Promise Under the Moonlight

Episode 7 - The Fated Mark

Lin Yue did not know when she had started to care about him. Not the way you care about a classmate, or even a friend. She only knew that right now, looking at the mark on his wrist, she did not feel trapped, or rushed, or scared. She felt the way she felt when she came home after a long day, turned off the light, and finally let her shoulders drop.

'So,' she said, trying to steady her voice. 'What now?'

He let out a slow breath. 'Now, nothing is decided. The mark just says we are connected. It does not tell us what we are supposed to be. That is our choice.'

'A real choice?'

'A real one.'

She looked at him for a long moment.

'Okay,' she said finally. 'Then for now, let us just keep doing what we are doing. Researching. Eating bad noodles. Being two ordinary students with very unordinary wrists.'

He laughed, and this time he did not try to hide it.

'I would like that,' he said.

Later, when she walked home in the soft autumn dusk, Lin Yue kept her left sleeve pulled down over her wrist. She did not feel afraid. She only felt, for the first time since her mother had told her they were moving, as if she had arrived somewhere she was meant to be.

The plum blossom in her pocket, still as fresh as the day she had picked it, was quiet and warm.

She smiled, just a little, to herself.

'Together,' she whispered.

Somewhere in the trees above her, a single late plum blossom detached itself from a branch and drifted down onto her shoulder, as if agreeing.

Winter came slowly that year.

Frost crept along the edges of the school windows. The plum trees in the courtyard stripped down to their dark, graceful branches. The days grew shorter. And somewhere, far above the ordinary world, another Silver Moon was rising.

'It will be stronger this time,' Gu Yan said. They were in the hidden library, sitting on the floor with their backs against a shelf. The pale book with Lin Yue's name on it was open on her lap. More lines had appeared in it since the mark on her wrist. She could read them now in her own handwriting, clear and sure.

'Stronger?' she asked.

'The Silver Moon grows when a mark is answered,' he said. 'Now that yours has awakened, the school will respond. Something old will try to rise again in the back courtyard. If we do not guide it gently back to sleep, it could -' He paused, as if searching for a word that was honest but not too heavy. 'It could hurt people.'

She traced the letters of her own name on the cloth cover. 'Can we do it together?'

'That is the plan,' he said. 'You do not have the training I have. But the mark on your wrist is stronger than any training. You just have to trust yourself. And trust me.'

She looked up at him. 'I do.'

He looked away, as if the words had been a little too direct.

'Good,' he said, a touch gruffly. 'Then we will be fine.'

The night of the Silver Moon came clear and cold. The sky was so bright that Lin Yue's shadow moved along the pavement as she walked to the school. Her mother thought she was at a late study group. It was not quite a lie, either; she was studying, after all, just not from any textbook that would appear on an exam.

At the gate, Gu Yan was waiting. He looked very still in the moonlight, his long coat dark, his breath rising in slow clouds. When he saw her, his shoulders relaxed just a little.

'You are on time,' he said.

'I had practice last time,' she replied.

He smiled, small and tired and real.

They walked together through the silver courtyard. The plum trees glowed faintly, as they had the first time. But tonight the air felt heavier, thicker, as if something very old had turned its head to look at them. Lin Yue felt her mark begin to warm on her wrist.

'It is awake,' Gu Yan said quietly.

They stopped near the old well. The stone around it shone silver. A soft, low sound, not quite a whisper, was rising from below, like a sigh a century deep.

'Do you remember what I showed you?' he asked.

'Yes.'

'Breathe with me.'

They breathed together, slow and steady. Lin Yue closed her eyes. She felt the cold air on her cheeks, the warmth of the mark on her wrist, the steady presence of Gu Yan just beside her. She felt, underneath all of these things, something else. A tired presence. Something that had once been loved, and had been alone for a very long time.