Her heart was unsteady; she might have been drunk on plumwine. She looked into Zen’s face, open with earnestness and a vulnerability she had never before seen in him, and in this moment, all the trials and tribulations she had gone through to get here might have been worth it. Lan lowered her gaze. The red cord of the necklace had somehow gotten caught over their fingers; it draped over both of their interlocked hands, seeming to bind them together. She thought of what Ying had told her of the red threads of fate, of how each Hin was born into this world with an invisible red cord tying them
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