"Eat your breakfast, both of you. If I hear another argument about instinct before you have finished, I will take the sword manuals away and make you discuss gardening instead."
Gu Yangjin immediately reached for another pastry. "That would be cruel."
"Then consider it motivation."
The conversation returned to ordinary things, but the strange sensation remained in Gu Yangjin's thoughts. She did not want to worry her mothers over something she could not explain, and she had no reason to think the feeling was dangerous. Still, after breakfast, when she returned to the courtyard and lifted her sword, she found herself glancing toward the empty walkway once before beginning her practice. Nothing stood there except sunlight, blossoms, and the faint shadow of the tree branches moving in the breeze.
