True hearts remain, they never die.
Yoshi.
His name was a constant ache in my chest.
I didn’t know if he was alive or dead, didn’t know if he’d made it to safety or if thewakohad slaughtered him on the road, didn’t know if . . . if he thought of me the way I thought of him—obsessively, desperately, with every breath.
But the woman’s songs gave me something to hold on to.
If she could hope, maybe I could, too.
If she could believe someone was waiting for her, maybe I could believe that Yoshi had survived, that he was rebuilding Tooi . . . that he remembered me.
That someday, somehow, I might see him again.
The thought was ridiculous—insane, even—but I let myself imagine it anyway.
In the quiet moments, when the invisible chains felt too heavy and the walls too close, I pictured his face, his smile, the way his hair fell across his forehead and his eyes lit up when he solved some problem no one else could see.
“He’s alive,” I whispered to the darkness. “He has to be. He’s somewhere safe, learning to be theDaimyohis people need, the manIneed.”
Some nights, the woman’s songs shifted, her melody turning bittersweet:
And if the sea should claim my breath,
And darkness be my final rest,
Still will my love reach out to you,
A light that guides you safely through.
My eyes burned as I pressed my forehead against the wall and whispered, “Thank you.”
I doubted she could hear me, doubted she even knew I was there, but I needed to say it anyway. Her songs were the only thing keeping me sane, the only reminder that beauty stillexisted somewhere in the world, even here, even now, even as we sailed toward an unknown fate in bewildering captivity.
Some nights she would cry again, and I would press my hand to the wall, wishing I could tell her that her songs had saved me.
But I couldn’t.
All I could do was listen. And wonder. And hope.
Chapter 2
Kazashita
The ships shrank, sails dissolving against the backdrop of the endless sea, until only tiny dots remained.
And then they were gone.
I stood at the water’s edge, waves lapping at my boots, staring at the empty horizon. The sun hung low and red, bleeding across the sky like an open wound.
My hands clenched into fists at my sides.
I’d run. Gods, I’d run as fast as I could, crashing through the jungle, tearing through underbrush, stumbling over roots and rocks in my desperation to reach the shore. My lungs had burned, my legs had screamed, but I’d kept going, because if I could just get there in time—
But I hadn’t.
The shore, its blazing sand searing pimples into my feet, was empty.
