by Leah Cutter
Never see another person again.
Because seeing people would remind me of the choices I had made. Choices to be human, then to be myself again. Choices about losing myself for someone else.
Choices that I wasn’t sure I’d make again.
Six
With a Smile
Norihiko
With a smile and a nod, Norihiko bid the generals goodnight and walked away from the council room. They’d taken to meeting in the Ceremonial Hall, eventually taking it over so that the maps of the mountain and the lists of able–bodied men could stay pinned to the walls.
Guards stood vigilant at the door to the council room. Norihiko didn’t have to worry about their honor, or if they were bribable. These were men who had originally served with Lord Taiga. They’d rather die than be accused of being disloyal.
Quickly, Norihiko made his way back to his rooms. The hallways were empty, and the household mostly asleep. The few guards that Norihiko passed didn’t even look at his face, but looked away, as was custom, to give their superiors privacy.
Two servants waited in the outer room. They’d been Iwao’s servants. The rooms had also been Iwao’s. Priestess Ayumi had blessed them, insuring that it was safe for Norihiko to stay.
Norihiko still frequently checked under the tatamis, to make sure no weakening magic had crept in.
The servants helped Norihiko out of his robes (though it felt odd—he was perfectly capable of undressing himself. His sword was already sitting on its stand in the corner. No decorations marred the walls. Norihiko preferred the walls bare, so there were no distractions for him here.
After dressing in the lounging robes the servants provided, Norihiko insisted that they leave, get some sleep. It would be another early day tomorrow.
Finally alone, Norihiko went directly to the windows and flung them open wide. He didn’t understand his need for the outdoors. It wasn’t something that his time as a sword had instilled in him. He just found that he always breathed better when there was fresh air.
Then Norihiko sat down beneath the widows, his legs crossed, his spine perfectly straight—Priestess Ayumi had told him it was the ideal meditation pose.
Norihiko didn’t know how to meditate. Wasn’t exactly sure what it was, or why people did it.
He did need to think.
He had been so close to beating Masato that morning. Driving the warlord to his knees. Forcing him to beg for mercy.
But then the warlord had fought back. There was something about his sword—Fuko. Something frighteningly familiar.
Fuko had been made by Junichi, the sorcerer who had reforged Norihiko into Seiji. Norihiko had recognized their kinship as soon as Masato had unsheathed Fuko, and the sword had whispered its name.
It didn’t contain a soul, that much Norihiko was certain of. But it wasn’t normal, either. Most swords were dumb, only as alive as their wielder. Fuko had some life of its own, powered by Masato.
Once Masato had let Fuko have its head, Norihiko had been in trouble. But why? It wasn’t just because Fuko was a smart sword. Norihiko should still have been able to combat that.
He’d been a sword. No other sword should be able to beat him.
Yet, if he was honest, Fuko almost had once or twice. Luckily, they’d been able to fight to a draw.
Norihiko went back over the fight, examining every stroke, every block. But he still didn’t see why Fuko, in the end, had held an advantage.
And Norihiko needed to know. Or else the next time they met, Masato would win.
Ξ
The letter arrived later the next afternoon, bearing the second formal declaration of war by Masato. Norihiko took it to Kayoku first. She was still nominally in charge of the estate. The generals weren’t reporting to Norihiko, but they were finally willing to take his lead.
All the lamps and candles were burning brightly in Kayoku’s sickroom. What had happened? Normally, it was considered polite to hide the condition of the patient from their loved ones. No one wanted the truth of an illness spread so that everyone could see.
Priestess Ayumi replied to Norihiko’s puzzled expression. “Kayoku has slipped into a deep place. Few waken from there. She needs to turn around and come back to the light. How will she find it if there are no lights for her to see?”
It made sense to Norihiko. However, the brightness in the room showed how far the black poison from Kayoku’s wound had spread, how it pulsed with her breath where it had crawled up her throat. She lay pale as fresh snow against her sleeping mats. Her maids had taken the time to perfectly do up her hair, so she looked like a carved statue, beautiful and divine.
Norihiko knelt down beside Kayoku and tenderly took her hand. The fire inside her still burned, but with less heat. It would soon be out.
“You must come back to me,” Norihiko told Kayoku. “There is so much you have to teach me.” He felt lost without her. Priestess Ayumi helped guide him when she could, but she was otherworldly herself. Kayoku was much more grounded and of the earth.
Much more human.
After Norihiko finished his mourning, he pulled back and addressed Kayoku formally.
“Kayoku, the warlord Masato has issued a second and final declaration of war against the estate. This time, he means to destroy everything and everyone, burn the compound to the ground and kill everyone who survives.” Norihiko took a deep breath. He would not tire her more by reading the hateful screed out loud.
“We will go to war again,” Norihiko told her quietly. “The generals will follow my lead. And this time, we will win. I will defeat Masato.” He had to. He still didn’t know what it was that Masato and Fuko had, what knowledge they held that made him so vulnerable.
He was determined to find out, though. Or to defeat them regardless.
“I will lead the armies in your name,” Norihiko told Kayoku. “Lead them to victory.”
He left soon after that, leaving Kayoku to the constant murmurs of prayers from the priestesses, the overly sweet smell of the incense burning in the room, hoping she would find her way out of the darkness and back into the light before he left for war.
She didn’t.
Ξ
For the first battle, Norihiko and Masato chose the same field where the first battle had been fought, between Masato and Iwao. The generals and Norihiko set up their dusty, brown canvas tents a few li from the battlefield. Norihiko refused to stay in Iwao’s larger tent, but instead, took a smaller one for himself. He wasn’t planning on being in the cramped, musty space very often.
Again, Iwao’s servants followed Norihiko, assigning themselves to him. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with them, but he let them do the things they felt he required, like cleaning his armor and his robes, stabling his horse with the others and seeing that it was well tended, bringing him tea when he required it.
Though Norihiko learned their names—Taro, Yasuo, and Fujita—they worked at staying in the background, effortlessly providing what he needed. It gave him an even higher regard for Iwao. He wished again that he could have met him, man to man.
Masato had been true to his word. His camp spread like a dark cloud over the fields behind him. Norihiko didn’t know which reports to believe, but some of the scouts had counted as many as ten men to every one that Norihiko and the generals had been able to raise.
Not all of Masato’s men were human, either.
The tactic for how to fight the creatures powered by magic had been given to every man in Norihiko’s army. It would give them an advantage, one they hadn’t had the first time they’d fought.
Norihiko and the generals argued over how to fight Masato. Should the archers go first? Traditionally, that was how every battle started.
However, they’d be useless against the animated beings.
One of the generals proposed that they should reverse the order of the men, and send in the heavy lances and axes first. No one wanted such disorder to the battle plans, however.
As the night drew on,
Norihiko found himself constantly clearing his throat. He realized that the despair in the room was so thick he could taste it. Finally, he excused himself from the generals, claiming that he needed to take a walk to clear his head.
Clouds covered the night sky. Foul smells were carried on the winds from Masato’s camp. No one talked in loud voices—everything was muted, heavy with anticipation and dread.
Norihiko strode past the circle of the general’s tents and down the hill. Two guards accompanied him, but at a distance. He’d already taken them to task for following too closely.
However, walking among the first line of tents didn’t provide Norihiko with much relief. The men who were still awake prayed for good deaths. No one prayed for a win, not through superstition, but because no one believed they could.
Norihiko still didn’t know how to fight Fuko, how they’d win against such overwhelming odds, if Kayoku would survive. He didn’t know if Hikaru would return, if he’d see her again. She still confused him, but he wanted to see her again.
Finally, Norihiko walked beyond the tents and the camp lights and closer to the fields that circled his army. Guards patrolled the area, though was it to keep others out, or to prevent his own army from deserting?
The moon broke through the clouds for a moment, painting the field before Norihiko a pale silver. In the distance, a fox yipped, then another.
Norihiko grew very still. He’d been told that it was disturbing how motionless he got—that people always fidgeted or moved, even monks when they meditated, even if ever so slightly.
Norihiko didn’t care. He needed to concentrate all of his senses on the creatures out there, hidden by the night.
The moon disappeared behind her shroud of clouds again, but not before Norihiko spied the foxes sitting a few yards away.
Glancing back, Norihiko saw the guards standing at attention. Did they see the creatures? He suspected they didn’t. That somehow, they’d appeared just for him.
The two foxes began to sing, a soft, yipping song. It surprised Norihiko how rhythmically they sang, what a strong beat the music had, despite the lack of tune or words. He found himself nodding in time with it. It seemed familiar somehow. Where was it from?
One of the inner selves gifted Norihiko with a memory, like a small puff of snowflakes blown out of the palm of a hand. It showed Norihiko in formal red robes. He understood them to be his wedding clothes. The two foxes danced with him, a circling pattern, weaving in and around and back again, that seemed both familiar to Norihiko and utterly foreign at the same time.
Then the memory was gone, dissolved like a cloud by the hot summer sun.
What did it mean? Hikaru had told him he’d once been a fox fairy, had once been her mate. Why did her sisters show him these things?
He kept coming back to the dance. It seemed so familiar. It wasn’t straightforward at all. Even the steps themselves curved.
Where had he learned it? Was that what they were trying to tell him?
But no, it wasn’t that. With a swallowed gasp, Norihiko recognized the pattern of movements.
Fuko had used a similar weaving pattern when he’d attacked. Never straightforward. Always curving and coming in from the side.
The music the foxes sang changed abruptly, and Norihiko remembered that as well—how they’d easily merged from one form to the next, always shifting, always changing.
Fuko had done that as well.
The despair Norihiko had been infected with from the camp finally lifted. Following any sort of pattern, along any straight lines, was the quickest way to get them all killed.
They were going to have to plan a completely different attack.
Norihiko bowed low to the sisters, thanking them for helping him see.
Only as he was walking back did he realize that his memory didn’t include Hikaru at all. He felt her there, though, a void to his left side.
Determined, Norihiko pushed the memory away. He knew what he needed to do.
He couldn’t allow himself to get distracted, not by his former mate or anyone else.
Ξ
“We must change the order of the men,” Norihiko announced as he walked into the command tent.
General Asheihi looked up from where they had the maps spread out on the table. “Again?” he asked, scowling.
Only eight generals remained. Lamps had been allowed to burn down, letting shadows grow in the corners. The heavy canvas walls held in the sour scent of fear and tired men.
“The only way to defeat Masato is to surprise him,” Norihiko stated as he took a candle and walked around the edges, lighting every lamp.
“Where have we heard that before?” General Kendo asked.
Norihiko knew that Iwao had led them down this path before.
And that he’d been successful as well.
“We must first move the archers to the rear,” Norihiko stated. “They shoot after the first wave of attacks.”
“Attacks?” General Asheihi asked.
“Eight squads,” Norihiko said. “Attacking from all sides. Like the rivers flowing from the mountain.”
The generals looked at each other. “Dividing the men that way will weaken them,” General Kendo argued. “I can see maybe two or three squads. Eight will leave each group too vulnerable.”
“We will lose some men,” Norihiko acknowledged. “Some very good men. But the attack will be completely unexpected. There will be chaos.”
“There’s always chaos on the battlefield,” General Asheihi said dismissively.
“Not like this,” Norihiko insisted. “Each squad will be self–directed. They can attack in the way that best suits their situation, that will guarantee their success.”
“That won’t work,” General Kendo insisted. “We must—”
“General Asheihi,” Norihiko interrupted. “Would you attack an army on a hill the same way you’d attack one in a valley?”
“Of course not,” General Asheihi replied.
“Part of our problem has always been the terrain,” Norihiko pointed out. “We aren’t just fighting in flat fields. We need to each attack our own section of land, our own enemy, in the way that will best match.”
Some of the generals were nodding, but Norihiko knew he hadn’t convinced them all. He wished he could show them the dance of the foxes, how they’d woven together, each separate, but working together.
Norihiko walked to the front flap of the tent and threw it back, letting in the fresh air of the night. Ghostly moans still echoed on the wind, but the air still smelled clean. “The old ways won’t work,” Norihiko insisted. “We will still coordinate from the top, here, when we can. Watch over all the separate squads. But we must try something new as well. Or we are dead.”
General Asheihi looked at General Kendo, the pair of them communicating in a way that Norihiko could recognize, though he couldn’t hear any of the words.
Finally, General Asheihi nodded slowly, as if his head had suddenly grown heavy. “We will do as you suggest,” he said. “If we succeed, this battle will be spoken of for all the ages.”
Norihiko understood that if they failed, the battle would also be remembered, and ridiculed.
“We will win,” Norihiko told them sincerely. “The mountain demands it.”
The generals worked out a few more details then went to their separate tents, to sleep, to pray, to plan more madness.
Norihiko went back to his own tent to sit motionless, listening to the wind, hearing the quiet yipping of foxes in the distance, ready to commit his soul to the mountain, though he hoped he would live.
He needed to see Hikaru again.
Seven
The Gates
Hikaru
The gates of the estate were firmly locked against me, and there were fewer guards than I’d ever seen before. What had happened? I didn’t recognize any of the guards either, and they all seemed older as well. It was late afternoon, the sky turning crimson. I didn’t hear much noise coming from the com
pound, not even the muted sounds of the cooks in their outdoor kitchen.
Instead of trying to go straight through, I went around the side of the wall, trying to find a place where the woods would hide my approach. However, the trees had all been cut back. The wall was much more defensible than ever before. Even the places where it had once sagged had been shored up.
I finally recognized some of the guards toward the back of the estate. They stood diligent, mindful, and armed.
Were they defending the estate against Masato?
Merely locked gates and guarded walls wouldn’t stop me, however. I found a place that was marginally less defended and flowed up and over. It was more difficult to hide myself from humans who were consciously looking for anything and everything. I still managed to find a hole and wormed my way in.
Maybe I should have waited until it was fully dark before I tried getting into the compound. I didn’t want to wait, though. Hopefully I wouldn’t be too late for Kayoku.
I found her in her rooms, the stench of her wound choking me, despite how many candles and lamps were lit. Priestess Ayumi knelt beside her, praying earnestly. She looked old, much older than I’d realized.
I finally realized her true age. How had she kept it from me, from everyone? Why had she hidden it?
She didn’t gasp when I appeared beside her, or cry out. Instead, she looked at me with hopeful eyes and asked, “Can you help her?”
I nodded, not trusting my voice. I threw back the fine sheet that covered Kayoku, then gently opened her robe.
Now Priestess Ayumi gasped. The poison from the wound had darkened Kayoku’s entire middle, and tendrils of black grew everywhere, up her neck, across her shoulders, down her arms, all the way to her toes.
I hadn’t thought before about how I would cure Kayoku. I didn’t have a spell prepared. I still reached for her, holding my hands over her skin.
I shuddered when the poison reached for me, too, licking at my palms. I drew my hands back, hoping it would follow.
