The last night hung cold and merciless over the ancestral hall. Lantern light licked the high, carved beams; incense curled thin and steady, weaving a small, stubborn warmth through the temple's chill. The long scrolls of scripture she had copied through the hours lay rolled and tied in neat bundles at Lian An's side like small, patient witnesses. Each bundle was a day's confession rendered in black ink and breath.
Her knees burned with a pain that was no longer merely physical. From the second night onward, every time she shifted, the skin chafed raw against the marble. Her wrists, ink-stained and trembling, felt like they belonged to another person; at moments they refused to obey. Her back ached as though the weight of the palace itself had settled upon her shoulders and refused to leave. The thin porridge each morning—the one she had accepted with defiant politeness—kept her stomach from collapsing into a deeper hunger, but it could not staunch the slow drain in her muscles.
