by Claire Luana
CHAPTER 13
Everyone in the group jumped. Hiro had his sword halfway out of his scabbard before Kai recognized the mop of curly hair on the interloper’s head.
“Stand down,” Kai said. “It’s…” She struggled to articulate who Colum was. She wasn’t sure herself. “Well, I know him.”
“At your service,” Colum said, striding to the table and slapping Master Vita on the shoulder hard enough to knock the spectacles halfway down the librarian’s nose. “Master Vita, good to see you again, you old dog.”
Master Vita looked like he had seen a ghost. “Colum?” he said, adjusting his glasses. “It is you! I would recognize those curls anywhere! My, you’re well preserved.”
“Good stock,” Colum said, clapping himself on his broad chest before sprawling down in a chair, tossing his leg over one arm. “You’ve gotta keep moving. It keeps the years from settlin.’”
Fingering his own snow-white hair, Master Vita continued to shake his head as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.
Hiro wore a scowl of such displeasure that Kai had to stifle a chuckle. Men and their egos. Perhaps the only constant in the universe.
“Everyone, this is Colum. Colum, everyone,” Kai said.
“He-llo, everyone,” Colum said, turning about in the chair when he caught sight of Emi.
He started to rise, drawn to her like a magnet, but Kai shoved him back into the chair.
“Colum is newly returned to Kyuden. We met…before the earthquake. Now, what do you mean about asking someone who was there? This was hundreds of years ago. Everyone is dead.”
“No. Not everyone,” Colum said, flashing Emi a wolfish smile.
Kai crossed her arms before her, waiting for Colum to explain. The man was clearly enjoying the theatricality of the moment.
“For gods’ sake, man,” Jurou said. “Tell us what you mean.”
“You have to find a god,” he said.
“Are there more walking around?” Kai asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, perhaps ‘god’ is the wrong word. Spirit.”
“Go to the spirit world?” Kai recalled her time in the spirit world with unease. She knew she had hardly scratched the surface the night she had encountered her mother in that strange place.
“No, you don’t even have to leave the comfort and safety of your own mortal realm. There’s a spirit who resides here all the time. An ancient spirit who has the knowledge and wisdom of millennia. No one? No one?”
Kai scowled.
“The seishen elder,” Ryu growled from behind them, where he had been laying in front of the empty fireplace.
Quitsu nodded from his perch on the table beside Kai.
“A winner! Big scary lion seishen wins a prize,” Colum said.
“His name is Ryu,” Hiro growled, his voice almost as low as Ryu’s.
Kai pondered the idea. It had merit. Here was a plan, a real plan. Quitsu had said that the seishen elder cared for the seishen until it was time for them to journey to find their burners. It was real. It lived in the Misty Forest.
“Ryu, Quitsu, could you help us find it?” Kai asked.
“Do you one better,” Colum said. “I’ll take you there myself.”
“It’s risky,” Jurou said, removing his glasses. “We have no way of knowing what kind of creature the seishen elder is. I’m sure there’s another way we could discover where the gods are hidden.”
Kai looked to Ryu and Quitsu, who had silently observed the reading of the scroll. “What do you think?” she asked. “Would it know something that could help us?”
“Perhaps,” Ryu growled. “The elder is ancient. It is connected to both the earth and the spirit realm. If anyone knows where the gods are trapped, it would be the elder.”
“Agreed,” Quitsu said. “But you might not like the answers you get. It is notoriously opaque.”
Ryu chuckled. “This is true.”
“It’s the best lead we have,” Kai said. “I’m going.”
At her statement, the crowd gathered around the table exploded with objections.
“It’s too dangerous,” Master Vita said.
“You’re needed here,” Emi protested.
“It should be someone else,” said Hiro.
Quitsu stood and shushed them, silencing their protests. “Kai must go. She would risk offending the elder if she sent someone else in her place.”
Kai could have kissed Quitsu. This journey was exactly what she needed. To take action to help her country, rather than sitting around and fretting.
“Well, I’m going,” Colum said, still leaning nonchalantly. “I know the way.”
“I’m going too,” Hiro said. “After all, we’re engaged now. I should be there to protect you.”
Murmurs of congratulations rolled in from around the table and Kai put on a smile, trying to quash her annoyance. Did he have to turn the announcement of their engagement into a condescending statement about the weakness of women?
Calm down, Kai, she said to herself, taking a deep breath. He didn’t mean it like that. And truth be told, she wanted Hiro with her. She would welcome the chance to spend a few days with him. She’d talk to him about his comment later.
“Fine, Hiro comes,” Kai said.
“I’m coming too,” Emi said. “You need someone to watch your back while you and Hiro are gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes.”
Kai rolled her eyes. “We don’t do that.”
“If you have any chance of Nanase letting you out the citadel gates,” Master Vita said, “Emi should accompany you. And a group of three is not enough. You don’t know what you’ll face out there.”
“In case any of you have forgotten, I’m the queen,” Kai said, grinding her teeth. “No one has to ‘let’ me do anything.”
“I should come as well,” Jurou said. “It would be good to have another sunburner for defensive purposes.”
Kai eyed his bony form, not wanting to insult him with her doubt.
Hiro saved her. “You’re needed here, Jurou. No one can comb this library better than you and Master Vita together. If the seishen elder can’t help us, we need you to find us a miracle here.”
“I’m sure Master Vita is perfectly capable of doing the research himself—” Jurou said, but Master Vita cut him off.
“It would be helpful to have two sets of eyes. It is a large library. Besides, best we leave the adventuring to the young, eh?”
Jurou opened his mouth to protest, but Hiro continued. “Besides, there is another sunburner available to go with us. Daarco.”
“No,” Kai said. “Not Daarco.” She didn’t have to pretend that she liked the man. Or trusted him.
Hiro took Kai by the elbow and drew her aside between two rows of books. He turned and took her hands, squeezing them in his own. As much as she wanted to keep her back up for a fight, some of the tension left her involuntarily at his touch.
“I’ll keep him in line. I swear it to you. And it might be better to have him where we can keep an eye on him. I think a journey like this could be good for him. Redirect his energy.”
Kai thought about the man having free reign of the citadel while she was gone. Hiro was right; it wasn’t a good idea. But she didn’t want him with them either, brooding and looking down his crooked nose at her. Curse Ozora for sending him here!
She finally nodded. “Fine, he comes. But if anything goes wrong—anything—he’s gone. No more mission, no more citadel.”
“Agreed,” Hiro said.
“The five of us will go, and Ryu and Quitsu,” Kai said, rejoining the group. “Anyone else? The cook? Your best friend’s dog?”
The group around the table was silent, though Master Vita coughed to disguise a chuckle.
Jurou crossed his arms, not happy with the decision. Well, that was the least of her worries.
“Then it’s settled. We leave tomorrow.”
Preparations for their journey to the Misty Forest were made quickly. Though Nanase and H
anae argued about the wisdom of the trip, and how many extra guards Kai should take, Kai got her way. Hiro made himself scarce, gathering his own few belongings for the journey.
They would make the several-hour flight to the edge of the Misty Forest on koumori and golden eagles. Though the animals were nervous around each other, they didn’t have enough eagles to fly all of them, and Ryu was too big for a koumori. Hiro’s eagle was used to the special harness the Kitan beastmaster had rigged up for Ryu.
The group would set off at night to avoid the still paralyzing heat of the lingering summer. They had arranged to meet in the rookery just before sunset.
Hiro walked the familiar path from his room to the rookery, Ryu at his side. The whitewashed stone of the citadel with its black tile roofs had once seemed stark and clinical compared to the warm red sandstone and copper tiles of the Sun Palace, but it had grown comfortable.
Hiro arrived a few minutes early and rifled through the provisions laid out. The kitchen staff had packed each of them satchels full of hard bread and cheese, dried meat and fruit. They would each bear two waterskins. Hiro packed his supplies onto the backs of one of the golden eagles, strapping it tightly. He tested each of the straps of Ryu’s harness, giving a quiet grunt of satisfaction when he found it sturdy. He was ready.
“I hear congratulations are in order.”
Hiro turned to find Hanae standing behind him, a smile on her face.
“She said yes,” Hiro said with a rueful shrug. “I’ll be honest; I’m relieved the asking is done.”
“It’s not love if you don’t leap off the cliff at least once,” she said. “And you know it’s true love if there is someone to catch you.”
Hiro chuckled, imagining falling into Kai’s arms. “I’ll try not to squish her,” he said.
“You’re good for each other, that’s plain to see. I know you’ll make her happy,” Hanae said. “But marriage isn’t for the faint of heart. You’ve had it easy so far. “
Hiro furrowed his brow. “Easy? You think the last year has been easy?”
“Perhaps not externally, but your and Kai’s interests have been aligned. You haven’t faced any true tests of your relationship.”
“What do you mean?”
“Where do you plan to live after you get married?”
Hiro frowned. He had always assumed that once they married, he would be able to convince Kai to move the seat of their rule to Kistana. But if he really thought about it, he wasn’t so sure she would agree. She wouldn’t want to leave Kyuden. And after his father died and Hiro became king, he wouldn’t want to live away from Kistana. How would they rule two countries?
“I’m not sure,” he said slowly. “Wherever Kai is feels like home to me. But once I become king, I will have other duties. I suppose we’ll have to work out some sort of traveling arrangement.”
Hanae nodded. “And what will you do if the interests of Kita and Miina diverge?”
“Then Kai and I will find away to align them again. Together,” he said, pushing down his annoyance. It was too early in the evening for a grilling from his future mother-in-law.
Hanae had always been friendly but distant. He couldn’t help but worry that she held his father’s actions against him. If it weren’t for Ozora, her husband, Raiden, would still be alive, and Kai would never have had to suffer exile in the Tottori Desert.
As if she sensed his annoyance, she relented, crossing to stand by his golden eagle. She stroked its feathered flank.
“I look forward to you becoming a part of our family, and I know you love her. I saw how you fought for Kai when we were losing her to the spotted fever,” Hanae said. “Just promise me one thing.”
“What?” Hiro said warily.
“Don’t force her to choose.”
“Choose? I’m not sure I follow,” Hiro said.
“Kai has another great love…every good queen must.”
“Miina,” he said, realization dawning on him.
“Kai is a good queen and this country needs her. There might come a time where she has to choose…between her duty…and you. If that day comes, don’t ask her to choose.”
“But it would be her choice.”
“Young love is powerful, maybe the most powerful thing in the world,” Hanae said. “But it lacks a rational side.” As she spoke, her gray eyes were sad, deep pools reflecting the ghosts of love lost.
“Ah,” he said, finally understanding. “You chose love. And you regret that choice.”
“Yes. And no,” Hanae said, her tone light. ”I’m glad to see you’re not just a pretty face.”
Hiro considered her request. If it came down to Kita or Kai, what choice would he make? If he was only giving up being a prince, being a king one day, he knew he would choose Kai. But what if that choice led to tragedy, to hardship for his people? Was his happiness worth the suffering of hundreds? Thousands?
“I see the wisdom in your request,” Hiro admitted. “But I cannot agree to it. If I’ve learned anything about Kai, it’s that she chooses her own path. She would flay me for just having this conversation with you.”
Hanae was silent.
“But,” he continued, “I will make you this promise. If someday she must choose Miina, I will not stand in her way.”
Hanae smiled, her smooth face lighting up. “I suppose that’s the best I can hope for.”
“What are we hoping for?” Kai chose that moment to walk through the rookery door, her slender figure sporting soft gray trousers and a sky-blue shirt. For the first time in weeks, she looked well-rested, and her cheeks were flushed with color.
“Safe travels for you, my daughter,” Hanae said, kissing her on the cheek. “Be careful. Take care of each other.”
“We will. Hopefully we’ll come back with new wisdom about how to defeat these enemies.”
“I will pray for that,” Hanae said before nodding to Hiro and slipping out the door.
“You seem chipper,” Hiro said, snaking an arm around Kai’s waist and pulling her close.
“I am,” she admitted.
“Excited to get away from the citadel?” he asked.
“Is it that obvious?”
“No,” he said.
“You’re lying,” she laughed, tapping the black pendant that hung on a silver chain about her neck. It had the magical ability to detect lies, and it grew warm to the touch in the presence of untruth. Hiro wouldn’t have believed such a thing existed if Kai had not let him test it himself.
“You caught me once again,” Hiro admitted, nuzzling the curve of her neck with his nose. Her faint smell of pear and lemongrass stirred his senses.
“All right, lovebirds, that’s enough of that!” Colum cried as he barged into the rookery, a pile of weapons slung over his shoulder. “I didn’t sign up to babysit a doe-eyed couple here. We’re on business, eh? Saving the world business.”
Kai stepped away from Hiro, suitably chastised.
Hiro glowered. It was going to be a long journey with this strange man guiding their way.
INTERLUDE
The man wrinkled his nose at the smell. Rotting trash, raw sewage, unwashed bodies—all mingled together in a potpourri of mankind’s suffering. They were truly a disgusting species.
He stepped over piles of fallen brick and timber, discarded furniture, bodies of unfortunate souls who had been at the wrong place at the wrong time during the earthquake. He had to give it to the tengu. The devastation was impressive. A real work of art. Far more than was necessary to shake a few stones loose and “reveal” the scroll planted in the library. As much as his master griped and complained about the current state of affairs, the man could tell the demon was enjoying itself.
Two weary citizens of Kyuden approached and he instinctively pulled up the hood of his cloak, ensuring its deep cowl cast a shadow over his face. It was an unnecessary precaution. The haunted eyes of the gaunt couple never even looked up from the ground, never questioned why a passerby would be wearing a dark cloak in
the sweltering heat of the day. These people were broken. Their era had come to an end.
The man idly pulled raging torrents of sunlight into his qi as he walked. He liked to hold sunlight, to feel its liquid fire swirl through his spirit like a connoisseur might taste a fine wine. He would miss sunlight the most when this was all said and done.
He pondered the recent turn of events, his nimble mind whirring and spinning, considering and discarding myriad plans and possibilities. The queen’s decision to visit the seishen elder was an unknown variable. Would the elder know the truth behind Tsuki and Taiyo’s long sleep, and caution them against reawakening the gods? But if it did, it might also know where Tsuki was located, a piece of information the man desperately needed. It was a risk he must take.
He idly tugged at a hangnail, letting go of the sweet sunlight. This visit to the elder was too important a piece of the puzzle to be out of his control. The man let out a frustrated hiss, startling a grimy street boy out of his path. At the lad’s presence, an idea came to the man like a gust of a cool wind. He needed a distraction. A treat.
He pulled back his hood, rearranging his features into a friendly expression. “Hello there! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
The boy froze, peering at him through a curtain of stringy black hair. A mangy brindle dog bounded out of a nearby alley, scooting to an alert stop in front of the boy. The dog came up to the boy’s waist, and though its ribs protruded painfully, it still managed to look threatening. It was a miracle it hadn’t been captured and eaten by Kyuden’s citizens. The man had heard such things were happening.
The man raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’m sorry if I scared you or your friend. I’ve come from the citadel. I’ve been sent to provide relief for the earthquake victims.”
The boy continued to regard him with suspicion. The dog growled. The man burned a tendril of sunlight, sending it into the pleasure center of the dog’s brain. He had spent years studying human and animal anatomy, learning exactly where to put heat and pressure to invoke different reactions. Pleasure. Pain. Terror.
The dog’s tongue lolled in its mouth and its eyes glazed. The man stepped forward, his hand stretched towards the creature’s snout.
