Chapter 10: A Drop on the Tongue

Cen Yu moved before anyone could shout.

He crossed the pace of snow in one step and dropped beside the volunteer, and his knife was already in his hand.

He cut the heel of his palm.

The old cut opened without a fight, and the blood came slowly and dark.

"What are you doing?" Shen Ao said, from his knees. His voice cracked. "Get back. That's the Hall's proof."

Cen Yu did not answer him.

He pried the volunteer's jaw open with two cold fingers and let three drops fall onto the tongue.

One breath. Nothing.

Two breaths.

The grey went out of the volunteer's lips, as the silver had gone out of Gao Tie, from the mouth outward.

His chest heaved, and he coughed, and then he dragged in a breath so loud it carried to the dais.

He rolled onto his side in the snow and was sick.

Then he looked up with clear eyes and said, "Master?"

The Gate Seat was already off the dais.

He came across the courtyard in long strides, and the Medicine Brothers fell back from him in a wave.

He knelt in the snow beside his student and put a hand on the back of his neck, and held it there.

He did not speak.

Six hundred people stood in the courtyard and made no sound at all.

Cen Yu wrapped his palm in his sleeve and got to his feet.

"Who are you?" said the Gate Seat, without looking up.

"Cen Yu, Medicine Brother."

"You stood there." The scarred jaw moved. "You watched him go still. You waited."

It was not a question, and Cen Yu did not pretend that it was.

"Yes," he said.

"Why?"

"So six hundred people would see whose blood the cure was."

The Gate Seat's dark eyes lifted and held him for a long moment.

"I will remember that you said so," he said.

Cen Yu could not tell whether it was a promise or a threat.

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