Uncle Ryuji waited, his armor polished to mirror brightness despite everything. He was every bit theDai Shogunin formal mourning, ready to lead the military procession. His eyes met mine across the courtyard, and he nodded once.
“Heika.” A servant bowed. “It is time.”
I took my place at the front of the line.
Alone.
As was the tradition—the highest-ranking mourner walked alone. He led the dead to their burning.
The Emperor was dead.
I was all that remained.
So I walked alone.
The gates opened.
The drums continued their steady, heartbreaking rhythm.
And so we began.
The streets had been lined with citizens since dawn. They’d come to mourn their emperor, to witness his funeral procession, to pay respects to the man who’d led them for three decades.
They wore white.
They held white flowers.
They stood in respectful silence, then kneeled with foreheads to the ground as we passed. The silence as we strode by felt charged with grief, fear, and uncertainty.
Every ten paces, braziers burned incense. Smoke rose in wavering columns, thick enough to taste, sandalwood and cedar and something else, something sacred that only the priests knew how to blend. The air became heavy with it, dreamlike, as though we walked through another world.
Behind me, I heard monks chanting, low voices that sounded like they came from somewhere beyond the mortal world. Underneath jingled the brightting-ting-tingof Shinto bells, notes hanging in the air like liquid silver.
I walked, and kept walking, because stopping meant thinking and thinking meant breaking.
One foot in front of the other.
White robes swirling.
Incense smoke burning my throat.
Drum beats marking time I couldn’t reclaim.
My father was dead.
My brother was dead.
And I was walking them both toward the fire.
The sun beat down, hot and merciless, despite the late autumn chill. Sweat ran down my back beneath the layers of silk. My feet ached. My legs trembled.
Still, I walked.
Citizens began throwing flowers, white lotus petals that landed at my feet, crushed beneath my next step. White chrysanthemums. White peonies. Soon the entire path wascovered in a carpet of blooms, like snow that bled across the streets.
Someone called out: “Blessings on the Emperor!”
Another voice: “May Kioshi-samafind peace!”
