Children.
Yoshi was the heir to AnzuHan, and I . . . well, I’d killed men.
But here, in this palace, we were nothing.
So we sat and watched the place evolve before our eyes.
Even the servants changed. They still moved like ghosts, but now many carried messages instead of tea, weapons instead of flowers.
The Hall of Ancestors, with its centuries of Imperial portraits, had become a thoroughfare for military advisors. Yoshi and I watched them stride past those ancient eyes without even glancing up, their own eyes fixed on scrolls.
“My grandfathers are in a hall like this,” Yoshi said quietly, standing before a portrait of an emperor from centuries past. “Watching everyone rush by without anyone really seeing them. I wonder if they feel forgotten, too.”
“We’ve only been here a few days, and I’m already starting to hate this place,” Yoshi whispered against my shoulder, his breath warm and frustrated. “My sister is out there somewhere—enslaved, maybe dead—and I’m sitting in a golden palace playing at being important. What good is any of this?”
The Windows of the Western Tower, where we’d taken to sitting in the afternoons, offered the clearest view of the contradiction. Below, the capital spread like a painting—white walls, blue roofs, the peaceful maze of daily life—but now we could also see smoke from forge fires working through the night rising high and blocking out the stars. We heard the endlesslines of conscripts being herded to training grounds and supply wagons clogging every major street.
Paradise prepared for hell.
“Do you think it was like this when your father went to war?” I asked as Yoshi traced patterns in the dust on the windowsill.
“I don’t know. I was too young to remember. Or maybe they shielded me from it.” He looked at his finger, now gray with dust. “No one’s shielding us now.”
“No oneseesus long enough to shield us from anything.”
By the third day, despite all the palace’s marvels, we both felt utterly aimless. We were less useful than the decorative vases displayed on pedestals. At least they had a purpose, adding beauty and tranquility to their surroundings. At least people looked at them before rushing past to plan battles.
“We should ask to see Haru,” Yoshi said that afternoon, not for the first time. “Just . . . demand an audience or something. We came all this way with him. He can’t just abandon us.”
“He didn’t abandon us. He’s the Emperor—”
“He’s not the Emperor. His brother is still alive.” Yoshi’s voice held an edge I rarely heard. “And even if he becomes Emperor, he’s still Haru. He promised to help me control this . . . this thing inside me. I haven’t seen him since we entered the city. Not once.”
And that was the crux of it, wasn’t it?
We’d left Suwa Temple because Haru needed people he trusted, because Yoshi needed help with his power, and because I’d been ordered by shadows I didn’t understand; and yet, since arriving in Bara, we’d seen Haru exactly once—a glimpse of golden robes disappearing around a corner, surrounded by advisors, too far away to even call out to.
“Maybe we could train,” I suggested, though we’d already trained for three hours that morning. “The eastern grounds—”
“I’m sick of training!” Yoshi’s frustration finally boiled over. “I’m tired of running through the same forms, doing the same exercises, feeling this power surge and having to suppress it because if I let it loose, I might hurt someone important and cause an incident. Do you know what happened yesterday?”
I shook my head.
“I was going through thekataand a master’s reed came down on my shoulder—you know how they do. I felt the power start to rise, like anger bubbling beneath my skin. I felt myself beginning to move faster, and I had to stop—but Icouldn’tstop. I threw one punch, one open palm to the master’s chest, and sent him flying across the yard like I’d just tossed a child’s toy. The poor man had to be hauled away to the healers by a pair of his brothers who’d been watching the whole thing. You know what I saw in their eyes as they carried him away? Fear. Kaneko, they were afraid.Of me.” He pressed his palms against his eyes. “I need Haru’s help. He knows what this is like. He can show me how to control it, how to live with it. Hells, I can help with the war or whatever, but he’s too busy being a prince to remember he promised—”
“He didn’t promise,” I said quietly. “He helped when he could, but things have changed.”
“Everything’s changed—and nothing has.” Yoshi dropped his hands, and I noticed dark bags forming beneath his eyes for the first time. “By all reports, my father is preparing for war, the Emperor is dead, Haru mightbeEmperor, and here we are, counting the hours until something interesting happens or someone remembers we exist.”
One might think a few days living in a palace without a single duty or purpose would be welcome, would give us time alone to rediscover ourselves, the “us” we’d lost for over a year. And yet, every night, I felt him twitch in his sleep, his body jerking with unconscious bursts of speed. He’d wake gasping, disoriented,tangled in sheets that had twisted around him from movements too fast to control even in dreams. His frustration was building like water behind a dam, and I didn’t know how to help him.
At least at Suwa the monks had tried to help. Then Haru had shown him the way and made him feel capable instead of cursed. But here, without guidance, Yoshi was drowning, and I was begging to worry that he might be strong enough to pull us all down with him if no one stepped in to offer a hand.
“Maybe we should just leave,” Yoshi said one evening, staring out at the city. “We could go back to Suwa. At least there we had purpose.”
“I don’t think the temple will take you back until you’ve mastered your gift. You certainly couldn’t train with the other students now.”
“Then we go somewhere else. Anywhere else. One of the shrines might be able to help. The Shintomahou—”
