One breath, one moment, and the world falls away.
The great temple had been put to flame while they were dealing with the wounded. Great swathes of smoke, set intentionally, the abbots cried. They had formed a chain, put the fires out. But they needed the lord. They needed her orders.
“A stranger, seen on the castle walls,” cried the abbot, sweating profusely, his face still smudged with ash.
They fought to put the fire out, he said, but when they did, they found sabotage; the younger acolytes reported seeing someone – a shadow – with a mask before the fires were lit.
“More and more,” Iyo swore. “The Keishi are no killers in the night. Not like this. They were never like this…”
She increased her pace, crossing the wide courtyard by the stables. “Sen,” she called, “come quickly.”
“Lord,” Sen said, concerned. “Who do you think it was?”
“I think—”
He was still five paces off when he heard.
A wind. A cry.
A whistle through the leaves.
Two arrows sliced through the darkness, hit Iyo in the chest and shoulder.
“Iyo!” Sen screamed.
She fell.
The guards were shouting, pointing at two veiled, shadowed figures who’d been perched, invisibly, atop the wall. Torches went up, chasing after them, but, as Sen lay in shock with his stewardmother in his arms, they scaled the walls like cats and vanished.
“Go after them!” he shouted.
Iyo tried to stand. So fast, Sen thought.You lose one thing and another. My mother. My father. My life. And now…
Breath choked his lungs. The fear came stronger than before.
“Help!” he cried out, panicking. “Somebody help me!”
In a moment, the alarm bells were ringing, struck by sentinels at the gates. The entire compound came to life, and Iyo Ogami’in lay bleeding in his arms.
“Sen,” she rasped. “Son…”
“I’m here,” he said, “I’m here, Ogami’in.”
“Not your fault,” Iyo said. “Don’t let this…”
“What is it?”
“I have tried…”
The rest of her words were too faint to hear.
A shout drew Sen’s attention to the entrance of the courtyard. Nihira and the homeguard had returned. Nihira nearly fell to his knees when he saw what had happened, racing to his mother and his adopted brother.
“It was an arrow,” Sen said, uselessly. His mind wasn’t working. Nihira could see the arrows in his mother’s chest.
“We need to get her inside,” Nihira said.
“Assassins from the capital,” Tokuon hissed. Torches cast long shadows about the walls of their urgent council; Tokuon and his inner circle were armed to the teeth and Hakaru had accused them of betrayal.
