They were pressed so closely together, Yuta could feel her tears as they trickled down her cheeks and onto his.

“You remember Kannanak, the great god of fire?” she asked.

“He lives in the mountain,” Yuta said. “He’s angry with us.”

“No, Yuta,” his mother said, “Kannanak is not angry with us. He is not angry with anyone. Anger is in his nature. Fire has no hate in its heart. It just wants to burn.”

“But people get hurt.”

She nodded, trying not to cry. “Yes, Yuta, people get hurt.” She pressed her mouth against his ear and closed her eyes.

“This is the story of the Great Tern, mother of the birds. She was the most beautiful of all the gods. Her cloak of feathers spanned the sky. She frolicked among the clouds, dancing with the birds in a mirror of the ocean’s playful waves. She loved the ocean, and the ocean loved her. She filled the skies with joy and laughter.”

His mother paused as footsteps passed outside. The violence had returned. The screams began anew.

“My mother must have seen them checking under the buildings now. She told me the story to keep me from noticing.”

“Then, one day,” his mother said, “Kanannak slew her.”

“What?” Yuta was horrified. “Why?”

“He told her how beautiful she was. ‘Great Tern, Great Tern, surely, you are the mother of all beauty! Your dance is a treasure that warms my heart.’ But Kanannak’s words were fire and lava. They burned the Great Tern. She fell into the sea, blackened and charred. Kanannak wept, guilty and broken-hearted. ‘Why must I destroy?’ he cried. But no one answered him. Seeing this, the ocean dredged the Tern’s body from the depths and presented it to Kannanak. ‘If you wish to honor her, make beauty from her death. Do not be indolent, O God of Fire. Attend to your duties.’”

“And so Kannanak took apart the Great Tern’s body and fashioned it into new creatures—the Children of the Tern. They were beautiful things, with tails of light and wings of sunset. They frolicked in the skies, lords among the birds, mirroring the ocean’s playful waves.”

“Something bad is going to happen,” Yuta muttered.

His mother pressed her hand to his forehead.

“Men saw the Children, and coveted them. They wanted their beauty. Men set out with a fleet of ships, with their slender harpoons and oiled bows. They would shoot them out of the sky. Kannanak saw this, and he yelled, ‘Look out, look out, O Children of the Tern, the hunters are coming’.”

“Then I saw it,” Yuta said, in the now.

We stood in the darkness together, looking down on mother and son.

There were footsteps coming down the street on the right. He saw the men checking under the buildings, with torches to illuminate the dark.

In the memory, Yuta’s child-self reached for his mother. She grabbed his hand and held it tight.

“The hunters did not harm the Children. They didn’t fire a single shot, for there was nothing left to kill. Kanannak’s words of warning had burnt the Children to ash. Their bodies fell into the sea, blackened and charred. Kanannak wept, guilty and broken hearted. ‘Why must I destroy?’ he cried. But no one answered him. Seeing this, the ocean dredged up the Children’s ashes from the depths and presented them to Kannanak. ‘If you wish to honor them, make beauty from their death. Do not be indolent, Fire God. Attend to your duties.'”

Out on the street, one of the voices yelled. Yuta turned his head as the footsteps drew close, but his mother grabbed him by the chin, and kept his face pointed to her.

“Kanannak spent many moons wandering the beach, thinking of what to do with the Children’s ashes. The ashes sparkled like diamonds, as beautiful as the Great Tern herself. But the god of fire was filled with fear. He did not want to destroy again.”

“Look, the food!” someone yelled.

“So he threw the ashes higher than his highest, up and up, into the empty sky. The ashes did not fall back to earth. They held fast to the sky. They are still there, the Children of the Tern. They are the stars, glistening and bright.”

“I don’t understand,” Yuta said, with tears in his eyes. “What does it mean?”

“Be beautiful, my son.” His mother kissed him on the cheek. “Always be beautiful, no matter what.”

Yuta could hear hands and feet scraping at the dirt. Beams of wood were heaved about.

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“I see tracks! The Costranak scum must be hiding with the rats!”

His mother whispered in his ears, so softly, he almost couldn’t hear it. “Don’t let them know I’m your mother,” she said.

“Mama…? I—”

“I love you forever. Don’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault.”

Then Yuta’s mother grabbed him by the wrist and crawled toward the other end of the building’s foundation, toward the opening out into the day, dragging him with her. “You’ll never take him back!” She screamed, yelling for all to hear. “Never! Never!”

She yanked him through the gap between the wood and the dirt, scraping the broken slats against his back. The wood stung and drew blood.

Yuta screamed.

The back of the ruined shop came up against the wooden palisade’s hefty stakes. Throwing Yuta onto the ground, she began to kick him in the chest, screamed at him in her native Costranak. Yuta didn’t know what half of the words meant, only that they were filled with cruelty and evil.

Out of sight, a man yelled in Munine: “Stop that Costranak bitch!”

Yuta’s mother kicked him harder.

Seconds later, a man plunged a bamboo spear through her chest, ramming her body into the palisade. A woman leapt over Yuta as she rushed to his mother and smashed her face in with a club. The woman didn’t stop until his mother’s mind was splattered all across the wood. Handing the spear to a companion, the man who murdered Yuta’s mother picked the boy off the ground and held him in his arms.

We watched from off to the side. Yuta had turned away, not wanting to look. Geoffrey, on the other hand, couldn’t bring himself to look away.

“My mother was a clever one,” Yuta said, in the now. He did not turn to face us, but I knew he was weeping. “To this day, I wonder at what point she thought of it—that last, brilliant act of hers.”

“Brilliant?” Brand asked, aghast.

Yuta turned to face us. “As a boy, I looked hardly any different from other Munine children. My mother’s murderers were so filled with hate that they could no longer see the world for what it was. Instead, they saw what they wanted to see: a rich man’s Costranak concubine, pummeling a defenseless Munine child.”

It wasn’t until his mother’s killers had carried him away that Yuta began to sob.

“She was the only reason I lived.”

— — —

I sensed Yuta’s spirit gravitating toward another point in his life as that horrid memory came to an end. I let him take the lead, guiding us to our next destination.

The scene changed. We stood in a room of sumptuous restraint. The furnishings were few but divine. The lacquered wooden floor shone like sheets of amber. Rows of robed courtesans knelt at either side of the room, lying prostrated, with their arms on the floor. Every kimono was a masterpiece: here, a crane among marsh-reeds; there, iris blossoms tall and deep. It was a symphony of colors, accompanied by harsh-blown reeds and an accelerating, woodblock drumbeat. The floor on the back half of the room rose up to a second level a footstep above the first, with the edge of the platform cordoned off by a sliding wooden grate. A magisterial figure sat cross-legged behind the grate, his face obscured by the gaps in the wood, and the translucent white veil that hung from his hat—a black mesa, tall upon his head.

Yuta’s memories told us who he was: Sakuragi.

A younger version of Yuta knelt at the center of the room with his head held low. Before him sat the Daimyo’s interlocutor. The interlocutor wore a broad, vivid purple coat, with peaks on the shoulders and a bright red sash down the middle.

The interlocutor held a katana in his hands. The same katana Yuta had had when I met him.

In the now, from where we stood off to the side, Yuta rested his hand over the hilt of that self-same weapon.

Behind the grate, Sakuragi leaned forward, whispering something into the interlocutor’s ear. The interlocutor spoke only once his lord was finished.

“For your service, his Excellency has rewarded you with a title of the realm. Accept this sword, and with it, the inception of your House and Lineage.”

In the memory, Yuta lifted himself up, but only just. “I am humbled beyond all words,” he said. He reached out, even as he kept his face pointed to the floor. “I thank Lord Sakuragi for his beneficence. Long may he serve our glorious Emperor.”

Leaning forward, the interlocutor placed the katana in Yuta’s awaiting hands. “Then rise,” he said, coming to his feet. “Rise, Lord Yuta Uramaru. His Excellency has high hopes for you.”

The memory’s Yuta sat up slowly, with the utmost deliberation. He cautiously locked eyes with the interlocutor, wary of the figure behind the grate.

We all felt Yuta’s emotions. They were potent, like a boiled tea kettle, screaming out steam.

For all the finery surrounding him, Yuta felt only digest. There was no glory here, no noble rulers, no princes of peace. Just another vainglorious bureaucrat; a debauched authority who preyed on blood, innocence, and pain.

“The only difference between Sakuragi and the sniveling magistrate in Vaneppo who raped me into this world was that Sakuragi would have been a monster even without his wealth and power. He was as indifferent to the Empire as any other noble. His status was all that mattered to him."

There was fury in the samurai’s face, both now and then. Rage kindled in him, threatening to bubble over and drive him mad. But he kept his composure. He endured his pain.

Our Yuta trembled as Sakuragi whispered more words into his interlocutor’s ears.

“His Excellency commends your skill and valor. One ought to be wary of half-breeds, but here on the fringes, you have proven your value and use. Men like yourself can show the lesser races the proper way forward. Bend without breaking; the lesser submits to the greater. Even as a child, you emerged from the Great Earthquake purified and strengthened. The flower that blooms from scum is the strongest of all. May you serve as a lesson to the nations, and further the Empire’s glory.”

“P-Purified?” Geoffrey stuttered. The knight seemed even more livid than the samurai. He turned to Yuta. “And you just sat there and took it?”

“In a fair world, I could have told Lord Sakuragi to go fuck himself,” Yuta said. “But the world isn’t fair. I was just one man, Lord Athelmarch. I could not change the world, but… I can do my part to lessen the suffering.” A tear twinkled in his eye. “I could add beauty to it, as my mother would have wanted. I never set out to oppress anyone.” He shook his head. “I could have sought vengeance, but… what would be the point of that? What example would that be for the next generation? So, I tried to move forward, even if my heart wasn’t in it.”

Yuta offered up the next memory, and I was happy to oblige him.

It really was a beautiful one.

Sukuna’s face was painted white, like the moon. Her kimono was just as pale, embroidered with red dragons, long and winged. Yuta stood with her, clad in a black haori with blooming gray hakama trousers. He held his wife-to-be in one hand, and a red umbrella in the other. Sunlight filtered through its paper shade.

The wedding procession stretched many, many yards, pointed toward the barashai’s temple. Ginkgo trees flanking the temple’s approach, showing their leaves like golden flames. Pollen covered the stone pavement like embers of the sun.

We felt Yuta’s strange mix of pride and shame.

He worried about what Mayumi’s spirit might have thought, had she been watching. He even worried about what Sukuna thought of him. It was an arranged marriage, after all; a noble wife for a nobleman.

“She’s… beautiful,” Geoffrey said. “I…” he shook his head and swallowed hard. “I wish I would have been able to give my daughter a wedding as grand as this.” Briefly averted his gaze before turning back to face the samurai. “Did it ever fill the loss?” he asked. “Your new family, I mean.”

Yuta shook his head. “No. Loss abides. Ours is not a good world; there is no cure for true pain. But it is not an evil world, either. There can be new joy, if we look for it, like Kanannak and the Children of the Tern.” He inhaled sharply. “That’s what I am most grateful for. Sukuna gave me the push I needed. She dared to look for joy—for beauty—even in a place I thought I would never find it.”