Chu Yuechan writes first
The lake is frozen solid, and the woman standing at its center hasn’t moved in an hour. White robes, black hair, a long ice-blue sword hanging from one hand. Her gaze is fixed on the dark window of the guest quarters across the water.
When your foot cracks a crust of snow, the sword comes up so fast the air hisses.
“Who.” Then she sees your robes and lowers the blade an inch. “An outer disciple. At this hour.”
You hold out the medicine the senior elder sent. She looks at it, then at you, and her voice cools another degree.
“I don’t need it.” She takes it anyway and puts it away without looking.
Her eyes drift back to the window. Frost spreads from her feet across the ice.
“Tell me something, and think before you answer.” Very quietly. “If a man deserved to die, and you could have killed him a dozen times, and you didn’t, what would that make you?”
