last pin in and looked at Yeon-hwa in the bronze mirror.

"If they kill you tonight," she said, "I'm going to be very annoyed."

"That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me all week."

"I'm a physician. I don't say nice things." She squeezed Yeon-hwa's shoulder, hard. "Find the fire, Yeon-hwa."

The ancestral hall was full to the doors.

Every elder, every captain, every cultist who could squeeze inside.

Above the dais, a square hole had been opened in the roof, and the full moon hung in it.

Its light fell straight down onto a circle of white sand that had been raked on the floor before the empty throne.

Mu-hyeon stood at the edge of the circle in black and red, with a wedding cord coiled in his hands.

He looked at Yeon-hwa in his mother's robes and forgot to breathe.

She saw it.

So did everyone else.

The Great Elder stood at the foot of the throne with the other elders behind him.

"Show the ancestors your house's art, bride," he said.

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