A deep silence fell after Master Chen's words, all their eyes were turned to the girl who looked so out-of-place in her clean robes. Her lips were pulled back in a savage snarl, but she said nothing.
Chu Yun didn't know what feelings inhabited everyone else's silences, but for his part he felt a deep, all-encompassing sorrow.
Somehow, her tragedy too was his fault. He swallowed thickly around the knot in his throat. "What...what is her name?"
"She answers to A-Ran, even though she doesn't speak, her hearing is fine." Master Chen spoke about her with compassion, his tone mellow, not at all like the man Chu Yun had met when he and Xiao Zai went to Harmonious Resonance.
Perhaps he felt a kinship with her due to his own disability, perhaps simply her story had moved him.
Chu Yun turned to the Queen Dowager. "Should we write to inform the King of Su?"
