and I will tell you my name
CHAPTERFORTY-NINE
Sen
His summons came at dawn. There was ice in the air, and weariness, and a cloying scent, stale and hollow. The smell of death. Sen hadn’t slept. He’d tried. He’d fallen to his cot and thought he’d pass out from exhaustion, but instead the night wore on, and he had only the sounds of the wounded to keep him company.
In the darkness before dawn, his spirit broke, and finally, finally after it all, he allowed himself to feel.
To mourn the loss of a hundred men he never had a chance to know.
To grieve his horse, his Kaminari, who died for him.
To feel the gritty taste of dirt mixed with blood.
He slipped into tortured dreams, flashes of gore and horror, and woke again.
Then, in the dark of night, Kai came.
Sat with him alone in the medical tent, a gash in her shoulder that the doctors bandaged before his eyes.
She said, “I’d be dead if not for you.”
She said, “Yora never told me you survived.”
It was only then, at the end, when the two of them were left alone and the night stretched on, that they shared what had happened, what each of them had seen when the battle came.
How the Keishi crossed the bridge.
How Akiyo ambushed them from the wooded hills.
How their uncle, Yora, died.
It was only at the end, when they’d gotten past the first few awkward moments, that the weight of it came back.
It was only at the end that Sen saw his sister cry.
Now it was morning. Now the summons came. Sen winced as he dressed in fine clothes that Tokuon had given him, smooth silk running over cuts and bruises on his side, and made his way to the generals’ pavilion again. Saying, if only to himself,I’m ready.
On the hill, it was like he’d passed into a different world.
The men gathered, great generals and sword-saints of the Kanden kijin-tai. The combined force of the Gensei army, all of them ready to fight, all of them loyal to Kai’s claim.
White cloth of their banners fluttered in the breeze. A bite of cold struck the air. The tent lay at the top, overlooking the plains and the massing army that had come.
Kai waited on a stool at the center.
A queen.
Gone was the vulnerable woman Sen had met the night before. Gone was the hurt, the pain and the openness with which she said,You saved me.Gone was the child she showed within her heart. Instead, dressed in red-and-white, Kai had swallowed everything, pushed it down until the mask was all there was. She kept her face like stone.
Sen was summoned to the inner ring.
There were messengers. News had come, saying that far-off Lord Zusho had risen in support, and, with the help of uncle Kiie’s daughter Mitsuko, defeated the Tokeishi in Muzo. War had begun.
The message said:We have the Kanden plains.
The entire weight of our clanline now rests on her shoulders, Sen thought.I hope she knows what she’s doing.
