I saw my grandfather's shadow savoring stewed snail. That was his salty dinner. He must have spotted mine, too, wavering in the corridor, and heard the quiet shushing of my clogs, but he said nothing, nor did he turn around. I heaved open the door, unfastened the great, iron shutters before them, and went out.
   It was so dark when one was not looking directly at the sky that there appeared to be nothing in the entire world but sound. It was a new moon, and I could hardly even see the snow. The colichemarde was hidden in my sleeve, strapped to my bare forearm: an ice-cold message. With it, I walked all the way to the edge of the forest, and, there, under the warm and sharp perfume of the cypress, I waited for him.
   The rhythm of his tread did not strike my ears until I had begun to fall asleep. I started and felt a terrible ache in all my fingers, which brought to mind the painful suspicion that had muddled my dreams the night before. I feared that, though my hand would be cold and stiff, and my attack ineluctably awkward, he would make no attempt to evade the arc of my dagger. I knew him well enough to know that he was capable of doing even this without viewing it as treachery.
   He did not move close to me. We faced one another. I suspected that he had a better view of my face than I did his because my eyes had always been poor. It would be impossible to say what altered then, either in his pose or his bearing, to suggest the humiliating and fateful question. I nodded only so that he would step forward.
   When he did, motley rectangles at his shoulders flashed their silver and gilt threads subtly. These were his honors. A new one was woven for every target. I thought that my brother must be represented by now, although, of course, I could not have told which colors he had been given.
   Covertly, I tugged the hilt of the dagger until I felt the blade slipping down through the rope. He approached me with soundless steps. Eyes I had seen staring over the sill of the window in my childhood bedroom, mid-morning on a humid, April day, in a world fragrant with wisteria. And now they were bloodshot, and the black irises were like mirrors; so much death had made them entirely opaque.
   When, finally, he was close enough for me to touch, and his broad face, beginning with the chin, had formed itself within the barest mist of starlight and my vision, I shrieked, dropped the colichemarde, and ran.
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   I wandered the woods sightlessly for hours. When I returned to myself, I could hear the sound of gently running water and so knew roughly where I was, but my feet and ankles were entirely numb. It took me several minutes to recollect what had happened. I looked down at my right palm, the only part of my body possessing even a specter of warmth, and saw that it was bloody.
   The dagger had cut me near the elbow at some point on my earlier walk. Since he had seen it, S--- would know what I had planned, and would know that, though craven, I was his mortal enemy. With these thoughts, I began to tremble violently. I thought of my grandfather eating his dessert: sea buckthorn and the sweetmeats that I had made out of taro flour, sugar, and preserved clementines at dawn. No, it was long past that time. He would certainly have gone to our neighbors. He would certainly be wondering where I was.
   But it was done. I walked toward the trill of the water, the bubbling song, which told me exactly where the creek ran, gargling through ice. It was done, I reflected, remembering the dull shock on the face of the mercenary as I had screamed. It was done. The stars chortled in silver. Both siblings had faltered.
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   Later, in the witching hour, I sat by a still, deep pond and counted my breaths, knowing that they would soon halt. Not a single creature seemed to stir in the entire wood but me. In winter, I realized, this forest was the opposite of a wilderness. Instead, it became a sort of vestibule for life. Summer's corridor.
   My grandmother, before she died, had often warned that there are wages for a lack of ambition. She had directed the maxim to my late brother and not to me since, as a girl, I was exempt from ambition, or so I had thought. My highest dreams were of silk brocade and of revering someone else's courage. I had never wanted to leave our village. I had never wanted to know anyone but S--- and my family intimately. I had feared sacrilege like death. But fate rides strong vicissitudes, and that humility had made my life a curse.
   I rolled my body leftward in the snow, inching toward the halfway-frozen pond. When my outstretched knuckles touched the frigid water, I wept, but I kept going until my submerged hand felt utterly unlike itself and utterly unlike anything sensible, righteous, or expected, but instead like a live hand gripping that of a corpse with all its might. I let my sleeve touch the water, and instantly knew that, even had I possessed the strength to strive and paddle, the weight of my robes would be more than enough.
   I gave a push, using the last of my will to launch myself into the water, and a lustrous murk wondered over my vision.