Upstairs, the formation scroll lay closed inside its case. Its separate marks had begun to make sense the night before. Taken together, the diagrams had not.
The cloth around Li Mei's smallest finger had come loose.
Wang Ben found her at the family table, trying to wind it again with one hand while Wang Chen rested against her other arm. Wang Tian had already gone to the workshop. A bowl of rice mash sat near Li Mei's elbow.
Wang Ben sat and took the loose end of cloth. His mother held out her hand. He drew the wrapping back over her finger and tied it without pulling the knot tight.
Wang Chen caught Wang Ben's sleeve and leaned toward him. Wang Ben steadied the child while Li Mei settled him against her shoulder.
She turned her wrapped finger beneath the morning light, checking his work. When she looked up, her eyes stayed on his face.
Wang Ben reached for the food waiting at his place. After a moment, Li Mei picked up the spoon and returned to feeding Wang Chen.
He ate with them before leaving for the council chamber.
His place remained near the end of the semicircle, where Wang Tiexin had seated him during the war. No elder questioned it when he entered. Wang Tiexin sat at the front of the chamber, with Grand Elder Wang Feng at his right and the other elders arranged by seniority around them.
Wang Ben had barely settled when Elder Wang Shoushan spoke.
"The City Lord's ruling is final. The eastern Xue compound goes to the Huo Clan. The western warehouses are granted to us."
Several elders shifted in their seats. Wang Shoushan kept one palm flat against the table.
"The Huo Clan lost less than we did," Wang Shoushan said. "The Xue Clan came for us, and Huo Zhenyang has given the better share to his own family."
"That is why he gave it to them," Grand Elder Wang Feng said.
Wang Shoushan turned toward him.
"The Xue Clan is gone," Grand Elder Wang Feng continued. "Huo Zhenyang will not replace them by allowing us to take everything they held. He wants the city divided beneath him."
The ruling had not been made to reward either clan. It set the limit on how much stronger the Wangs would be permitted to become.
"Then we contest it," Wang Shoushan said. "The Xue Clan attacked us. We have the greater claim."
"A claim the City Lord has already refused," Grand Elder Wang Feng said. "Press it now, and we prove he was right to fear our rise."
Wang Shoushan looked to the front of the chamber. Wang Tiexin had not moved since the discussion began.
"If Huo Zhenyang refuses you again," Wang Tiexin said, "will you take the eastern compound from him?"
Wang Shoushan's fingers lifted from the table. "No, Patriarch."
Wang Tiexin's expression did not change. "Then do not make a demand you will not enforce."
No one spoke.
"We will take the warehouses," Wang Tiexin said. "We will repair what the war damaged and strengthen what remains. Huo Zhenyang is waiting to see whether victory made us reckless. Let him keep waiting."
Wang Shoushan lowered his head. Around the chamber, the other elders settled back into their seats.
The eastern compound was not raised again.
...
Zhao Yu was waiting in the training yard when Wang Ben returned from the council chamber. His sword hung at his hip instead of resting in the rack.
"I've had enough of losing to you on flat ground," Zhao Yu said.
"Then stop challenging me on flat ground."
"I was thinking of the Blackwood."
Wang Ben turned toward the clan storehouse. "Let's go."
They collected travel packs, rope, and two empty core cases, then passed through the northern gate before midday.
They kept to the outer trails. Long strips of bare earth showed between the trees. Wang Ben heard no birds. He let his spiritual sense reach ahead as they walked, close enough to cover the next bend and little more.
Two cultivation signatures moved through the brush at the edge of his awareness, one to the left and one to the right.
"Two," Wang Ben said. He drew his sword. "Flanking us."
The left-hand beast broke cover first, larger than either of them and already thick with muscle. Its iron-grey coat lacked an adult's metallic sheen, but the teeth between its jaws already glinted like polished metal.
An adolescent Ironmaw wolf. A Rank 2 spirit beast that had learned to hunt beside another.
The second wolf burst from the opposite brush, leaner than an adult but no less quick.
"Don't let them drive us together," Wang Ben said.
The first wolf reached him before Zhao Yu could answer. Wang Ben turned aside from its jaws and cut across its shoulder. His blade scored the dense fur without reaching flesh. One paw caught him in the ribs and threw him into a tree.
Qi absorbed part of the blow. The trunk took the rest.
The wolf passed him and turned. Wang Ben pushed away from the trunk as it charged again. Its jaws snapped high. He slipped past them, but the claws followed the bite. His sword met the sweep. The impact numbed both hands.
Across the trail, steel rang once, then a second time. Zhao Yu had no room to help him.
The Ironmaw wolf came again.
Jaws first. Claws after.
Wang Ben gave ground until the beast committed to the bite. This time, when the claws followed, he stepped inside their reach instead of away. His shoulder struck the wolf's chest. His sword drove up through the softer fur beneath its jaw.
The beast's weight carried them both to the ground. Wang Ben tore his sword free and rolled clear before its legs stopped kicking.
He rose to find the second wolf crouched before Zhao Yu. A shallow gash crossed Zhao Yu's forearm where one claw had torn through his sleeve. Blood ran to his wrist.
The wolf shifted its hind legs.
Zhao Yu moved first.
The Ironmaw wolf sprang into the path of his sword. The blade opened its throat, and the wolf landed hard in the brush behind him.
Zhao Yu did not lower his sword.
Wang Ben took a bandage from his pack.
Zhao Yu looked down at the hand holding his sword. His fingers loosened from the hilt, then closed around it again.
Wang Ben stepped closer. Zhao Yu let him take the wounded arm and bind the gash.
Then they cut the cores from the wolves. Both were intact. They packed them separately and left the carcasses where they lay.
They reached Redstone as the market inside the northern gate was closing. Merchants pulled cloth over their tables. Hunters waited at the gatehouse with hides tied across their packs.
Two hooded cultivators stood beside a shuttered herb stall. Neither wore a clan mark.
Zhao Yu watched them.
"Do you know them?" Wang Ben asked.
"No. My father mentioned cultivators moving through the outer markets without buying anything."
As he spoke, the two separated. One joined the crowd at the gatehouse. The other passed behind a row of closing stalls and was gone.
Beyond the market, the road to the Wang compound ran past the former Xue storehouses. Their doors were sealed. Pale scars marked the stone where the clan emblems had been cut away.
A presence flickered at the edge of Wang Ben's spiritual sense from somewhere beyond a storehouse wall, less than thirty paces away.
He stopped and searched the nearby courtyards again. His sense found only Zhao Yu and the people still moving beyond the next crossing.
A shutter struck its frame once above the empty loading yard.
Wang Ben kept his spiritual sense spread around him until the road bent away from the storehouses. The presence did not return.
...
Wang Ben washed the Ironmaw wolf's blood from his hands at the stone basin in the family courtyard. The water had gone pink when Li Mei set a clean cloth beside it.
She waited until he had rinsed the last red from his fingers.
She picked up the cloth and took his right hand. She dried each finger, turned his hand over, and checked his palm before moving to the other.
Her eyes lifted to his face. Wang Ben waited.
Li Mei folded the cloth around his damp fingers and pressed his hand once between both of hers. Then she let the cloth fall and put her arms around him.
"I can't lose you," she whispered against his shoulder. "Not after everything."
There was no honest promise he could make.
"You won't."
She held him for three breaths. Then she stepped back, folded the cloth over the bloodstain, and carried it inside.
...
After nightfall, Wang Ben found a visitor waiting inside the compound gate.
The two gate guards had let the man enter, but neither had returned to his post. They stood several paces behind him, watching. The visitor wore plain gray robes without a clan mark. No weapon showed at his waist. His empty hands rested one over the other where everyone could see them.
Two familiar cultivation signatures had already sharpened behind Wang Ben. One came from the main hall. The other came from the eastern wing.
Li Mei stood in the doorway of the family rooms, watching the man at the gate.
He did not look toward Wang Ben until Wang Ben entered the outer courtyard.
Wang Ben stopped less than thirty paces away and brought his spiritual sense close. It reached the man and slid aside before finding any cultivation signature.
The visitor looked at him. He had noticed the attempt.
Wang Ben walked forward without calling to the guards.
"Young Master Wang." The man bowed. Nothing in his face moved beyond what the greeting required.
The visitor glanced toward the main hall.
Neither elder came into the courtyard, but Wang Ben could still feel both of them watching the gate.
"Senior Shen requests your presence tomorrow morning to discuss the terms of your deal."
Wang Ben's pulse struck once against his throat.
"Tell Senior Shen I will be there."
The man bowed again. He stepped back before turning, then walked through the gate without haste. The guards moved aside for him. He did not look back.
The two familiar signatures followed him until he passed beyond the compound walls. Only then did their focus leave the road.
Wang Ben looked down. His right hand had closed around his left cuff.
He opened it, straightened the cloth, and took one slow breath. When he turned from the gate, Li Mei was still at the doorway. His hands hung loose and his face was calm.