My uncle, theDai Shogun, stared. His eyes were full of something that might have been pride. Or grief. Or both.
“Of course,Heika,” he said, bowing low.
Then Uncle Ryuji bowed again—a real bow, deeper than he’d ever given me before—and left to carry out my orders.
Mother’s chambers were silent when I arrived.
Too silent.
Her ladies-in-waiting clustered outside the door, their faces drawn. Uncle Ryuji stood among them, and when he saw me, he shook his head slightly.
“She knows,” he said quietly. “I told her as gently as I could. She . . . hasn’t spoken since.”
I pushed past him and into the chambers.
Mother sat by the window, still wearing her white mourning robes from Father’s death. She looked small in them, shrunken, as if grief had physically compressed her. Her hands were folded in her lap, perfectly still. Her eyes stared at nothing.
“Mother?” I approached carefully, like I might startle a wounded animal.
She didn’t respond, didn’t even blink.
“Mother, I’m so sorry. About Kioshi. About—”
“My sons are dead.” Her voice was flat. “Three in truth. One to diseases, another to poison, and the third now to the throne. My sons are gone.”
The words nearly staggered me. “I’m not dead, Mother. I’m right here.”
“No.” She finally looked at me, and her eyes were hollow. “You are Emperor now. Whatever you were before—whatevermyHaru was—died the moment you gave those orders in the council chamber. I have already lost my boys.”
“Mother—”
“Get out.” Still that flat, dead voice. “The Empress Dowager must prepare for the funeral. She has no time for ghosts or hollow words.”
I stood there, frozen, while she turned back toward the window.
I’d been dismissed by my own mother. She’d cast me aside so many times, but this one stung more than I cared to admit. Still, she was right—I wasn’t simply her son anymore. I couldn’t be, not when I had to become a god.
I stepped out and slid the door closed behind me.
Uncle Ryuji looked up. “Give her time,” he said quietly. “She has lost everything, and now her youngest son is about to become something she cannot hold on to. She needs time to grieve.”
“We don’t have time,” I said, and my voice sounded empty even to my own ears. “Heaven will not wait.”
“No,” he agreed. “It won’t.”
The gardens were empty when I found them.
I’d dismissed my guards at the entrance. I needed space to breathe without being watched. So, I stood alone among the ornamental cherry trees, Kioshi’s sword heavy in my hands. I’d taken it from his body, removed it from his side before they’d covered him in silk, before anyone could argue that it should go to the funeral pyre with him. It was hisheiwa-ken, his peace-sword, the one he’d carried every day since coming of age, the one he’d been wearing when he disappeared. It was a miracle Eiko had returned it, a small act of grace—or, more likely, another attempt to needle us in our grief.
The blade caught the morning light as I drew it. Perfect steel stared up, perfectly balanced, with our familymonetched into the guard. Father had commissioned it for Kioshi’s sixteenth birthday, had presented it in a ceremony with the whole court watching, declaring Kioshi ready to bear the responsibility of Imperial blades.
I was twelve, standing in the back, wondering if I’d ever be ready for anything.
“Heika?”
I spun, the sword still drawn.
Grandmother stood at the garden entrance, her ancient face carved from weathered stone, her eyes seeing too much. The last thing I wanted in that moment were the ravings of an old woman. Her normally incomprehensible babble was amusing on most days—but this was not most days. Still, one did not shoo away his grandmother when her grandson lay dead on cold stone.
