It had all been quite a peculiar affair, Fuu decided. In one moment her lips were around the hot rim of a teacup sipping the malt flavours of camellia, and in the next she had awoken at the summit shrine of a dawn-lit mountain, carried in the arms of her faithful Yu. Such a sight she would not have minded were it not for the small peachwood swords that had been plunged into her body as if she had been mistaken for a pincushion. Those women of faith had been truly audacious, lacking even the respect to ask for her opinion nor consent on the matter, though still she had not given them the stern talking to that they so deserved. Her brother needed her.

Ravi’s wound was grievous, piercing the entire way through the left side of his abdomen. That was not all, however. He appeared drained, as if something had siphoned away his very spirit and left him as a grey, tired, and battered shell, and as much as she wanted to help him, there was nothing she could do.

For all the assurances of the maidens on the mountaintop that her affliction had been cured, Fuu had never felt so truly burdened. An uncomfortable, hot sickness engulfed her core. Itching pains buzzed about her every orifice. The inside of her mouth felt as though it had been swarmed and stung by ants. After sleeping for so long, it seemed incredible that she could still feel so tired.

‘Harrowing’ was the only word that could describe her descent. Nearly all those she passed were wounded. The girl they had met in the forest of Mogu, Lin, seemed to be the only one unscathed, though was by no means fortunate. Vomit stained her robe in a most mortifying manner, and her straight, dark hair had become terribly matted with dirt and blood, although whomever it belonged to was anyone’s guess. Wounds were not the worst of that night, either. She had counted exactly three corpses before they had reached the mountain’s lower shrine, one of which had been a beast. Whatever violence had occurred before her waking was none of her concern, she knew as much as that, but the business of leaving bodies of the dead for everyone else to see did not occur to Fuu as the most polite of decisions.

Yu made no objections to carrying her brother; she knew that it was more for her sake than out of any concern for Ravi. The more he explained her prior condition, the more awash she became with guilt for the trouble she had inflicted upon those around her. It was surely a mark of great failure that the responsibility for her very survival had passed to another.

It took her over an hour, from summit to shrine, to realise that she was no longer adorned in her stylish jacket and gown, and for a moment nearly wept in dismay. To do so would have been unbefitting, of course, and so she did no such thing. The cotton blanket that she found herself wearing served nicely save for the glaring oversight regarding her lower half. She felt no shame throwing herself into the warm safety of Yu’s embrace after their return. The many months that they had spent apart seemed to dissolve in his company, and for that short while, the world regained a little normality.

He took her beneath the heavens that night, just as he had their first time, upon a secluded veranda toward the shrine’s rear. Not unprompted, naturally, for as bold and brave as the man was, he still held onto his sense of duty as if it would flee his fingers should he so much as relax. The position of servant was of no concern to Fuu, nor would it if he stood in place of the Daishun, she wanted Yu simply because he was Yu, and until that night, she had not realised quite how badly she had needed him. Close to two years of separation and aggregated desires caught up with them both. Yu had grown into his body nicely, sporting broad, toned shoulders and strong, capable hands that caressed her neck and face. His palms were soft and gentle, though she could feel the toughened skin of his callouses as he ran a hand over her breast, gliding across her midriff to the gap between her thighs. Fuu released a sharp breath of surprise at the sudden wave of pleasure spreading across her abdomen. When she saw the look of self-satisfaction upon Yu’s face, she snorted in amusement, and they interrupted the quiet ambience of the night with a fit of juvenile laughter. Even as the cold of the sunless sky wrapped around them, the heat of their bodies burned like the flames of an open hearth.

The next morning’s twilight danced across the surface of the shrine’s koi pond as a flaming wisp. Waking monks and maidens alike fell into their daily routines, walking the verandas and outer corridors without so much as a hint of drowsiness. Reunited with her cleansed gown and jacket, Fuu passed through the courtyard of gravel and stone toward Hema’s Hall of Heavens. Yu buttoned the top of his silken shirt as they approached the doors together. She shot him a mischievous look.

A fierce-tempered maiden barged her way outside before they could enter. Tsuya was her name; she had been present at the mountain’s peak, a bamboo stake pierced through both hands. The offending piece was now absent, though its resulting wounds were far from forgotten. Another maiden whose name eluded her followed on Tsuya’s heels.

“Where are you going? You need to rest!”

“The things that happened on that summit were my fault, Ashi. Shinohara… he never gave a damn about me. My misguidance has been made abundantly clear, and the time has arrived to make amends for my neglected faith. I trust Lady Sio’s judgement on the matter. If I can devote myself to the Ten through her teachings, maybe… I might just be forgiven.”

“That can wait for now. Look at your hands, Tsuya, you’re in no condition to be troubling yourself.”

“Yes, Ashi, look at my hands!” the maiden snapped and thrust her bandaged palms into her sister’s face. “This is the prize I won by chasing words of heresy. It is not one that I intend to savour.”

“That’s enough, Tsuya,” another woman’s voice spoke soothingly. From behind the maidens stepped out a most unusual woman, her hair and eyes emerald, lips painted teal, slippers grey and her jade dress trimmed with gold. “Guests shall be arriving shortly. I’ll demonstrate the ritual we spoke of, but our business must be brief. Today is of great importance to us all.”

Glowering, Tsuya turned and made for a group of passing monks in the green woman’s company. Fuu heard their hails as she stepped into the warm candlelight of the hall.

There was another at Ravi’s side when she arrived for the visit. It seemed foolish to admit that she had not recognised the woman when they had passed upon the mountain the previous morning, for her almost spectral hair rendered her unmistakable as a daughter of the Mitsuki Teahouse. Ai wore the same formal robes as the shrine maidens, though they were too large for her unnaturally slender form and bamboo clips had been applied to remove some of the slack from the outfit. There was a cold sternness to her gaze as she watched over the resting Jishun.

“It would seem that the greater forces have seen fit to cross our paths once more, Miss Mitsuki.”

“Seems so,” the woman replied without her eyes leaving Ravi. Fuu edged a little closer to the both of them.

“Have you been here long? The sun has yet to finish rising.”

“A little while,” she said curtly, rising to her feet. “No doubt you are here to visit your brother. It’s about time that I got something to eat anyway.”

Ai moved for the double wooden doors. Their faces were embossed on the inside, detailed with the image of a crane tearing at a snake beneath its clawed feet.

“Why are you here, Ai?” Fuu asked. The words spilled out with more hostility than she had intended.

“Were it that I knew,” Ai shrugged nonchalantly with a bored half-smile upon her faint lips. She departed with a casual wave of the hand.

The boy laying across the polished floorboards was Jishun Ravi Jie, son of Wunei Jie, who was in turn a bearer of the Heavens’ Mandate and Daishun of Han. To any that saw him, however, he was no more than a receding corpse. It was a miracle that he still lived, but it was a miracle that sickened Fuu to see. His head lay upon a supporting cushion, one that was partially dyed a grim shade of red from the night before when he had nearly choked to death on a bloody bile-soaked mess in his sleep. Servants of the shrine had cleaned his wounds soon after his arrival. A cotton dressing covered both the small of his back and his abdomen, and the deep gash across his cheek had been stitched together with threads of silk. Looking more closely, Fuu noticed that an ointment had recently been rubbed over the wound. From the mossy flecks in the pearl-coloured mixture, it appeared most likely to be gurumoss, a herbal medicine sourced from the Jinha mainland.

“He looks thirsty,” Yu noticed. Ravi’s lips were horribly chapped when she looked, and the pitcher of water at his side was near empty. Carefully, she poured the last few drops into his parched mouth and when she was finished, set out with Yu in search of more. In truth, Fuu had merely needed some time to herself. Just like the previous night, seeing her brother had been a more distressing experience than she could manage. She left Yu behind as he inquired with one of the sightless monks and walked downhill from the shrine, following a drainage bank that filtered from the koi pond to a narrow rock-ridden brook. The bamboo thinned out as she passed over grassy plateaus and dry, earthy mounds toward the marshland below. It was a rare occurrence to have such peaceful solitude even after being separated from the capital. The political landscape of Lord Jie’s court teetered and swayed as if balanced upon a spire’s point, ever leaning towards whoever's side had learned to speak the quietest while exerting the greatest force. Fuu had long ago closed her mind to such things. She had given her utmost effort to her studies under her mother, Daishu Era Jie, who had claimed there were two things most instrumental to the making of a competent ruler- not powerful by typical standards, but competent enough to save oneself from being consumed by the very court that stood as a foundation to their power. According to the Daishu, those two things were knowledge and sight, but both were merely tenets of a far greater foundation- a life of personal experiences and impersonal study. Sight to the Daishu meant the learning of character and social nuance to such a degree that absolute loyalty could be secured with nothing more or less than a single sentence. It meant holding the vision of a gilded paradise in one eye and seeing the path to attain it with the other, guiding those in need of their ruler to the greatest future achievable. Knowledge was the force exerted against subjects and foes alike, a sufficient conglomerate of warfare, logistics, sciences, diplomacy, hierarchies, religion, and a growing number of other concepts necessary to support the immense weight of the sight of a nation’s figurehead. A nation was no weight to lay upon a child. As it was, as it will be, Fuu repeated the words in her head like a mantra. Passivity was a familiar and reliable shield.

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Hema’s serenity was shattered by sounds that could only be described as unholy. Fuu moved a little closer to the source of the fierce retching, and after gathering the willpower to steal a peek around the bamboo separating them, she saw a hunched form beside one of the stalks. It was a man, she realised, thirty or so years of age. Her curiosity was adequately satisfied; she wasted no time before starting to retrace her steps. She was halted immediately by the man’s haggard call. Admittedly, she was still in half a mind to carry on, though went against her better judgement and turned back to respond.

The man introduced himself as Toku after he had caught his breath and wiped the half-digested contents of his stomach from the side of his mouth with a brown rag. He was impressively dressed for the setting, wearing a black haori half coat over a white kimono robe, baggy black leggings and wrapped sandals on his feet. Most of his dark hair had been tied back into a top knot, the rest hung loose at the sides of his head. A dao was tucked into his obi, the handle and scabbard both crafted of rich wood and burnt bronze. It was a beautifully made weapon not unlike that of her father’s.

“Who are you, Toku?”

“A genuine, humble hero in the flesh, and beneath it too. Can’t you tell?” he asked with a slight smile.

“One that does not take well to travel, I see.”

“Riding horseback must certainly be a pastime of the deranged, any more than an hour upon the beasts and I begin to find it increasingly difficult to hold onto my last meal. How anyone can enjoy such an ordeal is beyond me,” Toku replied, laying two fingers on his temple.

“You sound more heroic by the minute, Mr. Toku. Would you mind me asking why you are here?”

“For the same reason as you, I’d wager. The Traitors’ Summit,” he answered, observing her with a measured gaze. “Why else would the daughter of the Daishun have come so far from her nest?”

Fuu took a step backward, hairs rising on her arms, “I have heard nothing of a summit. What makes you think you know who I am?”

“There are few with the same regal stare as your father. I could never forget those irises of molten gold even if my eyes were to become barren, nor could you ever have hoped to lose them after your disappearance from Hanshi. I had wondered who Lady Sio had picked to represent your state, in reality I suppose it could have only been you.”

There was a semblance of familiarity in his hazel stare, but also something deeper that she could not quite gauge. Was it contempt?

“You knew my father?”

“Fought for him, a time ago. It was a different era then, in the days before the Earthen Cataclysm that brought the planet Zetian in conjunction with our own, when Won and Han joined in unison to lay waste to the state of Sen. This belonged to him once.”

Toku rested a hand upon the polished bronze pommel of his dao, and Fuu saw it with fresh recognition. She knew that sword. She knew this man.

“Tokugawa the Traitor.” Her words were a whisper.

“Just ’Toku’ is fine. It’s been a fair while, Fuu.”

Toku’s visit to the court of the Daishun had not faded in the twelve years that had passed. Fuu had been a child of seven at the time and had been sitting in the lap of her lady mother when Daishun Jie had bestowed his own weapon upon the son of the heretic Emperor, Sengoku Naga. Toku had accepted the sword graciously back then, but only a year later had raised a Sen army of three hundred thousand against the occupying Won and Han forces, reclaiming land as far as the Dragonsmouth in eleven years.

“Do you not have a slaughter to be leading, Toku?”

“Winter isn’t far off. It’ll soon be time for all sides to dig in and await the coming of spring. Besides, there’s something of importance to discuss with the host of this summit,” he hinted.

Fuu scoffed, “You declared war on every sovereign nation in Sakao, including your own. What could be more important than that?”

“A path toward ending things. Prolonging this campaign benefits neither side, which is why I agreed to come here- to find its conclusion. Look, Lady Jie,” Toku prompted, extending a hand to the waterlogged marshland at the mountain’s base. “See my company.”

Though the view was partially obscured by thickets of bamboo and prickly foliage, the object of his attention was more than large enough to catch her eye. The Emperor had not just brought an escort with him to the gathering- he had brought a small army. Hundreds, if not a thousand men occupied the mountainside above the marsh, all armed with some form of sword or polearm, few carried rifles that were slung across their backs. An encampment had been established of several large tents surrounded by a defensive line of jinmaku curtains- several lengths of black-dyed hemp cloth erected upon wooden poles, each marked with the white insignia of his father’s imperial army. The Naga crest that had once embodied a spiralling chain appeared to have been slightly redesigned into a coiled snake surrounding five solid circles.

“You didn’t happen to meet Chiaki on your wander, did you? I sent her ahead to make contact with our host.”

Fuu stared blankly for a moment at the question before she could process the question, then answered with a simple shake of the head.

“No matter, she’ll cope well enough by herself. That girl is oftentimes more capable than I,” he said with a hearty laugh. “Shall we go?”

Toku’s aide was indeed waiting for her lord when Fuu arrived back at the shrine with the head of the enemy state. Chiaki was a lithe form beneath a weighty armour carapace, sporting rows of blue speckled lacquer on steel and bronze ornamentations of crescent-backed nightingales that pinned a white cloak to her chestplate. She held a bladed polearm, a naginata of Sen, against her shoulder. Upon her head was a distinctly decorated helmet that came over the sides of her head like a bucket, though the faceplate was hammered metal shaped in the image of a fanged hannya. The demonic face eyed Fuu angrily as they approached.

“Thank you ever so much for your work. As you can see, I am now more fine than... than being not fine. You may be at ease,” Toku flashed a grin and glanced at Fuu. “This is Chiaki. She’s the most dependable soldier in my possession. Chiaki, this is one of the few Jishu of Han, Lady Fuu Jie.” The animosity seeping from beneath the demon’s visage was palpable. Toku placed a calming hand upon the arm of his aide, “Easy, Chiaki, Lady Jie is here for the same reason we are. The summit shan’t be long now.” Fuu was yet to understand what exactly this Traitors’ Summit entailed, though her wait for answers was brief enough that there was no need for asking.

The green woman Fuu had seen earlier in the company of the maiden twins strode to them from across the courtyard. She slightly bowed before them.

“Greetings to you all. You might know me as Lady Sio. I trust your journey treated you well, Emperor Naga?”

“As I’ve said before, just ‘Toku’ will do. We’ve travelled half a country to be here, I only hope this discussion will be worth the journey,” he replied, pulling a letter and piece of carved jade from beneath his half coat.

“Hold it closely, Lord Toku, that seal belongs to you,” said Sio, producing her own copy of the stone. “Fuu, I would have you sit in place of your half-brother. Let us make way for the Hall of Heavens, we can begin immediately.”

“So soon?” Toku raised an eyebrow.

“Won’s representative is already seated. Please, do not worry about a chance to rest, I’ve an inkling that we shall be finished sooner than you imagine,” she finished, then led the three past the bare trunk of the shrine’s sakura toward the Hall of Heavens.

Fuu noticed Lin speaking with a slightly younger boy on the veranda running along the side of the hall. She felt a pang of guilt at the sight of her, realising that she still had not thanked the girl for her part in saving her life. Now was not the time however, and so she bowed her head.

Ravi was gone when they entered, leaving a stranger in his place. Rows of embroidered cushions had been laid out in a straight-edged ring along with a set of plain teacups, and all but two of them were empty. Catching sight of Yu, Fuu quietly left Sio’s side for his, kneeling upon a cushion at the left of the room.

“Please inform me before you go wandering off alone, Fuu. I haven’t gotten over your last disappearing act.”

“Where’s my brother?” she whispered into his ear.

“Lady Sio ordered the room cleared and had two of the monks take him into the library over there,” Yu replied, his voice equally quiet, “What’s going on here, Fuu?”

“It seems we shall soon find out.”