“They’re not real arrows, fool,” Hakaru shouted from his horse. “I’m notcruel.”
“Hakaru, enough!” The crowd parted swift as goats about a tiger, and another lord rode through them, followed by his guards on horseback. It was Nihira, she realized, whom they called the Wolfsmoke; he had always made his presence known to them while at the temples. “What is this?”
Hakaru made a sour face. “Some fun, brother. We’re practicing. They do it in the capital.”
“And you want to be likethem?”
Hakaru spat into the dirt, and, for a moment, Rui could see his hesitation. “Who gives a care.” He sent one last terrible glare at her, whistled sharply, and his men began to pack their bows.
Nihira watched as they rode away, jaw clenched in irritation. He clearly didn’t like Hakaru’s games. He turned about on his horse, facing Rui and the no’in again, and Rui caught a glimpse of him towering over her, narrow-featured, with high cheekbones and thin, pretty eyes with long lashes. Taller than his bullish brother, he moved with an elegance born from long practice in the rings. “No’in,” he said. “What’s your name?”
“Rui,” she stammered, as the fear still clawed her throat. “My name is Rui…”
“I like your courage, Rui. You have a strong heart in you.” Nihira brought his courser close, breath huffing. He saw Koroku and the stalls, the mares they’d brought up for the race. “So you know horses, then?”
“Yes, ame’in. I tend the stables, at Koroku’s by the road…”
“Ise.” Nihira called to his retainer, a lean man who offered a foldedpaper from within the folds of his riding coat. It had the lord’s crest, wisterias in a ring. She took it, head bowed low. “Come to the stables,” Nihira said. “At harvest’s end. I’ll find work for you there. Think of it as a reward, for your good work… And to atone for my brother’s behavior.”
He wheeled around, shouting, “Congratulations, all! The first of the harvest is done! Your hard work will keep everyone fed and happy for another year! Your taxes are reduced and we will be sharing rice-wine with you all. We thank you, for all you do. My mother knows her debt to you; she does not forget! We are of this land. We were born of this land, we’ve bled for this land! And the land feeds us. So we may serve to protect you, who tend the fields and the harvest and keep us all alive. Farewell.”
The riders thundered up the hill, and the pressure was released at once; an audible wave of relief passed over the crowd. Koroku collapsed, trembling at the danger they had so narrowly avoided. His eyes met hers and he swatted at her weakly with a hand. “They could havekilledyou,” he gasped. “What were youthinking?”
He fell back, trying to catch his breath. Rui didn’t know what to say. It had happened so quickly and she’d acted on instinct. Her heart pounded in her chest. She had the note in her hand.
Permission to Enter on the Lord’s Business.
That evening, as she lay on her straw at the top of the barn, she found herself thinking of the Hoshiakari again. Rui grudgingly admired the Gensei heir, how she’d seen him at the echo pond, the day the serow died. When they spoke, he’d been so sure, so effortlessly proud. It was the confidence of being highborn, a confidence Rui would never have.He’s my age, Rui thought,but he seems so much older.More powerful. So sure of himself.
But what am I?Rui thought.He barely even looked at me. He has no idea who I am.True, she couldn’t remember much about her home before the night her parents died, but her whole life, she had felt a kind of connection to the Gensei, the way her family had sheltered Sen and his mother and their aides, in those last moments before the imperials hunted them down.
Sen.She tested the name on her tongue, then fell back to the pillow.Who am I kidding, she thought.Quit feeling sorry for yourself.
Sometimes she wondered if something was wrong with her, seeing others in the village end up together, sleeping in each other’s homes, marrying, having children. She’d never once been part of it. She felt the longing, yes, the desire and the urgent pull of it when she lay on her pallet late at night, but not the act. She could bring herself to satisfaction, but the thought of doing it with another living breathing sweating feelinghuman being was so alien as to be almost impossible to comprehend. It made her wonder, sometimes, if that was how other people felt about the gods: unattainable, beyond reckoning, immense, and in a whole world where you would never go, full of things that you would never do but that you were supposed to want.
And she did. She did want. And yet, she didn’t. I want to love, she thought,but always look away. Why do I do nothing? Why is there this shadow in me, which closes off my heart?
She’d had crushes, boys and girls who caught her eye, but they’d never lasted.Is this just me?she’d wonder, watching the shift of cloudlight and the rising of the moon.Is this just who I am?She could imagine being with someone. Shewantedto be with someone. And yet, never had.
What she longed for was the way that it seemed so many people found each other so easily. She wanted to rise into that feeling; she dreamed about it, made fun of herself for it, but she never found herself with that same desire in the real world. Nobody was interested in her and she was interested in nobody. She wasn’t looking for sex. She’d tried. She was looking for something else and didn’t know what it was. Companionship, friendship? What were they, if not also love?
“Hell,” she muttered, rolling over. “I’m just lonely.”
Who knew, maybe working in the fortress would be a good thing. Maybe she would meet someone, make some friends. Maybe it would help.
Outside, the air began to settle. A cold came in, a shifting of the world, in its blue dusk; a moment where everything felt at pause. The wind caressed her cheek, billowing over her before it left. Her heart calmed. Her worries, for the moment, began to ease. Beyond the rim of the paddy-fields and the rise of the mountains, the light continued to change. It molded itself around the contours of the woods and rolling hillsides, just as the gust of wind had molded itself to her. The sky turned a deeper blue.
Peace, she thought. And for an instant, seemed to sense the voices, in a language she couldn’t really hear, of her parents, whom she’d lost. Of her family. Her people, who welcomed her, and told her, in their air-light way:You belong.
Outside, the air grew chill. The open window brought another breeze. The winter season soon would come. Above, a flat moon hung heavily behind the clouds, its luster pale and shining, and the fields lay silent by the road. Somewhere a nightbird took flight, shattering the stillness; Rui turned to her side to watch, waiting for it to return, and remained like that until she fell asleep.
CHAPTEREIGHT
Yora
He watched the hunters from a distance. There was a shout, a triumph in the trees. Someone must have felled a deer. The Keishi clansmen were calling to one another, ready to take the hunt into the woods. Hawks circled in the sky.What do they see, he wondered,those sharp-eyed hunters in the blue?Do they see us as of a kind? Or merely another target?No, he told himself.They are indifferent.
The summer had been humid, marred by storms from the south, and even now the air hung heavy, pressing like a damp embrace. He longed for the winds to come and the air to find its chill; when the leaves fell and the world showed its colors again, as it changed into the season of long nights.
