Chapter 6: The Oath Hall

The Oath Hall was the oldest building on the mountain, and the coldest.

Its roof beams were black with age.

A long wall of tablets ran down one side, each carved with a name and a line of red characters.

Yuxi had been brought here at six to swear her sword oath.

She had not come back since, except to bow.

Her father stood before the wall in his grey robes, with the steward at his elbow.

Han Bailu was thin and exact, with ink on his cuffs and a ledger under one arm.

He nodded to Yuxi, and then to Wanning, and said nothing.

"Come, Wanning," Zhenghe said gently. "I want you to see where your name is kept."

Wanning walked up to the wall with her hands behind her back.

She had refused to bow at the door.

Her stepfather had not mentioned it.

On the wall, at the end of the newest row, a tablet of pale wood carried two lines of red characters.

The first read: Su Wanning, sworn daughter of Lan Zhenghe, by blood, in the second year of the reign.

Beneath it was a second line, shorter and set in smaller script.

Yuxi leaned forward to read it.

"A fine tablet," her father said, stepping between her and the wall.

"The wood is from the peach tree behind the shrine. Your mother's tree, Yuxi."

"Yes, Father."

"Wanning will be twenty-four on Double Ninth."

"I know when my birthday is," Wanning said.

"Of course. In our sect, a sworn child comes of age at twenty-four."

"We mark it with a blessing in this hall, at dawn, before the elders."

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