Chapter 9: The Oath Hall

The Oath Hall had no windows, so dawn came into it only as a change in the draft.

Shen stood in the middle of the black stone floor and waited.

Elder Fu lit a stick of incense and set it in the iron stand between them.

"One stick. That is the length of an oath inquiry."

"Understood." Shen nodded once.

"I will ask, and you will answer or not answer, and when it burns down, we are done."

Fu glanced at the dark corners.

"There are no witnesses. It is only you, and me, and this."

He opened the drawer and took out the tally.

It was a black-green jade the length of a thumb, polished smooth, with a thread of white running through it.

Shen had not seen it in the light for a year.

Fu laid it on a flat stone between them.

The thread glowed faintly red.

Shen felt it under his breastbone before he looked at it.

"I will not ask whether you wrote the book."

"That would be a courtesy." Shen's mouth was dry.

"It is not one. The oath does not care what you wrote. It cares what you said."

The old man folded his hands.

"Who was in the lower hall of the Alchemy Pavilion on the night of the twenty-third of the ninth month, twelve years ago?"

The jade flared.

It was a line of heat, from the base of the throat to the ribs.

Shen opened his mouth to say he would not answer, and the throat shut.

It did not hurt at first.

It simply closed, with no air in it and no sound.

He stood with his jaw open and his hand flat against the stone pillar, and the incense burned.

Frost crept along his lower lip.

He tasted blood, and watched a bead of it fall on the black floor and freeze.

"Take your time," Fu murmured.

When his throat opened a crack, he did not use it to speak.

He drew one breath through his nose and steadied his hands.

Fu watched him do it.

"I do not answer a question twice." Shen's voice was hoarse.

"I have not been asked it once. You asked who. I do not know who."

A crack ran through the white thread, thin as a hair.

Fu's face did not change.

He took out a clean cloth, wiped the jade, and set it back on the stone.

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