“My lord…”
She stopped herself. How old her lord had grown, how frail. Once renowned for strength, he was but a small man now, muscles swapped by skin and bones, circles underneath his eyes. “You are a member of this family,” he told her once. She hoped it was true.
“My lord,” she said. “Your daughter is here. She… wishes to speak to you, she’s waiting in the Violet Mansion.”
“So, the sons die, and the daughter returns.” Yaeko wasn’t sure if she was meant to hear.
“Well.” He rose. “Let us go.”
In the harbor of Isawa, there was a place, when the tide was low and the season was just right, where the blue waters would recede, pulling back from sand and stony shores, and a cave would emerge, loping curves ofrock and cobbled stone, polished by saltwater and lashed with weeds, bordered by the calls of gulls.
In these caves, they said, the boys of Keishi used to climb, and play and bring their friends, when they were young, descend the glistening depths while half-afraid the waves would come and crush them down. A second cave emerged, another; it was said, among the sea-lords of the Keishi of the west, that somewhere in the deepest cave there was a holy place, a shrine dedicated to the god of winds. It was said that Seikiyo had put it there himself, carving pieces out of driftwood. It was said he went down there alone, in the days of his youth, in the quiet hours; it was said he stayed until the tide came back and the entrance flooded, cutting him off from the earthly world, and left him with his gods. It was said he would emerge inspired and refreshed; his mind had better focus. It was said that this – that shrine, that cave, those waves – this was how he’d made his plan.
We’ll be buried at the borders nevermore, he’d said. The Keishi will find a way. We will grow. We have been their ship-tenders far too long.
It’s time to act.
She looked at him now, sitting silently on his small cushion while the brothers argued at his feet. Hagane, too, was there, quiet like her father, eyes missing nothing, her handmaid Taneko but a pace behind.
Seikiyo’s face had changed in these last days. Shigeo’s death had devastated him, and it marked a final straw in the breakdown of relations with Goshira.
He looked into his only daughter’s eyes, and a communication seemed to pass between them.
“Father,” round-faced Shosei said, “Nioh intends to make a claim. He intends to gather the clans.”
Seikiyo’s voice was so burdened, so harried, it sounded bored. “Under what banner?”
“The Gensei, lord.”
“You see?” Seichi roared. “Itoldyou. Where’s the Gensei heir? Where is Kai?”
“She has left the capital,” Yaeko said.
“Then find her! Bring herback!”
Hagane warned them not to antagonize the court any further.
“The court is under our supervision,” Shosei said, dismissive.
“Not the Hara, they see you as usurping their place as regents.”
“I don’t care about the Hara!”
“You should,” Hagane said. “There’s a reason those traitors at DeerValley worked against you. If the Gensei rise, they may find more support than you think.”
“Which is why we must find the—”
“Listen.” Seikiyo stopped them. “Listen to me.”
“Father, we must do something,” Shosei began, weakly. Seikiyo waved him off.
“I know,” he said. “I know.”
So soft, so weary now. Yaeko waited. She wanted to stand, to say,Kai Gekko’in did not kill your son.She wanted to say,Remember your friends.She held her tongue.
“Yaeko.” He spoke. “Have I ever told you the story of how I found this seat at court?”
“You won the wars,” she said.
