Sitting idly while others talked on and on seemed to be becoming quite more commonplace than Fuu believed she was comfortable with. There was more expression in the smile of tiny pointed teeth from the grilled piranha upon her plate than either of the glum-faced men that sat at opposing sides of the table. After what had been at least half an hour they had still failed to come to any meaningful agreement, falling into a futile cycle of empty proposals and loaded remarks rather than addressing their shared concern directly. Fuu could only poke mindlessly at her lunch with chopsticks for so long before her patience ran thin, and soon enough, it did.
“To put it in simple terms, since anything past that seems beyond your understanding, you are a charlatan and a fool, Tokugawa, and are clearly unfit for your role,” Lord Inutani jabbered.
“You are far more of a fool for expecting me to stay and join your blind manhunt with your record of failure. Rounding up anyone with a slight whiff of thiefdom about them is a shortcut to unrest, not success. It’s no wonder you sit so uneasily,” Toku retorted.
“Our nation is at war with itself, and you talk to me about unrest? At least I do take the seat of ruler. Is this campaign of yours truly as noble as you try to claim? You may have regained a portion of our lands, true, but the consequences of your battles are felt most by the people of the war-tired country, and while you journey about on your travels, who oversees Sen in your place?”
“General Taira is stationed within Ei Yōsai with permission to subdue any threats wherever they may appear within the state. Surely you should be more concerned with your own affairs, Seiichi, with your town being besieged by a band of pickpockets and graverobbers. How terrified you must be at the thought of such deadly adversaries.”
“An organised militia of Won refugees- that is what they are, and they were no doubt forced this far west by your reckless territory snatching in the northeast. Mengu’s rebellion forced them past the Hangu, but they cannot seek refuge at the Dragonsmouth because you sent an army to occupy it. It is your responsibility to help me, not only as ruler of this country, but also as the warmonger that refuses to disengage!”
“It is your responsibility as Daimyō to quell local disarray. Clearly I was mistaken in choosing you for the position. Admittedly, it could have been anyone in your place. I needed a stake to hold the Mizūmi Prefecture when I established my court in Ei Yōsai, and you just happened to be at hand,” Toku smiled and pointed a finger. Lord Inutani’s eyes flashed with rage. All of a sudden, the air was occupied with a projectile that had an uncanny resemblance of fried fish. It homed in on Toku’s mildly shocked face with the speed of a musket shot and exploded in an impressive mess of white meat. Chiaki’s naginata was already in hand and poised to strike before the remains of Inutani’s lunch could hit the floor. Yu leaned back from the commotion and wrapped an arm around Fuu to pull her to safety, but she had already grown tired of the empty hostilities.
“Stop now and sit in silence!” she yelled, untangling herself from Yu and climbing to her feet. “Is this how the great leaders of Sen choose to conduct themselves? With pointless provocations and childish food fights? How can you expect your followers to respect your authority when you offer nothing worthy of it?”
The dining room remained quiet at her command, the silence allowing for a moment of brief reflection. Fuu was surprised, embarrassed even, at her intervention. Perhaps I should have left it alone.
“At ease, Chiaki. The Daimyō’s fish-flinging was well-deserved,” Toku ordered calmly, lowering the tip of her naginata with a hand. “I’m sorry, Seiichi. It seems I allowed my annoyance to get the better of me.”
Lord Inutani seemed ready to launch his silver-trimmed plate at his guest, but offered a formal apology regardless. Slinking back to Yu’s side, Fuu attempted to become invisible, and to her relief, the discussion proceeded with more civility henceforth. That was, at least, until it was discovered that Lin had deemed it necessary to take a wander through the ravine town.
“What do you mean disappeared? Where could she have gone?” Toku roared and shot to his feet, glaring fiercely at the bearer of the news. Minami would have folded in half had she bowed any lower.
“To my shame, I do not know. She is simply gone without a trace, my lord.”
The Emperor cursed, and then his eyes found Fuu. “Did you not see her last? Was there anything to indicate where she might have wandered off to?”
“Not a thing,” Fuu answered, shaking her head. Scouring her memory of the last hour yielded nothing useful, only the opportunity for more questions. “Lin told me that she was feeling lost, confused at her surroundings. She wanted to know what happened at the shrine.”
“And did you tell her?”
“In order to tell her, I would first need to know what happened myself. I have no idea of what she saw, nor do I recognise the ailment Lady Sio inflicted upon her.”
Toku paused hesitantly for a moment. “I was told that the girl’s mind was muddied with a memory suppressant. Evidently there’s something she isn't supposed to remember.”
“It sounds as though you have chosen such virtuous company,” Inutani drawled sarcastically.
“But what could she have seen so terrible it called for such merciless treatment?” asked Fuu.
“Hell and all its constituents,” Toku answered, “That is, if you’d believe my father, a man so overly taken with the idea of unseen evils and madness-inducing horrors that hide in the darkness that he lost an entire nation.”
“Sengoku Naga was a heretic.”
“A heretic, and the greatest fool to ever have lived. Whether his superstitions were true or mere delusion, that matter made no difference when he rallied our enemies against us. First came a truce between the states of Han and Won, and then a coalition army marched into our lands backed by every country within Sakao. To me it seemed that whatever horrors my father dreamed of were laughable compared to the wide scale devastation he brought upon us. Lin may very well have seen a monster at that shrine, but is she really better off after all Sio has put her through?”
Fuu had not paid Sengoku’s reign much attention when he still sat upon the throne of Sen’s crumbled capital. She had only been a child after all, and when the combined forces of the continent deposed him of his position his story had already come to a climactic finale. His defeat coincided with the eve of the Earthen Cataclysm during which Taizo faced its midnight apocalypse. That much she could never forget.
Like most days spent with her mother, Fuu left her lessons with the feeling of an uneasy weight upon her shoulders.
“In the years to come you will stand as the figurehead of our nation, and you will do so in an unwavering manner of stoic femininity,” her mother would repeat ceaselessly at the start of each session. Fuu hated that, though her filial devotion would never allow her to speak out against such things. Out of the many millions that called Han their home, why did hers have to be the face of their future? She had never strove to be a leader, finding it difficult to even order around her own handservant, the ever-irritating Yu Diao. Whereas he had usually waited outside of her room with the obedience and passivity of a hound, he had taken on a rebellious and slightly mean streak in his growing adolescence and was becoming increasingly unpredictable.
When Fuu returned to her sleeping quarters that night, she found Yu in wait with a pair of sticks that had been stripped to smoothness and he stubbornly refused her entry unless she agreed to a duel in the palace gardens. Despite her annoyance, Fuu respected his courage. A single word of his disobedience to her mother would see the boy removed swiftly from the city along with his family of officials, yet here the boy stood, his cheeks tinted red with embarrassment. Fuu conceded, and together they left for their fated battle. A beechwood bridge over still water marked their fighting ground, its roof a shelter against the moonlight. One misstep had thrown Fuu off guard, and in her wild compensating swing she had given Yu his victory. Any bitterness she had held at her defeat was quickly washed away as she cast a shameful gaze over the black pond and caught sight of the approaching disaster, the entire northwestern horizon swallowed by a sky of rock and ocean. Yu had confessed his love in the presence of that dreaded night, when the atmosphere threatened to burn and the world along with it. The awkwardness felt toward one another after the collision was stopped by the roots of Zetian’s Bridge was a gift she had long cherished.
With a plate of grilled fish left untouched, Toku donned his baggy winter coat and spoke instructions softly to his aide.
“You have my word that my soldiers will assist in your efforts regarding the refugees, Seiichi, but we shall have to resume our discussions later. I can’t afford to let that girl go. Will you be joining me, Lady Jie?”
Against her better judgement, Fuu sighed and rose from her cushion once more. Yu stood and bowed, his plate long since cleared.
There was no delay as they hastened along the winding pathways of Keisato’s intermediary streets. Their pace, a little faster than a jog, drew the curiosity of many an onlooker.
“What makes Lin so important that she demands the protection of an Emperor?” Yu spoke up from the back of the group.
“She doesn’t seem particularly significant as an individual, does she? Just a young girl, no more, yet Lady Sio seems to think that same girl will become a saviour.” Toku answered, too concerned with his search to face his listener. “Regardless, Lady Sio had it right when she spoke at the Traitors’ Summit. This campaign will quickly lose momentum when it reaches the Hangu. Regardless of trust, I need her strength on my side.”
Momentarily distracted by something, he slowed to glance over the edge of a small bridge between platforms. “Right now, however, I can’t help but try to protect her. She’s too small and vulnerable to be left alone,” he said, but then his body stiffened. “Down there.”
One level down, on the town’s third layer, Lin stood captivated at the sight of her own two hands and the sword held within them, all spattered with damning droplets of what could only have been blood. Calls of shock and outrage sounded from the nearby locals and soon from Lin herself as witnesses struggled to apprehend her. Toku cursed and barked an order of haste. Two lay maimed and motionless by the time the search party managed to reach her in the garden of sand she had fled to, both boys no older than sixteen. A nest of thorny vines and bloodied bodies lay further ahead. With the rest of the locals scattered in fear of her savagery, only a trio of armed guards remained. She swung with rabid speed and deadly precision, held back only by her quivering legs. The peacekeepers moved carefully, all too wary of the sanguine spray that had begun to bleed through the white surface of the sand. The nearest to her was the first to strike, making a jab at her thigh with a spear. Another closed in from the opposite side with an overhead swing from her infantry glaive. Flicking her leg in an upward arc, Lin caught the spear’s shaft with a kick and knocked it wide. As the glaive sliced through the air toward her neck, she raised her hand over her shoulder and caught the blade with fingers of shadow and smoke. The guard barely managed to escape the bite of her sword as she spun around with a countering slash. A third polearm struck from behind. Lin was too slow to even catch a glimpse of the spear’s tip before it was thrust between her shoulder blades.
The attack should have been fatal. Fuu had not noticed Toku move, yet now he stood firmly in the thick of the fight with the spear’s shaft in his grasp. The peacekeepers fell back with caution. Lin twisted instinctively and delivered another slash with her sword. The blade stopped short of Toku’s open palm.
“This magnetic field is too strong for your blade to pass through,” he stated bluntly, “Give up.” There was no hesitation in her next move as she leaned into the sword’s handle with the weight of her body and forced the blade downward with the strength of her spectral reach. The Emperor looked upon her with a placid stare that grew harder when he noticed the trembling sword inch further toward his palm. In a seemingly instantaneous motion, Toku shifted to Lin’s side. The back of his hand connected loudly with her cheek.
“Do you wish me dead so dearly?” he asked. Lin finally saw him then, and her body relaxed as much as her distress would allow.
“Please help me,” she sobbed.
“That’s all I came here to do,” Toku murmured. Paying the approaching guards no heed, he clapped together his hands and, for a split second, seemed to rock the town of Keisato to its very foundations. Fuu felt a twinge from the mark upon her chest as the world disappeared into a blur.
Nausea turned her stomach the moment she could see again. Lin’s assailants had disappeared, and the garden of sand along with it. Fuu glanced around as if her head was mounted upon a swivel, utterly astonished at whatever trick Toku had managed. They were on the first layer, she realised, surrounded on one side by water ducts that ran through fine mesh nets. Damp-clothed workers tended to the nets as water from the Steep Lake was filtered, scrubbing them clean from grime and debris dragged along from the lakebed. The nearest worker, who had been mending a tear in his net, performed a subtle double take at the group’s sudden appearance before hurriedly returning his attention to the task at hand.
“Lord Toku, was that-?” Fuu began.
“My Killing Floor, yes. Ask no further questions for there will be no answers. Such information shouldn’t be given so freely,” he answered in a tone of near-exertion. Without so much as a look in Lin’s direction, Toku clenched his jaw and spoke as calmly as he could manage. “Would you care to explain what that was all about?”
Running her eyes over the bloody sword that had been used to gore the residents of Keistao, she shuddered. The metal of the blade clattered against the ground.
“Someone tried to take me away,” Lin said shakily. “A man from Won, tall and wide, with a thin, twisted beard, and he knew my name. I drew my sword without thinking, and I-”
“That’s enough.”
“The townspeople saw him fall from the edge. They kept coming after me, what was I supposed to do?”
“Enough, girl.” He locked eyes with her then, and after taking a few moments to mull over their predicament, the Emperor gave his decree. “Whatever the reason for your struggle, it resulted in the murder of several innocent citizens of Sen. You must leave Keisato tonight, and quietly. I am truly sorry, Lin. This shouldn’t have been allowed to happen.”
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“What am I supposed to do, Toku?” she asked, staring incredulously at her bloodied clothes as if she had not heard the man talk. “How do I fix this?”
“By staying quiet until I am able to fix it for you,” Toku replied. Lin’s stare seemed to lose a little more of its glimmer.
“Is it still possible to return to Daimyō Inutani?” asked Fuu. It was difficult to imagine that he would react positively to the murder of his people.
“I’m not sure,” he admitted, examining Lin’s crestfallen face. “First, I need to understand what happened. What were you even doing on the third layer to begin with?”
“A man- a different man, wearing a fishing hat- he spoke to me at the Daimyō’s home about things I couldn’t understand. I followed him after he left. I wanted him to ask him more questions, but the tall man found me first.”
“There were two men? And both knew your name?”
Lin nodded in affirmation.
“Things are certainly... amiss. I’m going to talk this over with Seiichi. It’s possible they aren’t interested in you at all. If it’s not you, but your company that they’re after, then we need to prepare ourselves.”
“Shall we wait or come along with you?” Yu stepped forward. “If your meeting goes badly, we’ll need to be able to make a swift escape.”
“Neither. You and Lady Jie will figure out who we’re dealing with and where exactly we can find them. If you can’t even do that, you’ll be left behind.”
“Just what are you saying?” Fuu frowned.
“With respect, Lady Jie, as you currently are now, you are utterly useless as one of the heads of Sanzan. Action is a necessity for the ruling of nations, and so you must first learn to act if you are to walk the path of leadership. Demonstrate you are worthy of the Mandate of Heaven,” he said, laying a hand on her shoulder.
“What part of that was with respect?”
“It’s out of respect that I am helping you. You must sway them, Fuu. Show them that you are the one out of a million others that is able to bear their hopes and livelihoods alongside your own.”
The words still continued to rattle in her mind like a maddening drone even as the sky darkened with the sunset. She meandered over bridges and under stair ramps in a fruitless search for the name of a dead man. Yu, who had been at her side, now shuffled between passers-by with the same vague question on his tongue: just who had been thrown into the deep crevice of Keisato?
It was a different question that irked the heir of Daishun Jie- one regarding the very purpose of her being in such a place among a visionary’s conspirators. How had she fallen into the tutorship of her enemy as he traipsed through stolen lands, stopping at his leisure for family visits and solving irrelevant crimes? This was not what she had wanted; the Mandate of Heaven be damned. What did it matter to her if the ten watchers in the sky had chosen her to rule? There were already so many others with the mark: her father Wunei, Toku and Sengoku Naga and the Sky-Chosen of Won. If the Heavens had truly wanted her to rise to power, why had they granted that same privilege to those other than herself? The lack of sense only strengthened her conviction. The decision to live her life would not be dictated by the wants of others; a day would come in the near future upon which she would break from the expectations of Sanzan and escape to a place free of responsibility and expectations.
“Still nothing,” Yu reported, interrupting Fuu’s flow of thought. She gave him a vague look of acknowledgment.
“Then leave it for now. Why should his manhunt take precedence over how we spend our time? Just look at this place Yu, would you not sooner take a tour of the grand marvel of Keisato with me?” Fuu indicated with the wave of a hand toward the hanging tree roots and burning lights of the paper lanterns above. Yu’s face was troubled, as it was more often than not, though he gave into her will without so much as a word in protest. Opting for a nearby ladder made of logs fastened with rope rather than finding one of the few ramps that connected floors, they left behind the residential fourth layer and ascended into the business sector of the third where bathhouses, inns, street restaurants and dense clusters of shops suffocated narrow streets. Innumerable faces watched from behind counters and door frames for customers of high potential. Their attention lingered on those that looked as though they might have more circles of ryō than sense, and by the way the two travellers were being examined, those new and unfamiliar with the customs of trade within the business stretch of the fourth layer. Unfortunately for those traders and establishment owners, neither Fuu or Yu had any wealth between them save for the clothes upon their skin. Her fuchsia gown of silk could bring enough food and lodgings for several weeks were she only willing to part with it, but instead they had been sustained by the generosity of Toku, draining his supplies of food, money and medicine. She might have felt guilty or even a sense of obligation toward the man were he not after the lives of her father and countrymen. Upon a whim and the word of the Emperor, Fuu had abandoned her wounded brother and allied with her enemies on a journey of conquest. What place was there now for feelings of guilt?
For hours, the two perused the entire selection of shops and stalls that followed beneath Ginzōji’s Path, steering clear enough so that they were not pestered so frequently with the advertising calls of entrepreneurs. Dusk settled quickly, and with it came a whole new side to the underside of Keisato. Flickering candles floated atop wooden bases over thin channels of water around each building, lighting the darkened streets with a comfortable hue of honeyed yellow. Large lanterns like paper eggs hung at either side of the entrances to most establishments and were decorated with large common characters written in bold strokes of ink. Fuu wrapped herself around Yu’s arm as they walked, sinking into his relaxed musculature and the softness of his courtly silken shirt. She could feel the slight pulse of his heartbeat beneath her fingers and smiled sweetly when he lifted her chin for a kiss. For the first time in weeks, she was more than just a vessel of expectations that all others seemed to see in place of a woman.
“Do you still intend on following the Traitor when we leave this place?” Yu asked with an air of reluctance.
“I had hoped to avoid thinking of such troubles in the brief time we have here.”
“You aren’t suited to this, Fuu. Come home with me. Neither the Daishun nor the Daishu would deny your return. Your half-brother is already a fugitive, he can take the blame for your disappearance among his other charges.”
“I will not be returning to Hanshi. Whatever I have become in these two years away from my father’s court would need to die for me to set foot through those city gates. I cannot bear the responsibility of their future again.”
“So you’ll join forces with the enemy? Have you-”
“Nor do I plan to aid in the attack of my people. We will make our departure from this company soon enough, but first we must be ready. The journey to Eastern Han will be nothing short of arduous.”
“You plan to head eastward? To what end?”
“I want to escape from all of this, Yu, to run away somewhere quiet and never look back. Promise me that you will be there at my side when I do. Please, promise me.”
“As if I could let you disappear again. You’re mine as much as I’m yours, and I’ll never let you go again,” Yu said with a voice and smile of reassurance that played with her heart like wild electricity. “Though if we’re staying in Toku’s company for now, should we not continue searching for information on our friend from Won?”
“Perhaps,” Fuu sighed. “That merchant Lord Naga attacked in the marketplace, Genjo, he was a thief, was he not? It might be worth at least asking him a few questions.”
“We have no idea where he’ll have gone after losing his finger. How do you suppose we will find him?”
“Alive, hopefully.” Fuu touched the mark of her breastbone tentatively.
No matter how hard he tried to maintain his calm, the Daimyō’s voice cut through the walls of his study like a blade through paper.
“What exactly about this situation convinced you so that things could be solved so easily? It is not as though she simply bruised these people, Tokugawa, they are dead, murdered in plain sight. What am I to tell their families, their friends? I cannot simply explain this away as a misunderstanding.”
Toku took a long pause without reply. Lin couldn’t blame him. Stepping away from the study’s door, she leaned against the opposing wall and slid downward until her knees were against her chest. An unpleasant tightness gripped her throat, a feeling that was thick and constant. Of the scattered memories that remained of the confrontation, there was very little she could remember from the intense struggle against the town’s peacekeepers. Only one image persisted- the enveloping blood. Like a sanguineous coating, it engulfed her entirety. Not a single inch of her body felt clean of the guilt-ridden stain. The mistaken actions of her panicked state had ended lives and brought tragedy to the doors of many more, but worst of all, she now knew that this had happened before. It felt shameful to have forgotten the events that had unfolded at the Mitsuki Teahouse and the peak of Hema Mountain, plunging a dagger into the ribcage of Mistress Mei and a sword through the throat of Seki Shinohara, both violent transgressions brought about by fear-driven hastiness. There were too many already dead as a result of her actions. Allowing her head to sink into her arms, Lin wished she could simply fade out of existence. The truth was, however, that things had never been so impermanent. She would continue to persist, along with all of the hurt and hardships she had brought upon everyone she had met.
“I will explain to them personally should the need arise, but only after I return. Lin can’t stay here, we will leave Keisato in the early hours of the morning-”
“And go where? Who is that girl, Tokugawa?” Inutani interrupted.
“That’s something I intend to find out.”
“And in the meantime? The townspeople will not patiently wait for their answers.”
“Are you not the Daimyō, Seiichi? Your role is to maintain order, so maintain it.”
Lin flinched as the door to the Daimyō’s study slid open. Toku beckoned her into the room and she followed abashedly.
“Apologise,” he ordered, pushing her into a bowing position. She complied without question. Though her eyes never met with the Daimyō’s, she knew that Inutani held her under an unwavering glare. “Good,” Toku nodded, then leaned over in a gesture that took the girl by surprise. The Emperor bowed. “I offer you my deepest apologies for bringing conflict to your prefecture, Seiichi. It was my own assumptions and failure to act that caused such trouble.” Then, turning to Lin, he continued, “I am truly sorry, Miss Lin. I could not protect you as I promised your mother I would. Please do not believe that you are to blame for my failings.”
Lin shook her head, “I don’t understand.”
“But you will, and I will make certain that you find the guidance that you need. My mistake was thinking you were weak and fragile. Now I understand that your fragility comes with sharp instinct and learned skill, a much more dangerous mix. Be ready to leave tonight.”
Lin emerged into the bracing air of the winter’s night wearing her white undershirt and black coat lined with rabbit fur, both stolen from the upper town. Her linen-wrapped sandals felt unsteady against the sparkling frost that coated the wooden planks of the pathway. Waiting alongside Toku and Chiaki was Fuu, still dressed in her fuchsia gown and navy blazer jacket, and Yu, dressed in his muted blue shirt under a white fleece. None made any attempt at conversation on the journey back to Keisato’s trading nexus; the staircase of carved stone was perilous in the dark, each slippery step threatened a deadly fall into the black water hundreds of metres below and it took careful calculation to safely ascend the cliffside. The last of the sun’s smouldering red had faded from the sky by the time they had crossed the surface of the Steep Lake, replaced with a smoky covering of clouds that smothered the starlight.
Fuu and her servant broke from the group upon reaching the white shore and set out to scour the town for the merchant of stolen goods. The market street was far quieter than earlier in the day, the last of the remaining traders were packing away their wares for the night, leaving a long road of empty stalls and hardening trampled snow. After rejoining his soldiers and mounting his horse, Toku led the way through winding backstreets and tight alleyways until they had emerged from the town, continuing toward the Ryokune River that broke the western horizon. Other than the bare earth worn by frequent travel, there was no true path that ran alongside the riverbank. The dull reflected light emanating from the icy landscape of tangled grass and reeds made navigation easier under darkness.
Left exhausted by the day’s events, Lin had to rub her eyes to stay awake. Chiaki showed no signs of weariness from underneath her armour and helm, riding at a moderate speed behind Toku, who in turn appeared to be too steeped in concentration to even consider stopping for a rest. To Lin’s surprise, however, he did indeed come to a halt upon reaching the crest of a small pass that rose from the riverside. At its peak were large, tall outcrops of eroded granite that were pitted with moss and bristling strands of stray weeds.
“Why are we stopping?” Lin asked as he dismounted.
“Shouldn’t you be more curious as to where we’re headed?” Toku replied, his attention fixed upon a protruding section of rock. Lin climbed down from her own horse and shuffled closer with a feeling of uncomfortable sense of expectation.
“Well, where are we going?”
“Westwards, to Araji Castle. That’s as far as Chiaki and I will go. After that, the decision will lie with you.”
“You’re leaving me?” She took hold of Toku’s arm and tried to turn him, though he did not react. “Please, you can’t leave me alone, not like this- I...” Lin trailed off, her panic scrambling the words before they could leave her mouth. From deeper within herself surfaced a memory of dread. This had already happened once before.
“Between overseeing this country and the coming campaign against the other nations, I simply cannot take the responsibility of raising you, especially after your actions today. What I do is for your own safety and wellbeing.”
“For you and your happiness, right? Sio told me the same thing once,” Lin recalled bitterly. “Look at me now. My mind is a mess, my thoughts like specks of dust in a snowstorm.”
“Lin, you…” Toku finally faced her, his eyes wide. “Just how much do you remember?”
“Faint pictures. Sounds and smells. I remember the shrine on the mountain, there was a soldier of Sen and a fight beneath the stars, then a storm.”
“Yes, your mother left you behind, and now I shall too,” Toku interrupted, then indicated with his hand at an unusual carving in the rocky outcrop. “This is the face of the last woman that I tried to protect. Look upon it and perhaps you will do away with whatever misguided faith you have placed in me.”
The seemingly erratic shapes in the rock hadn’t struck Lin as a face at first, but the closer she looked, the more the artistic visage came to life. Light scratches and deeper grooves had been scraped away with a sharp tool to create a minimalistic recreation of a woman’s rigid, yet elegant face.
“Who did this belong to?”
“Seiko Inutani. My sister. This is where she was buried, and from where the wooden ring was stolen in an act of thoughtless greed.” Toku ran two fingers over the carving’s rough cheek.
“How did she pass away?” Lin asked.
“That is… a very long tale. It begins at a time before there were any planets hovering over the western horizon, and Ei Yōsai was a town rather than a capital. I tried to protect what I loved with my own two hands, and despite my wishes, she did the same. It was Lady Fuu’s father, Wunei, that received her plea of peace. Seiichi received her corpse on the back of a horse-drawn wagon. When the things you care for come under threat, you learn very quickly just how little you can grasp alone.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s my place to apologise. I failed her, just as I failed you and Chiaki. It seems to be a recurring theme in whatever I do,” he said, gazing wistfully at the wooden ring upon his finger. “A theme that I do not intend to continue with.”
“Toku-”
“When I said the decision was yours, that didn’t mean that I plan to abandon you alone at an unfamiliar castle in the wilds of Sen. So long as you agree, I’ll have a small detachment escort you to Ei Yōsai when you’re ready. It’s what your mother wanted originally, is it not? It’s the safest place you’ll find in Sen. You can build a life there, one of peace, away from the grave touches of war.”
Lin cast her head down, although it was in thought, not dismay. The prospect of such a journey seemed so much greater than she could manage in her state, yet still a spark of excitement sputtered to life within her chest. Truthfully, there was nothing other than faded memories with Sio and her brief travels with Toku tying her to Keisato, and Ei Yōsai would be the first opportunity in her life to establish true roots.
“I’ll do it,” she said, smiling as best she could. Toku nodded in return.
“I’ve one more thing to ask of you,” he continued. Removing the ring of carved rosewood from his finger, he offered it within his palm to the young girl. “This is yours, if you’ll take it.”
“I can’t, this is-”
“I’m asking you to take it, Lin. I’d rather her memory be carried back to the heart of Sen than leave it to be stolen again by a gang of soulless thieves.”
“But why me? You or Chiaki could easily keep it. Why give it away?”
“Seiko saw enough conflict in life, she deserves rest. I won’t sully her memory in the fields of blood and black powder.”
Bowing slightly, Lin retrieved the ring and slipped it neatly onto her left index finger. It fit snugly and looked surprisingly delicate upon her hand despite its crudeness.
“Thank you. I’ll try my best to honour your sister’s spirit,” she bowed once more.
“She had a scalding temper. I’m sure she’ll haunt you if you don’t,” Toku laughed, then laid a hand upon the girl’s shoulder. “Thank you, Lin. Truly. This means more to me than you know.”