Midwinter’s fickle snows did not endure the two weeks’ journey to Araji Castle. Toku led a seemingly unending expedition across vast stretches of fertile grasslands, through cold, bitter winds and bleak sunlight. They never found themselves out of sight of the countless sprawling rice fields or the immense smoking cones of the volcanoes that nourished the black soil. This was one of Sen’s three great volcanic plains, Chiaki had explained, and helped to feed no less than nine neighbouring prefectures. Eruptions were exceedingly rare, she claimed, though whenever they did occur it was hard to miss the extensive ash clouds that suffocated the sky.

Lin stole an occasional glance at those sparse funnels in hopes that she might witness the spectacle, though the high winds blew ash into her eyes near constantly. For much of the journey however, her attention was focused inward. The last of her hidden memories felt glued and smeared, but there was something important buried within them. Carving wood and folding paper as she rode, she tried to recreate the shapes lurking in her mind, but all emerged vague and incomplete. Her gaze was fixed on her creations even when the group stopped to eat or relieve themselves, regularly buying rice and dry bread from the area’s abundant farmsteads.

When the volcanic plains came to an end and were replaced by wooded rolling hills, however, supplies dwindled and the cool outdoors became grounds for scavenging whatever food could be found among the dead foliage. A diet of edible roots and evergreen herbs carried them through the final stretch of their journey. To Chiaki’s disgust and Toku’s amusement however, Lin found it more appropriate to fill her stomach with whatever moving creatures she could find, scrounging grubs and beetles from fallen logs as if it were an open buffet. While they weren’t quite as tasty as a well-fried grasshopper, the beetle shells were crushed with a satisfying crunch that almost made up for their mildly foul flavour.

Chiaki covered the metallic fangs of her helm as Lin shovelled another handful of assorted writhing bugs into her mouth, “Why do you choose to be like this?”

“Judge all you like, they’re good for your health. Makes your muscles strong. Why do you wear that helmet all the time? There are no enemies here,” she replied, motioning at the downward slope of dead and dried bracken ahead of them.

“My duty is the same regardless of the presence of enemies. I must assist Emperor Naga-”

“Toku,” the Emperor interjected.

“I must assist… Toku,” Chiaki continued uncomfortably, “To the best of my ability. For that, my weapons and armour, as well as my body and spirit must all be in their optimum state. Choosing not to wear my helmet would be an insult to that duty.”

“But there’s nobody around except for our own. There hasn’t been for the last three days. No-one is going to attack us out here, and even if they do, we’ll see them long before they have the chance.”

“I do not need to remove my helmet.”

“Isn’t it uncomfortable? Stuffy? I’ve travelled with you for two weeks and still haven’t seen your face, you know.”

“My face is unimportant to the Emperor.”

“Toku,” Toku repeated with an amused smirk.

“My face is not important to Toku,” Chiaki corrected, “Nor is my identity. I am his aide, nothing more and nothing less.”

“I’ll carry it for you,” Lin offered. “Take it off and relax.”

“I am not going to take off the helmet.”

“Take off the helmet!”

“I’m not taking it off!” she complained, speeding ahead on her horse to take point. Lin’s pursuit was stopped by a hand upon her shoulder.

Toku shook his head, “Leave her for now. That armour is more important to her than you know. She might one day emerge from underneath that identity she’s built, but I’d still rather not upset her too much in the meantime.”

“I don’t understand her. I don’t understand you, either.”

“It isn’t a short story.”

“Well, there isn’t much else to do while we ride,” Lin pointed out, to which Toku raised his head toward the overcast sky.

“As you wish. When I met her, Chiaki was a young girl, just twelve or so. I arrived at her village with a band of ninety-one soldiers, half-starved and ragged from breaking the Sen border. The village just so happened to have the supplies we needed.”

“What do you mean, you broke the Sen border?”

“I mean exactly what I said. When the other nations rose against my home, I joined them. Under Wunei Jie’s banner, I cut a path through my own people to tear at the heart of Sen. Karyoku, the broken city that once stood as our capital, fell to me.”

Lin couldn’t understand him. She shook her head, “So you betrayed your own people? That just makes you a traitor.”

“That’s right, and it is for good reason that almost every soul on this war-torn rock spits that name in a fit of disgust whenever I occupy their mind. Still, there are those that might also consider me a saviour. To some I’m a traitor, to others, a hero. I’m everything that everyone thinks about me, because we don't get to decide who we are in the eyes of the world. That decision is made by those around you.”

“But... why? Why do it? What was the point in helping the other states destroy your home only to then turn around and wage a war against them?”

Toku smiled joylessly. Lin knew it was for his own benefit rather than for anyone else.

“It is actions, not reasons, that are fixed in time. The answer to ‘why’ no longer has any consequence.”

“Stop it. Is it so difficult to give me an answer?”

“Perhaps another time,” he said simply before continuing on. “My men, soldiers of Han, set to ransacking her village. It wasn’t my first time witnessing a raid. They’re vital to the war effort when in hostile territory; supply lines aren’t nearly as easy to maintain when you push further beyond the enemy borders. Still, this particular looting spree was… grim.” Rubbing the back of his head, Toku regarded Lin silently for a moment. “I won’t go into detail, it isn’t something for a young girl such as yourself to hear. During other raids I did what I could to minimise grief, but there was no subduing them that day. Ninety-one were under my command, each and every one hurting from our string of previous battles. What better way to remedy that pain than to ravage the people their enemies died to protect?

When we had eaten our fill at the village’s expense, my soldiers torched their food stores and threw the farmers’ remains into the water reserves. They dragged the villagers from their homes, beat them in the streets, pruned the limbs from their bodies and committed further deeds far more gruesome than I’m willing to share with you. It became too much to bear.

Seeing Chiaki that day filled me with a rage I’ve rarely felt. Her family and their belongings were unmolested even as other households were put to the torch, a luxury purchased by offering up their daughter to the predatory jaws of Han’s soldiers. I watched from atop my mount as they pushed her to the ground and tore at her patchwork dress, four grown men salivating over the body of a girl no more than twelve years of age. They didn’t see her as a person, rather a utility to satisfy their depraved urges without regard for anyone other than themselves. They were lessers, subhumans not worth the air that filled their lungs. So it was that I relieved them of their heads.”

“You killed your own allies?” Lin asked.

“Allies?” Toku spat the word, almost insulted by the implication. “Those willing to disregard the wellbeing of others in order to pleasure themselves are the lowest form of humanity. They were not my allies, Lin, and in the last minutes of their lives I made certain that they knew that clearly.”

“I can’t imagine the Han soldiers were pleased with your killing of their friends.”

“Not remotely. Those that protested had the tendons of their wrists and ankles slashed, then were buried alive in the same hole as their comrades. Those that fell in line- fifty or so of them- were spared. We set fires around the village to ward off the advancing hordes of the coalition army and gave the weapons of our dead to those capable of wielding them. I expected that to be the last I’d hear of the villagers, but the helpless little girl was braver than I could’ve expected. Chiaki followed me to the new capital, Ei Yōsai, less than a year after my court was established.”

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“To serve under you?”

“No,” Toku smiled wryly. “To take my life. She hadn’t taken kindly to the raiding of her village, nor the eagerness of her family to offer her up on a platter to save their own hides. She boldly asked for a position as an aide, and an aide she became. Every day since then, that woman has had the opportunity to put that naginata of hers through my chest, yet my heart keeps beating.”

Lin raised an eyebrow, “What makes you so sure Chiaki wanted you dead to begin with?”

“Apart from fidgeting with her weapon like a restless child and staring a hole through me whenever she thought I wasn’t looking? She told me of her intentions long ago. I’m not so naïve to believe that she changed her mind, but I doubt I need to worry about her treachery. Chiaki left her home because she couldn’t bear the life she lived. This position became her very reason to exist. She's more loyal to that identity she created for herself than she will ever be to me, and that loyalty is a greater shield than any armour,” Toku finished.

“That was a lot of words to justify wearing a helmet.” Lin peered ahead, “She’s strong, isn’t she?”

“Unbelievably so. Chiaki chose to leave behind her poor excuse for a family and abandoned all she knew in order to build herself a life she could be proud of. Even if she didn’t always have the best of intentions, she’s grown into a fine woman regardless.”

A peculiar feeling- some sort of longing admiration, perhaps even envy, swelled in Lin’s chest. Here was a woman that made each step freely as she walked toward a goal of her own making, a woman that had rejected the wretched cradle that had raised her and built upon foundations of her own choosing. To switch places with her- to don the armour that carried the weight of that identity and cut a path to wherever she desired would be a perfect dream. Being herded around by whoever felt responsible for her at the time was no way for anyone to live their life. It was a brief thought at first, but one that latched itself into her mind and persisted like a constant buzzing.

“Have you ever heard of a village called Rosethorn?” Lin asked abruptly.

“I have.” Toku ran a hand over the rough stubble on his cheek. “Izuka was its original name, though I doubt it’s been called that since the Cataclysm.”

“The Earthen Cataclysm? Was it destroyed?”

“Not entirely from what I’ve heard, but there’s nothing left there other than skeletons and vine-ridden ruins. Why the sudden interest?”

“I think it was my home once,” she recalled, though without much confidence. Focusing on one memory out of a thousand broken links was like peering into a kaleidoscope of unfamiliar things. A light seemed to go on in Toku’s mind as his face piqued in a sudden realisation.

“That’s it! So that’s the accent you both share. I’d been wondering that very question since first we met.”

“Is it? I don’t remember,” Lin replied flatly. Hasty plans and bright ideas had begun to dominate her thoughts. “How far are the remains of Rosethorn?”

“Planning a visit?”

“Sio made it hard to believe anything she ever told me. I just thought that maybe if I can find something there, I’d get a little closer to the truth.”

Toku was silent for a moment as he walked alongside her. “Rosethorn is more than a hundred miles northeast of Araji Castle, a few days’ journey on horseback. I’m sorry Lin, I don’t have the time to take you there. I can arrange you an escort as I promised before, but you’ll want this back before then,” he said earnestly, handing her the spare weapon from his waist. It was her sword. Lin recoiled at the sight.

“Something wrong?”

“Nothing, it’s just… I think I’ve done enough damage with that sword already. The responsibility of the lives I’ve taken feels like some kind of weighted chain around my neck, it’s- it’s too heavy. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

The Emperor laid a reassuring hand upon Lin’s head, “Guilt is to be expected, it’s proof there’s still a beating heart in your chest, but the dead cannot hear your remorse. Your blade shall rust with blood if you do not learn to wipe it clean.” Reaching into a coat pocket, he retrieved a cloth rag and handed it to Lin. She accepted it hesitantly. Then, unsheathing her sword, he offered the blade with an open grip.

“To your own content,” Toku prompted. Lin regarded him with uncertainty.

“The blade is already clean,” she pointed out.

“And yet in your mind it’s still thoroughly soaked in the blood of the dead. Clean the blade. Return any feelings of regret to where they belong- the past.”

Lin buried her hesitance and humoured Toku’s ritual. It was easier to oblige than protest, to get it all over and done with. If she had learned anything from Sio and Toku, it was that the world would not change with another superficial speech or lecture. Their words were hollow and pointless, a collection of confused ideas no more impactful than any other. When his demonstration was finished, Lin took her freshly-oiled sword and tucked it into the obi around her waist. It sat against her uncomfortably.

Araji Castle was built upon an artificial hill of clay and cobblestone at the centre of a flooded boulder field. Wide rivers cut through bodies of black pine to form a network that surrounded and fed into the field like a rocky shore. It was an impressive sight to behold from the path descending into the rocky valley that became an impressively tedious ordeal upon trying to find footing on the uneven surfaces of the half-submerged boulders. The advance of Tokugawa’s retinue slowed to even less than a crawl as they attempted to figure out how exactly their carts could make the journey across. The Emperor and his aide dismounted and began crossing on foot, leaving his soldiers to escort their horses and supplies. Lin lingered for several minutes, though she could offer little help to Toku’s elite, and so left them behind. More than once, she was tipped off-balance by poorly judged footing and came dangerously close to slipping into the thin watery crevices. Fortunately, she made it through the field of lichen, moss and damp rocks with her ankles intact and her knees unscraped, reaching the castle’s bolstered wooden gates with ease compared to the heavily armoured Chiaki, who lost her footing so many times that Lin was surprised to see a lack of dents and scratches on her mistreated greaves. Growing tired of seeing the woman fall, Toku led Chiaki with a hand on her back and another around her arm until they had caught up. Guards atop the ramparts observed their approach with great interest.

“This is an awful place to build a castle,” Lin grumbled.

“It isn’t ideal, but it isn’t awful either. When Han took this area, the Sen border retreated to less than fifty miles west of Karyoku. The boulder field was an addition by Wunei Jie himself.”

“This was intentional? What was the point of making it so tedious?”

“Can you imagine being fired upon as you tried to reach the castle doors? What about trying to get a siege engine over those boulders?”

“Well it can’t have worked very well if this land belongs to you now.”

“His defences were never made to withstand the strength granted by the Heavens. He tried the same strategy with several other fortified positions and formed a defensive line of rockbed castles to prevent a counterattack, though there was very little chance of that so late in the war. My father’s beliefs had already turned much of the country against him long before Han and Won marched into our territory. As it turns out, denouncing the idols of the populace is not the greatest way to gain their favour.”

“Neither was carpeting their fields with boulders.”

“I’ve a terrible suspicion these leaders don’t care much for public opinion.”

From behind the castle gates, a distinctly pronounced voice released a devilish laugh, “Terrible- that’s the word. Tokugawa the Terrible. So fitting a title for our ruthless and mighty warlord. Welcome back to our sound and homely castle of Araji, the Lady will surely be overjoyed at your visit.” Even muffled by the gates’ solid composition, the ostentatious tone of his dramatics was plain to hear.

“Perhaps you should save greetings for when the gates are opened, Lord Tome,” Toku called back. The man on the opposite side of the gate seemed to agree, as the two lumbering doors swung open after a brief few moments. Lightly armoured in boiled leather and lacquered steel caps, Lord Tome moved to greet them with his arms open wide. Embossed bracers guarded his forearms atop a cedar-dyed flax shirt. A shaggy head of burnt black hair reached down past his ears. He appeared to be in his late twenties.

“I suppose ‘Terrible’ doesn’t quite have the bombasticity of ‘Traitor’, does it?” He said with an off-white grin. “Welcome, Lord Naga.”

“Neither lacks accuracy in the eyes of our raucous population, you might as well choose whichever you wish. How are things here?”

“Most days are spent quelling and subduing and doing everything else required for the duty you tasked me with. Civil unrest is not known for its restfulness, after all.”

“Of course,” Toku murmured. Glancing toward Lin then back to Lord Tome, he offered a casual introduction for both. “Lord Kanmaru Tome is the Daimyō of the Tome prefecture. He was stationed here at my request in order to calm some of the country’s more active troublemakers.”

“Yes, my cousin must be relishing the opportunity to rule in my place. That far north, there’s more chance of an uprising among the local seal population than there is among the sleepy fishing villages and maritime coves under Jian,” remarked Tome, then turned his attention to Lin. There was no hint of friendliness in the man’s eyes. “Tell me, Miss Ko, why is it that we must host you in particular over the rest of Sen’s concerned citizens?”

“That is our Emperor’s decree,” Chiaki answered before Lin could open her mouth in reply. “You would do well to remember your place.”

“It’s difficult to forget. I wish to know why our great Emperor brings more problems to our gates when we are already inundated with guerrilla forces attempting to seize the southern cities.”

“Nearly half of Sen’s military force is concentrated across the southern coast. Are you saying that my armies are not enough?”

“Things might have been simpler if you hadn’t declared war on the entire continent. Even those loyal to you do not want a repeat of what happened twelve years ago. How long do you think it will be until Jinha decides to involve themselves and invade the inland sea?” Tome chided. His words were harsh, his tone indifferent.

“I understand your criticisms, Kanmaru, but they serve little purpose. What's done is done, I can only ask that you trust in my judgement.”

“The future of our nation rests upon your judgement. What else is there for me to do?” he asked. The wrinkles deepened across his forehead.