“Very well,” Goshira said at last. “I will return, then, to my residence. You can tell yourchancellorwhere to find me.” He made to leave, stopping only when he’d reached her place again.
“Yaeko,” he said, looking down.
She bowed. “Yes, Chiten?”
“I hear you’ve finally been promoted. They’ve let you start to wipe the stain clean; you must be happy.” He offered a thin smile. “Finally where you were always meant to be. You have my congratulations.”
“Thank you, Chiten,” she stammered.
“One last thing. Give this to your lord, if you please. Seikiyo has won a great victory today, over his enemies… But he would be wise to remember,more enemies exist.”
He drew a silk-wrapped paper from his robes. “A gift. Given to me. Now I give it to your master, as a token of respect.”
The purple silk touched her hands. An envelope inside.
“Remember,” he said, “a gift from a friend.” Then he turned, surrounded by his shrouded guard, and strode away.
The envelope wasn’t sealed. Within, a single piece of paper rested in the folds, elegant and white. When she drew it out, she saw it was a poem. Not just any poem; it was the one that Kai had written, so many months before.In the evening light,cicadasfall silent…
Yaeko knew, then, what the Chiten meant. It was a threat.
He’s telling us he isn’t done.
He’s saying: I still have power. I pull the strings.
It’s a challenge. He’s saying,I did this.
But how would Seikiyo react?
She turned to call to him again, but he had already left.
The young attendant they’d given her murmured an approach, asking where his lady would like to take her rest. She pulled her helmet from under her arm and threw it at him. “Get away from me!” Then softened, as the young boy shrank back, and tried to calm. “I need to see the chancellor. Immediately.”
The boy ran off, leaving her alone in the hall. The hanging scroll of Yora’s famous battle against the nightbird still hung loosely by the entrance. As if on cue, two attendants arrived, and cut it from its hanging. The portrait of the Gensei warrior fell to the ground in a heap; they bundled it away, and when they left, the wall stood empty. The hall grew quiet.
This is how it starts, she thought.This is what’s happened to the search for peace.She strode away, retrieving her helmet from the floor, and wondered,If you saw me now, Yora, if you were with me, what would you have me do?
She found her lord in the infirmary, bright light pouring through the windows. Seikiyo was visiting the wounded, trailing from one ward to thenext, his hands clasped, gray-specked stubble on his head. It was a difficult sight. The maimed and dying were on cots throughout the hall, and Yaeko remained in waiting as he passed the beds. Passed the wounded. Some of them recognized him, and turned, reaching, shouting, crying in pain.
On a cot apart from the others, Yaeko saw the form of her former schoolmate, the Gensei general, Yora’s daughter, Tsuna.
A flood of memory hit her then, memory of a different time, at the Hermitage and after. Yaeko had loved her, once. Now she clung to life but weakly; her breath fought as it could. Her body struggled. Her bloody sheets were stained, and damp, and still.
It was not yet clear if Tsuna would survive.
A sound; Seikiyo was leaving.
Yaeko walked on.
That night, she met Seikiyo at the altar in his residence, where he kneeled in prayer for those lost.
Praying for his friend the Poet, maybe, too.
He had a ceramic jar in his hands, stopped with cork, and as she watched, he opened the jar and a small beetle emerged. Holding it a moment, he allowed it to crawl onto the back of his hand.
“Dark worm-magic is a dangerous thing,” he said vaguely. She wasn’t sure if he knew she was there at all. “The demon-emperor used such magic once… when he began losing his mind. Trap several small insects or worms together in a jar. One by one, they devour each other. And whichever worm remains alone, the killer of the others, that’s the one you nurture. You feed it, and feed it, and in turn, your spirit feeds the ghosts. And the great power, the gods of death, emerge. Because you have given them a sacrifice…”
“My lord,” she began, uneasy.
