They left behind them four dead bodies and a burning shack that no one would remember. Already the flames had started to take hold, growing hotter as the child followed her into the dark.
“Sister, look,” the girl said, nodding toward the shadow of the mountains. An immense shape lingered there, high above them, moving slowly. A giant. “Gods.”
“Yes,” she said. “The pilgrims.”
Above them, great shadows churned and shifted in the sky, elemental shapes in human form, but skeletal, made of a darkness thicker than smoke and far off as the moon. Huge, they lingered, so huge it seemed they might reach out, carve the entire mountainside away in one soft scoop of bone and shadow. As the white-clad woman tightened her black cloak, and took the girl’s hand, the giants vanished, floating through the edge of the horizon and merging with the night itself.
“They come when there is blood now,” the woman said. “Soon, perhaps, they will return into their world, and ours will have some peace.”
When they had passed the gate and found the road again, the girl tugged at the woman’s hand. “Sister,” she said, “I can’t remember anything. About before.”
“I understand, child. It’s all right.”
“How come?”
“You have been harmed by great evil, child. Your spirit is hurting. Are you scared?”
The girl shook her head. “I just want to remember.”
“That may come, in time,” the woman said. “Until then, we must continue on our path. But remember, this is all for you, child. You must remember that. Everything that happens now, it will all be done for you. Now come.”
The temple burned behind them, slowly at first, but then with a surge and a great sheet of flame that consumed the right-hand wall and showed no sign it would abate. The cobbles glinted bright as tiny mirrors in the rain.
The girl spoke. “Sister, you said you’d tell me why so many people have to die.”
“I will,” the woman said, “but it’s a story that will take some time to tell.”
“Sister,” the girl asked again, “where are we going?”
The temple burned, flames rising to the black of night, and as they left, the roof began to collapse. A stream of life-streaked embers shot into the sky and the darkness came again. The woman watched, for just a moment. Then she led the girl down the road.
“To end a war, my dear,” she said. “To end a war.”
CHAPTERTWO
Sen
17 years later
Shoho Year 3
Era of the 80th emperor, Ashihara Ten’in
5th day of the fifth month
Summer
Sen Hoshiakari, adopted son of Lady Iyo of the East, rode toward the straw-woven target at full tilt. It was midsummer. A high, towering day, with a brilliant painted sky over the sloping meadow, light tufts of pampas grass swaying in the wind. Hawk-feathered arrows sliced the air. He eyed the target on approach. Twenty horselengths. Ten.
He loosed the bow—
And missed.
“Shit!”
The arrow cut cleanly through the air, passing the target and thrumming as it hit the dirt a dozen paces off.
He wheeled his courser, Kaminari, through the meadow-waves, preparing to be rebuked for missing the shot. He had a strong arm, he knew, tall as he was, and slim in the waist and shoulder, yet still he struggled with his bow; Hakaru, his adoptive stewardbrother, would never let him forget it. His eyes were dark, his features sharp, his black hair tied behind his ears. Like his stewardbrothers, Sen did not wear the gaudy colors of the royalcity, preferring gentle, earthy tones instead, greens and blues and whites that would suit a forest waterfall; and always, the small jade stone around his neck, a legacy from his birth.
