***
Seventeen year-old Flame woke abruptly, shifting on her straw mat. It's Qing Ming Jie, without a doubt. Every year around this time, Flame would have the same dreams. Sometimes they'd come on other days too. Waking from them always left her with the strange sensation that she'd left her body for another, and that the one she'd returned to was not her own.
The book had felt heavy. Flame shook her hands. In her dream, they'd felt as heavy as if they'd been in pudding. The flames hadn't felt hot either. There was dust everywhere, and her mother had told her not to forget...
But it wasn't dust, was it? Flame doubted there was anything to dust; she'd never even seen her parents' graves. The thought filled her with sadness. She looked around the dark sleeping room at the empty spots where Jade, who taught her staff, and Yue, who wasn't as helpful but gave her tea, usually slept. They were both gone, as were most of the other girls. Even though Flame found conversation with them rather superficial and devoid of use, she might have talked to one of them now, if they'd been present. But all of them had gone home to pay their respects at the ancestral graves, and then picnic in their ancestors' honour.
No, there was something else she was supposed to remember, and she couldn't remember it. She shook out her sleeping mat vigorously, Magistrate Li's unnatural face still in her mind. An owl hooted, and Flame wondered if it was eating the buns set out early to cool. But owls didn't eat human food, Flame recalled. Crows did. They ate whatever they saw people enjoying; sometimes they would even attack people for food. Unconsciously, her mind wandered to her mother, who had always set aside funds for the sweet buns Flame loved.
The thoughts made Flame feel more and more melancholy. They were also meandering. The sword, with its watery hammered steel layers came to mind. She decided to find her elder sister. Maybe her sister would know what their mother had wanted her to remember.