“What’s your name?” The girl looked at her with a flash of surprisingly light, speckled eyes.
“Rui.”
“That’s an interesting name,” the girl said. She gazed at her hands. Rui found herself wanting to look at those light eyes again.
“What’s yours?”
“Tokeishi-no-Aosaki Zusho-no-Nanamihime Atsuko Saeda.” The girl spoke with a formality born from a childhood in the court.
“Zusho?” Rui’s eyes widened.
“I’m sixteen,” the girl said. “I’m of age.”
“You’re a noble,” Rui said.
The girl looked away. “I’m just Atsu now.”
“What’re you doing fighting wars?”
Atsu shook her head, looking at her with something like a smile, overwhelmed, and in pain. “I don’t know.”
“Well,” Rui said, hesitantly, “I’m new here, too.”
Atsu began to speak, then stopped. “This isn’t what I thought it’d be,” she said at last.
Rui smiled. “Tell me about it.”
Atsu’s eyes met hers, but briefly, then fell to her thin hands again. After a moment, she began to rummage through her bag. “Look. Spearberries. I found some by the river. Want one?”
She handed Rui one of the bright red berries like a bead; it fit in the palm of her hand. “Though I suppose they’ll be ground to mush soon enough. They don’t last long once they’re plucked.”
Atsu fell silent, pressed her thumb into the fruit until it burst, leaving a crimson stain across her fingers. Her face lay streaked with tears. “My parents,” she said. “They were at Deer Valley. They cut off my father’s head.”
“But Zusho are a Keishi family.” Rui didn’t understand. “What’re you doing here?”
Atsu could only laugh. A painful laugh, a laugh of tears. “Not so loyal anymore. They’ve been overlooked too long… And the Gekko’in is with them now.”
“The Gensei heir?”
She nodded. “They’re killing everybody. Killed children. Bashed my little brother’s head against the wall. I had to get out.” She shook her head again. “Had to get out.”
So many, Rui thought, so many of us, lost and orphaned by these wars. “My parents were killed as well,” she said. The girl glanced at her again, with the simple, unmoored gaze of someone who needed help. Rui offered a hand. “We’ll help you,” she said. “Don’t worry… New recruits gotta stick together, right?”
“I’ll never forgive them.” Atsu wiped her tears away. Her simple sadness had been replaced with something else, something darker. Rui could see it in her, see it as it burned. “Never,” she said again. The spearberry juice from her fingers had left a stain on her cheek, faint pink, like rouge.
Soon a sandaled foot came out of the darkness and poked Rui on the back of the neck. Myorin was standing on the top of the dyke, wearing her armor and an amused expression on her face.
“So you’ve met,” Myorin said. “Atsu has been helping us with messages from the capital. Thanks to her, we know where the prince will go.”
“Go? What do you mean? Go where?”
Myorin turned, curt. “We’ve had some news.”
Soon, Rui was following Myorin to her tent. “Aosaki-no-Atsu. Of the Tokeishi line. That kid. We found her a few days ago, outside Tose, starving, trying to race a dying horse down to Satsuki.”
“What happened?”
“They killed her father at Deer Valley. Her mother made her run. She’ll be executed.” Myorin sighed. “It’s all starting now. The scholar-kings are in a panic.” She unbuckled her sword and placed it on a stand by the cot bed. “I wonder if that will be a good thing for us. Or a bad one.”
