Chapter 8: The Executor's Offer

The sect held a long dinner in the Hall of Pines to welcome the heir back from Pinewater.

Nobody had told Wanqing it was also a trial.

She sat at the second table with her sleeves pushed up and ate soup while two hundred people looked at her over their bowls.

Yuhang's chair was pulled up beside hers, and the table was a little too high for it.

Under the cloth, his hand found her knee.

She kept her face still.

His thumb began to draw a slow line along the inside of it, over the cotton of her skirt.

"Eat," he murmured, lifting his own bowl. "You look pale."

"You're being rude."

"I'm being a husband. It's a new hobby."

She trapped his hand between her knees and pinched it.

He did not even blink.

At the head table, Elder Hou watched them over the rim of his cup.

When the plates were cleared, a servant bowed to Wanqing and said the Executor Elder wished to speak with her alone.

Yuhang's hand tightened on her knee.

"Go," she whispered. "I'll live."

"If you're not back in the time it takes me to finish my wine..."

"Then drink slowly."

The Executor's hall smelled of sandalwood and old paper.

Hou sat behind a long black desk with a tea set between them and a small polished box beside his hand.

He poured two cups himself.

"Madam Su," he said. "Sit. I have been unkind to you."

"You've been polite," said Wanqing, and sat.

"That is worse." He smiled. "Let me be direct. I would like you to be happy."

He opened the box.

Inside lay a deed, a purse of gold, and a travel pass with the seal of the Pinewater magistrate.

"A house on the river in Pinewater," he said. "Two hundred ounces of gold. A pass to anywhere in the south.

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