Before I could respond, another knock echoed through the chamber.
We both froze.
“Heika?” A woman’s voice. Not a servant. “It is Mother. May I . . . may I enter?”
Esumi’s eyes went wide, and I saw panic flash across his face. Being caught here, alone with me in the middle of the night would be catastrophic, especially if it was my mother who caught us; but there was nowhere for him to hide, and Mother was already opening the door.
She stopped short when she saw us both.
For a long moment, no one moved.
Mother stood in the doorway in her white mourning robes, her face still filled with grief but her eyes sharp. Those eyes movedfrom me to Esumi and back again. I watched her expression shift from surprise to understanding to something cold and hard.
“I see,” she said, her voice like ice. “I am interrupting.”
“Mother, I—”
“Don’t.” She held up a hand. Her gaze fixed on Esumi, and the temperature in the room dropped. “You. Out. Now.”
Esumi bowed immediately, deeply. “Yes, Your Majesty. My apologies for—”
“I said leave.”
He glanced at me, uncertain.
I wanted to tell him to stay, wanted to defend his presence, but the words stuck in my throat. Tomorrow, I would be Emperor. Tonight, she was still my mother, and she was still in mourning. I couldn’t find it in myself to defy her.
I nodded to him slightly. “Go. I’ll . . . see you in the morning.”
He bowed again and slipped toward the door. As he passed Mother, she didn’t budge, forcing him to edge around her. The door closed behind him with a soft click.
Silence stretched between us as Mother stood there, still as stone, her hands clasped in front of her. In the lamplight, she looked older than I’d ever seen her. Smaller, too. Her Imperial robes seemed to swallow her whole.
“Mother, if you came to lecture me about—”
“One does not lecture Divinity.” Her voice cracked on the last word. She closed her eyes, took a breath. When she opened them again, something in her expression had softened. Just slightly. “I came because . . . because you are all I have left.”
Her words struck like a gauntleted fist.
“Tomorrow you become Emperor,” she continued, her voice steadier now but still strained. “Tomorrow you stop being my son and become . . . someone else.SomethingI can’t hold, can’t protect, and I . . .” She paused, struggling. “I realized I had not told you anything, had not prepared you, had not—”
“Mother, it’s all right. You don’t have to—”
“Yes, I do.” She moved further into the room, her steps stiff and formal, as though she was walking across a field of shattered glass. “I have been a terrible mother to you, Haru. I know that. I have been cold and distant, more focused on Kioshi because he was Crown Prince. I told myself you did not need me because you were not . . .” She stopped. Started again. “That was wrong. I was wrong.”
I stood there frozen, having no idea what to say. This wasn’t my mother. My mother was distant, controlled, and untouchable. This woman looked like she might shatter at any moment.
“I do not know how to give you advice about being Emperor,” she said, and now her hands were shaking where she held them clasped. “Your father tried to teach me court politics, but I never cared for it the way he did, the way Kioshi did, but I know this.” She looked at me directly. “They will try to control you—the ministers, the generals, the nobles—they will use your youth and inexperience against you. They will push and prod and test you every day.”
“I know.”
“Do not let them.” Her voice turned fierce. “Donotlet them make you doubt yourself. You are Takashi’s son. You aremyson. You are stronger than they think, cleverer than they expect, and tomorrow—” Her voice broke. “Tomorrow you will have power they cannot imagine. Use it. Do not let them trap you the way they tried to trap your father.”
“Mother—”
“And that boy.” Her eyes hardened again, just for a moment. “Esumi. I do not . . . you know I do not approve. He is not of rank, and if the court confirms—” She shook her head. “But I also know what it is like to be lonely in a palace filled with people. You will need those near you, those you can trust andlove, those who will love you regardless of what the world might say. So I will say this only once, and I beg you to heed my words: Be careful, my son. Whatever you feel for him, whatever he is to you,be careful. The throne has no room for weakness, and love—” Her voice cracked again. “Love is the greatest weakness of all.”
The day seemed to crash into her all at once. Grief she’d been holding back, the control she’d maintained throughout the funeral, all of it crumbled. Her face twisted, her shoulders shook, and suddenly she wasn’t the Empress Dowager anymore. She was a mother who’d lost her husband and her eldest son in the same week.
