“Not an egg or an enemy, but instead a friend,” he insisted. “We have fought with one another, and we have fought side by side. What is left for us but to be friends and sworn to each other?”

“And what is left for the poor thing who came up with the plan in the first place?” asked Beautiful Nie, who sat composed as a lotus blossom at the base of a nearby tree. “What is going to happen to me?”

“Well, whatever you like,” said Wild Pig Yi courteously. “Gravewraith Chen and I are sharing you, so he may carry you half the time on the road, and I will carry you the other half, and we shall take you wherever you want to go.”

“I thought you were rubies,” Gravewaith Chen confessed. “I’m sorry, of course we’ll take you where you want to go.”

“Well,” said Beautiful Nie, “I was going to the capital to serve my family’s interests, but the riverlands seem more interesting by far. I think I want to stay with you two and see what may be seen.”

That sounded very fine to the other two, and so under the moonless night and over the eighteen dead bodies of the dead Hollow Hand sect, they pledged themselves to one another. They went on to fight other disciples of the Hollow Hand, for the eighteen they defeated were only part of that horde, and other enemies besides, too numerous to name—and if death or betrayal have not torn them apart, why, they must be together still.

Chapter Five

Chih blinked. It was brighter than it had been when they sat down. The air had a bluish cast, and they realized how stiff they had grown sitting in one place for too long.

“I beg your pardon, it is almost dawn, and I have kept you from your sleep,” they apologized, but Khanh stood as easily as if he had only been sitting on the veranda of his favorite restaurant.

“Ah, well, you know, at my age, you barely sleep much at all,” he said affably.

“And how old is that, uncle?” they asked.

“Oh, you stop keeping count after a while. But when I was a boy, people went to temple and children respected their elders.”

“Of course they did,” Chih said with a laugh. “Thank you for the story.”

Almost Brilliant whistled in agreement. “It was very well told, and so Wild Pig Yi and Gravewraith Chen and Beautiful Nie will live in my memory. I will tell my children of them, and they will never be forgotten.”

Chih thought from her formal words that Almost Brilliant must be a little embarrassed from her interruption earlier, but Khanh only nodded.

“Thank you, Mistress Memory. I had hoped so. You said you had heard stories of Gravewraith Chen before?”