The capital did not fall in a single night.

Tomoni atop the divination tower, her pale face reflected in the moon light pool. She is reading the stars, alarm, and now dread on her face. “Prepare the library, prepare everything – we run, tonight.”

Men stream into the Palace Grounds, they are fighting near the lake, they are being ground down. Every so often something slips under the water, surfaces in the dark of the garden. Explores.

Miyo, fading in and out of consciousness, sitting vigil over his two pupils dozing in his home. He cannot keep this up. He must do something. There is less terror this night than the last, but there is still terror.

Nor in days.

A gilded palanquin retreats through the secret ways, it is attended by some few men and not the legions that the man inside is accustomed to. He is not dressed in the ceremonious, gaudy robes. He does not have his crown or his sceptre or even his sword. He is looking through the slats wide eyed, shaking at every shimmer of movement in the night. He has left a note for the Chancellor. A decree. Kageyanto is no longer the capital. It will be moved to Shiga.

Sai and Yabona watch on as Miyo regards a deep blue cuiras. The rest of the armour is tucked into a chest.

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“You don't have to,” Yabona says. Sai agrees.

“I do.”

And Miyo sells his Father's armour. The coins in his palm look meagre, but it might pay their way.

Nor weeks.

Monterio bloodied to the shoulder, missing his pauldron, his blade snapped at his feet. Before him the ceaseless slaughter. He is tired. He has fought for weeks. He has lost too many men, there are no reserves to call on now. None. Just this meagre line, already broken. The armies across the sea would be months in their voyage. He throws the hilt of his useless broken sword at the gate, and it disappears mid air. The breach was so wide now. It had swallowed the red arch. It would swallow him. So be it. The court had already fled. There was nothing left to protect.

There in a steady line of people marching from the city, Miyo and Sai and Yabona.

But in months.

Kageyanto by the eye of a bird, it is a ruinous husk. It is a mouth of rotted teeth, it's walls are ash and where they are intact the masonry bleeds. They are unchallenged and come through in number. They rule the day and the night. They bring change and not mere slaughter. They have turned the sap of trees into the tears of men, they have twisted and dyed their trunks. They have made the earth bubble and froth and they boil air and whisper grief. They turn everything sensible into madness, their mark is seen in the country side. It grows. A long, dead stretch. They seep even into sleep. Men wake gibbering, or sometimes not at all. All is poison under their touch.

The armies across the sea return home decimated. The ocean roils, it has taken it's toll. Koji at the bow of his battered ship, stern, determined. He does not believe all that he's been told, but the ocean has not been so rough in a dozen voyages. He makes port, and what remains of his legions make ready for war.

Many miles from the city, the great Mount erupts. It spews smoke for thirty days and nights. Others the world over echo. When they are done, the sun is choked. All is ash and dark.

For a thousand days.