When he pulled away his hood, she saw a rough-featured man with broad arms and a beard, gnarled and sweating. “Who are you?” he huffed. “Standing as a ghost in the night?”
She straightened. “What business brings you to these woods?”
“Let me pass, no’in. I don’t want to ride you down.” He glared.
“Who are you?”
“I am Kaji Getoh, retainer and blood-guard to the poet, Yora Shijin. Who areyou?”
They left her outside the tents past midnight. Jobo, and the sisters and the others. High-ranking kijin generals, consulting with the man, Kaji Getoh. The Poet’s bodyguard.
They left her outside, alone but for the frozen logs beside the fire, an eerie, whistling wind, and the stares of other soldiers who watched her as they passed.
“What do you want?” she shouted. They didn’t answer.
This isn’t how it should have been, she thought. The god was with her.
“It’s time,” they said.
And again she shouted, “What do youwant?I can’t kill a demon like you say!”
But she was alone, and the only ones to hear were other members of the Jibashiri, who shifted, glancing over cloaks and shoulders at the girl who spoke to no one, and turned away.
“Time,” said the god again.
They were waiting for her to reply, but she couldn’t. The clouds pressed down, glowing faintly, spirals of radiance and lightning behind their veil. Her breath shook. She couldn’t speak.
Then the meeting in the tent was done, and the warriors came out. Thetent opened, shifting heat met colder air, and the light of lanterns blew dim. Jobo bent under the flap, saw her by the guard-path, poking embers. The pale face of moonlight shone about him, as if he’d come from shadow, and one hand held his staff with its jangling rings.
“Rui,” he called. “Come.”
“What is it?” she asked. “What’s happened?”
“We’re being sent out again,” he said. “As I think you know. But before that, someone wants to see you.”
The giant warrior, Saito, helped Sen limp into the tent. Rui had seen him during the attack, but even so, she still gasped at the sight of him: Sen’s injuries had grown into a constellation of bruises and cuts across his hands and face. He moved carefully, wincing and holding a hand to his ribs.
“Not so pretty, huh?” he hissed as she embraced him. “Rui, not so hard.”
Rui apologized, fell silent; they both waited – then, together, broke into a laugh. Sen pressed his forehead to hers. It had been so long. So much had changed. “I thought you were gone,” he said.
“Never,” she said. “Never.”
An awkwardness fell between them. She asked how he was feeling. He said,I’ll live.He looked away, opening and closing his hand. “You’re being sent out,” he said at length, repeating the news because he seemed to have nothing else, no words to tell her how he felt. “The rider,” he murmured, “Kaji Getoh, he’s one of my uncle Yora’s retainers… He told us they’ve fled the capital, and now… now they’ve gone…”
“Sen,” she said.
“What?”
Rui kissed him before he could say another word. Kissed him with the force and urgent pull that had been building in her for weeks. Felt the devastating, almost violent press of him as his mouth opened up and he kissed her back, a motion of surprise giving way to everything – oh,everything– else.
It was a mistake, and she knew it, and didn’t care. And in a moment, his hands had gone to her shirt, folding it open, and Rui pulled his robe apart, her hands brushed skin and he flinched, said, “Rui, careful.”
She said, “I won’t hurt you.”
Sen fell back against the cushions with a gasp. Rui moved tenderly, feeling the warmth across her cheeks, her skin, pressing herself against him, keenly, flutteringly aware of the heat of him and the erection between his legs. “Rui,” he muttered. “What are we doing?”
But he was already reaching for her. Slipping a finger through hersash while his other hand pulled her recklessly harder, and she just said, “Ohhell.”
