“I’ll go. I’ll fulfill our duty. I’ll get them back for this.”
She closed her eyes, as if pressed by a deep grief, a weight in her heart that had suddenly grown.
“I cannot order you to stay,” she said, quietly, “but I would ask it of you.”
“We are his family,” Tokuon said. “The boy is right.”
“I’m not a boy!” Sen cried, louder now. “I’m the second heir to our clan. Son of Katsusada Asa’in of Amayari. I have to go.” He turned to his stewardmother again.
“I don’t have a choice.”
When the doctors and the priests had ushered them away, they gathered in another of his mother’s meeting-rooms. Nihira let out a shout of anger, releasing the emotions he had refused to show in his mother’s presence, and smashed his fist against the wall. Hakaru was a stone, sitting on the floor with his legs drawn in, staring at nothing; he subtly shook his head, as if he couldn’t comprehend what had happened.
Tokuon made to speak, but Nihira slapped his hand aside. “Out! All of you! Out! Family only.”
Tokuon looked like he would strike the younger man, then nodded. “We’ll be outside,lord.”
It hit Sen all at once. Whether or not Iyo survived, Nihira had to take his mother’s place. He was shifting, grim, his cheeks still wet with tears, but Sen could see it in him now, the strange feeling of loss and responsibility that Nihira had always felt.
He was the Ogami’in now.
That night, Sen went back to the little hut at the end of the outvillage to see how Rui was doing.
One moment, and the next, he thought,and the world was changed for ever.
One moment, he was in Lady Iyo’s halls, watching as a war unfolded before him. The next, he was in the no’in town, sitting by Rui’s side. One moment, the sun sets, the skies light up in flame; the next, night comes; gods come; your cousin brings hawk-feathered death with him and says,It’s time.
Rui had woken, still pale, breathing with weak breaths, but doing better. She looked so fragile. She looked exhausted, like she hadn’t slept for a week.
Lose focus, and one moment turns into for ever.
“How’re you feeling?” he’d asked.
“I feel… like there’s a thorn in my head.” She tried to sit up. “I feel like someone’s holding my heart in their hands, and they’re speaking to me, but when I can’t hear them they give a squeeze.”
What do you want?they’d shouted, at the god.
What was the answer?I see evil coming.
“Sen…” Rui tried for a brave face and failed. “It’s fine. I’m all right…”
She was lying, he knew. Whatever the god had done, in that hollow in the trees, it had made her very ill.
He sat. Suddenly, tears came, before he had a chance to stop them.
“Iyo’s hurt.”
Rui grew quiet. “I heard.”
“It’s…” Sen found himself speaking, and not sure what he was trying to say. All he knew was that, if anything, he wanted to be held. He felt shaky all over. His fingers trembled. “They don’t know if she’s going to make it. I…” His voice cracked. “I’m sorry…”
“You’re talking to the girl who just got struck by a god. You don’t have anything to be sorry about. That’s what you told me, remember?”
Something shifted in him, like a waterfall, like a dam at the brink of collapse. “The army will march.”
“I know.” She gave a weak, pained smile, which made him hurt evenmore. “Here.” She reached for her jade bead, on its string. “Keep it. It… it’s your family’s anyway… You’ll need it more than I do.”
“I can’t take this from you,” he said. “It’s yours.”
