The night was moonless, the chamber lit only by a single oil lamp that cast dancing shadows on the painted screens depicting scenes of dragons and emperors from ages past.
Somewhere in the palace, a night bird called, its cry lonely in the darkness.
Moments of blessed silence passed. Takashi’s eyes had just begun to close when an odd sound cut through the quiet.
Wsht.
Nawa’s ears perked up, twitching toward the ceiling.
A secondwshtbrought her head fully upright, her golden eyes now wide and alert. The heavy tip of her tail flicked at some threat Takashi couldn’t see.
Wsht.
Nawa roared and pawed at her face.
In the lamplight, Takashi saw it—a dart protruding from her eye, dark against the amber of her iris. Black veins spread from the wound like poison through water.
Wsht.
Another dart slammed into her side, bouncing off her scales to clatter on the polished floor. She tried to rise, teeth bared, and Takashi felt the heat of flames gathering in her throat—but something was wrong.
Tendrils of mist rose from where the first dart had struck, clouding her remaining eye.
“Nawa!” Takashi tried to sit up, but his body wouldn’t respond. A strange numbness spread from his chest. When helooked down, he saw them—two darts piercing his sleeping robe, rabid stains spreading across the white silk like spilled ink.
Certainty struck with odd clarity, as if he were observing someone else’s death from a great distance. This would be his end.
Nawa gaped down at her claws, but they were already dissolving, the hungry mist transforming her solid form into translucence.
Through their bond, Takashi felt her terror—not for herself, but for him.
“Takashi—”
She snapped her head toward him, and he saw himself reflected in her remaining eye—motionless, bleeding, dying. The mighty dragon who had carried him through countless battles, who had been his closest companion since his earlier memories, could only watch as the mist consumed her.
I am sorry, he tried to tell her, but whether through their bond or aloud, he couldn’t say. The numbness had reached his throat.
As the last of Nawa’s body evaporated into nothingness, Takashi glimpsed movement—a figure in black crouched on a ceiling beam like a spider, watching. The assassin turned toward the window and vanished into the now-moonless night, leaving only silence.
The bond that had been Takashi’s constant companion, warm as a hearth fire in his mind, went cold.
The absence of Nawa hurt far more than the poison spreading through his veins.
His last thought as darkness crept in from the edges of his vision was not of the empire he’d fought to unite, nor of the peace he’d built from ashes; it was of his son, Kioshi, riding into Asami territory on a fool’s mission he had crafted to keep his people safe.
The irony tasted of copper and regret.
He’d sent his boy away to protect him from the vipers in his own court, never imagining the snake would strike here, in his own chamber.
Forgive me, Kioshi,were his final words, spoken only in his mind, as the chamber fell silent.
No guards would enter until dawn.
By then, the Empire would wake to find itself fatherless.
The incense before the shrine burned low, its smoke rising in a perfect line toward heaven.
But the gods, if they watched at all, offered no intervention.
