Morning came clean and pale. The storm had spent itself. Frost traced the edges of tiles and rails. The air at the doorway had a knife to it, but the alcove held a thin pocket of warmth that made my whiskers relax.
I lifted my head from the straw and listened. Roof wood settled. Somewhere close, a kettle sighed. Farther off, brushes moved across paper like small feet over dry leaves. In the outer yard, wooden swords tapped and paused and tapped again. The house knew all these sounds. It wore them like habits.
The boy came with both hands around a bowl. Steam climbed to find his face. His hair tie had slipped and a lock tickled his cheek. He set the bowl just inside the line where warm air met cold stone and pushed it toward me with two fingers.
"I saved this," he said. His breath showed in the air. It curled and broke and faded. "For you."
The broth smelled of bone and rice and a thin sweetness that clung to the rim. My belly woke all at once. I ate without rushing. He waited with his knees knocking a little because the stone was cold even through a good robe. A drop jumped to his wrist. He blew on it and wiped it away.
When the bowl was empty, he tapped his chest with the knuckles of the hand that had carried it. "Jin," he said. His voice was soft but steady. "I am Jin."
He smelled of soap and sleep and the last dry thread of fear from last night. Under that sat something stubborn that did not plan to leave. I leaned and sniffed his fingers. He held very still and let me.
Bootsteps crossed the walk. Elder Lin filled the doorway. He saw the bowl and the boy and my face and the mark on my throat that kept its own small light. He nodded once.
"Good morning," he said. The words felt true.
Jin scrambled up and almost knocked the bowl and did not. He bowed until his hair tie fell again. The elder retied it with practiced fingers.
"Outer yard when you have washed," he said. "Mind the ice where the sun has not touched the stone."
Jin bowed again and went. The elder watched him to the turn and then looked at me.
"Walk with me, little one."
I rose. He set his pace so I did not need to hurry. We crossed a small court where a plum tree slept under beads of ice. We passed paper charms that moved the way water moves when a hand rests in it. We stepped into a square of white that had not known any feet since the snow.
A stone basin stood in the center. A skin of ice held the surface quiet. Elder Lin took a smooth stick from a rack and tapped the ice until it opened in a star. He set the stick aside and looked at me, then at the water.
I stepped up and touched my tongue to the dark place where the star had made a window. Cold ran down and settled in my belly. The bell inside my ribs stretched and woke. Not a sharp strike like last night. A low hum that seemed to come from the stone too.
"Listen," he said, so soft the word did not trouble the surface.
I did.
Ice crackled where the sun found a corner of the basin. A spider adjusted a web no one else would see. A brush slid in a room that had not opened yet. Elder Lin's pulse kept an even thread. Under the wall there was another slow beat where the old beams counted their years.
Over that, I tasted the air.
Cedar oil from the elder's sleeve. Ink drying. Cheap tea. Rice steaming. And something that did not belong in a morning this clean. A thin taste like iron that had learned to be friendly to a mouth.
It came from low on the mountain. It had begun to climb.
I lifted my head.
"Yes," Elder Lin said. He did not ask what. He looked toward the gate as if a small word had spoken there.
We went to the outer yard. The sun pushed a hand over the wall and laid a long cold stripe across the stones. That stripe held even where feet crossed it.
Twelve youths ran forms with wooden blades. Their teacher had a face like river stone and a voice that did not need to be loud. He saved it for the places where voice matters. Jin held his stance. He did not look for me, but he knew where I was.
When they rested and drank tea that had gone only a little cool, he slipped close. He turned his palm up and let me see that it held nothing.
"Today I will not slip," he told his own fingers. "I will keep my feet under me."
The bell in my ribs hummed as if it agreed.
Pairs were called. There was the usual shuffle and glance. Jin faced a boy a hand taller and a winter wider. They bowed and lifted their wood.
The taller boy had a quick step and a strong arm. Jin met him with proper shape, a breath late. Blades clicked. Snow powdered their trousers. The circle around them moved as one animal and gave them room.
Jin's heel found a patch of ice. He felt it early. He let the slide become a step. The taller boy pressed. Jin's jaw tightened. His breath hitched.
I barked once. Not loud. A round sound that began and ended clean.
Jin's shoulders dropped a little. His wrists loosened. His blade became a river instead of a stick. He rode the next strike and let his tip kiss the other boy's sleeve. The teacher lifted a finger. The match went on.
It ended when Jin refused the first bright chance and took the better one half a breath later. His wood touched ribs. The call was made. They bowed and meant it.
Elder Lin had watched from the colonnade, hands folded. He left before anyone could read his face and think too hard about what it meant.
The morning settled into work. Sun warmed the high roofs and shook lace from the tiles. Two girls carried a basket of tangerines and left it for the river faced man. He took one and did not eat it yet. I lay in a triangle of light and let the warmth reach skin and then the bell. The hum ran steady. It felt like being in the right place.
The noon bell spoke three times. Chopsticks clicked. Laughter broke and mended itself. Someone argued about a small thing and forgot it when the tea arrived.
Then the gate bell spoke with weight.
Not the little rope bell. The iron bell that had come a long way to live here. Once to say someone comes. Twice to say more than one. A third that only happens when a hand asks in a way the bell respects.
Guards on the wall shifted stance. A boy put his bowl down too fast and someone's foot found it. Shoes were set where they belong. A woman wiped a child's chin with a sleeve that had learned many years.
Elder Lin stepped into the gate court with no spear. He brought eyes and hands and the way he held both.
Three figures climbed the last steps. Two wore travel in their boots and robing. The third walked a little behind and let the first two make him larger.
The first bowed. He had a neat scar and spoke like a man setting stones. "We bring salve and cloth," he said. "The passes were not kind. If the elder allows, we will warm our hands and go on."
His breath was honest. His eyes stood right. The thin iron taste did not come from him.
The second kept his head low. He looked at the pots by the wall and then away, ashamed to have looked. His hands wanted any fire. He smelled of cardamom and wet wool and the fear of being told to keep moving. The iron did not come from him either.
The third smiled before he bowed. He showed a little too much tooth. Not much. Enough. The iron wire was in his breath. It curled there like a hair smoothed by a hand.
"We also bring word," he said. "From Verdant Hollow to the north. They ask after the elder."
He said Elder Lin's name in a careful way, as if he held a borrowed cup and did not wish to chip it. The wire in his scent brightened on certain words.
"Come to the outer hall," Elder Lin said. "Warm your hands. Then we will see what word crosses winter."
They entered. The first traveler took in the yard with honest care. The second looked at the stove as if warmth were a story he did not trust yet. The smiling man made his stride easy. He kept his weight back in his heels.
I moved along the wall and chose a place where I could watch his shoulders and the side of his mouth. Elder Lin did not turn his head, but he left me a line of sight.
In the hall, the stove breathed and the roof moved the steam out. A girl poured tea with steady hands and made every cup the same. Elder Lin thanked her by name so the day would remember her.
"What does Verdant Hollow ask," he said to the smiling man.
The man tasted steam before tea. He wanted to look wise and grateful and harmless.
"They ask if you have seen a certain thing," he said. "They do not name it in ink. They say it would be known if it was known."
The iron wire in his scent brightened on certain and known. It dimmed when the cup hid his mouth.
"I have seen many things," Elder Lin said. "Winter makes new tracks and turns others into one long line. What does the Hollow offer for watching the wind."
"Courtesy," the man said at once. "A favor named later."
The wire sang at favor. It was not a gift. It was a small tax dressed as courtesy.
Elder Lin's eyes smiled without his mouth. "We keep our accounts in tea and salt and safe steps," he said. "You may tell them our slopes are quiet."
The man's smile thinned and tried not to show it. He drank so that his lips would be about something else.
Jin passed with an arm of kindling. He bowed. The first traveler bowed back. The second tried, awkward and true. The smiling man looked at Jin the way a person looks at a door they did not expect to find unlocked. The wire brightened. Jin's eyes found me. His shoulders eased.
Elder Lin stood. "Rest while the cups last," he said. "Then may the wind be kind to your backs."
He left them to heat and tea and the girl with the careful hands and stepped into the pale light. He faced the mountain again. It stood where it always stands. He let a breath go.
He came to me by the wall.
"You heard it," he said for only us.
I breathed in. The iron taste was thin now that the man was inside. The bell inside me touched my ribs. I did not need to answer.
"Thin wires can cut," he said. "If you wrap them long enough."
He opened his palm. I set my nose in the center. Warm skin. The bell hummed.
Afternoon bent to evening. Sun laid blue in the unwalked snow. Work put away its hard parts. Someone told a fox story. Laughter found a corner and stayed there.
The traders left their goods by the lower steps to be counted. The smiling man went last. He forgot his cup because he was thinking about how the elder had not moved. The wire in his scent quieted, but it did not go away. It crouched under the door like a plan.
I walked the line of the wall to the gate. Snow had gathered in thin ropes where the wind found gaps. A raven had left three toed marks on the top of the wall. The bell rope wore a bead of ice that clicked when it swung. The place where last night's blood had been washed smelled like clean stone in winter.
At the bottom step there was a new mark. Small. A claw set down and lifted and set again in the same place. A shape made by a creature that does not want to leave shapes. It smelled of pitch warmed with a hand, of fur that does not sleep under roofs, and of a word whispered to wax.
I breathed until the air was thin. The bell inside me made a small clear tone, the kind a single drop makes in a deep well. A warning for the shape of a warning.
Light thinned. The moon hid and showed and hid again. My throat mark took a little of that light and sent it to the bell. The house behind me spoke to itself the way safe places do when they have not chosen sleep.
Inside the hall, the smiling man finished tea and set the cup down with care he hoped someone would notice. He touched the rim with his thumb without looking at it. He praised the girl's pouring with a word that had a small hook. The wire in his scent pulled and waited.
Far below, out where the pines keep old shadows, something moved along the path and stopped where the steps begin. It smelled of fur and old blood and the iron wire I had tasted. It tested the wind. It did not climb yet. It chose patience.
I turned my head toward the sound a person would not hear.
The bell in my ribs struck once, bright and simple.
Be ready.