Chapter 4: Thorn Three

On the eighth morning of the marriage, Elder Hou called every disciple to the Hall of Pines.

Wanqing stood beside the heir's chair and watched his hand drum once on the armrest.

Hou stepped up to the dais in his dark green robe.

"The Autumn Gathering is in fifty-two days," he said.

"By the oldest law of the Green Pine Sect, the heir must be confirmed at the Summit Altar."

He let the quiet settle.

"To reach it, he must climb the Nine Hundred Steps. Unaided."

A murmur ran through the rows.

Everyone looked at the chair.

Hou spread his hands.

"It's a hard law. I did not write it. But I would be failing the Sect Master if I let it bend."

Wanqing felt Yuhang go still beside her.

She did not look down at him.

She looked at the Elder, and she smiled the way she had smiled at the wedding cup.

"What does 'unaided' mean?" she asked.

"Madam Su?"

"The word. Unaided. Does the law say 'walk'?"

For half a breath Hou's smile held.

"It has always been understood," he said.

"So it doesn't say it."

"Madam Su, please."

"I'm only asking," said Wanqing. "I'm new. I can't read your old law until someone shows it to me."

A few disciples in the back rows coughed into their sleeves.

Yuhang said nothing.

But his hand had stopped drumming.

That night she did not take the lamp out of the bedroom.

The third thorn sat low on the left, in the hip, and its roots ran down the inside of the thigh.

She had to lay needles in places she had avoided for a week.

Yuhang lay on his back this time, with a thin cloth over his hips and one forearm across his eyes.

"Say it," he said. "Whatever you're about to say."

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