“I’ll do better next time.”
His uncle stood. “You’d better.”
Sen had the sudden memory of his master Jobo killing the serow, its blood gushing over his hands; its squeals; its abrupt silence. His words.This is what your family is.
“I’ll make you proud,” Sen said. “I’ll make our ancestors proud. I’ll fix our name, I swear to you, I’ll wipe this shit away, and replace it with something people will talk about for a thousand years. Theywillknow my name. I’ll make sure of it.”
His uncle considered him, seeming to see the fire and the rage of shame he felt boiling away with every beat of his heart.
“Good,” he said.
As Sen rose, he saw that Tokuon had remained at the edge of the platform, watching him. Sen met the cold eyes, saying nothing, and spat again upon the deck.
Tokuon smiled.
CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE
Rui
The grass lay like a sea below them, rippling waves of dry and faded green. Above, the silent churning of the sky.
They had been traveling for weeks. Rui paused on her walk, tasting grit and burning charcoal in the air. Some of the Jibashiri had started their cooking fires already. Flickers of ash floated up toward the evening, and the air unfolded with the smell of roasting waterfowl. A few of the men, in the gap between their tents, had started some kind of drinking game, throwing dice beside the fire.
But the sky was heavy, and Rui didn’t like the feeling of impending rain. A chill passed through her. She ignored the calls and wolf-whistles of the men and made her way along. With the low wind coming down over the southern slopes of the Gisan mountains, she wondered where Lord Tokuon and his homeguard were. They had ridden north while Rui followed the sisters and their Jibashiri directly south, and then west, through the fertile valley plains and into the townlands at Kiseda. Gisan was above them; Tokuon’s lands. He was there, with his homeguard, praying at his family’s temple and raising the bulk of his army.
And Sen was with him.
She turned back from the edge of the camp, where she’d been watching the sunset under the gaze of the solemn mountains. The smells of the cooking fires made her stomach rumble.
She thought of her god again.
Are you there?she asked.Are you listening?Above her a round moon peeked through drifting cloud, and she wondered if the Hososhi was watching, waiting within her or around her in the fabric of the world itself.
Hello?
The night, the god, they didn’t answer.
Are you there?she asked.Please,can you hear me?
She didn’t ask another time. She walked the edges of the camp, thinking,Perhaps they’re gone, but she knew it wasn’t true. Knew that whatever she did, the god was with her, and would be, until they got whatever it was that they wanted.
I have a use for you, they said.
She wondered what it meant.
She hoped Sen would be safe with the protection of Tokuon and his guard. She hoped they all would be.
A storm grumbled at the edge of the horizon: a clash, thunder and lightning like a battle somewhere over the royal city to the west.
She had never seen the royal city. She did not know the color of its gates. But she knew enough. She knew how it wouldfeel.
It was the same. It was why the Lady Ogami’in had done so much to forge a peace, to break away and lead the eastern lands with independence. Because the empire would do what empires always did, what they were designed to do:grow. Take land, bring the wilds into itself, and claim dominion.
A sound in the bushes to her right. A small movement, a fox, or a raccoon-dog, running in the dark, and for an instant, she thought she saw two shining eyes, reflective as mirrors; but the moment that she turned, they slipped away. A quiver in the brush, then silence, and the fox had gone.
“So happy birthday,” Jobo said, stirring a pot over his fire. She smelled the fragrant broth; mushrooms, and turnips or white radish.
“How’d you know it was my birthday?”
