“They… they gave me a tent by the horses, ame’in… I’m supposed to report… I’m sorry…”
“You don’t have to apologize.” Myorin had moved to her things now, and was pulling on a cloak. “I’m not keeping you here. But there’s a fire if you want to come back.”
Thank you, Rui wanted to say, but nothing came out.Nothing ever comes out.She could feel herself closing off, same as always, and didn’t know why. Her chest ached; she left.
She walked the camp, lost in a whirlwind of emotion she didn’tunderstand. The days were growing short. Midwinter: a new year approached. What would it bring? She thought of the soft line of Myorin’s face, her dark eyes. Her graceful movements. The muscles on her shoulders, hips.Hell, she thought.What are you doing? She’s way too old for you…She kicked herself.Who are you kidding?
Just like me, she thought,to fall in love with every hot-blooded kijin that I meet. And every man and woman of them barely knows I exist.
Pain laced through her, the god-scar, getting worse. She felt it at the bottom of her chest, down into her core, spreading out like tar. Sometimes she felt it in her gut, thin as spiderwebs, tough as silk, spiraling into the center of her body, her chest, and her heart.It’ll keep going until it covers my legs and reaches the end of my fingertips, and then it will be all I am, and what I am, what was me, will be lost.
Something changed, a glimmer, a depth. She pitched to the side, suddenly nauseated. A light caught at the corner of her eye. Movement. A glow, like fireflies in air. She felt the pain like a splinter in her chest.
The Hososhi was here.
“What do you want?” she snarled.
“Always the question, always the same.” Their voice came from everywhere and nowhere at once. The Hososhi shifted before her, always at the edges of her vision, a rustling of leaves and a gust of wind she couldn’t quite escape.
“I’m tired.”
“Good. Then you won’t take your mission lightly.”
“I don’t know what my mission is!” Rui shouted.
The fields lay silent.
“Hososhi, please! You have to tell me something! I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, I don’t know what you want me to do! You have to tell me something.”
“I have a use for you,” the god said once again. “The demon is coming, Rui. Listen for the bells.”
“What will I do?” Rui stumbled, shaking her head. “Please, tell me something. What will I do?”
“You will die,” the god said, and vanished.
CHAPTERTHIRTY
Demons
The girl watched.
A dozen men came, stormed the former-emperor’s manor and began arresting household guards. She wandered the streets outside, having walked from the great gate of the world to the doorstep of the palace. Time didn’t matter to her; she grew neither tired nor hungry. She never blinked. She lingered. She kept to the side, quiet as a ghost, remaining just within the shadow of a door, or wall, or gate.
The girl watched; from a distance, she seemed as any other child on the street: threadbare clothes devoid of color, straw sandals, one hand scratching at her head. Commotion on the imperial avenue. The Ten’in, Ashihara, was moving to his wife’s estate. Or, more accurately, his wife’sfamily’sestate. Their mansion was now his, and as always, the child – in this case, the emperor-to-be – would be raised in his mother’s home. The House of Six Waves. The House of Keishi.
She watched; the procession stretched the length of the street itself. Trailing from Ashihara’s ankles all the way back to the paired orange and cherry trees at the foot of his palace, half a city away.
She watched, just another set of eyes among the crowd. There were whispers. City-dwellers and the traders coming through. Everyone talked. Everyone jostled, said,Look. You see now what has come.
“A new prince,” people murmured. She wandered through the throng, as they waved and clapped and bowed around her. They did not see her.They had eyes for no one but their Ten’in, the heavenly descendant. They said he would step down, that Ashihara would retire as so many of his forebears had, and pass the throne to his infant son.
Why make a baby your sovereign?the girl wondered. But then, she knew: standing at the gate to welcome them, a man in flowing, flowery robes. Gray splinters on his cheeks, gray eyes, a bald head like a priest.Bright Seikiyo, people whispered.Thechancellor. An imperial person must live a life of ceremony; there were rules, there were traditions. Prayers and audiences must be made. If, and when, Ashihara was to retire, he would be free of them at last, and thus able to lead his own house without restraint. Except theelderretired-emperor still lived, and as Ashihara’s father, he, Goshira, was still the head of their line.Two retired-emperors, living at the same time,people said.No good will come of this. It will be a fight.
But it’s already a fight, the girl thought.It’s been a fight for years.
She watched; she wandered. She floated about, drifting from one street to the next, wallowed along the roads outside the capital until the sun began to set. It was time to go.
She’d been following the Keishi son, Shigeo, for some time. He had not done well after his lover’s death. People said,A man’s wife makes him what he is –only now, she was gone. Killed. His beloved infant son was sent away. He’d thrown off his courtly attire in fury. He’d shaved his head. He turned his back on his own father, went on a pilgrimage for guidance.
