The lanterns were new.
They hadn't been there last week—those neat rows of paper light hung along the visitor corridor, each one spaced like a ruler had measured the air. At dawn they were still dim, their frames pale against the grey sky, but even unlit they made the sect feel different: tighter, straighter, as if it had begun holding its breath.
Yun Xue noticed things like that.
Not because she cared about banners or guests.
Because when a place started polishing its face, it stopped forgiving small ugliness.
She slipped out of the dorm shed quietly, bundle hugged to her chest, and crossed into the small nursery yard at the edge of the herb lines. The ground there stayed softer than the packed lanes. The half-wall kept the worst wind off. The pots held warmth the way tired hands held a cup.
She knelt.
Mist first. Not pour. Mist.
Her fingers tested the soil with the care of someone touching a wound.
Too wet and roots drowned. Too dry and they tightened like fists.
She turned each pot a fraction, just enough to keep the leaves from leaning toward a single sun angle, just enough to stop one side from weakening.
The Silvervein Orchids were the reason she moved slower here.
Their leaves were thinner than common herbs. The veins carried a pale, silvery thread that looked almost like someone had drawn lines of moonlight through green flesh.
They weren't dramatic. They weren't glowing treasures.
They were… precise.
And precision punished clumsiness.
Yun Xue leaned close and breathed in carefully—cool earth, faint mint, the clean softness of living tissue that wasn't sick.
They're fine, she told herself, and felt a small relief she didn't allow to become pride.
Because pride was loud.
And loud things got noticed.
She had been noticed already.
The paper under her sleeping mat said so.
TEMPORARY ATTACHMENT — HALL LOTS.
Two sessions weekly.
Failure to comply → dock points.
Waste recorded as theft.
She had read it so many times the words felt like they had been pressed into her skin.
Temporary.
She clung to that word like it was a promise.
Two sessions.
That sounded like nothing.
It sounded like a chance.
And points… points meant she could buy better soap. Better cloth. Maybe even a small packet of dried meat for winter. Maybe send something home if she ever earned enough to justify it.
She swallowed, wiped her fingers on her sleeve, and stood.
Before she left the yard, she checked the pots one more time.
Just in case.
---
The Hall smelled wrong.
Not foul.
Clean.
Too clean.
The air was dry with powders and sharp with herb oils, the kind of scent that made her throat tighten if she breathed too deep. The tables were wiped so often the wood had started to shine like stone. The floor had no grit.
Yun Xue felt gritless spaces the way a small animal felt open ground.
Exposed.
A courier in neat grey met her near the side entrance, lacquered token at his waist. He didn't ask if she was ready. He didn't care.
"You," he said, and nodded once toward a side workroom. "Here. Don't delay."
She followed.
Inside, attendants moved in straight lines, carrying trays with sealed jars, bundles of dried leaves, folded cloth packets tied with twine. They didn't talk much. When they did, it was in numbers.
"Two lots. Forty packets. Before third bell."
"Add five. Guests will arrive sooner."
Yun Xue caught the phrase and froze for half a breath.
Guests.
The Conclave.
She had heard servants whisper about it at night—how the sect would be watched, judged, measured. How mistakes would not just be mistakes. They would be humiliation.
No one here whispered.
They spoke it like weather.
A man behind a narrow counter—an assistant with a slate and ink-stained fingers—gestured her forward without looking up.
"Name," he said.
Yun Xue hesitated. Names felt dangerous in the Hall.
He flicked his eyes up, impatient.
"Servant name," he clarified, as if she were slow.
"Yun Xue," she said quietly.
The assistant wrote it down. Not carefully. Not like something precious. Like a number that needed a label.
"Attachment," he said. "Two sessions. Points compensation through Hall."
He tapped a column on the slate.
A line of marks.
Her marks.
"You get points per lot handled," he said. "You lose points per waste."
Yun Xue nodded quickly. "I… I won't waste."
The assistant's mouth didn't move.
"Everyone says that," he said, and his tone made it clear he didn't believe in vows. "Waste is theft. Theft is record."
He pushed a thin sheet toward her.
Not sealed. Not stamped. Just paper.
"Daily handling sheet," he said. "You mark your work. You thumbprint at end."
Her fingers curled.
Thumbprint.
Li Shen's voice surfaced in her head—flat, urgent, quiet enough that it had sounded like fear:
Don't sign anything else. No extra slips. No 'agreement.'
Yun Xue's throat tightened.
"I… do I have to—" she started.
The assistant's eyes sharpened. Not angry. Just cold.
"You're attached," he said. "This is attached work."
Yun Xue bowed too fast.
"Yes," she whispered. "I understand."
She didn't thumbprint.
Not yet.
She took the sheet with both hands as if that made it less dangerous.
The assistant watched her like he knew she would eventually do what she was told.
Because most people did.
---
They put her with plants that were the same species, but not the same care.
Silvervein Orchids, yes—but Hall stock, not nursery edge pots.
The lot sat on raised benches in a warmer room, packed tighter, arranged for speed. Some leaves had dust that should have been wiped. Some pots leaned slightly, as if no one had turned them in days.
Yun Xue's chest tightened at the sight.
Not disgust.
Worry.
These weren't dying yet.
But they weren't happy.
She knelt, steadied her breathing, and began.
Mist.
Turn.
Space a fraction.
Lift one pot and check drainage.
Her hands moved on instinct now, the way they did when she wasn't being watched.
An attendant leaned in once, impatient.
"Faster," he said.
Yun Xue didn't look up. "If it's fast, it's waste," she murmured before she could stop herself.
The attendant stared.
Then he scoffed and walked away.
She flinched, heart pounding.
She shouldn't have said that.
But the plants… the plants didn't care about her fear.
They cared about what she did.
By the time her first session ended, the lot looked different.
Not in a way anyone who didn't know plants would notice.
But Yun Xue knew.
Leaves lay flatter. Veins looked cleaner. Soil surface wasn't crusting. The room smelled less sharp, more like living green again.
On the way out, she glanced back once.
If I keep it stable, she told herself, it will be fine.
Because she believed stability protected you.
---
The second session wasn't the same day.
That was the first thing that made the attachment feel planned.
"Come back in three days," the courier told her the next morning, as if her time belonged to the Hall even when she wasn't inside it.
Three days.
In those three days, the visitor corridor gained another line of lanterns. The wash stations got their final stone basins set in place. A new inspection slate appeared at the sanitation turn, and the guards checked tokens longer.
The sect was tightening.
Yun Xue kept working her nursery pots in between, and she kept thinking about the Hall lot like it was an obligation hovering over her shoulder.
When she returned on the third day, the assistant at the counter didn't greet her.
He slid her handling sheet back toward her.
"You missed a mark," he said.
Yun Xue blinked. "I— I didn't—"
He tapped the page.
A blank line.
A place where someone could write anything later.
Her pulse spiked.
"I… I didn't fill it because I wasn't sure," she whispered.
The assistant's eyes didn't soften.
"Not sure is waste," he said. "Fill it."
Yun Xue's fingers shook as she wrote the simplest truth she could:
Silvervein Orchid — mist, turn, spacing.
The assistant watched.
"Thumbprint," he said.
Yun Xue swallowed.
"Is… is there a stamp," she asked, voice small. "A seal? So… so it's official."
The assistant's mouth twitched like she was annoying him.
"The Hall is official," he said. "Thumbprint."
Her chest tightened until her breath became shallow.
She thought of Li Shen. She thought of Bai Ren's angry eyes. She thought of being reassigned to a waste line because she had refused.
Temporary.
Two sessions.
Points.
Those words had been a promise in her mind.
Now they felt like a rope.
She lowered her thumb.
Then she stopped halfway.
"I… I want to do it right," she whispered. "Can I ask—"
The assistant leaned forward, and the cold in his gaze became clearer.
"You're not here to ask," he said. "You're here to keep stock alive."
Yun Xue flinched as if struck, because that sentence sounded like praise and threat at the same time.
She pressed her thumb to the ink pad and stamped the paper.
It wasn't a signature.
But it was consent.
She felt it like a door closing.
---
The lot looked better when she returned.
Not because the Hall cared.
Because her hands had done the work last time.
Yun Xue knelt again, and for a few breaths she forgot the paper.
Mist.
Turn.
Listen to the leaves with her eyes.
That was how she thought: not in numbers, but in whether a plant looked like it wanted to keep living.
Halfway through her session, she caught a scent that didn't belong.
A clean sharpness. Not herb oil. Not powder.
Something like chalk, but thinner.
She froze, ladle halfway raised.
The scent was faint. A trace.
Maybe it was nothing.
Maybe it was from sanitation lanes.
Maybe someone had cleaned nearby.
Yun Xue told herself that, because she didn't want to believe the other thing.
She worked carefully anyway, hands gentler than before.
She checked one orchid—one that had stood out to her last session because its veins were exceptionally clear.
Today, one leaf looked… tired.
The silver thread was slightly dulled. The edge curled inward the smallest amount.
Not damage.
Not yet.
A warning.
Yun Xue's throat tightened.
No. No, I did this wrong.
She shifted the pot, checked the soil.
It wasn't too wet.
It wasn't too dry.
She misted again, lighter.
She turned it away from the warmest spot.
She watched the leaf as if staring hard could make it heal.
The attendant drifted past and glanced down.
His eyes sharpened.
"What's that," he asked.
Yun Xue's voice came too fast. "Nothing. It's fine. I— I'll fix it."
The attendant didn't care about fixing.
He cared about recording.
He stepped closer, sniffed once, and frowned slightly.
"Don't waste," he said.
Yun Xue bowed.
"I won't," she whispered, and hated how her voice shook.
---
By the end of the session, the leaf hadn't worsened.
But Yun Xue couldn't feel relief.
She could only feel time.
Because she understood, dimly now, that the Hall wasn't watching her plants.
It was watching her paper.
When she returned the handling sheet, the assistant didn't look at her.
He looked at the thumbprint.
Then he looked at the lot number.
He made a mark.
A tiny mark that could become anything later.
"Points will be processed," he said.
Yun Xue hesitated.
"How many," she asked before she could stop herself.
The assistant finally looked up.
His expression was not cruel.
It was indifferent.
"You'll see," he said.
That was the answer you gave someone who didn't get to negotiate.
---
On the way back to the dorm sheds, Yun Xue passed the visitor corridor again.
Lanterns in straight lines.
New stone basins set clean.
Servants scrubbing until their hands were raw.
A slate posted near the entrance:
Inspection rotation: every three days until arrival.
Three days.
Again.
The sect was tightening its face.
And Yun Xue realized, with a sudden cold clarity that made her stomach twist, that her attachment sessions were also every few days.
Spaced.
Scheduled.
Not random.
As if someone had designed the timing to catch her when she was tired but not desperate enough to run.
She hugged her cloth bundle to her chest and hurried.
Li Shen was near the shed corner, washing his hands with the kind of economy that looked like calm. His shoulders rose and fell slowly, breath controlled, and when he finished he looked up as if he had sensed her before she spoke.
Yun Xue bowed too quickly.
"It's fine," she whispered. "It's… just work."
Li Shen's eyes flicked to her bundle, to the way her fingers clutched it like a wound.
He didn't ask for the paper. He didn't force her to expose herself.
He asked the only question that mattered.
"Did you sign," he said quietly.
Yun Xue's throat tightened.
"I… thumbprinted," she admitted, shame burning hot in her face. "They said I had to. It's attached work."
Li Shen's expression didn't shift much, but something behind his eyes went colder.
Bai Ren appeared behind him, mud still on his sleeves, face tense.
He heard the word thumbprinted and his jaw clenched.
"They're setting you up," he said, voice rough.
Yun Xue flinched.
"No," she said too fast. "I didn't waste. I'm careful. I— I can fix it."
Li Shen didn't argue with her hope. He cut around it.
"They don't need you to waste," he said softly. "They need you to belong."
Yun Xue stared at him, not understanding, because in her world, belonging was safety.
Li Shen looked away first, as if he didn't want to show how serious he was.
"Don't sign anything else," he said. "No extra lines. No blank spaces. If they bring paper, you bring it to me before you touch it."
Yun Xue nodded too fast, because nodding was easier than thinking.
"Yes," she whispered.
She went into the shed, lay down, and tucked the handling sheet beneath her mat like it could protect her if it was close.
Her hands smelled faintly of mint and clean chalk.
She couldn't tell if the scent was real or imagined.
In the dark, she thought of the Silvervein Orchid leaf with the dulled vein, and she promised herself the only promise she knew how to make:
If I take care of it better, nothing bad will happen.
Outside, the lanterns along the visitor corridor stayed lit long after the work lanes fell quiet.
The Conclave was approaching.
And the trap, spaced carefully across days, was tightening around a girl who still believed that doing everything right could keep her safe.