“Just for now,” Rui said. “You can give it back when we reach the capital.”
“Rui…”
“I can’t let you go do something stupid,” she mumbled. “Someone’s gotta… watch over you…”
He gave it back. “They won’t let you,” he said.
She looked away, fell back against the cot, the blanket, and he realized how faint she was. He touched her cheek. “You’re burning up.”
“I’m… fine…”
Her eyes told him that she was anything but. Her jade bead gleamed, deep stone-green traced with gold. It seemed to shimmer in the candlelight.
“I’ll come with you,” she murmured faintly. “You know I can fight.”
“You just need to get better,” he said. “Just rest.”
He wasn’t sure if she heard him. She muttered silently, turning about in her sickbed. He helped her under the covers.
“I have to.” She spoke suddenly, for a moment crystal clear. “No one else will help you there… Withthem…”
Sen wanted to ask what she meant, but Rui had already drifted to sleep.
He hesitated, at the door, to find that she had rolled to the side, back to him, and pulled the blanket over her shoulder, so that he could no longer see her face.
Jobo was waiting for him outside. “So, how’re you doing?”
“They’re moving out.” Sen couldn’t find a way to answer the question head-on. “They’re gathering. Everyone. The Gensei. I’m going with them.”
“You know,” Jobo said, carefully, “blood is just blood… It doesn’t set your path in stone. Doesn’t define you.”
“They’re myfamily…” Sen stopped, unsure what to say. “We were attacked.Thatis set in stone… we have to do something.”
“And you’ve decided what you will do?”
“Teacher…” A needle lanced through his heart. “Will… Rui be all right?”
“There is strong magic in the west,” Jobo said. “It’s been coming for quite some time. Something’s happening in the capital. A thousand years the spirits have been banished from the human world, but the power of the emperors has weakened. The deal they made with the gods is falling apart. Spirits are being splintered from their homes, and lost at the borders, bleeding into this world in numbers that haven’t been since the Sunlit Empress… And now our friend Rui has been struck by a god.”
He turned. “Do not go with them to the capital.”
“They need me.”
“What about your friend? She needs you. We must journey to the west. Find what sorcery is going on there.”
“Then come with me.”
“I dare not. That way is the way to war. A demon has come into our world. It walks across the countryside and I fear it has come for you.”
“Why?”
“I cannot see. But it is linked to you, Sen, in some way that is still obscured. It makes me worry. If you go, you will be in danger.”
“Then I’m in dangerhere,” Sen said.
Jobo scratched his stubble. “This is true. Any choice we make may prove to be a mistake, but we must act. I must go to Mount Takano, search for answers there.”
When he looked at Sen, it was a look that said,I’ve failed.“Be careful, Sen. Your family is there. War is there. It will draw you in. They will try to make you one of them.”
